Andrew Payne(1949-2024)

Playwright and screenwriter, born in Devon, England, to Dudley Payne and his wife Joan (née Landamore) and educated at Denstone College and the (now defunct) Hornsey College of Art in London. Following his graduation in 1972, Payne began as a screen printer before moving up the ladder to writing scripts for BBC4. His predilection for crime stories resulted in his contributing episodic screenplays for Lovejoy (1986), Midsomer Murders (1997) and DCI Banks (2010). He also wrote twelve instalments of Minder (1979) and adapted two Dick Francis novels into made-for- television movies.

Payne became best known as the creator and principal writer of Pie in the Sky (1994), a popular, feel-good detective series, starring Richard Griffiths as Henry Crabbe. It aired for five seasons, from 1994 to 1997. The main story-line revolved around a reluctant, semi-retired policeman, who much preferred cooking and running his own restaurant to sleuthing, but found himself invariably blackmailed into solving cases by his politically-motivated, self-serving superior, Assistant Chief Constable Freddy Fisher (ably portrayed by Malcolm Sinclair ).

More recently, Payne authored several plays which were particularly well-received in France, translated into French by the actor and theatre producer Robert Plagnol and staged at the Theatre de Montparnasse (2007), the Theatre des Champs-Elysees (2008) and the Avignon Festival (2018).