Steven Canny is a BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 Executive Producer

Executive producer

An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...

 in Radio Comedy

Radio comedy

Radio comedy, or comedic radio programming, is a radio broadcast that may involve sitcom elements, sketches and various types of comedy found on other media. It may also include more surreal or fantastic elements, as these can be conveyed on a small budget with just a few sound effects or some...

 and a writer of plays for the stage.

Canny began his career as a theatre director and writer. He was associate director for theatre company Complicite

Complicite

The British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. "The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting...

 from 1999-2004.

In 2009 he won the Sony Gold Drama Award for Mr Larkin's Awkward Day

Mr Larkin's Awkward Day

Mr Larkin's Awkward Day is a comedy radio play by Chris Harrald, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday, 29 April 2008 as the Afternoon Play, repeated on 25 January 2010. The producer was Steven Canny. It won the Gold Award for Drama at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2009...

a comedy radio play by Chris Harrald, broadcast on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 on Tuesday, 29 April 2008 as the Afternoon Play

Afternoon Play

The Afternoon Play is a long-running drama programming strand, broadcast every weekday at 2.15pm on BBC Radio 4. Each play lasts for 45 minutes, and roughly 190 new Afternoon Plays are broadcast each year....

. The Sony Gold citation said: "Assured direction, excellent performances and concise, skilfully-researched writing all made this deceptively straightforward story a masterpiece. Funny and touching by turns, a single, seemingly insignificant incident in the life of Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin

Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...

 brought out the humanity and humour of a poet whose personal life is not commonly associated with either."

In 2010 he won the Sony Gold Drama Award for People Snogging in Public Places by one of Britain's most interesting and distinctive writers Jack Thorne

Jack Thorne (writer)

Jack Thorne is an English screenwriter and playwright. Born in Bristol, England, he has written for radio, theatre and film, most notably on the TV shows Skins, Cast-offs, This Is England '86, The Fades and the feature film The Scouting Book For Boys...

. It was broadcast on Radio 3's The Wire. The Sony Gold citation said: "The judges described this as a wonderfully written and performed, highly original piece of radio drama in which the production perfectly mirrored the subject. Painful and funny, it was a bold exciting listen." The production was also shortlisted for the 2010 Prix Italia and the Tinniswood Award.

Canny was listed as the Executive Producer of the winners of the Gold, Silver and Bronze Sony Awards for Best Comedy in 2011.