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

Amarjit Bassan has a passion for telling commercial and accessible stories about communities, particularly little-known stories from British Asian communities. He recently completed the 4Screenwriting course, where he developed his pilot IZZAT (Punjabi for “honour”); a character-driven TV drama about the role of women in British Punjabi and Sikh society, set against a backdrop of corruption and modern-day slavery.

He has been shortlisted twice for the BBC Writers Academies and Pilot scheme and was one of 10 attendees selected from hundreds for David Higham Associates’ inaugural Open Day for Scriptwriters of Under-Represented Backgrounds. Most recently, he has made it to the final selection for the BBC Pilot 2022 scheme.

As a stage writer, he was selected for the RIFCO Associate Artists Scheme, under which his play SOUTHALL PARK was commissioned, with support from the Arts Council, as part of the British Asian Festival and performed at Watford Palace and the Bloomsbury Theatre in London. Among other awards, the script for his short film LALIT’S VOICE won the scriptwriting award at The British Urban Film Festival. He is a graduate of Royal Holloway and Screenwriting MA.

Isabella Culver is a Writer-Director from South-East London, her short film SEVEN SISTERSis premiering on Sky Arts and Now TV. It follows the character of Juliet who seeks out an ‘alternative’ healer after a traumatic sexual assault. It is a tale of recovery, self-discovery and reckoning with the darker parts of the psyche.

Isabella also directed short film THESE FOUR WALLS about male mental health in the time of lockdown. Isabella kick started her career in theatre when she won The Bristol Old Vic Open Session playwriting competition for her debut play THE DISSOCIATION OF SHIRLEY MASON. Over the course of a year Isabella worked with the Writing Department at The Bristol Old Vic to develop her work. It is a psychological thriller focussing on mental health in the 1950’s, was staged at The Bristol Old Vic as part of their New Plays in Rep season and received a five-star review from A Younger Theatre. During her time working with The Bristol Old Vic Isabella completed an R&D for her new play FLORIDA SNOW a coming-of-age tale set in Daytona Beach Florida, where her American family live.

Isabella has completed writers rooms with Vertigo Films and SLNda for a TV series created by Ashely Walter’s and Bryncoed Productions for youth-based drama series AS DEAD AS IT GETS. In her writing Isabella enjoys bringing in elements of pop-culture and current affairs. With a focus on Magical Realism and mental health Isabella’s work centres on surprising stories with a supernatural twist.

Isabella is represented by Nicola Biltoo at The Agency

Dwayne Gumbs is a writer/director from London who's enthusiastic about telling engaging, compelling and diverse stories. His BFI Network funded short comedy HOLY BEEF, was screened at the BFI London Film Festival 2018 and the London Short Film Festival 2019. This led to him being commissioned by BBC Film to develop an original concept for a feature titled BPM, with this screenplay of Dwayne’s recently shortlisted for the 2022-2023 BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing showcase.

Having a passion for the arts from a young age, Dwayne started a charitable organisation called Diverse Voices, that for the past 13 years has been dedicated to making arts based opportunities accessible for all young people. In his role as Artistic Director he has written and directed various educational films and theatre pieces that address hard-hitting topics affecting the most vulnerable young people.

Keen to continue building his professional experience writing and directing, Dwayne’s looking for opportunities to collaborate on other projects, whilst developing the exciting and commercial ideas he has for screen.

Rhianna Ilube is a playwright and events curator from London. Her debut play, SAMUEL TAKES A BREAK…, was Highly Commended for the Soho Theatre’s Verity Bargate Award, and shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting. She has been a member of the Royal Court Intro Group, Oxford Playmakers, Omnibus Engine Room, and is currently part of the Soho Six. She also recently completed her first TV pilot with Expanded Media for a Sky Table Read. Rhianna previously worked for game and interactive theatre-makers Coney as an Associate Director, and is a film programmer for BFI Flare. She has an MA in Writing for Performance and Dramaturgy from Goldsmiths University.

Contact: Jessica Stewart at ITG

Eloka Ivo is a British-Nigerian actor and writer. After studying Philosophy at the University of Bristol, he joined the 2019 cohort of the NYT Rep Company. His recent acting credits include BLACK SUPERHERO (Royal Court) and FOUR MOTHERS (Port Pictures). 

As a means of passing time during the second lockdown, Eloka began to write his own work. He was one of the first winners of The Soho House Scripted Competition in 2021, the award for which included a table read of his pilot script OYINBO to a panel of industry professionals. 

With his feet now firmly in both acting and writing, Eloka is currently developing an original idea for TV surrounding the "currency of shame" in Nigeria called DON’T COME AND DISGRACE US, as well as  preparing for his West End debut this autumn. 

Eloka hopes that his work will contribute to the growing canon of thought-provoking storytelling from historically minoritised communities, and bring a radically honest and refreshing perspective to uplift those who have been left out of the cultural conversation for too long.

Joe Kerridge is a writer from South East London. His work has been performed at Sheffield Theatres, MAC Birmingham, STYX and VAULT Festival, where he won an Innovation Award. He has also been longlisted for the Verity Bargate Award, Theatre 503 International Playwriting Award, Papatango Prize, and is a graduate of the Royal Court Theatre Writers' Programme.

Hartley Lloyd-Pack is a lyricist and writer who has worked at Hackney's Children and Families service since 2014. His work in Hackney has inspired him to create RAW GODS, which authentically captures the complex realities of life in care, using original music compositions and frank storytelling to combine hyper-realism with a sense of other-worldliness. In 2022, in partnership with Fully Focused, Hartley released a taster of RAW GODS on YouTube. The film was produced in collaboration with care-experienced young people from Hackney, and has been picked up by the BBC for development.

In 2018, Hartley launched the podcast Mixtape Assembly, whose guests have included Benjamin Zephaniah and Jimmy Akingbola, both of whom have gone on to support the development of RAW GODS. 

Hartley has a background in poetry and rap, and is interested in creating stories that use language in heightened ways to elevate key narrative beats. In 2016, Hartley released an album, Sixteen Sunsets, in response to the loss of his father, the actor Roger Lloyd Pack.

Hartley is represented by Catherine Goldstone at Peach House.

Nadya Menuhin is a writer from London. She holds a BA in Humanities from UCL and took part in the Royal Court Writer’s Group and Kiln Artist Development. Her writing includes THE SECOND RULE (2020, Mercury Theatre), TREMORS (2021, Bitter Pill Theatre) and I, MOTHER (2022, Fuel Residency, Druid Theatre). Her humour writing has been published by McSweeney’s and Points in Case.

Her short film IN THE NIGHT TIME is in development with The Corps Ensemble, Dublin. She is currently writing a stage adaptation of the novel THE MAN WHO TOOK TRAINS and developing a comedy-drama series.

She’s interested in the way people change over time and sometimes quite abruptly. She loves sad stories, dark stories and funny stories, the best being when all three of these elements come together to make chaotic babies.

Himanshu Ojha attempted to be like Shakespeare by starting out as a frustrated actor from the West Midlands. Very much not like Shakespeare, he switched to journalism, studying for a Masters degree from Columbia University.

He worked for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Reuters, where he was a data reporter on the investigations and enterprise desk in the US and UK for five years, covering a range of topics from income inequality to corruption in the Russian railway industry to the migration crisis.

Since going freelance, he has enjoyed pursuing stories in very different ways. As a storyteller he has adapted and told Ovid’s TALE OF BAUCIS AND PHILEMON. For the theatre, he has written THE HAND OF HOZAN, one of the stories chosen to be part of James Graham’s Sketching, and ANTECHAMBER, a short play that ran in the White Bear’s Only Human festival in 2020. As a member of the Criterion New Writing programme, he has been able to hone his craft in the company of kinder, better writers. This culminated in his play THE FORGER’S TALE, an extract of which was performed at the Criterion Theatre in 2022.

