If you would like any further details on any of the Voices 2023 writers, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the BBC Writersroom team: writersroom@bbc.co.uk

You can find out more about Voices and how to gain a place in the group on our Voices page.

The 2023 BBC Writersroom Voices

Sean Dalton is an award-winning screenwriter from Dublin. After completing a business degree, Sean co-wrote a few books and co-founded a publishing company. During the Covid pandemic, he switched his focus into screenwriting. Most recently, he completed an MA in Writing for Stage and Screen in UCD. While there, his short film screenplay PUB HEIST won 2023’s nationwide Student Media Award for “Film Script of the Year”. 
  
His first comedy pilot THE BARISTA reached the top 12% in the BBC Writersroom Open Call 2022, the second round of the Launch Pad Pilot Competition 2022, and the Quarter Final of the Creative Screenwriting Unique Voices Competition 2022. He now has several projects in the hands of development teams at some of the country’s top production companies. 

Amanda Doherty is an award-winning actor and theatre maker who makes politically engaged work. Areas of focus include working class experiences, women’s rights, and resilience.

Trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, her original work has toured across Europe and the USA including the Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Reykjavík Fringe Festivals. Her award-winning show INHERITANCE has also played at Theatre Row, 42nd Street, NYC. Her work EIST MORAN // CAN BEAGAN [Hear Much//Say Little] was selected for the Biennial of Emerging Artists, Bucharest. 

Acting credits include: The Fall (BBC), Seanchaí (BBC NI), Scúp (BBC NI) for television; Bird About Town, Faust, Girl in the Machine for theatre, and forthcoming feature film Pulcinella. Amanda is a company member of Eight Compositions on the lives of Ukrainians for a Western Audience with Archa Theatre, Prague, currently touring across Europe.  

PJ Hart is a writer and producer from North Belfast with credits in comedy, drama and children’s TV. Having studied film at Queen's University Belfast, PJ started contributing jokes to comedy panel shows and storylines to young adult drama while working in production and editorial roles. His first original script commission was the grounded sci-fi short KILL ME NOW, which was broadcast nationally on Irish TV. PJ has contributed material to award-winning sketch shows HEALTHCARE GUARANTEED and SOFT BORDER PATROL, while his original pilot EAT THE RICH played in competition at Seriesfest Colorado in 2020 and was broadcast globally as part of the Best of Seriesfest programme.  

Since becoming a father in 2017, PJ has developed a keen interest in children’s television and in 2020, he was commissioned to write 5 episodes of Channel 5’s MIMI’S WORLD by BAFTA-winning showrunner Mellie Buse.   

PJ writes class conscious, elevated genre with a distinctly Belfast voice. His original scripts have placed in national and international competitions and he has a number of TV and feature projects in development. 

Mike Hooley and Luke Wilson Hanley's creative partnership started a decade ago in a rock band, gigging in sweaty little bars to nobody. Broke and desperate, these gluttons for punishment ventured into screenwriting together in 2017 and accidentally discovered their real passion.   

Since then, they have signed a shopping agreement in the US for their feature INTERSTATE 25, and their horror film PÚCA and fantasy series JUDAS have both been Screencraft finalists.   

Their BBC Voices project THE NOBODIES forces a group of everyday people to face the question, "If you had the insider knowledge to make an illegal bet that could change your life… would you do it?" 

Mike works in casting. His credits include 'Derry Girls', 'Game of Thrones' and 'The Northman'. He has been a member of the Casting Directors Guild since 2021.  

Luke writes/directs brand campaigns for NI's largest independent creative agency. You'll unknowingly have seen his work for Lidl, Samaritans or Subway somewhere…

Byddi Lee is the author of REJUVENATION a speculative fiction trilogy, first published by Castrum Press in 2020 and has published flash fiction, short stories and her novel, MARCH TO NOVEMBER (2014).

Byddi co-founded and manages Flash Fiction Armagh, shortlisted as Best Regular Spoken Word Night in the Saboteur Awards and co-edited “The Bramley – An Anthology of Flash Fiction Armagh” Volumes 1 and 2. Byddi co-wrote the play IMPACT – ARMAGH’S TRAIN DISASTER which was staged for the anniversary of the tragedy in June 2019 in the Abbey Lane Theatre in Armagh and again in the Market Place Theatre, Armagh in October 2022 and November 2023. She co-wrote ZOOMEO AND JULIET and SOCIAL BUBBLE, TOIL & TROUBLE – live plays performed on Zoom by the Armagh Theatre during the lockdown.

Byddi is an Arts Council Northern Ireland supported writer and holds professional membership at the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin. 

Raised in one of Ireland's most disadvantaged areas, writer and actor Andrew Lynch channels his personal experiences into his storytelling, portraying characters often overlooked in mainstream narratives.

 Andrew's journey in writing began with his play, DEATH ROW COWBOY, which had successful runs in Dublin and London. Shifting his focus to film, he scripted a mini-documentary REBIRTH and a short film BRENDA. Both were aired on RTE and received numerous awards.  

Thanks to support from Screen Ireland, Andrew's debut feature film, FISHSCALE, was developed as part of the Spotlight Development Scheme. He also participated in the BFI Network x BAFTA Crew 2021/22 program, which supports the next generation of film and television talent. During his time in this program, Andrew wrote the Micro Short film MEAT MARKET. This project, created with fellow participants, received multiple awards at various film festivals worldwide.  

Presently, Andrew is part of the 2023 Voices cohort, expanding his understanding of writing for television. Additionally, he is in the early stages of development with Yellow Film & TV, the largest independent studio in the Nordics, to create an original TV series. 

Carley Magee is an emerging playwright, theatre maker, and screenwriter from Belfast. Her ethos  is to create  accessible,  diverse art that is wildly exciting, and provoking, which primarily revolves around horror, magic realism, and casting a female lens on narratives. Graduating from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s Drama Writing MA in 2022, she has gone on to be a recipient of Youth Theatre Ireland and Scripts Ireland’s George B. Miller Award, a recipient of Arts Council NI’s SIAP Award 2022-2023, and is currently part of Tinderbox’s Incubate programme for making new work. Youth Theatre Ireland will be producing her script SEABORNE in November 2023.  

