Career

Aged eighteen Lecoat left Jersey to complete a Drama degree at Birmingham University, then moved to London where she began performing on the blossoming Alternative Comedy circuit. She made a name as one of the first female stand-ups in the UK, touring colleges and arts centres, performing at eleven separate Edinburgh festivals, and comedy festivals in Ireland, the Netherlands and Montreal.

She was nominated for the Perrier award (now the Edinburgh Comedy Award) in 1986, one of only two female stand-ups to be nominated that decade. 

During this time she also presented a range of programmes including Watch the Woman for the newly-formed Channel 4 and Arts Review, an Open University programme for BBC radio.

In the late 80s she wrote features for many publications, including columns for magazines Cosmopolitan and Ms London.

Lecoat’s first TV writer’s credit was on the Marks & Gran sitcom Birds of a Feather in 1994; it was through their company, Alomo, that she met her future husband, writer Gary Lawson. She went on to write numerous episodes of Dutch sitcom Double Trouble, and created her own sitcom series, Sometime Never, in 1996.

By the late 90s she had moved into soaps and dramas, spending four years on the writing team of Family Affairs and six years with EastEnders, also working on 60-minute dramas Holby City and Dangerfield.

She also wrote on children’s series such as Tracy Beaker and Young Dracula, and comedy sketches for The Catherine Tate Show.

In 2006 she became a consultant for Moscow film company Amedia, co-creating a new soap opera for First Russia.

In 2004 Lecoat taught her first series of writing workshops for New Writing South, Brighton.

She went on to teach many courses of her own design for the same organisation, and also tutored short courses or course modules for the Arvon Foundation, London Film Academy and Central Film School.

She still sometimes undertakes script consultancy for private clients. Anyone interested should contact Andrew Mills at JAB Management.