He is particularly drawn to character-driven genre stories that resonate with the kind of topics he reported on as a journalist. 

Pavan Patel's TV pilot, THE EMPIRE'S JEWEL, achieved significant recognition, being shortlisted for the Netflix Screenwriters' Fellowship and placing in the top 3% for the BBC Open Call 2022. Additionally, Pavan is among the eight writers selected for the prestigious BBC Studio's Writer's Academy 2022-2023, receiving mentorship from John Yorke. His feature script, CAMEL BOY, reached the Top 10% for the Academy Nicholls Fellowships 2022.

Pavan is represented by Nick Turner from Nick Turner Management.

Helen Simmons is a writer, producer and Screen Star of Tomorrow. She has produced six feature films, including KLOKKENLUIDER starring Jenna Coleman and Tom Burke, BONUS TRACK starring Susan Wokoma, Jack Davenport and Josh O’Connor, and HOARD starring Hayley Squires and Joseph Quinn. She runs Erebus Pictures alongside Stephanie Aspin, and recently co-directed a BFI Network short starring Callie Cookie and Lydia Rose Bewley. As a writer, Helen has written on shows for Audible and Sky, and her first feature film as co-writer, produced by Caviar, is currently in post-production. She began writing with the short film F*CK, starring Brett Goldstein and Esther Smith, which gained her nominations for best screenwriter and was a Vimeo Staff Pick. She is currently writing Film & TV projects for companies including Netflix, Moonriver Content, World Productions, and Kinetic Content.

Contact: Jessica Stewart at ITG

Jenny Takahashi Stark is a London-based screenwriter of English-Japanese ancestry with a love for character-driven drama, comedy-drama, and stories that open doors into unusual worlds. She is currently developing original TV projects with Merman and Banijay, and was selected for the Channel 4 Screenwriting Course 2023, BBC London Voices 2023 and Film London's Breaking The Glass Ceiling Programme 2023. She is also Winner of the All3Media New Voices Drama Award 2022, Richmond International Film Festival Finalist 2022 and writer on the IFT Creative Corridor Transatlantic Diversity Programme 2022. Jenny’s theatre plays have been performed at Cheltenham Everyman, Theatre 503 and Southwark Playhouse.

She is represented by Katie Battcock at Curtis Brown.

All this week we're announcing the 69 talented emerging writers from across the UK who have taken part in our Voices development programme for 2022. Today it's the turn of the 13 London Voices.

"We’re so pleased to introduce these super talented, passionate writers from London, who we’ve had the pleasure of working with over the last few months. They all delivered brilliant treatments with a diversity of fresh ideas and subject matter across the board. We’re excited to see all the great things they’ll do next!"

Zahra Al-Sultani (Development Producer, BBC Writersroom London)

Meet them and find out more about them below.

See details of all the Voices writers 2022

Find out more about the Voices programme

Florence Bell

Alongside acting (‘Wolf Hall’, ‘The End of the F***king World’) Florence Bell writes offbeat comedy drama exploring sexuality, consciousness, addiction, family, late-capitalism and magic. ​

In 2015 she co-founded Brave New Word, a new writing showcase through which she produced and directed 70+ pieces of original theatre and built a community of creatives over its four year life. ​

She is now writing for TV; her screenplay ‘Super Spiritual’, a darkly comic recovery drama about being saved by a two-thousand-year-old genie landed her on the C4 mentorship scheme in 2021 and London Voices 2022. ​

She looks forward to creating more work as an antidote to bewilderment in a chaotic and absurd age.​

Florence is represented by Steven Russell at Collective Talent.

Safaa Benson-Effiom is a playwright and screenwriter from London.​

An alumna of the Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab, her play ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ was shortlisted for the 2019 Tony Craze Award and was one of the finalists for the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award. The play premiered at Theatre503 in May 2022 and earned Safaa an Offies nomination for Most Promising Playwright.​

Her Play ‘For The Culture’ was longlisted for both the 2021 Women’s Prize for Playwriting and the Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award.​

Safaa’s aim with her writing is to gain an understanding of the varied complexities of life from all perspective, no matter how unpopular or unconventional.​

Jason Bradbury is a London-based writer/director. In 2019 he wrote and directed the short film ‘My Sweet Prince’, commissioned by the BBC and BFI which premiered at BFI Flare and was shortlisted for Best of British short at the Iris Prize Festival. His work often explores the themes of home, memory and the search for belonging for LGBTIQ+ people.​

As a director, his films include ‘Isaac and the Ram’ (2020, The Uncertain Kingdom), web series pilot ‘Dirty Laundry’ (2015, Winner of Best UK Pilot at Pilot Light TV Festival) and ‘We Once Were Tide’ (2011, BFI Flare) which has been viewed by over 17.5 million people on YouTube. ​

In 2020, he was one of six emerging filmmakers to be selected for the BAFTA x BFI Flare Mentoring Programme and has attended the Berlinale Talent Campus and Zurich Film Festival Academy. He recently finished the first draft of his debut feature and is developing a scripted drama series. 

Eva Edo is a screen and stage writer who tells stories which celebrate women and young people. Her work's coloured by her child protection lawyer and mother experience.​

For TV, Eva’s developing a project with Renegade Productions and working on ‘Denial’ an original TV drama. For Film, Eva’s commissioned by Artemisia productions. Her short film ‘Maternal’ reached the finals of the 2022 Pitch Fund and picked up The Lucy Scher Prize.​

For stage, Eva’s writing ‘Cake and Condoms’ for Open Clasp theatre which is co-created with women who support sex workers. In 2020 Eva wrote and performed ‘Tiger Mum’ at VAULT Festival. Also, she won the Royal Society of Literature Matters Award to develop ‘A Mother’s Courage’ where mothers explore youth violent crime. Eva’s debut play ‘Looked After Children’ was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award.​

Outside of writing, Eva's a facilitator at the National Youth Theatre. She’s also an alumna of Writers’ Lab at Soho theatre and the Criterion theatre. Eva is represented by Emily Hickman at The Agency.

Onyinye Egenti is a writer/director from a scripted background and writes for TV and Film. She is about to direct her first crime drama series for South African streaming service, Showmax. ​

For TV, Onyinye is currently working on an original drama series ‘Talent Nerve’ with support and mentoring from SISTER Pictures. She has two more projects in development, a period/contemporary drama series ‘Lost Queens’, and climate-change inspired series ‘I Will Take the Northern Lights’.​

For Film, her first feature screenplay ‘A Season in Talgarreg’ was selected for MUBI & Wscripted's 2nd Cannes Screenplay List Selection 2022 and featured at the Cannes Film Market’s Producers Network on 17/18 May 2022. It was previously selected for Film London’s Microwave 2017 where she became a semi-finalist, and EIFF’s Talent Lab Connecta in 2019. ​

Her past work has been selected for London Calling Plus 2016 and the TCN Writerslam 2016 where she became a finalist and won a BBC Writers Award, later joining the BBC’s CDS workshop in 2017. She is also a 2013 Berlinale Talent Alumna.​

Onyinye would love to write comedy on demand, but this usually only happens by accident. Currently she is a shadow writer and mentee on Netflix's mythological series in development ‘KAOS’ with SISTER Pictures and Charlie Covell (‘The End of the F***ing World’). ​

Tim Fraser’s five-star, sellout debut play ‘Candy’ was performed at the King's Head Theatre in 2020 (right before you-know-what), and is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe this August, with a short film adaptation also in development. With animator Sarah Soe, Tim is co-writing ‘Juniper Mae’, a series of illustrated children's books for Flying Eye Books, with the first set to be released next year. ​

He was shortlisted for the BBC Writersroom Drama Room in 2020 and got into the top 100 of entries for the Verity Bargate Award with his play ‘As It Comes’, assisted in the writers room for History Channel's ‘Knightfall’ in 2018, and graduated from the NFTS in 2017 with an MA in Screenwriting. ​

Topics that interest Tim include love, loss and identity. Having grown up a young carer, he often writes about disability and care, and draws from his experiences at a Catholic state school to explore subjects such as guilt, masculinity and authority. Along with his passion for comedy, drama and sci-fi, he would love to write TV for older children and teens. He also likes cats.

