Earlier this year Tony Schumacher’s first original TV drama ‘The Responder’ was broadcast on ±«Óãtv One and ±«Óãtv iPlayer. The show picked up some fantastic reviews:
“Martin Freeman is magnificent in tour de police force” –
“Martin Freeman's police patrol is one long, brutal night of the soul” –
"Schumacher's creations are carefully layered and full of surprises." -
It was also a hit with the audience, being the second biggest drama of 2022 with .
Martin Freeman plays Chris, a crisis-stricken, morally compromised, unconventional urgent response officer tackling a series of night shifts on the beat in Liverpool.
Not surprisingly, the scripts for 'The Responder' were one of the most requested additions to our online Script Library . Tony had previously been a member of our Northern Voices group and was really happy to oblige as were the team at the Drama's production company, Dancing Ledge.
You can read the scripts now here but only for the first four episodes of the five episode series, as Tony explains:
"One of the challenges of making [The Responder] during COVID was that we had to cut the number of episodes from six to five at relatively short notice. This was a nightmare when it came to restructuring the plot at short notice (I was basically writing as we were filming) and it resulted in some amazing work by incredible people being left on the cutting room floor. It also meant that the shooting script differed slightly from the episode that aired, with some great plot points being left floating, waiting to be possibly used in season two. So in an effort to avoid any spoilers, I've held back that original episode five until season 2 is fully written.
I hope you understand and enjoy eps 1-4!
Much love,
Tony"
It was announced back in March that The Responder will be returning for a second series. Once that has broadcast we’ll be able to add the remaining Series 1, Episode 5 script to our library.
With huge thanks again to Tony and Laurence Bowen at Dancing Ledge for granting permission. We hope you enjoy reading the scripts.