Fiona McAlpine has been directing and producing radio drama for twenty years, debuting with the fourteen-year-old Jane Austen’s ‘Love and Friendship’ which she directed for BBC Radio 4 in 2001, starring the young David Tennant
Fiona was brought up in a theatrical home in Clapham South, London, Her parents, Donald and Phyllida McAlpine met, while dancing in Festival Ballet. She studied at Royal Holloway College, London University and Central School of Speech and Drama, and worked as an actress (and waitress) before moving to Suffolk and establishing a career in producing and directing. As an actress she worked in theatre, playing lead roles with touring companies Red Shift Theatre and Great Eastern Stage, and in Repertory theatre at The Duke’s Playhouse in Lancaster and the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. Screen appearances include parts in Eastenders, Shoestring, Blake Seven, Angels, Tenko and the films: The Tree of Hands, Little Dorrit, and The Fool.
Fiona has been directing and producing audio and radio drama for over twenty years and has worked with many of Britain’s leading actors including Helen McCrory, Jeremy Irons, Tom Burke, Simon Russell-Beale, Jessica Raine, Rakie Ayola, David Tennant, Stephen Fry, Adjoa Andoh, Anton Lesser and many others. She and Robin Brooks set up Allegra Productions in 2001 and have been working in partnership ever since. She was nominated for Best Drama Producer (Audio Production awards) in 2016 and 2019.
She has worked as a Radio Drama director for other companies, including Brill Productions (formerly Pacificus) with Clive Brill, producing several afternoon dramas, (2001 to 2004), with Andrew Mark Sewell at B7 Productions, directing (The Boy From Aleppo Who Painted the War, (2014) and with Goldhawk Essential (A Kestrel for a Knave) (2019). During the Pandemic, she directed and produced a five hour epic drama series for Towton Audio, Kingmaker : Winter Pilgrims.
Fiona worked as an associate producer for Laurence Bowen (Dancing Ledge Productions), on a series of unmade movies for Radio 4 between 2013 and 2019, working with directors Richard Eyre, Mark Gatiss, Jamie Lloyd, Joanna Hogg, Bill Bryden, Adrian Noble, Hope Dickson Leach and John Amiel.
In 2020 she co-produced the recording the audio drama, Akhmatova, the Heart is not made of Stone starring Vanessa Redgrave, for ERC (Ensemble for the Romantic Century) a theatre and music company, based in New York.
She regularly produces and directs theatre, live events and rehearsed readings, including directing many plays for children and teenagers. She has directed theatre locally in Suffolk at the INK Festival, the Summer theatre in Aldeburgh and Southwold in 2022, and more recently No Sex in Southwold at the Southwold Arts Centre.
Between 2003 and 2006 Fiona produced nine short films for Norwich based, Screen East and the UK Film Council’s digital cinema scheme. Two of these - Billy’s Day Out and Other - won awards.
In 2018 she and Robin Brooks set up Script Lab East, to foster new writing, and hold regular play reading events upstairs at the cinema in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK.
Fiona has also abridged for radio works such as In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene, Seeds of Greatness by Jon Canter and many other Book of the Weeks and Book at Bedtimes for BBC Radio 4.
Audio Dramas Directed for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3
Fiona McAlpine : Director / Producer
Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson (Dram. By Robin Brooks) June 28th 2026
Security by Kelly Jones - Afternoon Drama broadcast August 13th 2026
James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band by Robin Brooks & James Anthony Rose. Sunday Feature R3 Nov 2025
Quartered Safe Out here by George MacDonald Fraser, (dram. by Robin Brooks) July 2025
Moominsummer Madness by Tove Jansson, (dram. by Robin Brooks) June 22nd 2025.
Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford, (dram. by Robin Brooks) Dec 22nd 2024.