Lucy Goodman is an emerging writer based in London. As a Cystic Fibrosis sufferer she seeks to tell stories based around illness and disability, both visible and non-visible. She wants to change the narrative of how disabled characters are commonly portrayed; subverting the overly sanitised approach, and showing that people with illnesses and disabilities are human beings with flaws, who don't always operate with moral purity.​

Lucy made the shortlist for BBC Writersroom Drama Room 2021. In 2022 she was selected for Channel 4's Screenwriting scheme, where she is currently developing her next script. ​

Recently, she completed the Curtis Brown Creative course with tutor, Colin Teevan. By the end of the year Lucy plans to have directed her first play ‘The Little Yellow Pill’.​

Stephen Hoo is a British-Chinese writer and actor who grew up in Croydon. He studied Theatre at The Brit School before studying Modern & Classical Chinese at SOAS. ​

He then went on to complete an MA in Theatre Lab at RADA. His staged works include: ‘Jamaica Boy’ (Theatre Royal Stratford East), ‘Naked Eyes’ (Tristan Bates Theatre), and ‘YOLO’ (Arts Theatre). ​

He was a member of the Critical Mass programme at the Royal Court Theatre, and of New Earth Theatre Voices.​

Stephen's writing explores themes of displacement, race and sexuality and the diasporic experience.

Lao Lee is a British-Chinese playwright and composer. She is currently under commission with New Earth Theatre as part of their Professional Writers Programme. ​

She wrote her first play ‘Roots’ whilst on Soho Theatre Writers' Lab 2018/19, which was long listed for the Tony Craze Award and the Women’s Prize for Playwriting. ​

She was also part of Selladoor’s New Writers Programme and writing groups at the Royal Exchange. Her first musical ‘Spaces’ ran at Camden People’s Theatre in 2017. ​

Roberta Livingston is an actor and writer of Caribbean heritage from London. Her writing credits include ‘Bite Your Tongue’ (2017) for Talawa Theatre Company, ‘La Merde’ (2018) for The MonoBox and ‘Hometime’ (2020) for Tamasha Theatre Company's writers’ group. She also wrote her radio play ‘Precious Little Thing’ (2021) for Talawa, feralinc & Radio 4 which led to a BBC Audio Award nomination. ​

Roberta was selected by Sky Arts & Creative England for shortFLIX, their scheme for emerging filmmakers. Roberta is also co-founder of Speaks of Rivers, a theatre collective of black women dedicated to making work for young audiences, she co-wrote their play ‘The Fourteenth Stop’ (2021) which debuted at Upstart Festival hosted by Shoreditch Town Hall and went on to be performed at Camden People's Theatre Sprint Festival and the Arcola's Outside Theatre in Autumn 2021. ​

Recently Roberta just concluded her time with the Almeida's Anthem writers group and currently has a TV series in development. ​

She enjoys writing about Black British womanhood through genres she adores from comedy to supernatural to thriller.​

Shaan Sahota is a doctor and writer living in London. She worked in domestic violence advocacy with Southall Black Sisters before re-training as a medic.​

Her first play, ‘The Estate’, deals with a Sikh family in crisis over a disputed inheritance. It was shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize in playwriting and earned her a place on Tamasha’s Writers’ Collective. The play is in development with BBC Drama Studios.​

At the height of the pandemic Shaan was commissioned by The Oxford Playhouse and Tamasha to write ‘Under the Mask’ when her reflections on working in Covid ICU were published by the Guardian. ‘Under the Mask’ is an audio drama in 3D sound, and had a national tour of the UK in summer 2021.​

In 2022 Shaan was seed commissioned by Theatre 45 North to write a new play and is taking part in a Royal Court writers’ group. She is due to start a writing attachment with the National Theatre in April.​

Kevin Shen is an Asian-American and British East Asian actor and writer based in London. His feature screenplay ‘Angel Island’ was selected to the 2021 CAPE List (ten screenplays curated by the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment and The Black List), as well as to Dreamago’s Plume & Pellicule workshop in Sierre, Switzerland. ​

He is a recent alumnus of the Royal Court Theatre Introduction to Playwriting Group, Soho Theatre Writer’s Lab, New Earth Theatre Professional Writers Programme, School of High Tide, BEATS Screenwriting Fellowship, and Well-Tempered Productions’ Fresh Ink feature development programme, among others. ​

His short plays have been produced by Theatre503 and New Earth Theatre. Kevin co-produced and starred in the UK Premiere of David Henry Hwang’s Pulitzer Prize finalist play ‘Yellow Face’ at the National Theatre and works as an actor across stage and screen in the UK and US.​

Ava Wong Davies is a writer from London. Her theatre credits include ‘i will still be whole when you rip me in half’ (Bunker Theatre), ‘Half Blue’ (Audible/LAMDA), ‘small hours’ (IF Festival/Oxford Playhouse), and ‘Rime of the Second Sister’ (45North). ​

She is an alumna of the Soho Theatre Writers Lab 18/19, the Bush Theatre Emerging Writers Group 19/20, and the Royal Court Writers Group 20/21. In 2020, her play ‘scum’ was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate and Tony Craze awards, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting. ​

Her first TV project is currently in development with DNA Films and BBC Drama. ​Her play, ‘Graceland’, will premiere at the Royal Court in February 2023.

What is it like taking a piece of work from an idea right through to a live performance?

Deeply satisfying! And anxiety-inducing. And emotional. It’s the rollercoaster of writing a joke and waiting forever to hear whether it actually lands - after hearing it a million times in your head and then in rehearsals and then jumping from an unwavering belief in your work to wondering if you’re in the Bad Place where everything you touch is completely and utterly terrible. But there is nothing like the electricity of a live audience to remind you of all the reasons you created the work in the first place.

Particularly with LAVA - it’s a show that is absolutely aware of who’s in the room and uses it to tell the story without compromise or apology. And that was tricky - writing a show with the intention of recognising, celebrating and uplifting Black people, knowing that the reality of theatre is that most nights you are likely to be playing to a majority white - and often middle class - audience. It worked exactly because this reality was completely integrated into the story itself. And regardless of who was in the audience, on nights when we might have had several Black people in or none - everyone still leaves that space having witnessed a celebration of Blackness in its varied, beautiful and complex forms. Because we presented every single moment on our own terms. And I count that as a win.

What have you learnt from writing theatre that you think writers should be aware of, what do you wish you had known starting out?

When in doubt, always tell people how you feel! After you deliver your script, there will be so many creative, technical and promotional decisions that are made at lightning speed when it comes to bringing the show to life. Because everyone is working on borrowed time and there never seems to be enough of it. Make it clear to the theatre and to the director how involved you want to be. And you might not always know how involved you want to be until much later on - but you do have every right to be involved in the creative decisions, and I think many writers who are starting out might not realise this. Ask questions about the set, the lighting, the sound. Learn. Watching designers at work is a thing of beauty. You might not have much to contribute to early conversations about design and tech, but it helps to be in the room when they’re happening so you can have a full understanding of the process.

Be involved in the marketing - I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s so important that your story is framed the way you want it to be. Don’t ever just assume that it will be. Have a conversation with the marketing team as early as you can, so they understand your intentions, the tone you want to set and who you want to ensure there is space for in the room. Every play is unique, so “this is how we usually do it for our other shows” can’t always cut it. You have agency - and using it in the interest of presenting the truest articulation of your work on every level, in collaboration with everyone else working towards this goal - is something you owe to yourself.

What key craft skills do you think a screenwriter can take away from their work in theatre?

