Death of Frank Deasy

I am really sad to hear of the death of the screenwriter Frank Deasy reported just now on BBC News:

Death of award-winning TV writer

The Irish screen writer Frank Deasy, whose works include the award-winning finale of the Prime Suspect TV series, has died in hospital in Scotland.

The 49-year-old Emmy winner, who was originally from Dublin, had been suffering from liver cancer . . .

. . . . He also wrote the The Passion, a BBC/HBO production which dramatised the final days of Jesus Christ and which featured Broughshane actor Jimmy Nesbitt in the role of Pontius Pilate.

Last Sunday, he wrote about his illness and his urgent need for a liver transplant in the Sunday Observer.

I was very lucky to work with Frank when I was consultant on The Passion. We had been in email contact this week, in fact only on Tuesday, and in spite of the article in The Observer, his death seems really sudden and shocking.

Frank was a wonderful writer. I think his script for The Passion will be seen as one of the greatest re-imaginings of the Passion narrative for many years to come. He was a delight to work with, always encouraging, always listening, always interested, always interesting. As it happens, our longest discussion during the whole process was about death, and how he would treat Jesus' death on the cross in the drama, and how depiction of death would affect viewers. I'd like to collect my thoughts and write about Frank a bit more later. What a great loss and a sad day.

More here on BBC News; article in The Scotsman.