 

Her work has been longlisted for the RSC’s 37 Plays, chosen for Prime Cut’s VERGE Season 3, and selected for the London arts festival -VAULT, “A Pinch of Vault” rehearsed readings (June 2023). Her script HAND OF GOD will have a rehearsed reading in the Naughton Studio of the Lyric Theatre Belfast in July. Carley has written numerous short films, having worked with Cinemagic and Good Relations projects to write and script edit for cross-community youth groups taking part in film-making.

Anna is a multi-disciplinary Irish artist who has performed their work internationally. Since finishing their undergrad degree in theatre and English in 2021, Anna has staged a reading of their dystopian play EXIT MUSIC (FOR OUR WORLD) as part of Galway Theatre Festival, worked on various projects with Dublin Fringe Festival and Barnstorm Theatre, and achieved a distinction in Film in Limerick’s diploma in creative producing for film.   

Their current passion projects include: re-drafting their first feature-film script under the mentorship of Peter McKenna; writing the queer-coded update of GIRLS set in Galway instead of New York; manifesting funding for their first short film and; developing a site-specific promenade piece in their hometown of Kilkenny. Through the Voices programme, Anna has been working on a folk-horror pilot script re-imagining modern-day Ireland as a pagan society. You can find out more about Anna at annaecd.com 

Rioghnach Ní Ghrioghair is an award-winning writer, director and producer from Dublin, Ireland. 

Based between Ireland and Germany, she is also the founder of Curveball Media LTD and has an experienced career in film and TV development, having been a development executive for leading Irish companies Blinder Films and Samson Films. 

Winner of the 2022 Aer Lingus Discovery Award, Rioghnach’s new award-winning horror short film, DON’T GO WHERE I CAN’T FIND YOU, was selected for SXSW 2022.  

She is also the writer and director of BREAK US, which went to over 30 festivals internationally including Fantasia Film Festival. She produced and directed DO I KNOW YOU? and wrote and directed NEON. All three films were supported by Screen Ireland. 

In summer 2022, Rioghnach wrote and directed BALOR HALL, a half hour whodunnit TV film commissioned by RTE under their Storyland Scheme. 

She is one of Screen International's Rising Stars 2023. 

Mark Noonan is a writer and director from the midlands of Ireland. His debut feature film YOU’RE UGLY TOO premiered at the 65th Berlinale and was nominated for a European Film Academy award, screened at over a hundred film festivals and won the DGA Finder's Series in Los Angeles, Best Screenplay Awards in Tokyo and Athens, Best Feature Screenplay from the Writer’s Guild of Ireland, Best Debut Feature at the Galway Film Festival and Best Breakthrough Feature at the Boston IFF. 

He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and Toronto Film Festival Talent Lab, and been awarded writing fellowships from the Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris, the NIPKOW/Berlinale Programm in Berlin, and Pustnik Screenwriters residency in Romania. 

His first original TV pilot WHEN THEY ALL VANISH has been optioned and earned him a place on BBC Writersroom Belfast Voices. He has a number of TV and film projects in active development.

Cathriona Slammon is an Irish writer/director from the West of Ireland. With a particular interest in family dysfunction, emotional complexity, repressed memories and childhood trauma, Cathriona typically writes in the vein of psychological drama, horror and the surreal. After completing a Master's Degree in Film Direction, she went on to direct two award-winning no-budget shorts, as well as a third short which was funded by Creative Ireland, currently in post-production.    

In 2022, her feature script, WHAT LITTLE GIRLS ARE MADE OF, was awarded a place on the Ardán/BAI Script Mentorship Scheme. More recently, her short film projects have been shortlisted for RTE Storyland and Virgin Media Discovers. She is currently working on her second feature script, a psychological horror/drama, as well as a TV Pilot – EATER - a tense drama set against the backdrop of female obesity and food fetishes. Cathriona is currently seeking representation. 

It’s an immense pleasure to introduce you to our incredible Voices 2022 cohort. This year we have worked with 69 talented emerging writers from across the UK as they hone their craft skills and industry knowledge and apply their learning and creativity to the creation of treatment documents for new and original series ideas.

Between March and June this year the writers have participated in a range of craft workshops, expert masterclasses and panels with writers including Alice Seabright, Tony Schumacher, Daragh Carville and Lisa Holdsworth, plus industry talks from agents, producers and key industry organisations such as BAFTA Albert and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. The Voices have also been working collaboratively in their local groups to define and develop their original ideas with the guidance and editorial support of the BBC Writersroom team.

We’ve had a blast working with and getting to know these talented early career writers and we’re delighted to introduce them all to you. We'll be announcing one group a day this week (Belfast, London, Northern, Scottish, Welsh).

We are still in the process of deciding which writers will take part in the Voices development groups for 2023 following our Open Call script submission window which closed in January this year.

Jess Loveland, Head of New Writing, BBC Writersroom and BBC Drama

It has been an absolute blast working with this incredibly talented group of writers and it has been so exciting to see their ideas develop and evolve over the course of the programme. They’ve been an incredibly creative, enthusiastic, inspiring and supportive group and we can’t wait to see what our brilliant Belfast Voices do next!