There are so many skills I’ve learnt from writing theatre that I’ve applied to screenwriting. A few that immediately come to mind would include:

1) Pacing

Theatre is so reliant on dialogue as it doesn’t have many of the other elements you get onscreen, but this forces you to get smart with how you tell the story and analyse what every step of the journey feels like to a watching audience. Any lag in the story is so jarringly obvious. So the ‘aliveness’ of theatre and that awareness of an audience has helped my screenplays flow by being able to recognise those dead moments earlier on.

2) Bun exposition

To quote that JP Saxe and Julia Michaels song “I know, you know, we know, we weren’t [buying that exposition] and it’s fine."

So use that to your advantage. If you really can’t find a way of weaving in all the necessary details without making anyone cringe at how bait the exposition is, then find a playful way to acknowledge what we all know is happening. And do it with flair. As far as I’m concerned, there’s always room for play.

3) No dream is too big

You can be as over the top with your vision as you want. As long you don’t lose the intimacy of human connection throughout the story. Often with theatre you are limited by budget, but never by imagination. This has made me more comfortable with exploring surrealism in screenplays and trying to root it in truth. It might not always work (not gonna lie, it might just be really, really, terrible sometimes) - but exploring it anyway will at least open up new opportunities for creative storytelling.

4) Feedback and edits

As many other writers have said, when you’re still in the process of writing and developing the script, how feedback is given and what you then do with that feedback is so important. The truth is that everyone will have an ideal version of the script they wish you were writing. So when you’re getting feedback - just take a beat to work out if the notes you’re being given derive from a place of understanding the version of the story you’re trying to tell. Otherwise you might end up compromising on your truth. New writers need to be told that their instincts are valid and so important. Everyone is ultimately working together to achieve the best version of the story you want to tell - so make sure your voice is being heard and understood all the way through the process.

This blog is part of a series of Theatre Takeovers. Over the next few months different new writing theatres will be sharing their knowledge and resources, to inspire future playwrights. 

LAVA was developed by the Bush Theatre.

You can find out more about The Bush Theatre and how to get involved here.

You can also learn more about making theatre with their podcast - Making it with Temi Wilkey

We are delighted to announce our London Voices 2021.

The scheme kicked off virtually in February and over the year this group of talented, up and coming London-based writers have joined us for monthly sessions and masterclasses led by industry experts. The aim of the scheme is to give them an overview of the industry; from TV Drama to Children's and Radio.

They have all come from different backgrounds and they have had a chance to explore and learn about the TV landscape, as well as other broadcast mediums. It’s been a busy schedule across the year and when the scheme comes to an end our relationship continues through tailored support.

Many of our previous London Voices writers have ended up graduating to our other development schemes including Drama Room and TV Drama Writers Programme. Watch this space for more great things to come from this cohort!

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

The participants in the 2021 group are:

• Tray Agyeman
• Tife Kusoro
• Alegria Adedeji
• Jeremy Ojo
• Zain Dada
• Alex Riddle
• Roann McCloskey
• Samuel Evans
• Sarah Lam Woollard
• Tania Tay
• Nk’iru Njoku
• Riley Wong
• Nathaniel Rodriguez
• Alvin Yu
• Sabrina Richmond
• Liz Daramola

Find out more about them below.

Tray Agyeman is a writer, screenwriter and storyteller with a particular focus on finding comedy in the most unlikely places. She brings her life experiences to her writing and draws inspiration from her community and everyday life. She is interested in the ‘search of identity’, diasporic journeys and cultural hybridity. Her writing is heavily influenced by the diverse perspectives and unique lenses of Black women in contemporary Britain and wider Europe. She is currently working on screenplays and a series of monologues.

Tray is represented by Katie Battock at Curtis Brown.

Tife Kusoro is a Nigerian-British writer and performer. Her first full length works for the theatre were shortlisted for awards including the Alfred Fagon Award, the Verity Bargate Award and the Women’s Prize for Playwriting. She has also undertaken attachments with Talawa Theatre Company, the Bush Theatre and the Royal Court. Tife is currently under commission to the Bush Theatre and to the Royal Court as a 2021 Jerwood Playwright. For TV she is developing projects with Sona Films, Little Door and Dancing Ledge. Her Pilot Butterfly was recently picked up by the Ink Factory and Sky for a table read.

Alegría Adedeji is a director/writer and her work includes the YouTube miniseries There is rice at home. All the episodes were created, written and directed by Alegria with a small team and limited funding. One script from the show went on to win the BBC Writersroom Interconnected competition and another script was shortlisted for the Test Pilot award at the Edinburgh TV festival's New Talent Award.  Following on from this success, she is now in development with BBC Studios working on her first series Joy to the World.

Outside of writing and directing, she co-founded the film club BFF which has been lauded by the likes of Ava Duvernay and Amma Asante. This love for film has also seen her form a creative agency, hue., which works with internationally-renown distributors like Amazon and Warner Bros. to create experiential events for underrepresented audiences.

Jeremy Ojo is a writer, actor and director based in London. He co-created and starred in a web series called Shoestring, which came out in 2016 and generated thousands of views on social media with one of the episodes selected as one of the best for BFI’s Postroom Network. His short film, Upstart Brawler, was shortlisted for the Enter the Pitch film competition. A short piece he co-wrote was selected for the BBC’s Interconnected Competition. He is currently developing a comedy series with Wildcard Films which he has co-written with Barney Fishwick, a drama with Bad Wolf and is writing on BBC Two Sketch show Famalam (BBC Studios).

Zain Dada is a writer and cultural producer. He is the co-founder of Khidr Collective Zine – a zine platforming the work of British Muslims. Zain’s directing credits include the 2019 Outspoken Prize-winning short visual poem, The Moon is a Meme, and the 2020 Outspoken Prize-nominated animation short, Otherstani. Zain is a Winston Churchill Fellow after publishing his research on 'The Future of Community Arts.' Zain wrote his first play, Blue Mist as part of Soho Theatre Writers Lab 19/20 and Royal Court's Introduction to playwriting 19/20. His first writing credit was for The Royal Court's recent Living Newspaper series for a piece titled, Emily (GLITCHED) in Paris.

Alex Riddle writes off-kilter television drama that embraces genre leanings and healthy dollops of the absurd. A serial BBC Writersroom script window entrant, his scripts have been both shortlisted for drama and longlisted for comedy. His monologue Hips, about a feckless Elvis impersonator, was recently produced by the Papatango Theatre Company for its Isolated but Open anthology and published with Nick Hern Books. Alex has worked in film, publishing, and as a teaching assistant. He was raised in Bognor Regis and lives in South London.

Roann Hassani-McCloskey is a British-Algerian storyteller. Her work includes her 2019 award-winning sell-out, one-woman show, My Father the Tantric Masseur – an autobiographical exploration of sexuality, ethnicity and family. Her second show, Who Murdered My Cat? shines a light on memory, it’s inconsistencies and its power, in forming our identities and is finally making its covid-delayed debut in September 2021. She is currently writing a semi-autobiographical comedy-drama TV series Lights, Camera, Couscous in which her Algerian mother, who informs so much of her creative work, has the starring role.

Roann's writing finds the heart and humour that runs through tragedy, and centres around her curiosity and passion for bringing stories usually left at the margins to the centre where they belong.

Samuel Evans is an east-end born queer support worker. Sam started writing short stories as a teenager about the nocturnal strangers he would meet on the top deck of London buses in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep. His first play Tomorrow got him an agent and he started writing plays with the National Youth Theatre, Arcola and Almeida’s community groups absorbing the voices of others whilst maintaining his own. Whilst working as a drag queen door host in Soho he was awarded a scholarship to NYU in New York for Dramatic Writing where he quickly discovered a passion for TV writing when Spike Lee, his professor told Sam he had a work ethic that’s bananas and a unique voice whilst calling an agent to recommend Sam to them. When Sam submitted a script I Will Survive, innit about a young man becoming a drag queen to survive a sexual assault and get people to believe him, he landed himself in London Voices. This script also got him nominated for the Brit List by BBC Studios.

