Composer, Writer and Lyricist
“Not with these knees…”
Dan is a writer and musician. He was born in Isleworth, Middlesex on 4th January 1976. He won a music and academic scholarship to St Paul’s School, London, where his performing arts career had an inauspicious start, debuting as ‘Josephine’ in his school’s production of HMS Pinafore. Things picked up slightly the following year when he won the audience award for ITV’s Wide Awake Club Young Entertainer’s competition.
He graduated with a medical degree from Southampton University in 1999 and has written, produced, directed and performed in fifteen medical comedy revues. With a group of fellow medics, he co-wrote and performed Aeneas Ran Away with the Bearded Theatre Company which enjoyed a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He has written innumerable songs, comedy sketches and founded, managed and played guitar, keyboards and occasional didgeridoo in his band Hooper Minor.
He was lead actor and associate producer for the short film Top of the World, directed by Jonathan Bernstein. This had its debut screening at BAFTA and won the audience award at Manchester’s KinoFilm festival in spring of this year.
He has been firm friends with Rob Pratt since one fateful orchestra course at Cranleigh School in 1990. After being each other’s best men, The Decent Rogues was their next successful full-scale collaboration, winning the prestigious NODA awards for ‘Best Musical and ‘Outstanding Achievement’. Pencoweth was their next musical venture which was nominated for two further NODA awards including ‘Best Musical’.
In 2016 Dan wrote the nativity ‘A Christmas Story’ for his children’s primary school in Bath which premiered at Bath’s Rondo Theatre.
In 2017 he wrote ‘Busk’, a brand new, contemporary musical which will premiere in 2018, once again under the banner of Music is Life Productions. When not writing musicals, Dan has appeared on keyboards with West Country legends, The Wurzels – lovingly dubbed ‘Dr Dan Dribble’ by the more senior band members!
He brings in the rent by working as a GP surgeon and lives in Bath with his wife, Jo, and two children, Amy and Ben. His cat, Percy, is considerably less musical than his namesake in The Decent Rogues.