BBC Writers Feed

BBC Writersroom's Voices 2023 - Midlands and North of England Hub

2023-06-27T15:16:28+00:00

All this week we're announcing the 72 writers who have taken part in our six Voices development groups for 2023.

Today it's the turn of the 4th group who are based in the Midlands and North of England. Meet the 12 writers below and find out more.

Commissioning Executive, Alice Ramsay:

"We’re thrilled to announce the 12 writers we’ve been working with from across the Midlands and North of England. Usman Mullan, BBC Writersroom Development Producer, and I have had the absolute pleasure of working closely with this talented group over the past six months to develop a distinctive series outline that is ready to go to script. Alongside their projects, the group have also been attending workshops and seminars from BBC Writersroom and industry professionals that have enabled them to develop their craft skills, gain knowledge of the industry and build their network. We feel so privileged to have worked with them as part of Voices and look forward to continuing our creative relationship with them at the BBC."

The Voices writers in the 2023 Midlands and North of England hub

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

Mo Ahmed

Mo Ahmed is a writer from Yorkshire, focusing on the little-known and surprising intersections that make up modern Britain. Mo’s work spans the drama, satire and thriller genres and draws heavily from his multicultural experience growing up in a monocultural city. Mo won a commission from Channel 4 to develop a comedy and also won the Mother Tongues prize which led to him working with the producers of GOD'S OWN COUNTRY to write a feature film.

In 2022, Mo was selected for C4’s Commissioning Mentor Network, where he was paired with a drama commissioner. He was also involved in Screen Yorkshire’s Flex programme which aimed to generate a new slate of Yorkshire-based stories. Mo splits his time working on long-form podcast series and developing his slate of scripts and ideas.

Lou Burns

Lou Burns is an emerging writer of television drama based in Newcastle. She is passionate about telling social realist stories with strong northern roots, and likes to explore themes such as poverty, injustice, corruption, inequality, and community in her writing.

In 2022 Lou’s pilot RIOT reached the top 3% of the 4718 scripts received by the BBC Writersroom. Previous to this, Lou was a finalist for both a Northern Writers Award, and Channel 4’s 4stories talent scheme.

In addition to writing her new pilot SHERRIE, Lou is currently working with Lone Pine Productions to adapt the book BE GOOD, LOVE BRIAN into a feature film.

Natalie Cutler

Natalie Cutler is a writer/performer from Dudley who began her career on the comedy circuit with her debut one woman show - NOT YET SUFFRAGETTE which received a 5* review from Broadway Baby and was nominated for 'best show' at the Fringe. She graduated from the National Film and Television School in screenwriting and in 2022 was the only writer from the UK selected for the Cannes Film Festival writers’ residency with Studiocanal. Her TV drama won best pilot on the FilmMarketHub and reached the top 10 scripts in Steven Knight's writing competition. She is currently on the BFI Network’s Writers Development Lab and is mentored by Bafta winning NATIVITY! Creator, Debbie Isitt.

Mia Fairbrother

From the ‘middle of nowhere’, Mia Fairbrother is a Midlands-born emerging writer - joining the Writersroom cohort shortly after receiving the BAFTA Rocliffe prize for Emerging Writers in TV Drama 2021 with her script UNDERAGE. When she’s not writing, Mia works within unscripted television: having worked on several mainstream shows from the likes of LOVE ISLAND, THE CIRCLE, and most recently Channel 4’s FIRST DATES.

Tonally, Mia typically enjoys writing gritty, realist pieces punctuated with heart and comedy. From small-town beginnings, she’s particularly interested in how one’s past can too easily predict their future, exploring this often in coming-of-age narratives. Still in her early-to-mid-twenties herself, Mia is extremely passionate about developing authentic, young adult voices across television.

Paul Jones

Paul Jones is a writer of Maltese heritage based in Liverpool. He returned to education in his forties to study creative writing and screenwriting. PATTERDALE, adapted from his short story, won the 2021 Alfred Bradley Bursary Award and was broadcast on Radio 4. His second radio play, OF A NIGHT, will be broadcast in late June 2023. He is currently developing a television drama centring on three generations of a Liverpool family.

Paul is delighted to have been selected for the BBC Writersroom Voices programme and hopes to continue writing for both radio and television.

