Cirrus@Austlit

Playwright and television script-writer.

Born in Scotland, Stephen Davis had his first play, A Very Black Comedy Indeed, published when he was fifteen. He has since published three more playscripts: Juice, Blurred, and Burnt.

His other plays include Drown (Queensland Theatre Company), Scar and Porn (La Boite), Turtle Island and Wet Dogs (Barking Gecko), and Tranzitions (Queensland University of Technology).

Davis's plays have also been adapted for the screen: the film Blurred was released in 2002 (and nominated for an AFI Award for Best Screenplay, Adapted from Another Source) and a film version of Drown (written by Davis and directed by Dean Francis) is slated for 2013.

Davis has also written directly for the screen, beginning with Southern Star's High Flyers (1999), tracing the adventures of two city kids who are disappointed in their new country-town home, until they learn it houses a children-only circus. His first film script was the Australian-Japanese co-production City Loop (2000): filmed in Brisbane and directed by Belinda Chayko, the film followed six young people working in a pizzeria.

Davis followed this with scripts for Crash Palace (2001), set in a backpackers' hostel in Sydney's Kings Cross, and Fairy Tale Police Department (2002), an animated series in which two real-life police officers are sent inside fairy tales to solve a series of crimes. In 2002, he adapted his own play Blurred, followed by work on Jonathan M. Shiff Productions' young-adult fantasy series Pirate Islands (2003) and Yoram Gross Studios' Blinky Bill's Extraordinary Balloon Adventure (2004). He has also written for some of the animated series made by Tasmania-based Blue Rocket Productions, including Hoota & Snoz and Cat and Dog News.

In 2007, Davis co-wrote (with Gareth Calverley) the series Spy Shop, in which spy-shop owner Dale Deakin uses as weekly online video blog to sell a range of surveillance gadgets: the series ran to ten three-minute episodes.

In 2008, Davis scripted the psychological drama Monkey Puzzle, in which five friends seek a rare tree in the Blue Mountains, but find themselves facing unravelling relationships.

His forthcoming work includes the film script for his own play, Drown.