British screenwriter developing original stories and adaptations for features, television and short films.
About Simon
Simon Saunders is a British screenwriter, adapter and founder of Bluefish Works. Born in Lambeth, London, he now lives in Italy. His working life has taken him from printing and the Metropolitan Police to business, publishing and screenwriting.
His feature screenplay The Big Busk, adapted from Duncan McCowan's novel, was named an Austin Film Festival 2026 Second Rounder in the Drama Feature category.
Scripts and industry materials are available by request.
American Roulette · A completed screenplay adaptation
An American story. A British screenwriter.
Source novel · Milford House Press / Sunbury Press
The eight authors of American Roulette chose British screenwriter Simon Saunders to adapt their collaborative novel for the screen.
Set over a single day at an American shopping mall, the novel brings together eight lives in a story about gun violence and its human consequences. Each author created one of the central characters, giving the book its interwoven perspectives.
The choice placed a distinctly American story in the hands of a British adapter. Simon’s feature screenplay is now complete.
Screenplay by Simon Saunders. Based on the novel American Roulette by Pat LaMarche, Sherry Knowlton, J.M. West, Matthew Best, Phyllis Orenyo, Robert Bradshaw, Andrew Carey and James Dodds.
The novel is published by Milford House Press, an imprint of Sunbury Press.
Feature screenplays, television pilots and short scripts. Writing and adaptation credits appear with each project. Industry materials are available by request. Film and trailer production is shown separately from script completion.
Feature screenplays
Feature screenplay · Adaptation
The Big Busk
Screenplay by Simon Saunders.
LoglineLondon, 1984. A gifted young harmonica player and his street band challenge the violent gang controlling Leicester Square’s busking pitches, risking their freedom, friendship and survival.
Synopsis
Shane Westward and The King Biscuits scrape a living playing blues on London’s streets. When dwindling takings lead them from Covent Garden towards Leicester Square, they enter the territory of a feared East End enforcer. Music, humour and loyalty collide with a dangerous struggle for the right to play.
Completed feature screenplay by Simon Saunders, based on the novel by Duncan McCowan. Austin Film Festival 2026 Second Rounder, Drama Feature. A short proof-of-concept trailer is in development.
Read a scene Screenplay extract · PDF
Screenplay by Simon Saunders, adapted from the novel by Duncan McCowan.
An evening at the White Lion with The King Biscuits.
LoglineAs an isolated young man carrying a concealed rifle heads for a crowded American shopping mall, four ordinary lives converge in his path, building towards an act of violence in which nothing is quite what it seems.
Synopsis
A security officer finishes her shift. A teenager takes a tentative step towards recovery. An older couple shop for their daughter’s wedding. At Liberty Mall, an ordinary Friday brings strangers together while an unseen threat draws closer. Their small plans and chance encounters become the emotional heart of an ensemble drama about lives on the edge of catastrophe.
Written by Simon Saunders, based on the collaborative novel by Pat LaMarche, Sherry Knowlton, J.M. West, Matthew Best, Phyllis Orenyo, Robert Bradshaw, Andrew Carey and James Dodds. The eight authors chose British screenwriter Simon Saunders to adapt their American novel for the screen. Screenplay completed.
Read a scene Screenplay extract · PDF
Screenplay by Simon Saunders, adapted from the novel by Pat LaMarche, Sherry Knowlton, J.M. West, Matthew Best, Phyllis Orenyo, Robert Bradshaw, Andrew Carey and James Dodds.
Before her shift, Emma takes a call from her children.
Written by Simon Saunders and Johanna Reeve-Alexander.
LoglineRich, charming and almost retired, Jack and Vivienne Carroway move to Cornwall for a quieter life, only to become the coast’s most unexpected crime-solving duo.
Synopsis
A luxurious country estate, sailing and long lunches should make the Carroways’ escape from London idyllic. Instead, mysteries, scandals and suspicious deaths keep drawing Jack and Viv into the lives of their Cornish neighbours. Wit, romance and local folklore accompany their increasingly uneasy relationship with the detective investigating the same crimes.
