He's written the music for productions as diverse as Vanity Fair and Queer as Folk, but that's not where Murray Gold's talents end.

IT SEEMS appropriate to ask Murray Gold if he's going to write the music for the new Doctor Who series. No one has asked him yet, he says, although it must be fair to say that this composer and writer has the right connections.

He wrote the Bafta-nominated score for C4's Queer As Folk, written by Russell T Davies, who's the main writer on the planned Doctor Who series going into production later this year. Gold has also adapted Davies's taboo-breaking drama into a stage musical.

There's another link to the Time Lord. Christopher Eccleston, named as the new Doctor Who last week, is starring in Gold's new play Electricity at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. Gold volunteers another tie to the time traveller - he went to school with a man who answered questions on the doctor in a Mastermind semi-final.

The fact that Eccleston has acquired a higher profile since starting rehearsals for Electricity in Leeds can only be good for the production. "It's just a good thing he was in my play before he was Doctor Who," says Gold. "You can't find many actors like him. He has an energy and intensity."

Electricity - which follows a woman's attempts to rid herself of the three builders who've made a two-week job last 17 - began life on Radio 3, winning the best new play of 2002 prize.

Gold is adamant that the stage play is not the same. Almost every word is different, he points out. Director Ian Brown was interested in putting it on as it was. Gold had other ideas, having written a theatre version after the radio play was broadcast. After a reading in a festival of radio plays, he re-wrote it again.

He wanted the play to reach a wider audience. "People don't tend to tune into Radio 3 for a two hour play," he admits. "It was intended as theatre. I was recruited to write a radio play by someone who happened to be sitting in the audience for my play 50 Revolutions in London. That was a kaleidoscopic play and it's very difficult to stage 50 short scenes, so I set Electricity in one room."

There can't be many people who combine the dual roles of composer and writer like Gold.

"The music came first, only because it's easier to mess around with when you're a lad," he explains. "I didn't know there was such a thing as a writer. You don't think of yourself as a musician when you're a kid, you're just playing.

"I didn't get into writing music for drama until I wrote music for my own play at university. I thought it would be nice to put some music in there."

He was studying history, not music, at the time. "You spend however much time going to school and it ends in a bit of a rush. I felt quite unprepared and didn't have a clue what I wanted to do," he says. "I didn't lack ambition, you just don't really know these things. The careers man at school doesn't say, 'you should be a composer or write plays'. He suggested I should become a company lawyer."

He ended up writing and composing, and doesn't differentiate between the two. "In my brain, they are all together. I've been diverted. You end up being who people ask you to be," he says.

He's carved a niche as a composer for TV series including Shameless, Queer As Folk, Clocking Off, Randall And Hopkirk Deceased, Servants and The Second Coming (another Russell T Davies and Christopher Eccleston collaboration).

His TV success stemmed from his score for the BBC's Vanity Fair in 1998, which earned him both Bafta and Royal Television Society nominations. He won the RTS award the following year for Queer As Folk, as well as another Bafta nomination.

"Everything on the TV side came out of Vanity Fair, because it was bold - even if I say so myself. I haven't done anything so wild since," he says.

He'd previously worked with director Mark Munden on a documentary. "That was fine and then he rang me up to say, 'I've just been given Thackeray's Vanity Fair to direct'. All I had to do was send in a tape," recalls Gold.

"He managed to persuade Jill McNeill, who's a fantastic producer. She had the confidence to stand up for me, this unheard-of person. Then we didn't go through the usual channels when we recorded the score. We hired students because we wanted this fresh sound."

Another higher profile composer originally worked on Queer As Folk. That didn't work out and, a month before the series was due to debut, Gold was signed up.

He's been working on a stage musical based on Queer As Folk for two years. He's written the book, music and lyrics. "There are 21 original songs but it's impossible to say what's going to happen to it. There's every chance it will go on, but who knows?," he says.

"The heart of it will always belong to Russell T Davies. It's his story and his three main characters. But Electricity belongs to me - my play, my creations."

He's scored films, including Mojo, Beautiful Creatures and the award-winning Kiss Of Life ("another replacement job, but that was one of the best pieces of work I've ever done") but TV is where he's most in demand. Canterbury Tales featured his work, and C4's Shameless is set to go for a second series of ten episodes and a 90-minute Christmas special. Over Easter, his music will be heard on the BBC film about Stephen Hawking.

* Electricity runs at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until April 24. Tickets 0113 213 7700.

Published: 03/04/2004