Music

I'm no Hans Zimmer, but I've been asked to compose theme songs and incidental music for a number of documentaries, TV shows and podcasts over the years.

You can hear a sample of those songs below, and some descriptions after the player.

I'm always open to new commissions. Just drop me a DM on Twitter.

mrdiscopop · Discopop Productions

TV

1) Storyfix was an irreverent, high-octane news magazine show, broadcast on the BBC News Channel from 2006 to 2007. The producers wanted a fresh, new sound to distinguish the programme from the rest of the BBC's News coverage. The resulting high-energy dance tune proved massively popular with the programme's audience.

2 - 3) Boys To Men (Channel 4, 2006) was a documentary about a group of British children sent to a strict summer school in Jamaica, to help improve their grades. A last-minute change in the edit required the show's thoughtful, serious music to be replaced by something more akin to reggae. It still gives me nightmares.

4) BBC News Review Created by the same team as Storyfix, this required a more reflective tone, while still keeping some of the dance/pop vibes of the Storyfix theme. The music was only used once, I think, in 2003.

5) Talking Point I oversaw two rebrandings of the award-winning BBC World / World Service phone-in programme Talking Point, providing title music, menu beds and stings from 2001-2006. This is the second set of title music from that project.

6-7) Dentists From Hell (ITV, 2003). This documentary required more than 40 minutes of original music, from pop songs to dramatic orchestral pieces. The playlist includes the "piano theme" (soundtracking some truly horriffic case studies) and a more upbeat synth track, meant to represent the high-flying lifestyle of a dodgy dentist.

Audio books

8 - 11) Seriously Silly Books Between 2001 and 2003, I was commissioned to write the music for a series of audio books by children's author Laurence Anholt. The Seriously Silly books are traditional fairy stories with a modern, anarchic twist which, in their print form, won the Smarties gold prize for children's literature.

The music was (intended to be) as fun and comedic as the books. For Snow White And The Seven Aliens I even had to write a rap for Snow White to perform with her extra-terrestrial backing band! Once the music was complete, the books were narrrated by Fireman Sam and Men Behaving Badly star Neil Morrisey.

Podcasts

12) Celebrity Catch-Up After a few years almost a decade off, I was asked to write a theme for the superb "Life After That Thing I Did" podcast, which interviews stars from the 70s, 80s and 90s to hear what they've been up to since. The first series included interviews with Press Gang star-turned-film director Dexter Fletcher, Newsround's Lizo Mzimba and pop survivor Chesney Hawkes. You can subsecibe to the show on Apple Podcasts.