Heather Larmour, Assistant Commissioner for Northern Ireland, BBC Writersroom & BBC Drama

Tom Berkeley and Ross White began working as a writing partnership in 2019. Their debut short film ‘Roy’, which the pair co-wrote and directed, played in competition at 14 Oscar-qualifying film festivals, before going on to be one of ten films longlisted for Best British Short at the 75th BAFTA Awards. ​

Their second short, the rural black comedy ‘An Irish Goodbye’, was filmed in Northern Ireland in Spring 2021 before going on to premiere at the Oscar®, BAFTA and IFTA qualifying Leeds International Film Festival. Currently on festival release, ‘An Irish Goodbye’ has recently won the European Audience Award at the Academy Award® qualifying Leuven International Film Festival in Belgium, the inaugural Norman Houston Award at the Capital Irish Film Festival in Washington D.C., and the Festival Award at Chicago Irish Film Festival. ​

The duo are currently in pre-production on a third short film whilst also developing a number of television and feature film projects.​

Ash Corristine

With screenwriting training from UCLA, Ash Corristine’s work has been selected and showcased at the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum twice. Her TV and feature scripts have won a number of awards including Table Ready, My Screenplay and Shore Scripts. In 2020, her play ‘David Duchovny’s Sperm’ was chosen for the New Irish Playbook and she made the interview stage of BBC Dramaroom. In 2021 her short script ‘Shadow’ won funding from Screen Ireland and her play ‘Savages’ was selected by Prime productions for Verge Season 2. She has a feature film in production with Screen Ireland, Northern Ireland Screen and Next Wednesday Films. She lives in Spanish Point with her partner and son.​

Gina Donnelly and Seón Simpson

SkelpieLimmer (Misbehaving Child) is a writing partnership featuring Seón Simpson and Gina Donnelly dedicated to making uncensored theatre that provokes change and starts conversations. They believe that “serious theatre doesn’t have to feel serious” and that is why they are committed to discussing taboo subjects in a fun and entertaining way. They premiered their partnership at Dublin Fringe Festival 2019 with the award winning ‘Two Fingers Up’. They have gone on to become resident Hatch & Scratch Artists at The MAC, Belfast for 2020/21 and are currently developing new piece ‘Crushed’ under the Abbey Theatre & Dublin Fringe Festival Creative Thinking Award, to premiere early 2023. Their hit show ‘Two Fingers Up’ is featured in Summerhall at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022 as part of the Culture Ireland showcase​.

Oliver Doone is a playwright from the North Coast of Ireland, who now lives in Belfast. After deciding writing was a pipe-dream, he abandoned his ambitions to go and study something he didn’t want to study, travel somewhere he didn’t want to travel, and work as something he didn’t want to work as. But no matter what he did, the spectre of writing always haunted him, and he eventually capitulated to his dream and started writing again. ​​

His first play ‘The Free State of ‘Rathlin’ was shortlisted by Druid Theatre Company, his second play ‘A Matter Of Course’, is being performed by Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass at Latitude Fest in July. Oliver recently entered the realm of television writing, and subsequently reached the interview stage for BBC Dramaroom 2018 & 2020. He has several writing credits for BBC NI comedy ‘Soft Border Patrol’. In 2020, Oliver set up Feckless Theatre Company, and will be staging excerpts from his newest play ‘Murder Hole Beach’ in Belfast in August. His short film ‘Fable of a Ditherer’ will hit the Irish film circuit later this year. ​

Tom Floyd grew up on the north coast of Northern Ireland, a landscape and community to which he is constantly drawn back in his writing. He is a graduate of the Screenwriting MA at the London Film School. His background is in writing films, with numerous short credits over the years, and his most recent feature script in development with TW Films -  ‘Heather’ - a drama about a woman nursing her dying mother while managing her own condition of lycanthropy. At the start of 2020, Tom completed the NI Screen-funded short ‘Caroline’ with Village Films, which he directed from his own script. His work exists at the intersection between a naturalism of the everyday and the excitement of genre conventions. Not all his projects are single word titles of a woman’s name however. Increasingly interested in the scope offered by TV miniseries as a broader form for storytelling, Tom is developing, amongst other ideas, a four-part thriller about the mental health pressures faced by a man who works for the police, on the task force for a serial acid attacker investigation in contemporary Belfast. Its working title is ‘Policeman’.​

Dan Gordon is a writer, actor, and director. He has presented and co-authored many tv and radio documentaries, has a number of produced stage plays to his credit and is a weekly columnist for the Sunday Life Newspaper since 2009. He has written a series of published plays for children on Shipbuilding, Linen, Blitz, Education, Agriculture and Titanic. His work has been performed across the UK and Ireland in Belfast, Dublin, London, Edinburgh, Mold and New York. He won the BBC NI inaugural Radio Drama playwriting competition and has had a short story broadcast on Radio 4. He regularly writes for the public and corporate sectors recently completing work for Belfast Harbour Commission (175 Anniversary), Belfast City Council (Commemoration), Bushmills Whiskey (Tasting Notes), Titanic Visitor Attraction (Chartered Association of Business Schools) and W5 Science & Discovery Centre Belfast (Belfast Blitz). He has written and performed radio comedy for BBC Radio Ulster and is a regular contributor to news and current affairs programmes. ​

Aidan Largey is the Writer/Director of numerous award winning short films, with commissioned work for BBC, BBC3 and RTE. He created the crime series ‘Farr’ which debuted at Number 1 on the RTE Player. It was also critically successful, winning Best Drama from ITVFest and Best Original Pilot and Best Director at Series Fest and is now in development as a long form series.

Aidan then directed new episodes of ‘The Break’ series ‘Last Night In Belfast’ and ‘Binbagged’ (Nominee for Best Short at Celtic Media Festival) for BBC3 as well as ‘Eat The Rich’ for RTE Storyland. He was selected for the prestigious David Puttnam Scholarship and recently completed post-production on ‘Human Error, an ambitious BFI sci-fi short and directed 20 episodes of the first series of Channel 5’s new kids’ drama ‘Mimi’s World’. 