Theo James Krekis

Theo James Krekis is the writer and director of PRAM SNATCHER which was funded by the BFI NETWORK and had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival 2022. His debut feature of the same name is in development with the BFI and will be produced by Try Hard Films. In television, Theo's original series BLOSSOM is in development with Clerkenwell Films which he's also set to direct. He was selected for Channel 4's 4stories scheme where he directed SUPERDAD, a road movie for the BAFTA winning anthology series ON THE EDGE.

His previous short, MEMOIRS OF A GEEZA, premiered at the BFI London Film Festival 2019, London Short Film Festival 2020 and BFI Flare 2020. His directorial debut, MANGAS, premiered at the BFI London Film Festival the previous year. Theo is an alumni of Network@LFF, Edinburgh Film Festival's Talent Lab Connects and is a Film London Lodestar. He's repped by Independent Talent Group for narrative work and Knucklehead for commercials and music videos.

Jack Mackey

Jack William Mackey is a writer from Liverpool, currently based in London. He began writing during the pandemic, after completing an undergraduate degree in Arabic and German, and whilst procrastinating from starting the dissertation for his Masters in International Law and Diplomacy.

Jack is currently developing an original comedy-drama THE CURES with Can Can Productions and Channel 4. He has also entered a first-look deal with Can Can to develop a further three original projects in 2023. Jack is represented by Julia Tyrrell Management.

Makeda Matheson

Makeda Matheson is a Writer and Director from Huddersfield. Makeda’s directing projects span documentary (her film ALIVE received its world premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2021) and commercial film (Chanel, CNN et al). In her scripted work, Makeda draws on her Afro-Caribbean heritage and background as a documentarian to delve into different worlds and to explore the rich tapestry of untold stories that exist in the north of England.

Makeda was part of Scratch Me (BFI x Film Hub North) 2022-23 where she received mentorship from Fulwell73 and Screen Yorkshire’s FLEX agile storytelling program 2020-21. She is represented by Natasha Salter at Salt Partnerships.

Harry May-Bedell

Harry May-Bedell is a writer and performer based in Leeds. With a background in theatre, dance and comedy, Harry’s work treads the fine line between hilarity and despair featuring bold characters and big stories that explore what it means to be human through a unique queer lens.

Harry has received theatre commissions for Leeds International Festival including the sell-out show ‘Leeds Needs Help’ and has taken part in multiple talent development programmes including Scratch Me (Film Hub North) and FLEX (Screen Yorkshire). In 2020 Harry wrote and starred in the BFI-funded short MONSTER.

Current projects include PLAYING WITH DOLLS, a comedy/drama TV series in development with Wall-to-Wall North, a comedy web-series called HEY BABE! with Tyke Films and most recently Harry has been selected as part of a prestigious mentorship programme to develop a new original TV project.

Harry is currently unrepresented.

Lauren-Nicole Mayes

Lauren-Nicole Mayes is a working-class actress and writer from Blackpool, based in Manchester. Lauren broke into the world of writing having noticed a lack of stories being told representing the women who had raised her. Lauren was chosen as one of the selected five for the Box Of Tricks and Sky Studios ScreenPlay Award with her original script, BABYNUN XO. She was a part of the Sky Studios cohort for the year and the play then went on to receive Arts Council funding and support from The Lowry Theatre for an industry sharing event. The script is now being developed for television. In 2022, her one woman show DEAR LITTLE LOZ was commissioned and developed by Izzy Parriss Productions for Edinburgh Fringe at Surgeons Hall receiving rave reviews. Lauren is an Associate artist at Oldham Coliseum Theatre and the lead facilitator of Scribbles, their playwriting group.

Earlier this year, Lauren was shortlisted for the English Touring Theatre’s NationWide Voices programme via The Royal Exchange Theatre and most recently she was commissioned by Julie Hesmondhalgh’s Take Back Theatre company for Back To The Bone Festival with her original piece, AM I STILL BLEEDING?

Lauren writes about her autobiographical experiences as well as touching on themes such as family, love, social issues, sacrifice and class.

Frankie Meredith

Frankie Meredith is a writer, mother and proud midlander. She often writes about her family & friends (and is awful at changing the names). Her work can be funny, dark, a bit weird and it is almost always set in the West Midlands - coz it’s a lot more than just Peaky Blinders.

