TV, radio, film and media

Denise has made several TV and radio documentaries and has made her own film about her family.

She makes frequent appearances on TV and radio discussing social and political issues as well as talking about arts, culture and writing. A regular guest on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Review and Front Row programmes she also writes for newspapers.

TV programmes

Group

2020

A one hour comedy drama pilot with Annie Griffin and Pirate productions for BBC Scotland. 

Six people gather in a room for tea and the serenity prayer, to practice an off-brand version of the 12 Steps ("There's only nine here. It's much faster")

Aleister Crowley Summons the Devil

2020

Sick of being scorned, young Aleister Crowley wants the world to know his name, even if he must summon the forces of Hell to do so. From his remote Highland mansion he begins to cast a mighty spell… Unfortunately, black magic takes a while, and things aren’t going as well as he’d hoped: he’s bored, lonely, and nothing really seems to be happening. Maybe it’s all just a big waste of time?

Starring Gordon Houston 

Dr.  Amy Liptrott

Scenes for Survival with BBC and National Theatre of Scotland

Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women

Denise investigated the life and work of one of the world's greatest horror writers in this programme made for BBC4 in 2013.

Travelling between New York, Virginia and Baltimore, she examined Poe's creativity through the torturous and peculiar relationships with the women in his life.

World War I - Scotland remembers

This 2014 documentary for BBC1 was made for the centenary of the First World War.

Denise told the story of Scottish aristocrat Lady Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, who set up a field hospital in the Belgian town Namur as the invasion took place.

Radio programmes

2019 

BBC Scotland ‘Case File’ series with Andrew Tickell, exploring Scottish legal cases that changed the world and some that were just really, really interesting. 

  • The Douglas Cause

  • The Paisley Snail

  • The Moorov Principle

In November 2015 Denise made two episodes for the BBC Radio Scotland series Inspecting Detectives.

This season of programmes looked at different aspects of detection, from solving historic Scottish cases to the role of the private investigator and the techniques of interrogation. She is given a grilling by two police detectives, and finds out what it takes to be private investigator.

Hear some clips on the BBC website.

In this BBC Radio 4 appreciation of Twin Peaks, broadcast in March 2015 for the 25th anniversary of the TV series, Denise talks about small towns in Scotland and what they have in common with Twin Peaks.

And in Frankie Vaughn and the Live Gang Show, made for BBC Radio Scotland in May 2009, Denise spoke to people from Easterhouse about the legacy of Frankie Vaughan, the pop star who made the area's rival gang leaders shake hands and give up their knives.

Multum in Parvum (Much in Little)

In 2014 Denise and her cousin Rosie Toner made a short documentary: filming their aging relatives about growing up in a small council house with twelve siblings and why they are so regal.

The film is intercut with footage of a cinema full of the extended family watching and responding to the documentary.

In an interview with BBC Scotland Denise explained that when her aunt Lena died she started to feel that a generation was slipping away and so the stories she had heard from her relatives as she was growing up needed to be captured.

The documentary was originally made for the family so she didn't know if it would interest other people but when they saw it they loved the idea.

"...I showed it to a private audience of 50 women and they all said I'm going to go and make a film like this. I think everyone feels that way about their family history."

Watch the full film.