Frank Bascombe : An American Life Let me Be Frank With You by Richard Ford, dramatised by Robin Brooks. Dec 1st 2024
Frank Bascombe : An American Life The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford, dramatised by Robin Brooks. Nov 23rd 2024
Frank Bascombe : An American Life Independence Day by Richard Ford, dramatised by Robin Brooks. June 30th 2024
Frank Bascombe : An American Life The Sportswriter by Richard Ford, dramatised by Robin Brooks. April 7th 2024
Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson, dramatised by Robin Brooks. Broadcast Dec 2023
The Venice Conundrumby Robin Brooks (based on the works of Jan Morris). July 2023. BBC
The Age of Anxiety by W.H. Auden Nov 2022. (Drama on 3)
Heartstrings, by Imogen Lea Oct 2022
About a Dog, by Huw Brentnall. Oct 2022
Don Juan by Lord Byron, adapted by Robin Brooks. Dec 2022
Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson, dramatised by Robin Brooks, Dec 2021
The King Must Die, by Mary Renault, dramatised by Robin Brooks August 2021
The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, dramatised by Robin Brooks April 2021
The Brummie Iliad, by Roderick Smith (based on Homer’s Iliad) January 2021. (Drama on 3)
USAby John Dos Passos, with Tom Bateman, Tanya Reynolds, Sheila Atim. Oct/Nov 2020
The Talking Mongoose(Drama Doc) June 2020
The Garrick Yearby Margaret Drabble, adapted by Robin Brooks, April 2020
Elizabeth and Essexby Robin Brooks, with Simon Russell Beale and the BBC concert Orchestra. (Drama on 3)
A Kestrel for a Knave, by Barry Hines, adapted by Robert Rigby for Goldhawk Essential. Sept 2019
The Christchurch Murder by Angela Carter, September 2018
The Bloody Chamberby Angela Carter, adapted by Olivia Hetreed September 2018
Vampirella by Angela Carter, with Jessica Raine, Oliver Chris and Anton Lesser. September 2018 (Drama on 3)
Byzantium by Robin Brooks, March 2018. (Drama on 3)
Iris Murdoch: Dream Girl by Robin Brooks starring Helen McCrory, August 2015
I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General, by Simon Butteriss, December 2015
The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War for B7 Productions for BBC Radio 4, November 2014
Jill by Philip Larkin, adapted by Robin Brooks April 2013
A Girl in Winter, by Philip Larkin, adapted by Richard Stevens April 2013
Mr Wrong and Other Stories by Elizabeth Jane Howard, read by Matilda Ziegler - September 2012
I Love Stephen Fryby Jon Canter, with Stephen Fry as himself. August 2008
Left at Marrakech by Richard Stevens 2007
A Warning to the Furious by Robin Brooks 2006
Duce’s Bonce by Robin Brooks 2005
The Last Days of Gordon Springer by Richard Stevens. 2004. (Pacificus Productions)
Stephen Spender - Book of the week 2004 (Pacificus Productions)
The Smallest Man in Christendom by Robin Brooks 2003. (Pacificus Productions)
A Quick Change by Robin Brooks. 2002. (Pacificus Productions)
Love and Friendship by Jane Austen, adapted by Robin Brooks 2001. (Pacificus Productions)
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Producer only
Come Unto These Yellow Sands, September 2018 - (Drama on 3)
The Dark Tower by Louis MacNeice, October 2017 Live performance at Orford Church
Remorse, or the Sorrows of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, March 2016 (Drama on 3)
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, directed by Bill Alexander, starring Jeremy Irons, 2015
Taken by Suzanne Heathcote, Directed by Carl Prekopp. 2009
Audio Drama (Commercial or Educational)
Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, dram.by Robin Brooks, for Audible, October 2015 (David Tennant, Rose Leslie, Phoebe Fox)