She wrote her first full length play TURKEY while on Soho Writers Lab which was produced at The Hope Theatre to 5* reviews, offies noms and a sell out run. FINDING PETER was taken to Edinburgh and had two subsequent runs in London and her play 17 was produced at Vaults Festival by Wildcard Theatre. She wrote and directed her own folk-musical, PETTICOAT COUNCIL which premiered at Warwick Arts Centre in 2021 and toured the Midlands.

MAY QUEEN - her play about myth and Coventry - was performed at the Belgrade this July after it toured the UK with PainesPlough. Her first short film CLEMENTINES won a British International Film Festival Award for Best Film and she is currently developing work for television. She has recently been on attachment with the RSC and on Channel4s mentor scheme. She is repped by Jessie Stewart at Independent.

Mark Williams

Mark Williams mixes humour with realism in his writing to create gripping, authentic stories which reflect his experience of living in Stoke-on-Trent. Mark grew up in a council estate in the 1980s and struggled with severe speech problems and undiagnosed dyslexia but at the same time, he had lots of character-building adventures. Many years later, Mark found himself working as a GP in a semi-rural practice in the Staffordshire Moorlands.

He then decided to write and perform an episode of BBC Radio Four’s iconic series FOUR THOUGHT, described as “thought-provoking” and chosen as one of the best episodes. Mark is currently working on a comedy-drama pilot: THE GOAT, based on losing and then finding faith in religion, people, and ideas. He has also written about the Monkey Dust crisis in Stoke-on-Trent, Descartes’ theories, and his day job.

BBC Writersroom's Voices 2022 - Northern Voices

2022-07-06T10:46:19+00:00

Northern Voices 2022

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 14 Northern Voices.

"We’re delighted to announce the 14 writers we’ve been working with from across the North of England, over the past few months. We’ve really enjoyed getting to know this talented group of writers and helping them to develop TV Treatments that showcase their authentic and original voice. The Voices Programmes has enabled the writers to develop their craft and allowed them the time, support and creative space to work on ideas they’re burning to write about. It’s been so great to see their creative growth and we’re excited to see what they do next!"

Usman Mullan (Development Producer, BBC Writersroom North)

See details of all the Voices writers 2022

Find out more about the Voices programme

Sian Armstrong

Sian Armstrong is a performer, theatre-maker, writer and creative practitioner. Sian created her one woman show STUPID (2017), which toured regionally to sell-out shows & received excellent reviews describing the show as, “[the] best piece of theatre seen this season.” In 2018 Sian was awarded Young Writers Talent Fund (New Writing North).

In 2019 Sian was part of 'Intro to Playwriting' at Live Theatre which led her to developing her newest show MAGIC BUS, which won Live Theatre's Artist Bursary 2019/20, and was shortlisted for Traverse Open Submissions 2020.

Sian was part of Scratch Me 2020-21 (BFI & Film Hub North), where she received mentorship from Baby Cow Productions & adapted STUPID into a short film. Sian recently performed in Zoe Murtagh's film 'After The Break' (BBC4: Female Filmmakers Too), has been commissioned as part of The Dukes’ 50th Anniversary 2022, and is co-writing a comedy about the women of 1700's Newcastle supported by Live Theatre & Arts Council England.

Amy Arnold

Amy Arnold is an emerging writer living in Macclesfield. She spent several years wandering all over the UK and beyond, working a variety of weird and wonderful jobs (including a brief stint milking cows), before settling by the Peak District to pursue her love of stories and scriptwriting.

Amy likes to explore power imbalances, family relationships, and the effect of grief and trauma on memory in her work. In 2021 she made the final shortlist from over 5000 entries for BBC Writersroom Drama Script Room with her TV drama pilot VOID. Her most recent drama script, BONE AND FEATHERS, has just been shortlisted for BBC Drama Room 2023.

Amy has spent the past two years working in the script team at Coronation Street, as well as reading scripts for Channel 4, and is very excited to be working on a brand-new drama as part of BBC Northern Voices 2022.

