Alan Spence was born and brought up in South Bank, Middlesbrough. After failing the 11+, he took on a range of ‘industrial guises’ including shipyard welder, maintenance man at South Bank Coke Ovens, student nurse, and tele-sales advertising. He even tried working in a men’s clothes shop, for a whole morning.

After living in London, a return to Teesside saw Alan back at British Steel Corporation on the Redcar Coke Ovens, and faced with what he has always seen as two strokes of luck: firstly, the 1980 steel strike (the subject of Alan’s first play) and secondly, redundancy, which enabled Alan to go to Middlesex Polytechnic and train for a BEd in Drama and History, for which he achieved a 2:2.

Alan gained an M.A. in Film and Television from London University and he even ran his own theatre company, Theatre is Real Life, from 2009 until 2018. While spending some 25 years as an arts specialist in secondary schools in North London and Hertfordshire

My Name is Tom is Alan’s third play to be published later this year, following The BORO’s 37mins published in 2022 and Nowt Like this in America in 2023. His other plays include: Homes and Gardens (2018) and Abandoned (2022).

Alan is currently working on Epilogue, the follow up to Nowt Like this in America, a travel book and a one person play about Scottish playwright and poet Hamish Mann, who died in WWI at the age of 21. 

Alan has recently joined the SoA, after leaving the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, where he served on the Theatre Committee for nearly six years.  Alan is also a member of National Drama and is a guest on the steering group of the Drama and Theatre Education Alliance. Alan lives in Eastbourne is a Drama and Theatre tutor at the Printers Playhouse and a member of their Community Choir.