He is currently in development with Causeway Pictures and Northern Ireland Screen on debut feature thriller ‘Monsters(s)’ with Heather Basten casting (Dashcam/Blumhouse Production, Jungle/Amazon Studios, Dreaming Whilst Black/BBC3). ‘Monsters(s)’ was an international screenplay finalist including Austin Film Festival, PAGE International, Screencraft Fellowship and Austin Film Festival. Aidan is currently directing episodes of a YA Sci Fi Drama series for Zodiak.​

Nicky Larkin is an incurable introvert who feels a bit too comfortable writing about himself in the third person. He's a writer/director and documentary filmmaker from Offaly, living in Belfast.​

Excused from the obligations of human interaction during the first lockdown, he wrote the comedy short ‘Gone Viral’ about a middle-aged man’s bleak quest for social media stardom during the Covid pandemic. Funded by Northern Ireland Screen and produced by Green Dragon Media, ‘Gone Viral’ was filmed during a brief window between lockdowns, and went on to win 'Best UK Short' at the North London Comedy Festival, and 'Best Comedy' at the Oxford International Short Film Festival.​

His feature-length screenplay 'The Screamers' is currently in development as part of the Northern Ireland Screen New Writer Focus, the first draft of which he also wrote during the lockdown - an incredibly productive time that as an incurable introvert he sometimes pines for, but is afraid to admit that publicly.​

Nell Mercier is a comedy writer and improviser from Connemara. She is a resident performer at the alternative comedy company ‘Mob Theatre Dublin’, where she performs with her house team ‘Sneak Preview’. She also writes and performs with her improv group ‘Pseudo Queens’. Nell’s first script was shortlisted for the BBC Comedy Writer’s room in 2020, starting her screenwriting career. She has a playful approach to any theme she writes about but gets a great kick out of writing about wild Irish women and teenage girls.​

Katie Bridget Murphy is a writer, filmmaker & actor from Belfast. She is also a law & politics graduate with a background in radio production, having produced several shows for local radio station, Blast106.4fm, including music & politics/current affairs. ​

After completing her law degree, Katie studied acting & filmmaking in London at the ‘International School of Screen Acting’ in East London at the Three Mills Studios and at the ‘Margie Haber’s Studio’ in LA where she received a scholarship to study. In 2018-2019, she was offered a place on Northern Ireland Screen’s ‘New Shorts Focus’ writing scheme and subsequently wrote & directed her first funded short film ‘Miss & Missus’ produced by Farset Films, Northern Ireland Screen & BFI Network. ​

She has most recently finished writing & directing her NI Screen funded film ‘Fourth’ and her Arts Council funded film ‘Silver’. Her poetry has recently been included in CAP’s newest ‘Poetry in Motion’ anthology ‘Threshold’ 2021-2022.

Mark Kavanagh is a graduate from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) and has worked as an actor in the UK and Ireland. Mark has always written extensively and for the theatre wrote/directed ‘Mad North Northwest’, ‘Cold Snap’, ‘Wake’, ‘A Noose for Hanratty’, and ‘Ratchet’. Mark moved back to Northern Ireland in 2019 and his new play ‘The wife and me…and my sex doll Ruby’, premiered in Belfast in 2022. Mark has recently been commissioned by the BBC and worked on ‘The Break’ and ‘Soft Border Patrol’. ​

Eimear Morgan is a screen writer from Newry. She came to the attention of the BBC by applying to multiple writing opportunities through their BBC Writersroom page. To date she has been short listed for the BBC The Biggest Weekend comedy monologues May 2018, short listed for Sideline Production’s comedy showhouse radio play Oct 2019, long listed for BBC Zodiak Kid’s Writers Award Scheme Dec 2019, long listed for BBC iPlayer comedy shorts March 2020 and long listed for 33Films Short Film call April 2021.​

Eimear wrote her first feature, ‘Faces In the Grain’ during the 2020 lockdown. With a love for dark comedy, she finds writing an excellent form of therapy for grief. After ten years working in retail, she is more than ready to try and carve out a career as a writer. ​

Karen Quinn is an award winning writer and educator based in Donegal. She was longlisted for the Mammoth Screen TV Writer’s Award 2021, and twice shortlisted for the Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting award run by the International Emmy Committee, in both 2014 and 2015. She was also the winner and recipient of the Northern Ireland Comedy Writers programme in 2016, organised by Grand Scheme Media, and a shortlisted writer and director for Jameson First Shot 2016. She has toured her writing both nationally and internationally. She is also a published children’s writer, with her work broadcast on television and published in short story collections. At the moment, her main focus of creative work is on young women’s mental health.​

Matt Whitby and Claire Whyte’s first screenplay ‘Living with Abaddon’ was shortlisted for interview by the BBC Writersroom Open Call 2021. They subsequently joined the BBC Writersroom Belfast Voices programme 2022,​ where they developed ‘Charitable Causes’, as well as an anthology series ‘Dog Walkers’ – both with a dark comedy slant.​

In 1997 Matt and Claire moved from the UK Midlands to Ireland and retain a shared connection to their roots and the sharp tongues they grew up around. After thirty years of friendship, they formally began writing collaboratively as​ Whitby and Whyte.​

Determined and hardworking, Whitby and Whyte write surreal stories with darkly comic undertones and authentic, multi-layered characters. These two have an appetite for telling original and funny stories - that bite!     ​

The Award was run by Element Pictures (Normal People, Conversations with Friends, The Favourite) in partnership with BBC Writersroom and BBC Drama Commissioning to uncover stories that haven’t yet been told about Northern Ireland: the emotionally powerful, thought-provoking, inspiring, celebratory, relevant or surprising narratives that reflect the variety and diversity of life in Northern Ireland today – and can also speak to a global audience.

Element Pictures commented:

"Element Pictures were thrilled to partner with BBC Writersroom and BBC Drama Commissioning for this exciting initiative. The standard of work was extremely high and proved what we always knew- that Northern Ireland is brimming with distinctive and exciting writing talent. This made the decision almost impossible, but Matt’s final pitch felt fresh and colourful, and his characters leapt off the page from the outset. We can’t wait to get started."

BBC Writersroom said:

“It’s been incredibly exciting to see such a brilliant range of inspiring ideas and stories reflecting and commenting on life in contemporary Northern Ireland. The BBC Writersroom team have been fortunate to work with Matthew McDevitt across both our Belfast Voices and Drama Room programmes and are delighted to see his success in what was an extremely competitive process.”

Matthew McDevitt said:

"It's an absolute privilege to get to work on a project with Element, who've made some of my favourite Films and Television of recent years. I can't wait to get started."

Matthew McDevitt is a Derry based native who participated in the BBC Writersroom’s 2020 Drama Room scheme. His first BBC commission was a radio comedy-drama, Lock In, starring Conleth Hill, which was broadcast on Radio Ulster and Radio Scotland in 2018. Matthew has also contributed material to all three seasons of Soft Border Patrol, on BBC NI.