Alex Clarke

Alex Clarke’s work explores everyday people overcoming extraordinary circumstances. She uses her 20 years’ experience as a support worker to create TV about the human capacity for healing and change. Her original TV drama REFUGE is in development with the BBC and Dancing Ledge Productions. She is a writer in residence at DYSPLA working on her comedy VENUS IN 13. She adapted the memoir HOW TO BE AUTISTIC for TV with Adapted Pictures. She is also developing her original TV drama, LITTLE DEMONS, as part of The ITV/Dancing Ledge Productions New Talent Scheme – her mentor is Paula Milne (THE POLITICIAN'S WIFE / THE VIRGIN QUEEN). She is currently developing a new TV comedy as part of her BAFTA Writing Mentorship – her mentor is Lisa McGee (SKINT/DERRY GIRLS) and as part of The BBC Northern Voice’s Scheme worked on her new dramady series THE CON MOTHER.

Alex won the BBC’s Alfred Bradley Award with her drama WAKING BEAUTY and a New Writing North/Channel 4 TV Drama Writing Award with her drama BELOW which later went into development with Channel Four and Bonafide Films. She is represented by Mark Brennan at United Agents.

Billie Collins

Billie Collins is a writer from the Wirral, based in Manchester. Her debut play ‘Too Much World at Once’ is being developed by Box of Tricks Theatre for production in a future season, following rehearsed readings at the Stephen Joseph Theatre and HOME Manchester. She is also working on a new stage project with ThickSkin Theatre, as well as ‘Rathbone’s Antiques’ – an original children’s animated series in development with Toastie Animation (with development funding from the BFI's Young Audience's Content Fund.) Billie is an Associate Artist at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre, has previously written audio drama for BBC Sounds, been shortlisted for the 2021 Papatango Prize and selected for Film Hub North’s 2020 Script Lab. She loves playing with genre, as well as stories about nature, folklore, queerness and growing up. Billie is represented by Maeve Bolger at the Agency.

Daneka Etchells

Daneka Etchells is a disabled writer and performer from Carlisle. They were writer-on-attachment with Box of Tricks’ PlayBox 2021/22 scheme, developing their play Rogue Comet(s) with a rehearsed reading at HOME. They’re currently developing Sappho with Emmerson and Ward for UK tour Spring 2023 and have written for theatres such as Paines Plough, Theatre by the Lake and DaDa Fest.

After partaking in BBC North East Voices in Summer 2021, Daneka is receiving further support in developing their spec REEL. She’s completed development schemes with Sky Studios, New Writing North, Royal Exchange and Live Theatre.

Daneka writes about sore-thumb otherness - through disability, queerness, gender, class, rurality and technology - centring underrepresented protagonists in big cosmic stories in forgotten spaces, set on the precipice of (un)reality.

Later this year, they are commencing a MA in Disability Studies - investigating the portrayal of disability in TV and film.

Jasmin Mandi-Ghomi

Jasmin Mandi-Ghomi is a British-Iranian writer born and raised in Yorkshire. Her work has been staged at the Southwark Playhouse, the Arcola Theatre, and the North Wall, with her debut full-length show MADDY premiering at the VAULT Festival in 2020. Between 2019/20, Jasmin was on attachment with Tamasha Theatre Company as one of their developing playwrights which culminated in a virtual showcase of her play Your Vote Will Not Count. Her most recent play was The Magic of Wild Heather which was written for the National Theatre’s Public Acts and performed at Cast Theatre in August 2021. Over summer 2021, Jasmin was part of the Sky Writes programme managed by New Writing North. She is currently one of the artists that make up The Bank Cohort at Sheffield Theatres.

Olive Nwosu

Olive Nwosu was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and is a BAFTA-Pigott Scholar, Alex Sichel Fellow at Columbia University School of the Arts, and an ‘African Promises’ director selected by the Institut Français.

Olive has written and directed two award-winning short films, Troublemaker, now streaming on the Criterion Channel, and BIFA-nominated Egúngún (Masquerade), which screened at TIFF 2021 and Sundance 2022.

Olive is a 2022 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow and is currently developing her first feature film with Film4.

Her work is informed by the intersectional nature of her life across multiple continents and identities. Her mission is to tell urgent, cinematic, African-centred stories.

Liv Parkinson

Liv Parkinson is a writer from Merseyside. As a teenager, Liv won a National Theatre playwriting prize and was a runner up in a short story competition sponsored by Penguin. She then went on to specialise in Screenwriting at Westminster Film School. Whilst there, Liv wrote prolifically, writing and producing short films which featured at festivals such as Underwire and Encounters, won Best Drama at the Learning on Screen Awards, and won a Royal Television Society Award. Liv has just graduated from the National Film and Television School’s Screenwriting Course, where she developed several TV pilots as well as a radio play, two theatre pieces and several short films. Liv’s ultimate ambition is to pursue a career in TV Drama. Liv is represented by Amy Sparks at United Agents.

