Jo Coombs

Jo is Director of Radio for Loftus Audio in London.
Working as an independent producer since 1998 Jo has worked on the Sony Award winning series Evacuation with veteran broadcaster Charles Wheeler. She has also produced a variety of documentaries for BBC Radio 4 including programmes such as The Holy Fire (2005), which explored a yearly miracle in the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, a programme about peace pilgrimages with Mark Tully in India, and Cleaning Out The Camp (2007), a series with Eddie Mair about the history of the armed services’ attitude towards homosexuality.



David Smith

David is Technical Director for Loftus Audio in London. He has worked in
audio production since 1996 and has a background in audio book production, multimedia editing and live audio/visual production. David has mixed all the Loftus broadcast output since 2004. Recent mixes for Radio 4 include Postcards From White City, Clearing The House and Voices At 40. David is passionate about high quality audio and is committed to maintaining and developing Loftus as a friendly and efficient place to record and work.



Tobin Jacob Coombs

Tobin has worked in the media industry for several years as a broadcast assistant
and researcher for BBC Radio programmes. He studied art at the Rochester Institute and later Politics and Religion at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African studies. He has travelled extensively through Europe, and Central and Eastern Asia, exploring religious sites and recording rituals and ceremonies in remote areas. Tobin is a writer and artist and continues to follow his interests in photography and film whilst working as a production assistant for Loftus Audio.



Matt Thompson

Matt is a radio producer who has made over 270 programmes in 19 years. He began
his BBC career as a Production Trainee and worked on Woman's Hour, Face The Facts, Loose Ends, Science Now, All in the Mind and Night Waves before joining the Features Unit. Highlights of Matt's Radio 4 output include Touching the Elephant  (1997); Document: It is with Very Great Regret (1993), (named programme of the Year 1994 by The Independent); All Rubbed Out (1993 Sony silver award) The Indian Spice Trail (Winner Glenfiddich Food and Drink Award 1995), Extraneous Noises Off (2002 Sony Silver award).   As well as documentaries Matt now also produces drama for Radio 3 and Radio 4.  

Matt joined Loftus in 1998 and works from a historic coast guard Rocket House in North Berwick near Edinburgh, Scotland. He has a separate website with further details www.rockethouse.co.uk



Kim Normanton

Award-winning producer Kim Normanton joined the BBC's production trainee
scheme in 1989. She worked as a staff producer on BBC Radio 5 before going freelance. A gifted interviewer and compiler, she has worked on innumerable feature productions for Radio 4. Recent programmes with Elizabeth Burke include Clearing The House (2008) and Advice To The Living (2008). Collaborations with Nigel Acheson include Black, Muslim and Gay (2004), She's Alright, My Mum Is (Gold Prize, Third Coast Festival, Chicago 2004), It's All Down to Ben (Winner, best foreign programme, Premios Ondas, Barcelona 2004) and If the Slipper Fits(2004) a montage of Cinderella stories as told in different parts of the world.

With Matt Thompson she made the acclaimed feature Touching The Elephant, about blind people's perception of the world.

Kim likes to share with a wider audience the inspiring stories of people not often heard on radio.



Fernando Soares

Fernando is the civil partner of the founder of Loftus Productions, the late Nigel Acheson. He retains the rights to the Loftus Production Archive and any queries about the use of extracts of Loftus Programmes which were produced up to the beginning of 2008 should be sent to Fernando via the London office.



Some of our regular freelance contributors:


Elizabeth Burke

Elizabeth Burke has won numerous awards as a maker of features and documentaries. She began her career in publishing as a non-fiction editor, and then moved to the BBC, first as a producer and then as a Commissioning Editor for Radio 4, Editor of the Bristol Features Unit, and Editor of Weekly Arts Programmes. Since becoming freelance, she has made features and readings for Radio 4 and adapted books for Book of the Week and Book at Bedtime, and the Woman`s Hour serial. She has also produced several audio guides, and has worked for the Arts Council commissioning writers for a new website.



Joe Acheson

Composer Joe Acheson has provided original and unique music for a variety of Loftus programmes and projects. He has recently written and arranged music for Clearing the House and Postcards from White City (both 2008). Joe can also be seen performing around the U.K. in The Joe Acheson Quartet.

 


Libby Spurrier

Based in London, Libby Spurrier has vast experience as a radio researcher, producer
and abridger. She was the production manager for The Long March of Everyman, a mammoth BBC Radio 4 oral history series. For several years she worked as a researcher for BBC radio's Kaleidoscope and Bookshelf, then as a freelance on Woman’s Hour, compiling and presenting short features on subjects ranging from yew trees, through AIDS and family feuds, to the English sonnet. She now works as a researcher for Something Understood  as well as an abridger of books for BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week. For Loftus she also produced a half-hour montage feature The Theatre on the Cliff (2005), about Cornwall's dramatic cliff-top theatre and Rowena Cade - the woman who created it.



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