Sarah Woollard enjoys a successful career as an actor in theatre, television, film and radio. Her interest in writing was stimulated largely as a result of her participation in developmental workshops where the actor’s improvisations make a significant contribution to the eventual script. She has since taken part in several writing courses including at the National Film and Television School where she was mentored by Peter Ansorge.

Sarah was born and raised in London but she is of East Asian heritage. Although she has appeared as a regular character in over seven television series she is keenly aware of the virtual invisibility of East Asian characters and their life stories, particularly in TV drama. She feels passionate that that gap needs to be addressed and she wishes to be part of that.

She is currently working on three writing projects: an eight-part television series and two full length plays all of which have central East Asian characters.

Tania Tay writes fiction and screenplays, for children and adults. She was born and bred in East London/Essex. She’s currently writing a psychological suspense novel and a TV pilot based on her British Malaysian Chinese family. In 2020 she was lucky to be able to develop a script, Shrinkwrap, with the BBC Writers Room. Earlier this year, she was a finalist on the David Higham Agency New Writers scheme. Her unpublished YA novel, Lovespell was longlisted for a writing competition in 2019.

Tania’s passion for storytelling started as a child. Using an old-fashioned typewriter, she adapted fairytales into scripts for her sister and friends to act in. These days, she’s interested in exploring stories involving motherhood and friendship, with a dark or supernatural twist. Her previous career as an award-winning copywriter (at J Walter Thompson, Publicis and other ad agencies) has made her a versatile writer, who enjoys working collaboratively and loves coming up with new ideas. Tania has an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh University. She is a mother of three, and organises events for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

Nk'iru. Njoku is a London-based Nigerian writer and filmmaker. She is the head writer of Tinsel – a 14-year-old Nigerian daily soap. For eight years she was a content director and then content producer with Endemol’s Project Fame West Africa – a musical talent hunt and reality series produced by Ultima Limited in Nigeria.

Over several years Nk’iru. has written - and recently directed - episodes of the MTV messaging drama series, Shuga. Her short film Orìkí, written and directed by her, was screened at the Black Star International Film Festival in Ghana where it won the award for Women in Film. It also screened at Cannes Pan African International Film Festival, African International Film Festival Lagos, and Female Eye Film Festival’s International Women’s Day Program 2020, amongst others.

Nk’iru. is studying for a master’s degree in filmmaking at the Raindance Film School and is putting finishing touches to her second short film as well as creating drama and supernatural-fantasy stories for television. She is interested in spirituality, reincarnation and otherworldliness. As an immigrant who uprooted her life and moved to the UK to afford her British-Nigerian child access to healthcare for blindness and neurodivergence, Nk’iru.’s work also explores emotional geography and the complicated social and career experiences of late life emigrees like herself.

Riley Wong is a Northern-born/London-based TV and film writer for drama and comedy-drama. His work often explores universal human woes through absurd or unusual settings and whimsy.

Most recently, his dystopian drama pilot episode The Haven was selected for the BEA Script Editing initiative led by BBC Writersroom. Lifelessnessless, the most recent short film he wrote and directed, was selected for developmental support through B3 Media's Talent Lab Scheme in 2019. Prior to this, he wrote and directed the short film Sleep Tight, Don't let the Existential Crisis Bite! in 2018. It was selected for eight film festivals, awarded 'Best Screenplay' at the Rob Knox Film Festival, and nominated for 'Best International Film' at the Houston Comedy Film Festival.

Nowadays, his main focus is on developing projects and writing for TV, whilst continuing to write and direct short films; as well as writing long ones, and mediums too."

Nathaniel Rodriguez is a writer and director based in Hackney, originally from Brighton. He is currently working as a freelance cameraman and editor having previously worked for Global Radio and Capital Xtra, as well as TwoFour, Studio Lambert and BBC Drama earlier on in his media career.

With a passion for film, Nathaniel has taken the practical skills he’s acquired and used them to create his own projects, writing, producing, directing and editing his own short films, Dogfish and Premium. Dogfish having reached half a million views on Facebook.

Alvin Yu is a London based writer/director. He studied English at Oxford and upon graduating worked as a chef and a jewellery salesman. Later, he worked for a number of years in scripted development as a researcher and development assistant, developing and writing pitches for a number of TV channels including HBO, Sky and Netflix. He directed a number of short films and music videos, including Split which debuted at the London Short Film Festival. His first TV pilot was selected for development with the BBC Writer's Room BEA Script Editing initiative and was also longlisted for the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.

Sabrina Richmond is a writer, director and performer who completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and previously had a career in publishing and the non-profit sector. In recent years, she trained as an actor in New York which opened her up to writing for performance. As an emerging writer, themes she has tackled for theatre are identity & belonging through the lens of migration, healing from intergenerational racialised trauma and the right to sexual pleasure.

She’s an alumni of the Tamasha Theatre Playwrighting program 2019/20. She is currently developing a theatre piece on the right to sexual pleasure called Devil's Doorbell. In 2021, she was shortlisted for UKTV and TriForce Creative Network writers opportunity to have a project produced for television. Her other writing credits include: Genetic Beauty (2020, Virtual Collaborators), My Cape Is Invisible (2019, Pleasance Theatre), Hands Off My Womb! (2019, Chapel Playhouse), 13 Secrets (2021, Old Fire Station online), A Black Story (2020, Applecart Arts), and An African in The Snow (2019, LABS Program, Pleasance Theatre).

Sabrina sees herself as a natural born global shapeshifter being born to a family of people once displaced with artistic passions, having subsequently lived in many countries, climates as well as cultural and political contexts she enjoys exploring this in writing. Movement and music are a core tenet of her artistic practice so she creates and writes from this place.

Liz Daramola is a British Nigerian writer and producer from London. She wrote her debut play Bonhomie as part of Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab, which was shortlisted for the Tony Craze Award in 2020. For screen, she has been commissioned for Famalam (BBC Studios), Pj Masks (Frogbox/Disney Jr.) and is currently developing original comedy-drama TV projects.

As a producer, she won a Stage One Producer bursary in 2018 to develop new work and has most recently worked at Young Vic Theatre and Barbican Centre. Liz is a 2020 alumna of Edinburgh TV Festival’s The Network and in 2021 was awarded a MGCfutures bursary to support a new role as Literary Associate (Trainee) at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre.

Liz is represented by Imogen Sarre at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates.

We are excited to announce our London Voices 2020; a group made up of talented, up and coming London-based writers who are eager to learn about writing for broadcast. This scheme is comprised of monthly sessions and masterclasses lead by industry experts who will give them an overview of the industry; from TV Drama to Children's and Radio. Our writers all come with different areas of interests but often find themselves newly intrigued by other mediums as they explore and learn through the workshops.

We kicked off in late January but have had to adapt to virtual sessions since March, which has also had its benefits as it has meant we can often open up the sessions between all of the Voices groups.

Our relationship with our Voices writers continues after the scheme comes to an end as we provide tailored support. Many of our previous London Voices writers have ended up graduating to our other development schemes including Drama Room and TV Drama Writers Programme.

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

 

Saadi Awan

Saadi Awan is a London-based screenwriter with a passion for film and TV. After submitting a script to BBC Writersroom's open submission Script Room, Saadi was selected for the London Voices initiative; the knowledge from which has been instrumental in turning his spec scripts into TV series pitch.

In addition to screenwriting, he is a trainer in the security sector where he designs programmes and adult learning concepts for team leaders.

As a first generation immigrant born to Pakistani parents, he brings experiences to his writing as an outsider in a society where suspicion is norm, humour is survival and dark realities await just around the corner.

