Steve Brown (composer)
Steve Brown is a British composer.
He wrote the book and lyrics (with Justin Greene) and composed the score for the West End Musical Spend Spend Spend, which chronicled Viv Nicholson's rise and fall after winning a fortune in the football pools in the early 1960s. The show won best Musical in the 2000 Evening Standard and Critics Circle awards.
Brown also wrote many of the songs for the satirical comedy show Spitting Image in the late 1980s and the entirety of the 1990s, originally providing just lyrics and eventually taking over permanently from Philip Pope as house composer and musical director.
In 1995 he composed the music for The Ant & Dec Show on Children's BBC, and later worked on their SMTV Live programme, for which he wrote the popular Wonky Donkey jingle amongst other themes. He continued to work extensively as a jingle writer for their ITV show Saturday Night Takeaway.
In 1996 Brown also wrote number songs for BBC Education's Hotch Potch House as well featuring a different group of living food from a basket similar to the ones seen on Sesame Street going into a cupboard and performing the songs live from inside it similar to Stars In Their Eyes.
He appeared as Glenn Ponder in the Alan Partridge TV show Knowing Me, Knowing You, and has worked extensively with Steve Coogan since, contributing to two UK tours, The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon special and album, the title music to I'm Alan Partridge, and the song "Raped In The Face" for the film Hamlet 2.
Other TV shows include Lee Mack's Not Going Out, The Brian Conley Show, BBC1 series New Tricks and Lenny Henry Goes to Town.
Brown has worked on several radio series including Jammin' and The Lee Mack Show for R2.
He has provided all the music and arrangements for British comedian Harry Hill's TV, radio, live, recording and film work since 1997, and worked on his ITV TV Burp show as musical director and jingle composer. The two have written a new show I Can't Sing! The X Factor Musical for the West End stage. It is being jointly produced by Stage Entertainment and Simon Cowell's company Syco and premiered on 5 March 2013. The show stars Nigel Harman as Simon Cowell and Cynthia Erivo as Chenice, the main contestant in the competition.
His musical adaptation of It's A Wonderful Life, co-written with Francis Matthews, was staged at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich in 2009.
As a record producer Brown has worked on the platinum selling album Seasons of My Soul by Rumer for Atlantic and more recently the debut by Brit-nominated artist Laura Mvula Sing to the Moon for RCA records.
He has two sons, the stand up comedian Alfie Brown and the musician Lenny Brown. He is married to ITV Mr Selfridge actress, Deborah Cornelius. He was previously married to English actress Jan Ravens. The two divorced in 1993.
References
- Steve Brown's official entry at Comedy CV.