Rory Platt

Rory Platt is a writer who grew up just outside (and now lives in) Manchester. He writes offbeat, darkly comic, genre-bending tales about weirdos, loners, and misfits. Undead detectives. Survivalists living on roundabouts. Homicidal aristocrats. Mancunian vampires.

His work for theatre has been performed at the Southwark Playhouse, Theatre503, the Hope Mill Theatre, the Pleasance, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His play Without That Certain Thing, a "smart, fast-talking comedy thriller" with "a razor sharp and witty script" (The Upcoming, Reviews Hub), premiered at the VAULT Festival in 2019. He has an MFA in script writing from the Central School of Speech and Drama (supported by a Sky Arts disabled student bursary) and was a member of the Soho Theatre Writers' Lab.

He is the author of several books for children, including a volume of poetry, published by The School of Life. In addition to writing for TV and theatre, he is currently working on a collection of short stories.

Sufiyaan Salam

Sufiyaan Salam is a writer and ex-animator living in Manchester, UK. He wrote his first film at the age of 7 – it was shot entirely on a 2-megapixel cameraphone, years before Sean Baker shot Tangerine on an iPhone! Unfortunately, this early masterpiece has since been lost.

In 2019, after winning an award for a short film he wrote during his English Literature BA, Sufiyaan enrolled on to do an MA in Screenwriting at the University of Manchester. He then wrote his first play, White Girl, which was performed at the Bunker Theatre in 2020… the weekend before lockdown began.

In 2020, Sufiyaan started working in TV, as a junior storyliner at Hollyoaks. He now works as a Script Editor for JoJo & Gran Gran.

He currently has several projects in development, including a short film with Madre Films and an animated children’s series with the BBC.

Sangeeta Shakos

London-born Sangeeta Shakos is a half Indian, half French teacher who has lived in Greater Manchester for 30 years. She works part time in a specialist unit for vulnerable young people, where having a somewhat unconventional view of the world is an asset. She often draws inspiration from seemingly mundane people or situations and has a passion for writing character-based, uncompromising drama.

In 2017, Sangeeta’s drama ‘Absconder’ reached the final of the Channel 4 course 4Screenwriting. In 2018 she wrote theatre piece ‘Real Voices’ to raise awareness of issues such as criminal and sexual exploitation, which young people are facing today. The piece has now been seen by more than 25,000 people. In 2020, ‘Real Voices’ was commissioned and made into a short film (Isaac Who UK). In 2021, Sangeeta’s comedy drama ‘Changes’ was long listed for the Netflix Screenwriters’ Fellowship. She is currently working on a new drama as part of Northern Voices.

Matthew Smith

Matthew Smith, originally from Wakefield, is now based in Manchester and writes plays that are performed in a mixture of diverse venues; from damp pub attics to acclaimed theatres. As an alumnus of the Liverpool Everyman Young Writers programme, Matthew works with professional theatre groups, independent artists and people completely new to live performance.

Recently Matthew has written scripts for the Oldham Coliseum's online programming, secondary school students in Tameside, and an illustrated bedtime story for the Sandbach Transport Festival.

Chris Sutherland

Chris Sutherland is originally from Huddersfield but is now based in Sheffield and works full-time in Mental Health services. When not working he spends most of his time writing and learning about the craft of screenwriting.

He sees himself as an emerging writer and has been shortlisted for a Northern Writers Award, Writing for TV with Channel 4 and Bonafide Film 2021. He has been shortlisted for 'Writerslam' UK TV and Triforce Creative Network, writing for TV Award 2021. He was selected for Sky TV and New Writing North, 'Sky Writes' writing for TV talent development programme 2021. He was previously selected for Freedom Studios 'Street Voices 5' playwriting programme in 2015.

Kerry Wright

Kerry Wright is a writer and theatre-maker based in Keighley. Originally from Kent, she studied MA Writing for Performance at the University of Leeds before settling in Bradford a few years ago.