Rousha Browning

Rousha Browning is a born and bred East Londoner, a stand-up and writer. A prodigious talent, her writing career took over at the age of ten, when she scripted, directed and starred in plays at the ‘Sister’s Bedroom Theatre’. Parents called it, ‘fifteen minutes they would never get back.’

Rousha’s passion for comedy has seen her produce over 500 comedy shows across London, the Edinburgh Fringe and Leicester Comedy festival, as well as managing her own comedy nights and playing key roles in working for Heroes of Fringe.

Taking to the stage, Rousha’s true talent shines through, having written and performed her own one woman stand-up and character shows she’s also appeared on line-ups with the likes of Spencer Jones, Sindhu Vee and Tony Law. On screen she has acted in shorts, Comedy Central promos and indie film Paint Dry, distributed by Amazon Prime.

Rousha is ecstatic to be on BBC London Voices with her co-writer Shakir Kadri and is determined to follow in the footsteps of her writer-performer idols Julia Davies, Jennifer Saunders and Amy Poehler.

Nash Colundalur

Nash is an award winning journalist and screenwriter. He won the Guardian International Development Journalism Award for his reportage on the drought in northern Kenya. Amongst much important worldwide work, he spent three years researching the Devadasi system in Southern India, an organisation who ‘dedicates’ girls to a life of sex work in the name of religion, his report was published in the Guardian and his research used for a BBC Film.

Nash has gone undercover for various investigative reports, including masquerading as an illegal immigrant on Brick Lane, pretending to be the relative of an inmate at a Military prison in Venezuela, he also managed to infiltrate and gain the trust of a group of Romanian strippers who came to the same London club in swathes from a particular town on the Moldova border.

Nash is represented by Hannah Linnen at 42MP 

Shakir Kadri

Shakir Kadri is a writer, boxing fan and often mistaken for Piscine Molitor from the film Life of Pi. He loves creating big characters and draws inspiration from his rather ordinary life, such as his Bollywood-obsessed grandad, who would replicate action moves and sound effects from his armchair, even when the TV wasn’t on.

After completing a Psychology degree, Shakir left the UK and moved to India to pursue his writing dream. There he wrote several shorts, notably Lihaaf, an empowering adaptation that tackles sexual abuse and competed at the Mumbai International Queer Film Festival.

On his return, Shakir was selected for B3 Media/BBC Films Talent lab initiative and in 2019 his first co-written script with Rousha Browning reached the interview stage of BBC Drama Room. The duo have since written a school-based mockumentary and are currently developing a British Asian wedding sitcom.

Justina Kehinde

Justina Kehinde is a British-Nigerian actor, writer, director and poet interested in diasporic identity and hybridity. Her debut play ‘UMUADA’, an exploration of mental health, migration and motherhood in the urban African diaspora, premiered at the Bunker Theatre in 2017 as part of Damsel Develops’ directorial development scheme, before headlining the King's Head Theatre’s 2018 Playmill Festival. An alumna of the 2019 Royal Court Theatre Writers Group she is currently developing the play into a full-length production. As a director she has worked with the Southwark Playhouse, Theatre N16, The Place Theatre and is a member of the Young Vic Director’s Programme. An award-winning performance poet, in 2019 she was invited by the Prime Minister of Iceland to perform at the inaugural international conference on #MeToo opening for Professor Angela Davis.

She is currently represented by Alastair Lindsey-Renton and Helen Clarkson at Curtis Brown.

Benedict Lombe

Benedict Lombe is a London-based British Congolese writer and theatre-maker. She is a recipient of the 503Five Writers' Scheme for 2019/20 and is currently completing a writing residency at Theatre503. She is also part of the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers Group (EWG). She has been shortlisted for: BBC Drama Room 19/20, Royal Court & Kudos TV Fellowship, Old Vic 12 and the Papatango Playwriting Award.

As a child of the diaspora, she has a keen interest in boldly reclaiming the stories that were never possible, with the full shades of nuance they always deserved.

Omari McCarthy

Omari has written for “PJ Masks” (EOne/ Disney Junior), “JoJo & Gran Gran” (AProductions/ CBeebies), “Love Monster” (Karrot Animation/ CBeebies) and the live action series "Biff Chip & Kipper" (CBeebies). In May 2019 he signed a (non-exclusive) first look deal with Kelebek Media for original animated series. In June 2019 he was selected for Bafta Crew 2019 as a writer. In July he featured on a writing panel at the Children’s Media Conference Writing Panel, later that month he was long listed for BBC Writers’ Academy off the strength of an original drama script. In September 2019 he won the Triforce Creative Network’s Writer Slam competition and is currently developing an original drama called “Once Upon A Time In Handsworth” with Lydia Hampson at Amazon Studios. In May 2018 he secured representation by Lucy Fawcett from Sheil Land Associates.

Patrick Monger

Patrick began writing for screen whilst undertaking his undergraduate degree in Broadcasting. He wrote his first feature during his final year, which earned him first class honours, before embarking on a master's in Screenwriting for Television and Film.
His first TV spec landed on the 'Top Pilots' list of the Black List website in 2018 and he spent 2019 working with a script-editor on a one-hour drama as part of Philip Gladwin's Screenwriting Goldmine "Tribe".
He was shortlisted by the BBC Writers Room in 2019 after submitting his feature script, 'Half Way Down', which has since been optioned and is in the early stages of development.
As well as developing new projects in both TV and film for 2020, he also recently began working with the BFI on a sci-fi short.

Hannah Morley

Hannah is a writer and actor originally from Doncaster. She wrote her first play ‘Petrichor’ as part of Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab. ‘Petrichor’ won a Channel 4 Playwrights Award and the Radius Playwriting Prize as well as being longlisted for the Verity Bargate Award and the Bruntwood Prize. In 2019 Hannah was Channel 4 Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theatre, she has been writing her second play ‘Rough Music’ with the theatre’s support. Hannah’s acting credits include work for Film4 / Fox Searchlight, ITV, Sheffield Theatres and the Arcola. She is currently working on new work as a writer/performer, as well as developing ideas for television and short film.

Gbolahan Obisesan

Gbolahan Obisesan was Genesis Fellow/Associate Director of the Young Vic Theatre. He is currently under commission to Tiata Fahodzi and The Yard Theatre. Gbolahan has a feature film in development with Emu Films/Film 4 and an original television drama with Little Dot Studio.

In 2018, Gbolahan premiered The Fishermen for New Perspective at HOME: Manchester and was a winner of The Stage Edinburgh Fringe Award. SS Mendi:Dancing the Death Drill with Isango Ensemble premiered at Nuffield Southampton and also performed at the Royal Opera House.

Other writing credits include Hansel & Gretel(Uchenna Dance/The Place); Zaida and Aadam (Bush theatre) Feast(Royal Court/Young Vic); How Nigeria Became: A Story and A Spear That Didn’t Work (Unicorn Theatre); Pigeon English (Bristol Old Vic/Edinburgh Festival, adapted from the novel by Stephen Kelman); Fringe First Winner Mad About The Boy(Edinburgh Festival and UK tour)

Gbolahan is also a director with multiple credits and was previously Director in Residence at the National Theatre Studio as the recipient of the Bulldog Princep Director’s Bursary in 2008.

Samia Rida

Samia started out as an actor and discovered writing later once she became a mother. She spent many hours pulled up in her car with a take out coffee and my laptop, writing, whilst her son slept in the back. She wrote four episodes of a series called ‘Work Out’ in her car. She made the first pilot episode on 2k. It caught the attention of Gareth Edwards, producer of Space and That Mitchell & Webb Look, who put it forward to be commissioned. Sadly it wasn’t and this was a fierce baptism into the crushing disappointment of writing and television! Gareth also encouraged her to do stand up which she has developed a real love for.

Samia also teaches yoga and is studying psychotherapy. 

