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Jonathan Ruffle
Probably best known for creating, writing and co-producing TOMMIES
for BBC Radio 4, I write and work on feature films and comedy, too

Tommies

Forty two episodes with me as showrunner.

"How lucky we are that Jonathan Ruffle's superb TOMMIES has become a regular Radio 4 fixture." - The Spectator

"Jonathan Ruffle's epic series based on eye-witness accounts continues to uncover less familiar aspects of war." - The Observer

"If this was a lesser drama, there would be a lot of chat about mud, death and the futility of war."

- The Times

"Every episode was heard by a million people. That's more than would fill all three theatres at the National for a year" - Jeremy Howe, Commissioning Editor BBC Radio 4

Buy TOMMIES here

Peter Jackson's
They Shall Not Grow Old

I provided some of my 2014 recordings of the detonation of real WW1 unexploded shells from the French battlefields to WingNut Films for their Oscar -nominated documentary.

"The sound effects — gunfire, shelling, falling debris — are the movie’s best addition, helping to conjure the sensation of continuous bombardment, day and night." - The New York Times

"...a rich tapestry of background sound effects transports the viewer from training camps to battlefields..." - Mark Kermode, The Guardian

Buy TSNGO here How I Recorded the WW1 Shells

Stanley's War

I wrote the screenplay for this vivid feature documentary about Stanley Banyard of the 7th Battalion the Suffolk Regiment and his life in WW1. And I appeared as a historical expert quite a bit in it too.

"Stanley's War is a riveting and heartfelt story of two Suffolk families from two very different backgrounds and their harrowing experiences of World War One....not to be missed!" - Neil McGlone of Sight & Sound Magazine

Buy STANLEY'S WAR here

Her War

Her War - the first full-length libretto I've ever written, had its world premiere at the Tete a Tete Opera Festival in August 2021. Music by Edwin Roxburgh, soprano voice by April Fredricks, trumpet by Simon Desbrulais, and words by me. The audience recognised the strong similarities between the all-in-it-together nature of front line nursing, and the travails of the NHS fighting Covid. And the struggle the FWW nurses had to gain their pensions, oh so familiar with our current NHS trying to get more than applause. You can see a shorter version premiered in 2020 plus a Q&A, free and for nothing, here.

Watch HER WAR and the Q&A here

The War Just Outside Ipswich

Another script for Video East and Tim Curtis which premiered at the Riverside Cinema in November 2020 in Woodbridge.

Short Films

I've produced plenty of these with my colleague Andrew McGibbon over at Curtains For Radio, starring Daisy Haggard, Tony Gardner and Cyril Nri among many others.

The Link To All My Work - well, nearly all

IMDb captures nearly everything, although it's a bit frustrating they list all those BBC radio shows as "podcasts". Still, that's a pretty high-class problem