LoglineA journalist returns to her childhood village to escape a broken marriage, only to find its eccentric residents and threatened churchyard pulling her into a dangerous local mystery.
Synopsis
Megan Warner brings her two daughters to Rambleybottom hoping for a fresh start. But a disappearance and a developer’s designs on the parish church and graveyard turn village life into a battle for survival. Old loyalties, buried secrets and wildly incompatible neighbours complicate her search for the truth in this British comedy drama.
LoglineRitually posed murders of affluent couples draw investigators across Britain and Sweden into a disturbing pattern of absent children, concealed histories and carefully controlled evidence.
Synopsis
Couples are found dead in their own homes while their young daughters are safely away at boarding school. As British and Swedish investigators follow the connections, a television journalist’s proximity to the cases raises difficult questions. This psychological crime thriller explores abandonment, trust and the danger of assuming a crime scene tells the whole truth.
LoglineHaunted by his wife’s death in a war zone, a correspondent finds an unexpected connection with an anonymous widow online as grief and guilt threaten to consume him.
Synopsis
Erik Andersson has reported from places of conflict, but cannot find distance from his own loss. An anonymous grief blog offers a way to speak when ordinary life feels impossible. His growing connection with a user called Wayward Widow becomes a fragile source of comfort. Designed to run concurrently with the companion adaptation of Caroline Fabre’s Diary of a Wayward Widow, the series follows Erik’s side of their shared story, exploring grief, intimacy and the possibility of beginning again.
Based on a character from Caroline Fabre’s Diary of a Wayward Widow. Conceived as a companion series running concurrently with @Wayward Widow (working title).
Read a scene Screenplay extract · PDF
Written by Simon Saunders, based on a character from Caroline Fabre’s Diary of a Wayward Widow.
LoglineA chaotic Soho PR agency battles influencer scandals and celebrity disasters, unaware that its apparently harmless intern is using the commotion to conceal a criminal empire.
Synopsis
Holly Sharpe and her colleagues spend their days salvaging reputations, managing viral apologies and trying to keep their own agency afloat. Behind the ring lights and brand deals, someone is making very different use of their work. Fast-moving workplace comedy meets crime satire in a world where every public disaster can hide a private opportunity.
Completed short screenplay · Animated proof of concept
Starwoven
Written by Simon Saunders.
LoglineOn a remote Scottish island, a grieving boy meets a luminous alien who teaches him to knit the fabric of time, awakening the hope of one more moment with his mother.
Synopsis
Twelve-year-old Seren lives with his grandmother on a wind-battered island, finding comfort in the knitting his mother taught him. When he encounters Fyn, a being made of shifting threads of light, an ordinary craft opens onto extraordinary possibilities. This animated story brings speculative wonder to the tender bonds of memory, family and loss.
Short script completed. Trailer production is in progress, with a feature project in development.
Completed short screenplay · Modern Gothic proof of concept
The Puppet Room
Written by Simon Saunders.
LoglineWhen a solitary puppet-maker receives a mysterious marionette for repair, disturbing failures in his workshop begin to turn a routine commission into a confrontation with his past.
Synopsis
Victor Hale works alone in a mountain workshop where traditional craftsmanship meets digital precision. A parcel left at his door contains a damaged puppet with no traceable client. As he begins the repairs, unexplained sounds, images and movements erode his control of the room in this modern Gothic short.
Short script completed. Trailer production is in progress.
Further stories taking shape for features and television.
Features
Ten Days
Feature screenplay
Written by Simon Saunders.
LoglineAt the height of her fame, a celebrated novelist vanishes into ten anonymous days with a stranger, leaving the world to speculate while she rediscovers a life beyond her public persona.
Synopsis
R.J. Fielding has a bestselling career and a life that no longer feels her own. On the eve of another tour, a stranger offers ten days without names, histories or expectations. As public speculation grows, their quiet companionship opens a space for intimacy, uncertainty and reinvention.