Kerry is currently developing KAILEY, a comedy drama play that is based on her teenage experiences of having parents in prison. She has previously secured funding from Leeds Council, Bradford Producing Hub and Arts Council England. Furthermore, Kerry was the recipient of the Live Theatre bursary which led to a rehearsed reading of KAILEY at Live Theatre’s Elevator Festival ’22.

Her short radio play SUCH IS LIFE was developed as part of the Dream Reality Radio Scheme and was performed at Leeds Playhouse's Furnace Festival 2021. In 2020, Kerry was awarded an Arts Council DYCP grant to explore working-class female voices within her writing. She was a writer on Freedom Studios' Street Voices 8 where her short play POUND TWENTY was part of a live streamed sharing.

Outside of writing and the arts, Kerry is a lover of grime, rap, politics and hot sauce on everything.

The Responder

2022-01-21T14:04:15+00:00

Tony Schumacher is the Creator, Writer and Executive Producer of The Responder and a former member of our Northern Voices writers' group. He introduces the new BBC One Drama, which stars Martin Freeman as police responder Chris Carson and is based on Tony's own experiences as a member of the Liverpool police.

The Responder begins on BBC One and BBCiPlayer on Monday 24th January at 9pm

Watch the trailer for The Responder: Martin Freeman plays Chris, a crisis-stricken, morally compromised, unconventional urgent response officer tackling a series of night shifts on the beat in Liverpool.

What is The Responder about?

The Responder covers five nights in Chris Carson’s life – a guy who is struggling to adjust to the modern world. He wants to adjust and be a better person but he is falling apart inside his head whilst trying to deal with what’s going on in his job. His marriage is breaking under the strain of his mental health issues and the way he’s behaving. He hasn’t got any real friends and the one friend he does have is using him. Everything is bubbling up and over in his life and yet he is expected as a copper to go out and do the job, but he is in real danger of being sucked under.

What is a Responder?

A responder is someone who never gives you good news, somebody who kicks in doors, races round town centres and who fights literal and sometimes metaphorical fires. When I first joined the police, I remember on my second or third night, an old bobby called Colin said to me, "you will never knock on someone’s door and tell them they’ve won the lottery". You are only ever going to deliver bad news in this job, so it’s a big responsibility to take on - but conversely it’s incredibly exciting. Occasionally, you do things that change people's lives be it saving someone’s life or locking up a criminal - you and your colleagues are working all night, every night and living constantly on your wits.

Tony Schumacher introduces The Responder

Where did the idea for The Responder come from?

In some way I feel that I am The Responder to a degree and that this is my story. I was a police responder who was out in the rain at one o’clock in the morning, two in the morning, three in the morning, chasing people up and down alleyways and running over rats. The Responder is in me, it's in my writing and in my script.

When did you start to put the story down on the paper and why?

I quit the police because, and there’s no getting away from it, I was cracking up in the police force and I had this overwhelming urge to write. I was really struggling mentally and I needed to get away and find myself, but I also needed to buy dog food during that period so I became a taxi driver. It was during that time that I learnt to become a writer. I wrote three books, sold them to Harper Collins and they did okay. That allowed me to step out of the cab, with a slight detour via a garbage dump, to become a full-time writer on the back of the books.

Watch a clip from The Responder: "He's going to kill me!" Chris has to think fast when he realises that Carl is angrier with Casey than he originally thought.

What was the process of taking the idea of The Responder from page to screen?

I wrote three books over the course of three years but I’d always dreamed of writing for television ever since I was a kid. Initially I wrote 30 pages of a speculative script and was introduced to Jimmy McGovern, who advised me to forget about the unfinished script and instead encouraged me to write my story. That was brilliant advice.

I then got involved with an amazing organisation called ScreenSkills who mentored me and introduced me to Laurence Bowen at Dancing Ledge Productions. Laurence read the first episode and fell in love with the story right away. For the last 20 years or so he’d had a great working relationship with Martin Freeman and wanted to give the script to Martin to read. What Laurence didn’t know was that I had written the script with Martin in mind. I knew there was something in Martin that I wanted to bring to the fore, and so I wrote The Responder by dipping my pen into the inkwell of my own darkness but painting Martin’s face on the pages when I was writing.

How did it feel to see Martin inhabit the character of Chris?

