WELCOME to Barn Productions

BARN PRODUCTIONS was established in 2006 by Barry Johnston and is a producer, abridger and packager of audiobooks for clients such as Hodder & Stoughton, Time Warner, Hachette Audio and Heavy Entertainment. It is based in a converted Victorian barn in Rutland.

BARRY JOHNSTON has abridged and produced more than eighty audiobooks such as the award-winning Johnners at the Beeb and An Evening with Johnners and the No.1 bestseller The Wit of Cricket. He is also the editor and author of seven books, including two critically-acclaimed biographies.

His latest book Round Mr Horne: The Life of Kenneth Horne was described as ‘sympathetic and well-researched . . . a rounded portrait’ by the Daily Telegraph and was published in paperback by Aurum Press in February 2007.

Barry’s previous book Johnners:  The Life of Brian – the definitive biography of his father, the late BBC cricket commentator Brian Johnston – was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2003. The Birmingham Post called it ‘a richly entertaining tribute … a fascinating insight.’

Barry Johnston was educated at Eton College.  After leaving school he became a songwriter for The Beatles’ Apple company, and then formed the vocal harmony group Design who appeared on over fifty TV shows in the 1970s including Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Benny Hill and The Two Ronnies. 

When the group ended after eight years, Barry became the personal manager of The New Seekers.  Then in 1981 he moved to Hollywood where he enrolled at the Los Angeles Broadcasting School.  He was signed up by KLOA-AM Radio in Ridgecrest, California, and presented the KLOA breakfast show for two years.

In 1985 Barry returned to England and became a presenter on BBC Radio  Sussex in Brighton. Over the next eight years he presented almost every programme on the station including the breakfast show Good Morning Sussex and the daily consumer programme Sussex Standard.  In 1990 he was invited to join the new BBC Radio 5 and was the presenter of the Sunday breakfast show Sunday Edition for 18 months.

In 1992 Barry formed BARRYMOUR PRODUCTIONS with ex-BBC producer Chris Seymour and began to make the move from broadcasting into production and writing.  Since then he has produced dozens of CDs and audio cassettes for major companies such as BBC, Hodder Headline and Macmillan, and has recorded Tony Benn, Dickie Bird, Henry Blofeld, Steve Coogan, Jack Dee, John Humphrys, Maureen Lipman, Sir Bobby Robson, Alan Titchmarsh and Shane Warne, among many others. In 2007 Barry took over BarryMour Productions and its catalogue is now administered by Barn Productions.

Barry’s first book An Evening with Johnners was published in 1996 and was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Two years later he edited Letters Home 1926-1945, a collection of letters written by his father, which was also a top ten bestseller.  More recently Barry has edited three successful anthologies for Virgin Books called A Delicious Slice of Johnners, Another Slice of Johnners and A Further Slice of Johnners.