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Stephen Paul Blanchard

Stephen Paul Blanchard (born 12th July 1977), known as Stephen/Steve Blanchard, is an English writer and broadcaster. He first became known for his work on local and commerical radio, and one half of the Luke & Steve Podcast double-act.

In 2011 he published his first book "Getting Sync'd", for which he received critical acclaim. He is currently producing a TV show while writing his second and third novels.

Early life and education

Blanchard was born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, England, and is an only child. He has a good relationship with both his parents, Grahame and Kathleen Mary (nee Bell). He notes that while he was brought up on "a semi-Christian upbringing", he has since distamced himself from any religion, which can occasionally cause friction with his mother. "

Blanchard's parents, who both hail from Lincolnshire, made the move to Kettering upon their marriage so his father could continue as career in banking. Stephen has noted that he felt a certain amount of confusion that his father works in a bank, given that he is notoriously awful when it comes to maths, and that he failed the subject three times in a row. Something that he and his father do share is a love of writing, with him being a published poet and writer of his own novel.

At school he was a typical average student, only seeming to do well in the more creative lessons. He really hit his stride in writing and performing in classroom plays, and tended to excel in all writing exercises, often being able to produce highly graded stories. His writing also continued to gather attension from college and university teachers for producing high concept ideas.

He first discovered broadcasting while doing a GCSE Media Studies course where he wrote and co-performed a radio programme called The Morning After The Night Before". It wasn't until he started at college/university at Northampton, and later Stoke On Trent and Bournemouth, that an idea of an actual career in broadcasting started taking shape. He once said that the first time he stepped foot in a studio it was "like coming home". In all college's and universities he was involved in organising and running an in-house radio station, while also presenting shows and writing and presenting news programmes.

Broadcasting Career

During his time at university and college, Blanchard would also produce and present shows on RSL (Restricted Service Licence) stations, and hospital radio. AFter higher education he found it difficult to break in to the mainstream broadcasting companies, and so ended up working in a bank (which he still finds ironic given his maths experience) while continuing hospital radio and saving for travelling. After a year long, round-the-world trip, he returned to the UK and promptly applied for and landed a role at local Milton Keynes station Horizon Radio. He started there in November 2004 as Traffic & Travel presenter, and soon widenned his work load to include production and other technical duties, as well as small features on both the breakfast and drive-time shows.

While at Horizon he teamed up with Luke Wallis to produce and co-present The Luke And Steve Podcast. The six episode run was presented through MySpace and during it's short run developed a major following through social networking sites. The show regularly consisted of banter between the two presenters, regular features such as The Ten Second Cinema, and interviews with future musical talents. The show came to an end in December 2005 when Stephen moved to Bournemouth.

From his work on Horizon Radio, Stephen was noticed and head-hunted by the controller of Bournemouth based radio station 2CR FM. Stephen produced and presented his own weekday afternoon show between 1pm and 4pm While the focus was mainly on music ("the best mix of the 80's 90's and today) Stephen also found time to add occasional features, as well as interview local celebrities, and acts on tour at the time such as band Travis and comedian Ricky Gervais. All of these elements, including sketches and outtakes featured on the Stephen Blanchard's Extra Bits Podcast. Due to changes in the boradcasting industries (and because, as Stephen believes he "talked way too much for a commercial radio station") Stephen was made redundant from the station in November 2006. Since then, despite continuing podcasting, his broadcasting career has been in indefinate hiatus.

Writing Career

Outside of school, Stephen's first real attempt at writing was (the unimaginatively entitled) "Superman V". He said "I'd just seen Superman IV: The Quest For Peace at the cinema. I was only 10 but even then I knew it sucked. I wanted to see something better, so I wrote it. I wrote Superman V. It sucked too, but not as much as number 4!" He also wrote stories for a live-action Star-Com movie, and a sequel to Tim Burton's first Batman film.

It was while at Stoke On Trent university and going through a screenwriting course that he started experimenting wuth writing actual scripts. While at Falmouth College of Arts studying a degree in Broadcasting and working on his minor and major projects, he started writing a script for a fictional arts programme (similar to the likes of The South Bank Show), that was set 10 years in the future when the United Kingdom had been devolved and the English people searched for their cultural identity through a fictional rock band. It was originally intended to be a 10 minute short that would be filmed, but when the writing process ballooned, Stephen was encouraged to expand the script and ditch the filming. The result was given a high 1st mark and described by one marking lecturer as a real potential TV show.

