Tom had been struggling to come to terms with his dad’s sudden death, but that was before he found out his dad was secretly an alien from a distant planet. Tom finds his whole world shifting to a new perspective, a perspective that might just also include saving Earth from imminent destruction. Toby Hadoke stars in his own play, alongside highly respected actor Ronald Pickup as Russ and Coronation Street’s Cherylee Houston as Tom’s girlfriend Jan….

There is a wonderful radio producer at the BBC in Manchester called Charlotte Riches who liked Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf and has used me a lot as an actor ever since.

She’s always championed my writing work – when someone as good as her shows confidence in your work it is very encouraging. We were batting ideas back and forth one day and I felt I wasn’t getting anywhere and she said it was because I was trying to come up with my idea of a Radio 4 play rather than, as she put it, a “Toby Hadoke play”. That was quite flattering so I threw out this idea that just came to me about a bloke finding out that his dead Dad was an alien.

I thought it would be a good way to satirise human behaviour – having it observed and described by someone from somewhere else. So that was the germ. I wrote loads funny jokes at mankind’s expense written from the point of view of the alien: it was a good starting point but was essentially a comedy sketch – Charlotte guided me to craft it into something more plot and character driven. I did about 5 major rewrites and three additional tidy ups but it was very painless – I embraced the guidance because, after all, she had come to me and only wanted to make it as good as possible.

She has also produced hundreds of hours of radio drama and I, emphatically, have not. I always say I find writing a chore but once the first draft was there I found the process of changing it into something tighter really satisfying. When it came to casting, Charlotte was insistent that I be in it and I wasn’t going to resist. We also considered a lot of names for Russ, the Dad. Our initial thought was to go for someone with sci-fi credentials but in the end we decided to see if Ronald Pickup was available basically because he’s one of the best actors on the planet and I thought he would do a terrific job. I also thought he wouldn’t say yes in a million years – but he accepted as soon as he read the script.

I was gobsmacked. His performance in Fortunes Of War is one of my favourite things ever and there he was travelling all the way up North to say stuff written by me! He was so humble and charming and wrote me a very kind letter afterwards. The whole cast is fabulous though, and I was pleased that we got a couple of performers from the Manchester comedy circuit who deserve a bit more exposure. Because it is a quirky play a lot of thought and imagination has gone into the soundscape and I think the team have done a superb job on it. I think it has been the most satisfying experience of my working life thus far. It’s difficult to be objective but there haven’t really been any compromises made so I have no excuses if anyone doesn’t like it!

Although it is science fiction I have written it in a way that will hopefully make the genre-dubious forget about their misgivings and enjoy the jokes and get involved in what is actually a very human story about grief and loss. With some jokes about cheese and a line from Plan 9 From Outer Space in it.

Toby Hadoke

“The Dad Who Fell To Earth” will broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on July 9th at 2.15pm.