Holly Robinson

Holly is a writer and casting assistant originally from Birmingham. She began her training at Playbox Theatre in Warwickshire before moving to London where she has been a member of Soho Writers Lab and the Hampstead New Playwrights Group. Her first play ‘soft animals’ was longlisted from the Bruntwood Prize and shortlisted for the Tony Craze award before being staged by Soho Theatre in 2019, after which she was nominated for Best Writer at the 2019 Stage Debut Awards. She is developing a new piece on climate grief ‘small myth’ and is under commission with The Yard Theatre and Soho Theatre.

Daniel Rusteau

Daniel Rusteau is a writer, director and playwright from London currently writing for HOLLYOAKS (Lime Pictures, Channel 4) and writing his half-hour film SUPERDAD for series three of the BAFTA Nominated anthology series ON THE EDGE (BlackLight TV, Channel 4) He’s also developing his original idea DISMISSED with Headline Pictures, working with Salon Pictures on a crime drama and his TV pilot THE BOROUGH made the 2019/20 Brit List. Daniel recently received the BFI NETWORK Early Development Fund for his drama feature IGNATIUS: THE EXTRAORDINARY and has also worked with Hat Trick, Beano Productions and Dancing Ledge Productions.

For the stage, Daniel is participating in the 2019/20 Soho Theatre Writer’s Lab and has had his work performed at The Bunker Theatre, Drayton Arms Theatre, The Pleasance Theatre, The Old Red Lion Theatre and The Paddington Arts Centre.

His comedy web series WEDDING DATES which he wrote, directed and produced was broadcast on BWNG TV, earned 30,000 views on YouTube and three Screen Nation Award Nominations. Daniel is also currently in post-production for his short film LOOPS. Shot on 16mm and inspired by his play CHURCH STREET it’s about a mentally ill man who believes he’s stuck in a time-loop.

Rashida Seriki

Rashida is a young writer and filmmaker based in London. Her first short THE FENCE has been screened at film festivals internationally and her most recent short INVISIBLE STRINGS premiered at the BFI Future Film Festival in 2019. For television, her pilot script THE FOUR was a finalist for the Triforce/Amazon Studios Writerslam scheme and the All3Media New Script Award at the Edinburgh TV Festival New Voice Awards and is currently under option. Her work comes from an inherently black perspective and she aims to create and get involved with stories that have the inclusion of women and people of colour at its core.

Temi Wilkey

Temi Wilkey is an actor & writer from North London. She studied English at Cambridge before training with the National Youth Theatre REP company in 2014. Her theatre credits include the National, the RSC and the Manchester Royal Exchange. Temi was a member of the Royal Court’s Young Writers Group in 2017 and wrote her debut play, The High Table, at the course’s culmination, which was produced at the Bush Theatre earlier this year.

Temi is writing her first piece for television on the Dancing Ledge Bursary scheme and is mentored by Lucy Prebble and has recently completed her first writer's room for Netflix's Sex Education S3.

Mina Barber

Mina is a part of the Young Vic Directors Programme and recently took part in the Young Vic’s ‘Fresh Direction’ an initiative for emerging Directors, which culminated in a professional sharing of work at the Young Vic in July. Mina also recently directed a play by Guleranna Mir for the Rightful Place Theatre Company, a community company of 14 bengali women in East London. Mina is an award-winning playwright, winning the Angle Theatre Company competition for her play ‘Commercial Rd’. This year Mina was short-listed for the BBC Writersroom Drama Room Scheme 2018 and is currently working on a 1 hour pilot with a script editor. Mina has worked on three Tamasha Theatre Company projects as a Writer, Dramaturg, and Director in the last few years, which include the Barbican Box Project for 2017/18 for schools as part of a team of writers, working with the National Youth Theatre and Titi Dawudu (Producer and Curator) on a project called ‘Hear Me Now’ to develop audition monologues for artists of colour as a Writer and Dramaturg, and on the Re-Fuel schools project with Hampstead School as a Director.

Joseph Barnes-Phillips

Joseph is a highly engaging and versatile actor and writer. He has most recently been touring Big Foot, his one-man show, which he both wrote and performed. A semi-autobiographical coming of age tale, Big Foot is a raw and highly passionate play that challenges masculinity within the Young Black Male stereotype in an honest and humorous way. He is currently working on a new play commissioned by Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds. Building on themes explored in Big Foot, this project sees Joseph delivering an engagement program with men at Highpoint Prison, exploring racial stereotyping, being a man and becoming an adult.

Babirye Bukilwa

Babirye Bukilwa (formerly known as Vanessa Babirye) is known as a stage actress. Acting professionally since the age of 16 Babirye has developed her multidisciplinary talents across the board. Her credits include the National Theatre, The Royal Court, the Hampstead, Soho Theatre, BBC, Channel 4, the ICA and even the New York Times. Known more recently as half of the hilarious duo that is Ackee and Saltfish by Cecile Emeke. Babirye has been noted as 1 of 10 female creatives by the Guardian Newspaper 2018. An outspoken feminist Babirye has co founded the internationally loved radio show 'Sistren' with a documentary about her show premiering in New York this Autumn.

Ryan Calais Cameron

Ryan is the winner of the 2018 Off West End Adopt A Playwright Award for his play RHAPSODY. He is an alumnus of the Royal Court writer’s programme 2017 and the Soho Young Company 2016/17.

He is currently represented by Julia Tyrrell Management

Emma Dennis-Edwards

Emma is a writer and performer of Jamaican and Trinidadian heritage. She has been part of a number of prestigious writing programmes with theatres such as the Royal Court, Soho theatre and Lyric Hammersmith. Her work has been performed at The Tricycle, Arcola, Royal Court and Oval House. Emma’s latest play Funeral Flowers was commissioned by Power Play Theatre Activists in association with the Pleasance Theatre and was part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and won the Scotsman’s Fringe First Award. Emma is represented by Kat Buckle at Curtis Brown.

Dominic Garfield

Dominic is the co-artistic director of HighRise Theatre and an associate artist with live experience gurus CONEY. As a writer for theatre his style is musical and colloquial using poetry, rap and heavy baselines to aid authentic stories from hidden underworlds. His latest work Lil.Miss.Lady explores the history of grime culture through the eyes of a formidable female MC and has been described by Exuent magazine as ‘a show packed with so much passion, smarts, rage and joy’.

Other writing credits include critically acclaimed shows: The Concrete Jungle Book, a Hip Hop musical based on the characters from Rudyard Kipling's classic, exploring homelessness and fatherhood, Merryville, a political guide to grime revolution co-written with his lyrical sparring partner Gerel Falconer & My Generation written for the Orange Tree Youth Theatre which explores systemic racism through poetry.

AJ Yi

AJ Yi is a writer, performer and comedic rapper currently working in London. Their debut one-person show, Love Songs, was developed through the Soho Theatre Writer’s Lab 2018, and supported by Camden People’s Theatre and Chinese Arts Now. After premiering at Underbelly as part of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Love Songs was shortlisted for two Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Awards and longlisted for the Tony Craze Award. It is soon due for a London transfer, where it will continue to raise money for the legal charity Rights of Women.

Aside from writing and performing work about their own mixed identity, AJ is one-half of British South and East Asian theatre company Trip Hazards. Staging work in theatres everywhere from The Tristan Bates to The Yard, Trip Hazards aim to create experimental, autobiographical yet accessible shows which break away from the more traditional explorations of such communities in Western art.

As well as working on their second full-length play and an upcoming web series, AJ is currently a member of the Soho Theatre Stand Up Lab.

Lettie Precious

Lettie Precious is a British playwright, poet, author and artist. They won the best new artist award at Museum of the Mind in 2016. In a short space of time, after quitting their job as a nurse to concentrate on their writing, Lettie Precious has been very active within the theatre and writing industry having become a published author in 2018.

In 2015 they worked with Team Angela productions to produce a play at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and produced their own show at the Arcola in 2017. Currently, Lettie Precious is working with Graeae Theatre Company as part of their Write to Play programme in partnership with the Soho Theatre, Talawa Theatre Company, the Oval Playhouse, the Bush Theatre and Tamasha. Through this, they have had a showcase at Soho Theatre and the Oval Playhouse.