This script became the lose basis for TV show EXPOSE'. The show itself began as a drunken pub-based conversation between Stephen and best friend Simon Stewart, who suggested that they make a vampire movie. The result was a short film "Lactodorum Lamia" which later spawned 5 other stories that were turned to half-hour episodes.

While working at Horizon Radio Stephen pitched one of the episodes to a local film production company Complete Access Films. The story in this case was about "a guy living in Milton Keynes who thinks he's a superhero". Given the title MidKnight Rising, the film was to be directed by Jayson Purcell from a script written by Stephen and university friend Nick Johnstone. Stephen was paid £1000 for the rights to the film. Actors including Pete Lewus in the title role, and a crew including cinematographers and production designer Rob Jury were on board. Stephen has stated that problems began when the director and the films producer Tim Purcell started to make changes to the tone of the film. "The comedy came naturally from the situation" Stephen said. "But as time went on I realised they were trying to make Carry On Superhero, and no one understood why the changes were being made." Ultimately funding could not be securred and the film was abandoned, with the rights reverting back to Stephen.

Since MidKnight Rising, Stephen has spent time re-working the concept back in to a TV show. While working for Sky TV Stephen has shopped the idea around with immense positive feedback, however due to the networks current remit of just comedy, they have been unable to take the idea forward. Stephen is currently working within Sky on a short 10 minute preview/trailer of the series.

Books

Stephen's debut novel "Getting Sync'd" was published through YouWriteOn.com in June 2011 in both paper-back and Kindle format.


 * Dan Shears has a life any other bloke would be jealous of; he's a famous DJ on a national London radio station, he has a burgeoning TV career, he's regularly linked to a string of desirable women...and yet, Dan just isn't happy. He finds his dream job boring, he has a sneaking suspicion his TV career will be over as quickly as one of his now infamous one-night-stands, and ever since he broke up with glamour model Suzy Ryder his love-life is just an unmitigated disaster.
 * To try and get his life in some sort of order, he decides to accept an invitation to a wedding party, which also looks to be a reunion of past university friends in his home town of Bournemouth. There he hopes to get reacquainted with faces from the past, including his one-time best friend and DJ partner Max. And maybe he'll bump in to his university ex Rita – the one person he thinks can answer the question everyone, including him is asking: “What's going on with Dan Shears?”
 * To try and get his life in some sort of order, he decides to accept an invitation to a wedding party, which also looks to be a reunion of past university friends in his home town of Bournemouth. There he hopes to get reacquainted with faces from the past, including his one-time best friend and DJ partner Max. And maybe he'll bump in to his university ex Rita – the one person he thinks can answer the question everyone, including him is asking: “What's going on with Dan Shears?”

The follow up to "Getting Sync'd", tentatively titled "High Heels & White Trainers" is currently being re-written, with a third and fourth in planning to continue what Stephen has called The Capitol Saga.

Of all of his work Stephen says that everything takes place within the same universe. "I've kind of live in a world of my own for most of my life, so it seemed like fun to let other people in. Everything crosses over. You'll see characters from the books in the TV shows and vice-versa. It just seemed like a cool thing to do, and easy for me to keep track of".

Music

By his own admission, Stephen is an 'amateur musician'. He started with classical guitar lessons, but soon stopped after learning basic techniques. He enjoys playing accoustic and electric covers of popular bands, most notably U2, who Stephen cites as a major influence in his playing, "even if I sound nothing like them!".

In 2009 Stephen worked with Tushar Enaker on a cover of the Pete Murray song Feeler to be played as the first dance at his wedding. Stephen played both electric and accoustic guitars on the track, as well as bass, and bongos and a sock full of coins for percussion, with Tushar Enaker on vocals and organ. Already an accomplished vocalist, Tushar also lended his voice to covers of U2's Love Is Blindness, Oasis' Acquiecse, Red Hot Chilli Peppers Dosed, and U2's The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Stephen has also produced a so far vocal-free version of the U2 track Beautiful Day.