Matthew was previously selected for the Belfast Voices writer development scheme.

His other works include, The Greasy Apple, a music mockumentary for Resonance FM; the script for the 3D Installation Talking Heads - as part of his hometown's acclaimed Halloween Festival; and the satirical game-show, Let's Get Quizzical which featured in Bob Slayer's, 'Heroes of the Fringe' and Belfast Comedy Festival 2016 and 2017.

His short story Handy Number (listen on BBC Sounds) was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2021 and performed by Tara Lynne O’Neill. Matthew has recently been commissioned for a half hour comedy pilot entitled Softboiled. 

Matthew is represented by Stevie Grace Jackson at Independent Talent. 

Read Matthew McDevitt's recent guest blog post for BBC Writersroom, WRITING TODAY - Space to Write

View the Shortlist for the Element Pictures NI Writers Award

View the Longlist for the Element Pictures NI Writers Award

If you would like further information about any of the writers, please feel free to contact writersroom@bbc.co.uk or their agent.

Today sees the launch on BBC iPlayer of Lady Shorts, four comedy short films written by some of Northern Ireland’s most exciting up-and-coming women writers – Diona Doherty, Sarah Gordon, Susannah McKenna and Emma Moran. Several of the writers had previously been members of our Belfast Voices and Comedy Room writer development groups and Sarah has gone onto a place in our current Drama Room Group, and it is particularly satisfying to see them gain broadcast credits.

Watch Lady Shorts: Fresh

Each film is distinct, reflecting the unique nature of each writer’s voice: across the four pieces we encounter poignance, sadness, suspense, affection as well as laugh-out-loud joy. But in each piece the writer displays a unique, authentic view of today’s society and I feel privileged that we were able to work with these brilliantly talented writers, and to make their work come to life.

Watch Lady Shorts: Sorta Stepmum

This series of shorts is the result of a collaboration between BBC Writersroom and BBC Northern Ireland’s Learning Department – as so often happens in the BBC Writersroom, we were able to combine our skills with those of another BBC department to create something exciting and new. Back in the early days of the pandemic, we teamed up with BBC NI’s Gareth Hawthorne and David Monahan to develop several scripts with a view to making some of them for BBC iPlayer. After some workshops, a couple of pitch sessions and a lot of hard work from our amazing writers, we commissioned several scripts with a view to taking three of these into production.

Watch Lady Shorts: Shopped

As it happens, the scripts were so good that four of them were produced in the end (thank you to our script editor, the amazing Gemma Arrowsmith, as well as very our own Hamish Wright & Anna Hinds for their parts in making that happen). But getting them made was no easy feat – Covid was doing its worst and – along with the rest of the UK television industry – we had to quickly find ways to make programmes in a safe, healthy and socially-distanced manner. That task fell to our tireless producer, Chris Martin from Belfast-based Indie Movie Company and director Jonathan Kesselman. 

Watch Lady Shorts: The Catholic Marriage Bureau

Thank you again to our writers and to our former NI Development Producer Keith Martin for kicking the whole thing off at the very beginning!

Watch all four Lady Shorts now on BBC iPlayer

What’s your favourite montage of a writer at their desk overcoming writer’s block and turning out pages? Nic Cage (as Charlie Kaufman) in Adaptation thoughtfully debating the pros/cons of coffee and a muffin as instigator for writing or reward for writing. Barton Fink slowly losing his mind in, well Barton Fink. Murder She Wrote’s Jessica Fletcher gleefully typing away, remorselessly turning her hometown’s most recent murder into her next bestseller. Part of you is saying No Jessica, the body is still warm - it’s not right! Another part of you grudgingly admires, she’ll have a chapter done by lunch at that rate.

It’s a trope and not even a good one. The writer rubs their face, mutters different opening lines to themselves, paper is rolled up and thrown into an already overflowing bin. What these scenes generally have in common is that they are set in large well lit rooms, with a mahogany desk, bookshelves everywhere. Autumnal light spills in the bay window. These writers also have a sickeningly endless amount of time to complete their magnum opus. The demands of rent, social obligations and time lost to their own inherent vices do not enter the story logic. Mahogany desk, autumnal light…this is not what my writing space looks like. I doubt yours does either.

I’m a glutton for writer interviews. Process, regime, technique. Apparently Haruki Murakami commits to writing a novel with the intensity of an ultra marathon runner. Life is reduced to a cycle of writing/exercise/sleep until the work is done. It’s genuinely impressive. However my own regime is more akin to a malfunctioning couch to 5k app, where life is reduced to an endless cycle of writing/job 1/family commitments/job 2/relationship maintenance/dog walking/gentle weeping and not enough sleep.

Some writers set internet restriction apps, to prevent them from doom scrolling the news when they should be following their muse. Maybe I was lucky that the first desk where I ever took my own writing seriously was where the only thing that could distract me was the Rorschach test nature of the rising damp in the wall. Hmm, that mould looks a bit like Vin Diesel - maybe this script needs a car chase?

My problems were never about distractions when I got to the desk (in reality a breakfast bar in a shared house) but getting to the desk at all. Good news - I now have a desk where I don’t have to scrape my housemates' encrusted cornflakes off before I start. Plot twist - that alone has not improved my writing.

My first ever submission to a BBC Writersroom open call was a TV pilot that I wrote in 6 woozy nights after I clocked off from my bar job. To call it a first draft would likely see first drafts everywhere, unionise and counterclaim. It was gibberish. I was so tired/elated when I finished it, I decided at the last minute to change the title to size 45 IMPACT FONT so it would really land home with its first reader what a seminal work they held in their hands. Unsurprisingly I did not make any form of long, short or middling list. More surprising was that I did not end up on any government watch lists (that I know of). Whatever it was (it shall remain nameless) it was closer to Outsider art than Spec script. But I had finished something.