Ashna Raberu

Ashna has just graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama on the BA Acting course. Her television credits include Indian Summers for Channel 4 and Is This Thing On? For BBC Three. She has just come back from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where she played the part of Farrah in the multi award winning play Trojan Horse with Lung Theatre company in association with Leeds Playhouse. Her play “Chips” was shortlisted for the Heretic voices award at the Arcola Theatre last year. Ashna has a passion for stories and is thrilled to be joining the London Voices group.

Ashna is represented by Katie McCord at Eamonn Bedford Agency.

Ibrahim Salawu

Ibrahim Salawu is a London-based scriptwriter with a passion for film and TV. in 2016, he gained a Master’s degree in scriptwriting at Goldsmiths University, and he has also completed Soho Theatre’s writer’s lab course. Presently, he is turning his MA script into a TV series pitch with Tigerlily Productions.

After submitting a spec script to BBC Writersroom's open submission Script Room, Ibrahim was selected to pitch TV ideas to BBC Three. He is currently working on a new spec script with the assistance of BBC Writersroom.

Danusia Samal

Danusia is an actress, writer, and singer/songwriter, notable for her roles at the Royal Court, RSC, and Soho Theatre, as well as feature film Ghost in the Shell. An alumna of Tamasha's playwright scheme and Soho Theatre's Writer's Lab, this year Danusia wrote and performed Busking It, an semi-autobiographical story of her experiences busking on the Underground. The music/theatre was commissioned by Shoreditch Town Hall and co-produced by HighTide. Other writing credits include Conditionally (Soho Theatre/Oxford School of Drama), Langthorne Stories (Soho Theatre, Waltham Forest) and Las Americas Above (Chaskis Theatre).

Naomi Soneye-Thomas

Naomi is an actor and writer from London. She took part in the Soho Theatre's Writers Lab 2015/16 and has since written and produced a number of short films. Her first short 'Born Evil' premiered at Sitges, an Oscar qualifying film festival in Spain. She co-created a short animation called 'The Integration Game' which screened at the Roundhouse in 2017. She is currently working on her first play called 'Flux' which was performed at 'From the Forest Festival' in June 2018. As an actor, she has performed at festivals such as Bestival and Latitude and was a member of the National Youth Theatre.

Tom Wentworth

Tom Wentworth's recent writing credits include: Burke and Hare, performed at Newbury’s Watermill Theatre and will transfer to London’s Jermyn Street Theatre in November/December 2018; Bee Happy (Old Red Lion) and Windy Old Fossils (Pentabus.) He is currently under commission to Graeae, National Theatre Wales and Pentabus and has recently completed the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers' Group and was part of the inaugural year of Graeae’s Write To Play programme. He’s delighted to be part of London Voices and getting the chance to explore writing for other mediums. Tom is represented by Nick Quinn at The Agency.

Rachael Young

Rachael Young is an award-winning artist whose interdisciplinary performance exists on the boundaries between live art, dance, contemporary theatre and socially engaged practice. Her work creates spaces for intersectional realities to be explored and celebrated and for alternative narratives and forms to evolve and be heard.

Rachael’s most recent shows OUT and NIGHTCLUBBING received critical acclaim; with OUT winning the 2017 South East Dance ‘A Space to Dance’ Brighton Fringe Award and gaining a nomination for the ‘Total Theatre & The Place Award for Dance’ at Edinburgh Fringe. She’s currently touring these works nationally and internationally.

How did you get involved with the London Voices scheme run by BBC Writersroom?

Max: Abigail Gonda, Development Producer at the BBC Writersroom (and fearless new writing champion), came to the Brockley Jack staged reading of 'Box Chicken' and not too long after, invited me to be part of London Voices.

Stephen: I wrote a play called Jamaica Boy for the Angelic Tales festival headed by Rikki Beadle-Blair at Theatre Royal Stratford East. This was developed over the space of a few months with the aim of helping to dramaturg, advance and hone a writer's skills.

We had a staged reading and a BBC reader came to see it and recommended it to Abigail Gonda, Development Producer at BBC Writersroom. I was then invited for a meeting and a chat and then asked to join London Voices. I was chuffed no end!

What was the content of the London Voices scheme?

Max: On the London Voices Scheme I have gained inside access to the workings of writing for the BBC! As a scheme member I have received tuition from producers and writers within Continuing Drama (script and documentation for Holby City and Casualty) short film, crime drama, and radio drama. I have also been able to learn what it means to write using ‘industry structure’.

Stephen:

Over the past ten weeks we have all met so many people. People who are involved in radio drama, short film, Continuing Drama Series, plays and crime shows and sitcoms. We heard the ins and outs and how the cogs turn within the BBC machine. How people got their passions off the ground. Meeting the faces behind successful shows and what their processes were. How they started out. What blocks they faced and what they did about it.

We were able to questions and probe these people. Questions that at times may have seemed impertinent - contracts, money, diverse casting (lack of), bad experiences and how they were overcome.

Which part of the scheme was most valuable for you?

Max: Despite my shortlists and theatre work, a full production of my writing has eluded me. As a new writer I often receive feedback about the strength of my voice, authenticity of dialogue, characterisation and creation of new and believable worlds. The stumbling block however appears to be structure and also ‘hitting the right beats’. When I’ve asked about structure in the past, the response has been “all you need is a beginning, a middle and an end”. I have learnt on London Voices that structure is a whole lot more than this, and some.

Structure is the ability to captivate an audience in the first ten pages and to keep them on the edge of their seats to the last plot twist. I used to think, “first ten pages, surely that’s not enough to witness brilliance. Why not read the whole thing and wait for the story to grab you”. The thing is, as with anything else, if you don’t grab the audience, almost immediately, you lose them altogether. This is sad but true. But there’s a technique to holding an audience, it’s like knowing the structure of the scene's DNA. London Voices has helped to teach me that structure.

Stephen: Demystifying the whole idea of the BBC as some huge conglomerate impenetrable blob.

What are some of the techniques you've learnt?

Max: These are just some of the basics, there’s so much more involved than just ‘beginning, middle and end’.

• Having the protagonist (main character) help someone in the first scene (builds empathy).

• Giving any antagonist an endearing feature, a frailty, or if not a frailty, then a pet! (Think about the ‘baddy’ in James Bond, stroking a cat).

• In the opening scenes you need to make the audience ask questions (igniting audience curiosity).

• You need to make all relationships clear.

• You also have to make it clear what your protagonist wants.

• You have to inject all scenes with obstacles (big insurmountable obstacles, which appear impossible to overcome). You need to think however that small things, can also represent big obstacle, if they have meaning for the protagonist.

• You have to let your protagonist overcome each obstacle, in the most imaginative way possible (the more imaginative, the more empathy from the audience).

• And, each scene should have a cliff hanger (which again ignites the audience's craving to know more).

• The plot must have inciting incidents (turning points).

• There must be a point in the story where the protagonist feels like giving up. All is lost, but somehow they pull through and have renewed vigour for their journey. Or adopt a new path.

What will you take away from the London Voices scheme?

Max: Membership of the scheme has proved to be a turning point in the way I view writing. Not just seeing writing as a creative art form, but as a skilled profession, with ‘defined’ techniques, tools and modes of operation. Knowing the ‘nuts and bolts’ has helped me to focus my creativity within a professional context, rather than constraining my writing to a ‘painting by numbers exercise’. I have been able to learn a skilled craft from skilled practitioners. Priceless.

Stephen: Passion seemed to be a word that came up again and again. One must have passion for their project. Remain passionate for your work. Drive it and push it and work it.

My plan for 2015 is to get my three short films off the ground. Set up my own company for film and theatre and to write a sitcom pilot.

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