Seeing Martin playing Chris - driving round the streets that I once drove around, sitting in a police car I had once driven with the streetlamps strobing on the glass was incredible to watch. Even though the story is inspired by my story, not everything that happens to Chris happened to me, but seeing Martin bringing him to life, totally inhabiting the character that I've created, talking like Chris and moving like Chris was just incredible and very emotional.

I remember during production I’d be watching the dailies and I would literally punch the air at something Martin would do and have a real rush of emotion and think, I am the luckiest man alive that I get to do this for a living now.

Rachel (ADELAYO ADEDAYO) in The Responder (Image Credit: BBC/Dancing Ledge/Rekha Garton Photographer: Rekha Garton)

What's more stressful - being a responder, or being a writer of a primetime TV series?

I think being a responder brings a very different kind of stress from that of being a writer, but I used to love the old responding stress. Some people cope with it better than others, and some responders are more resilient than others. Being a responder takes a little bit more out of you each day you do it. It's like when you get a new phone, the battery charge is brilliant at first, then 12 months later it’s gone dead by eight o’clock in the morning. That's what it's like being a responder - the battery runs out a little bit at a time.

I was really good at being in the moment as a first responder, at a car accident or a pub fight, but it was the stress that follows all those incidents that wore me down and broke me as a person. The stress associated with being a writer is the deadlines we have to meet, but even that’s not too bad. The stress I put myself under was more that I found myself looking at that amazing cast and thinking to myself, don’t blow this. I’ve been given this amazing palette of paints to work with in Martin, Adelayo, MyAnna, Ian, David etc and that’s what kept me awake at night - being able to deliver the words to them, but I’m less likely to get PTSD from writing.

What makes The Responder different from other shows?

I wanted The Responder to be a cop show that was different, because I didn't particularly want it to be all about police. Coming from a place of knowing that world completely I really wanted it to be as real as it could possibly be. I've still got a lot of really great mates who are bobbies and who are out there still working as responders. I didn't want it to just be about Chris, so I drew in all these amazing characters who I'd meet every single night and give them a story.

I came from a place where I wanted to be able to walk around these characters and show they're not paper thin. People are three-dimensional and it’s not enough to say people are good or bad. It’s not all about blue flashing lights and running down alleyways - that’s not what it’s about. It’s about real people, going through real issues and just trying to get by in the reality they are living in.

Casey (EMILY FAIRN) in The Responder (Image Credit: BBC/Dancing Ledge/Rekha Garton Photographer: Rekha Garton)

Tell us about Chris and Rachel's relationship?

We’ve all seen those films and shows with a grizzled cop and a new young trainee but I wanted to explore the reality of that sort of partnership. After a while in the business you realise that not everyone who commits a crime is going to be arrested or locked up and not everyone’s going to get a hug, because you’ve just not got the time to give everyone a hug. You’ve got to do the best you can whether that means you have to cut a few corners in order to do so. At the beginning of the show Rachel can’t believe that Chris is not off work and sat in bed with a bottle of Lucozade. She doesn’t believe he should be on the streets fighting crime because in her mind he’s not up to it. However, she soon starts thinking that she’s got to be a bit more like him.

How does Liverpool fit into the story as a character?

I've been all around the world in my life doing various jobs, some good and some bad. I did stand-up comedy for a few years and I travelled a lot, but to me Liverpool is unique. I love the city, however the stories I'm trying to tell, could be set in Lagos, Kabul, Sydney or New York because they’re universal. They're stories about people who are doing their best to be better and to be happy.

Mullen (WARREN BROWN), Kate (MYANNA BURING) in The Responder (Image Credit: BBC/Dancing Ledge/Rekha Garton Photographer: Rekha Garton)

Why did you decide to set The Responder at night?

I set the story at night-time in Liverpool because there’s a real peace about the night that I love. I worked for ten years as a copper and I drove a taxi for five years working nights in both jobs. I also write at night and I love the stillness of it. I love taking the dog out for a walk at three in the morning. Unless you’ve consistently worked night shifts you won’t know the hangover that comes with working at night. I wanted Chris to really feel the hangover that a response bobby feels.

I used to work six 12-hour night shifts on the trot and on the final night you always felt like you were walking through mud. Occasionally, you'd have these little spikes of adrenaline, which would just push you on a little bit further. It was like running the marathon. That’s what I wanted it to feel like for Chris. When you're that tired, that's when you're at your weakest, that's when you're the most vulnerable, and that's when you're not thinking straight which exacerbates Chris’ mental health even more. Also, in every night job I've ever done I've invariably met many more interesting people. The real characters come out of the night, like bats that the sensible people with sensible jobs never get to meet.