Frank by Craig Baxter (Podcast Drama for the Darwin Correspondence Project) Dec 2022 BBC
Emmaby Craig Baxter (Podcast Drama for the Darwin Correspondence Project) Dec 2022
Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims by Gregory Evans( 5 hour epic for Towton Audio) - March 2021
Theatre
Salacious Secrets in Southwold - Southwold Arts Centre - September 2025
Sex and Death in Southwold -Southwold Arts Centre - September 2024
No Sex in Southwold - Southwold Arts Centre - October 2023
I Ought to be in Pictures - Jubilee Hall and Southwold Arts Centre - August 2022
Death in Southwold - Southwold Arts Centre - September 2021
Elizabeth and Essex - Alexandra Palace, February 2020
The Beast in the Jungle - Snape Maltings , October 2018
The Dark Tower - Orford Church, Suffolk, (co-production with Snape Maltings) October 2017
It’s A Sperm’s Life by Lewis Wilding, INK Festival, 2017, Halesworth, Suffolk
Britten’s Got Talent by Robin Brooks, New Wolsey Theatre, November 2013
Film
Producer: Five shorts films for Screen East, Norwich, as part of UK Film Council’s ‘Digital Shorts’ 2003
Billy’s Day Out, Directed by Iain B. MacDonald, winner of Best Short Film Edinburgh Film Festival 2004 (Jo McInnes, Lee Ross)
End of the Line, Directed by Max Pugh, shortlisted for Soho Shorts 2003 (with Miriam Margolyes & David Oyelowo)
Other, Directed by Martin Friend, Winner of RIMA award, 2005 (with Indra Ove)
Missing Pens, Directed by Simon Raven (with Stephen Mangan)
Plaything (shown at Festival Tres Courts, France) (Director/ Producer/ Co-writer with Robin Brooks)
Other films:
Soil Dances, Directed by Peter Anderson for DanceEast
Playground Logic, directed by Matthew Sangster. Producer: (post-production)
ScriptLab East
Rehearsed readings of new plays in Suffolk
Radio Reading of Hemmingway’s Rod by Richard Braine - INK Festival 2024
with Jack Gogarty, Matthew Rutherford, Isabella Inchbald, Kate Hunter and Will Antenbring
Baba Yaga and Fertile Groundby Rosie Walker - March 2023
Hemmingway’s Rodby Richard Braine Feb 2023
Dead Dog by Henry Tydeman - January 2023
Looking for a New Blue Moon by. Petra Markham (2020)
The Censor by Sarah Isaac (2020). Coco & Misia by Claude Harz (2019),
The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker, adapted by Andrew Burton (2019),
What the Heart Wants by Bert Tyler-Moore (2019),
Willowdene by Chris Coates (2019).
Newcomer by Killian Burke (2019)
Payment Deferred by C. S. Forester adapted by Robin Brooks (2018)
I
Afternoon Dramas, Director/Producer, 2001-2009
I Love Stephen Fry by Jon Canter (2008),
Cast: Stephen Fry, Lesley Sharpe, Ron Cook, Phil Davis, Karl Theobald, Sinead Matthews.
Duce’s Bonce by Robin Brooks (2006)
Cast: Catherine McCormack, Adrian Rawlins, Nick Woodeson, Maureen Beattie
Left at Marrakech by Richard Stephens (2008)
Cast: Will Keen, Clare Corbett, Jonathan Cullen, Alan Cox, Nicholas Rowe, Ben Lewis.
The Last Days of Gordon Springer by Richard Stevens 2004
Cast: Karl Theobald, Stephen Mangan, Catherine Shepherd, Jasmine Hyde, David Horovitch
A Warning to the Furious by Robin Brooks (2007)
Cast: Catherine Shepherd, Lucy Robinson, Carl Prekopp, Andy Wincott, Gerald McDermott.
A Quick Change by Robin Brooks (2002)
Cast: David Tennant, Flora Montgomery, Alan Cox, Ashley Jenson, Barbara Dryhurst, Mark Spalding
The Smallest Man in Christendom by Robin Brooks
Cast: Lucy Robinson, Desmond Barritt, David Holt, Alan Cox, John McAndrew, Julie Cox (2003)
Love and Friendship by Jane Austen / by Robin Brooks
Cast: David Tennant, Victoria Hamilton, David Horovitch, Ruth Platt, Janet Jefferies, Sarah Eedle
Radio 4 Book of the Week ‘Stephen Spender’
the authorised biography by John Sutherland
Cast: Stephen Boxer