And then I started thinking about how it might be much less demented to think ahead with realistic specific goals, rather than put in for each approaching deadline, like a stray dog running after every passing car, barking wildly at the tail lights. And so work life/writerly aspirational life imbalance properly began, as I know it has for many others. My partner is likewise blessed/cursed with the compulsion to write. Like me, works in the hours and minutes that can be poached from doing all the things you do to keep the wolf from the door. Or at least not fully inside the house. We daydream about having enough time to really write. These musings tend to inevitably (and unimaginatively) drift towards reveries about rural cottages, near a flowing river. Well-lit rooms, mahogany desks and bookshelves tend to feature heavily ... alas our reality is much closer to a poorly furnished Escape Room during the cleaner’s week off.

But yet we both still (strive to) write for TV. Not always when we want. Rarely where we want to. Sometimes even (oh the inhumanity! oh the irony!) at the cost of actually watching TV. I now find myself unable to watch The Shining. Not because it terrifies me. It doesn’t anymore. Now I can only feel anger at Jack Torrance not using his boundless freedom to write a bit more efficiently (and ideally less murderously). No talking to the ghosts until you hit your word count, Jack, I’m thinking. I’ll let you into room 237 Mr Torrance, my brain reasons, when I see chapter two!

I try not to let the fantasy of endless writing time become my own Overlook Hotel. I accept the reality that I have to write when and where I can. And try not to find myself reading listicles at 4am about which famous writers only wrote standing up/sitting down/after a long walk/or in a bath eating apples. Would having a writing space torn from the pages of a broadsheet’s Sunday supplement lifestyle section be nice? I’m going to guess yes. Would having what felt like enough time to write, help? Almost certainly. Is breaking into professional writing a level playing field? Not even close.

But most open calls worth entering (like BBC Writersroom) are read blind. Your submission’s first reader won’t know (or care) if you wrote it in a townhouse or a treehouse. Under the warm hue of autumnal light or the dull flickering of a broken streetlight. The only thing they’ll care about, is the only thing you’ll have any control over - do they want to keep reading? BBC Writersroom schemes helped me stop seeing writing as a montage where inspiration strikes.

My first ever script editor Hamish taught me to fight for every percent your script can improve. It’s not very cinematic but it works. Recently, for the first time in my life I now have both a desk of my own and enough time to focus solely on writing (for a month or two anyway). I suppose it’s time to find out if I’m Jack Torrance or Jessica Fletcher.

I really hope it’s the latter.

 

Emmet Colton

Emmet is a graduate of the Queen's University Belfast Film Studies course and has worked on drama productions such as Game of Thrones and Line of Duty as part of the video department. He has written for BBC Radio Ulster and BBC NI's Soft Border Patrol (which he was also worked as a camera operator). In 2019 he wrote and directed comedy short Open-Mic as part of Channel 4's Random Acts series. Emmet has shot stand-up comedy, written sketches for comedians throughout Northern Ireland and has just completed a short film called Give Me A Sign about roadside Christian evangelism. He is currently employed at Triplevision Productions, working mostly within documentary film.

 

Lucretia Devlin

Lucretia is an award winning writer from Northern Ireland. After graduating from Queen's University with a Film Studies degree, she spent the next 10 years cutting her teeth in the film and television industry, working on projects such as Game of Thrones, The Mummy and Thor: The Dark World, for high profile writers such as David Benioff, D.B Weiss, Jane Goldman and Craig Pearce. Lucretia currently resides in Belfast and is developing a diverse slate of television drama and feature film content. A history nerd, she's passionate about telling stories based on true events and complex characters.

 

Noel McCann

Noel is a screenwriter from North Antrim who has been writing for four years. He reached the interview stage for Script Room Drama 2019 and his drama Sleeping With My Shoes On was optioned by Element pictures. More recently, Element have commissioned a treatment for his Basque political thriller Hendaye. He has just finished writing his first feature Discoface, which is set in the Glens of Antrim. 

Repped by: Jessica Cooper, Curtis Brown

 

Leo McGann

Leo is a playwright and screenwriter from Belfast. He began writing with Tinderbox Theatre Company as part of their Fireworks programme and was part of the Royal Court’s Young Writers and Studio groups in London. He graduated from Boston University with an MFA in Playwriting and his play The Honey Trap was produced at Boston Playwrights Theatre in 2017. He was awarded the National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Award in 2016 and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in 2018. He was a nominee for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, and received a 2017-2018 BAFTA Los Angeles Scholarship. While in LA he worked in feature film development for the Kennedy/Marshall Company in Santa Monica. His plays have been performed in Belfast, Boston, Atlanta, Georgia, Omaha, Nebraska, and Washington DC. He has taught creative writing at Boston University.

 

Catherine McGrotty

Currently employed as a Children’s Librarian in Derry, Catherine has always been passionate about creating stories for children and young people. In 2014 she was trainee script editor on Puffin Rock series two. During 2020, she was selected by CBBC and Illuminated films as one of ten emerging writers, given the opportunity to write for Rocket Robbins – a new CBBC animation for children. Since joining the Belfast Voices group she has also written for ‘Quick Comedy’ a new sketch show due for broadcast on Radio Ulster this summer.

 

Mark McNally

Mark is a screenwriter based in Belfast, who graduated from Queen’s University with a Degree First in Film Studies. His feature screenplay In the Land of Saints and Sinners secured him a spot on N.I Screen’s New Writer Focus 2016/17 programme. It’s currently in-active development at Prodigal Films, with writer/director Terry Loane & actor/producer Geraldine Hughes. In 2020, he was a recipient of the Puttnam Scholarship by Future Screens NI. He co-wrote the dialogue for Merge Games’ Buildings Have Feelings Too, a video game released in April 2021. He has also written biographical literature, TV and film treatments for various production companies, including Fired Up Films and StarMan Productions. Last year he collaborated with both Creative Ireland & Flocking Arts, introducing young people to the world of writing and filmmaking. Additionally, Mark has practical, on-set experience, having worked as trainee Grip on BBC’s Doing Money, Derry Girls season two and the music video Being Honest for Post Party.

