Screen Writer Research: Simon J. Ashford

Simon J. Ashford

Simon J. Ashford is a British writer and producer responsible for writing a wide variety of TV shows, although only contributing to certain episodes per series or even at all.

His first writing credit is several episodes of ‘EastEnders’ that were written between 1999 and 2003. Writing 13 episodes in total, Ashford has demonstrated his skill in writing for a soap genre, created for a wider audience demographic.

Ashford further demonstrates his skill for soap opera writing certain episodes for other series such as ‘Holby City’ between 2002 and 2005, ‘The Bill’ (more of a crime soap opera) between 2002-2006) and ‘Waterloo Road’ once in 2012.

He has also written for children’s TV with two episodes of ‘Young Dracula’ in 2014. He has demonstrated his ability to write specifically for a younger demographic with this writing credit.

Another genre that Ashford has been able to tackle is drama for TV. Writing credits such as one episodes of ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ in 2015 and a total of twelve episodes for ‘Musketeers’ during both 2015 and 2016.

Simon J. Ashford seems to only write a certain number of episodes for certain TV shows. This allows him the opportunity to concentrate on the story of each individual episode rather than creating entire, series, worthy story threads such a lead writer of a series might have to. This would inspire me to not try to create a big story thread, allowing me to concentrate on my own concise stories during my screenwriting time.

Writing Credits:

‘EastEnders’ (13 Episodes, 1999-2003)

‘Spine Chillers’ (2003)

‘Twisted Tales’ (2005)

‘Holby City’ (2002-2005)

‘The Bill’ (2002-2006)

‘Robin Hood’ (5 Episodes, 2006-2009)

‘Waterloo Road’ (1 Episode, 2012)

‘Young Dracula’ (2 Episodes, 2014)

‘Jekyll and Hyde’ (1 Episode, 2015)

‘Musketeers’ (12 Episodes, 2015-2016)