The Republic
Feature screenplay
Written by Simon Saunders.
LoglineIn a Berlin concealed beneath a manufactured reality, a regulator witnesses a death erased from the public record and risks everything to expose the world behind the illusion.
Synopsis
Morgan Ellis inspects a city whose decay is hidden by seamless visual overlays. When a fatal tram accident disappears from official accounts, his search for answers draws him towards an underground resistance. Challenging the comforting image of order means questioning both the state and the people closest to him.
Gabby
Feature screenplay
Written by Simon Saunders.
LoglineAfter losing her partner, a New Zealand mountain biker begins the difficult journey from overwhelming grief towards a new life on the trails of Italy.
Synopsis
Inspired by the life of Gabrielle “Gabby” Molloy, this drama follows a rider whose world is transformed by the loss of trail-building visionary James “Dodzy” Dodds. From Rotorua to Finale Ligure, the story explores love, physical resilience and the enduring connections forged through riding.
Warragul
Feature screenplay
Written by Simon Saunders.
LoglineStranded in the Australian Outback after an accident, an ambitious estate agent must fight for survival while confronting buried family secrets and his Aboriginal heritage.
Synopsis
Mark Fletcher’s career-driven life is overturned when a journey with his girlfriend Sarah becomes a struggle for survival. In the Australian wilderness, questions about his identity and his father’s past begin to unsettle everything he believes. The ordeal becomes a reckoning with family, cultural inheritance and the values he has lived by.
Santa Stole My Slippers
Family feature · In development
Written by Simon Saunders.
LoglineA missing slipper brings a lonely older man and his inquisitive young neighbour together in a wintry English village, opening the door to an unexpected Christmas friendship.
Synopsis
Arthur Tremor’s quiet routine is interrupted when one of his slippers disappears. Across the road, nine-year-old Holly is settling into a new home and cannot resist a mystery. In Winterleigh, small encounters and an unlikely friendship offer a warm reminder that nobody is as forgotten as they think.
Nobody is as forgotten as they think they are.
TELOAOB
Feature project · Working title
Television
Revolting
TV pilot
Written by Simon Saunders.
LoglineAfter his friend’s death exposes the cruelty of an algorithm-run state, a disillusioned teacher turned delivery rider is drawn into a secret resistance in near-future London.
Synopsis
Tommy Skelton scrapes a living delivering food in a city where private technology firms control public services. Investigating his friend’s denied medical care leads him towards an underground network hidden behind a comedy night. Nurses, hackers and unlikely allies draw him into a struggle over truth, power and the human cost of a system that has stopped listening.
@Wayward Widow
TV series · Book adaptation · Working title
Screenplay by Simon Saunders.
LoglineAfter losing her husband, Willow navigates grief and unsettling secrets while an anonymous online friendship offers the possibility of connection and a life beyond loss.
Synopsis
Based on Caroline Fabre’s book, this television adaptation follows Willow as she tries to make sense of widowhood and the questions left behind by her marriage. A virtual bond with a stranger known as Blackwidower creates a space for honesty, vulnerability and the uncertain prospect of starting over. The companion series Blackwidower unfolds concurrently, following the other side of that connection.
Based on Diary of a Wayward Widow by Caroline Fabre. Conceived to run concurrently with Blackwidower, following the shared story from Willow’s perspective.
Shorts & proof of concept
Henry’s Amazing Albatross · Hungry Henry
Animated episode · Episode 1 · In development
Screenplay by Simon Saunders, adapted from the book by Caroline Fabre and Madeleine Going.
LoglineWhen a reluctant young eater’s wooden albatross comes to life, an unexpected friendship opens the way to a world of new tastes and adventures.
Synopsis
Henry would rather refuse unfamiliar food. But Ally, his wooden albatross, has ideas of his own. Their first adventure takes them beyond the bedroom and out into a wider world, where curiosity begins to challenge Henry’s certainty about what he does and does not like.
Austin Film Festival 2026SECOND ROUNDERDrama Feature ScreenplayThe Big Busk · Simon Saunders