 

John Mulkeen

John is a writer and actor from Derry. He studied English Literature as a mature student at Ulster University and graduated in 2018. His short script Dopey was developed with BBC Writersroom and he is currently a part of the BBC Belfast Voices group 2020. His short story Oh Bend Your Backs! placed 2nd in the 2020 Fish Publishing short story competition and can be found in the Fish Anthology 2020. His work has been highly commended in the An Post Short Story award 2020 and longlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth Prize.

 

Neil Sharpson

Neil studied in University College Dublin where he was a member of UCD Dramsoc and honed his skills as a writer, winning the Dramsoc Award for Best Original Script and the Dramsoc Award for Outstanding Contribution to Original Writing. He is a graduate of the Abbey Theatre’s New Playwright’s Programme and has been commissioned by the Abbey twice. He was also shortlisted for the Maguire International Playwrighting Award in 2009. He writes for the Irish superhero comic, League of Volunteers and is the founder of the comedy review blog, Unshaved Mouse. His first novel, When the Sparrow Falls will be published by Tor/Macmillan in June 2021, with his second novel following in Summer 2022.

Repped by: Geoff Morley, United Talent Agency

 

Tara West

Tara West won an RTÉ Storyland commission for her short drama The Good Christian Women’s Writing Group, for which she was nominated for the Edinburgh TV Festival’s Debut Writer Award. She was a finalist in the LA-based TV writing competition Scriptapalooza for her spec script for US series Supernatural. Most recently, Tara worked on NI Screen-funded development for Belfast-based production companies Poli Productions and Afro-Mic, and received a short story commission from BBC Radio 4. She is the author of novels Fodder and Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan, has short stories published in The Glass Shore and Female Lines, and her memoir of depression and recovery The Upside of Down was published in 2020. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and in a previous life, she was an award-winning advertising copywriter. Her hobbies include staring out the window and eating crisps.

 

Kat Woods

Kat Woods is a writer and director from Co. Fermanagh. Published with Samuel French. Kat is an Associate Artist at The Pleasance Theatre and Omnibus Theatre London. She is a Royal Court/Kudos TV Writers Group alumnus. Her work has been performed across the UK, Ireland, Finland and the USA. Awards include Peggy Ramsey Award, the Royal Literary Fund, The Stage Award for Excellence and The Fringe Review Award for Outstanding Theatre. Kat is currently under commission with the MAC, Tinderbox Theatre, Abbey Theatre and in development with Out of Orbit productions with her first TV series.

We are pleased to announce the writers selected for the inaugural Belfast Voices development groups for Comedy and Drama. Sixteen writers were selected from the best emerging talent in Northern Ireland, with the majority of writers coming from a theatre background.

As part of our overall strategy to help nurture local talent, this programme will help some of our most innovative and exciting voices from theatre bridge the gap to writing for television and radio.

Over the next six months these writers will participate in workshops and training on writing for digital, radio and TV, as well as receive support with writing their first television spec script from Keith Martin and Vanessa Haynes.

Vanessa has working in script development for some of the most influential production companies in the UK including Kudos Film and TV, Baby Cow Productions, CPL (formerly Celador) and Talkback Thames. She has developed, produced and edited projects for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Comedy Central, BBC NI, TG4 and CBBC.

Comedy Group:

Seamus Collins
Seamus' play Away with the Fairies was staged as part of the Lyric Theatre's New Playwrights Programme in October 2017 and then in New York at the 1st Irish Festival in January 2018. He is currently attached to The Lyric as part of Fishamble's 'A Play for Ireland' scheme. At the end of May 2018, his bilingual play Monsieur Somebody was performed in Paris by Theatraverse. It also travelled to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. He previously worked with the BBC on the Writersroom 10 scheme.

Patrick Dunlea
Patrick has contributed to BBC online comedy and had work performed at the Belfast Media Festival, Brian Friel Theatre (Belfast), Soho Theatre (London), Lost Theatre (London) and Brixton Market (London). His play The Dinner Party was selected to represent Northern Ireland at the 2018 View From Here Festival at Theatre 503 London. He is a graduate of writing programmes at Queen’s University Belfast and Goldsmiths College London.

Mary Flanigan
Mary Flanigan is a stand-up comedian and writer. Her comedy short Worst Halloween Ever was part of the Writersroom’s Fright Shorts series which was released on BBC iPlayer. Her work also featured in the Digital Cities Comedy Showcase at the Belfast Media Festival 2017.
Mary has performed across the UK and Ireland, including supporting Colin Murphy on tour and appearances in the Belfast Comedy Festival, the Vodafone Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe with her show Mary Flanigan is a Pisces, Obviously.
Mary was a semi-finalist in the Funny Women 2016 competition. She has performed and written for BBC Radio Ulster and is also a regular contributor to BBC NI Digital Tight Shorts.

Oisin Kearney
Oisín's background is in the study of Politics, and in directing documentaries and plays. Oisín adapted Willy Russell's Educating Rita for the Lyric stage in Belfast, and worked as writer on a community outreach project with Prime Cut Producitons. He co-wrote My Left Nut which has just completed its Irish tour and was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018. Oisín has begun his second play with writing partner Michael Patrick, as part of the 'A Play For Ireland' programme run by Fishamble: The New Play Company.

Dave Kinghan
Dave Kinghan has written for screen and stage. His work includes Costume Drama, one of six Fright Shorts that were available on BBC iPlayer in 2017; Gordon Osràm’s Funeral, an immersive theatre piece performed in Belfast and Dublin in 2016; DEATH (on a shoestring), a musical comedy performed at the Belfast Festival at Queen’s in 2012; and episodes of Joe & Jack, an animated series for pre-schoolers which was broadcast in Ireland, the UK and internationally.

Matthew McDevitt
Matthew Mc Devitt is the creator of Let's Get Quizzical, a comedy gameshow which performed at the 2016 Edinburgh "Heroes of the Fringe" Festival and Belfast Comedy Festival 2016 and 2017. He has contributed to the hit Northern Irish comedy Soft Border Patrol and his radio comedy Lock In, starring Conleth Hill, pilots this August on Radio Ulster.

Susannah McKenna
After graduating from Queen’s University Belfast with an MA in Creative Writing, Susannah wrote her first play The Wanderer From Drumagurn as part of Tinderbox Theatre Company’s Fireworks Young Writer’s Programme, as well as writing several Outreach projects. She won a commission from Aisling Ghéar Theatre Company for one woman play Alice Milligan – A Girl of Genius which toured New York as part of CualaNYC (NYC’s Irish Cultural Festival) before touring Ireland. Her two person sketch show That’s You Now If You Wanna Take Your Wee Card Out was first performed at the Belfast Comedy Festival 2016 and then a full run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017. Sketches from the show were also commissioned for BBC NI’s Late Licence series 2 by Moondog Productions. Susannah wrote the character of Penny for BBC NI’s Soft Border Patrol, who appeared in every episode of series 1.

Andrew Parkhill
Andrew has written for Soft Border Patrol, Future News and The Ten Commandments on BBCNI, and wrote and directed the short films Friggers and the award-winning I'll Be Here All Night. His sitcom scripts West Haven and Chieftains were finalists in the Laughing Stock and Craic Off competitions, and his feature script Choirmaster was a finalist in the 2017 PAGE Awards. He works as a subtitler in Belfast.

Michael Patrick
Michael is a writer and actor from Belfast. My Left Nut, a play he co-wrote with Oisín Kearney was nominated for the best show under one hour at the Dublin Fringe 2017, toured to sellout audiences throughout Ireland and was presented at The Edinburgh Fringe 2018. Michael is currently writing his next play with Oisín through Fishamble's ‘A Play for Ireland’ scheme, in conjunction with the Lyric Theatre Belfast.
Acting credits include theatre work with The Abbey Theatre, The Lyric Theatre, Tinderbox, Bruiser, radio work with The BBC and Roundhouse Radio, and film/tv with HBO, BBC, RTÉ, and Zephyr Films.

 

Drama Group:

Jonathan Bailie
Jonathan is a playwright and screenwriter. In 2014 he was invited to attend the Stewart Parker Trust residential for emerging playwrights at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. His plays include All There Is (most recently performed at the MNIN Theatre in Athens, Greece), Butterflies, The Electrical Storm, Whitewash, and Cunning Folk. He was also one of the writers involved in What We’re Made Of, produced by Tinderbox Theatre Company.
His short film work includes Quiet (due for release later this year, and supported by Northern Ireland Screen), and Grey Skies, produced by The Playhouse as an educational tool to warn young people about the impact of crime. He also wrote the concept and script for the music video The Few And Far Between by upcoming band PORTS.

Emily DeDakis
Originally from the Southeast United States, Emily is now a Belfast-based writer and dramaturg. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Syndey’s 2SER, printed in Dead Housekeeping, The Vacuum, The Yellow Nib, and Ulster Tatler, and nominated for a 2017 Pushcart Prize.
In 2012, she collaborated with drummer David Lyttle & pianist Conor Scullion on an improvised musical reading called Voicetown. In 2016, she wrote and performed musical essay F R E A K Floods with harpist Úna Monaghan.
Her current projects include 47¢ (a collection of flash fiction forthcoming from Whittrick Press), stage play Shipwrecks & Lighthouses, and Piñatas (a PechaKucha), as well as Stowaway City, a soundwalk, as part of the MAC’s Hatch programme.

Ewen Glass
Ewen is a screenwriter from Ballymoney. He has worked as a storyliner on Hollyoaks and written A Sign of Things for RTE Storyland, for which he was nominated for debut writer at Edinburgh TV Festival’s Debbie Awards. Living with the Dempseys, a drama pilot he co-created and co-wrote, which is in development with BBC NI.

Sarah Gordon
Sarah is an artist and writer from Belfast. Her first play A Sinkhole in Guatemala, premiered at Dublin Fringe 2016 (nominated Best Performer, shortlisted for the Stewart Parker Award). She graduated from Dublin’s NCAD in 2011 and has been working in Lighting for Film and Theatre since 2013. She is a REVEAL artist with theatre company Prime Cut Productions (2016-18). She overthinks text messages and panics about emails after she has sent them. She is also currently co-writing and directing, Billy, a new play premiering at this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival.

Fionnuala Kennedy
Fionnuala is a writer and theatre-maker from Belfast. Her first play Hostel, toured for six years and is based on Fionnuala’s own experiences, examining sensitive issues around homelessness and human rights. Entitled, which Fionnuala both wrote and directed for Macha Productions, looked at the impact and inequality of welfare cuts. While Hatchet explored racism and homophobia in Belfast, told by a black Belfast teenager. Her credits also include Closer, a multi-sensory show for young PMLD audiences, Hatch which was part of Accidental Theatre’s ‘Fast & Loose’ Programme, The Glass Bell as part of the Pic N Mix Festival in Belfast.
Fionnuala is currently under commission with Prime Cut Productions creating a play about young people in the care system in Northern Ireland.

Alice Malseed
Alice Malseed is a writer, theatre maker and boxer from Belfast. Alice studied at Goldsmiths, graduating with a BA Hons in Drama and Theatre Arts and then returning to study MA Applied Theatre, completing this in 2011.
Her first play, Jellyfish premiered at Tiger Dublin Fringe 2015 and toured to UK including sell out audiences at High Tide Festival. It made it to the final 20 out of over 900 in Verity Bargate Award 2015 and allowed her to win the Fringe Wild Card Award in Dublin. Her second work it's getting harder and harder for me premiered at Dublin Fringe 2017 in Smock Alley Theatre, playing to sell out audiences and receiving great critical acclaim.
Alice is currently on the New Playwrights Programme at Lyric Theatre, Belfast.

Dominic Montague
Dominic is a playwright and theatre-maker working across both stage and site-specific theatre. His recent theatre writing credits include Deporting Patrick (Kabosh, 2016), Catching Up (Accidental Theatre, 2016), If Walls Could Speak (Kabosh 2016) and Quartered: Belfast, A Love Story (Kabosh and Outburst Queer Arts Festival, 2017). Most recently his comedy monologue Ghosted was filmed and produced by the BBC Writersroom and The Biggest Weekend, and featured as part of the The Biggest Weekend’s Fringe programme 2018.