Our director, Tim Mielants, really understands Liverpool - he knows it like the back of his hand because of his work on Peaky Blinders, and really gets the ‘darkness’ of the night. He has a real eye for the darkness and mood that can only be found at night-time. It’s far more interesting.

Chris (MARTIN FREEMAN) in The Responder (Image Credit: BBC/Dancing Ledge/Rekha Garton Photographer: Rekha Garton)

Why is the theme of mental health important to write into the character of Chris?

The Responder doesn’t just focus on the physical darkness of working at night; it also looks at Chris' own struggle with his mental darkness. He feels like he has a black hole inside of him, burning its way right out of his forehead. Martin really does such great work with the fear of hopelessness and helplessness that comes from having that sense of darkness inside. When I wrote that element in the script it was like having paid therapy, because it was in me. I got to write it down on the page and see Martin play it out on screen.

When I was a cab driver, I’d get to about six in the morning and having dealt with people’s lives all night long I couldn’t cope with it and would find myself crying. I’d drive home and cry all the way home. The darkness eats you from the inside and I didn’t deal with it well. Martin captures it beautifully in that we see him consumed but there’s that little glimmer of light, like the diamond ring effect that you see on an eclipse that signifies that he’s not all lost. The humour is still there.

What is Chris' home life like?

Chris' home life is one of the things that he hates himself for more than anything else he does in his life. Chris does terrible things as a copper, but he hates himself most of all for the way he treats his wife and child. He just lacks the ability to communicate with his wife Kate, played brilliantly by MyAnna Buring who brings such an understanding of pain, anger and love all in one look. She feels for Chris and loves him dearly, yet she hates him at the same time because he’s horrible to live with.

Kate is intelligent and beautiful; she's clever and independent with a great job. She used to have a great husband but doesn’t any longer. As well as being this amazing woman who's trying to get him back to health, she’s also keeping a secret from him, so theirs is a complex relationship.

Chris (MARTIN FREEMAN) in The Responder (Image Credit: BBC/Dancing Ledge/Rekha Garton Photographer: Rekha Garton)

Who are Casey and Marco?

Sometimes we shy away from these sorts of characters because they have to be prickly because that’s the only way they can survive on the streets. They don’t want to live the way they live. Casey doesn’t want to be homeless living amongst binbags. They just want to get through and get by, like everyone else. Chris likes Marco and Casey and really empathises with them. She’s as wily as a fox and Chris really admires that in her - he has more in common with this pair than anyone else in the series. I really enjoyed writing their scenes and Emily and Josh, who play Casey and Marco, are two magic-making, charismatic young people who bring so much life to these characters, they’re such fine, talented young actors.

What is Chris and Carl's relationship history?

Chris joined the police force and Carl became a drug dealer. In terms of their relationship Chris looked up to Carl, probably because Carl was the cool kid who would walk around the estate and be a leader. For reasons that will be revealed, Chris ends up becoming a copper and Carl ends up becoming a drug dealer but they're still old mates and still close. Theirs is such a strong relationship and yet Carl is using Chris. Like Chris, Carl loves his wife and his kids and he loves Chris. Like everyone else he's doing his best to just get through to the end of the week every week. Ian Hart, who plays Carl, grew up about two miles away from where I grew up in Huyton, so Ian knows Carl and Chris just as much as I know them. Every time I watched Ian act on set I was blown away because he’s totally got the character of Carl.

Why should people watch The Responder?

It’s funny, it's dramatic, it's exciting. It is beautifully acted and it's something that you probably haven't seen before and you will really enjoy it.

Watch The Responder from Monday 24th January at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer

Watch a Q&A with Tony Schumacher and other members of the cast and creative team behind The Responder

Find out more about our Northern Voices group 2019 part of our Voices writer development groups

Writing for The Amelia Gething Complex

2021-03-26T15:08:11+00:00

The Amelia Gething Complex returned for its second series last week on BBC iPlayer. Houmi Miura is a graduate from our Northern Voices writer development scheme and describes how she got the chance to write for the show and what that entailed.

Hello there, my name’s Houmi and I was part BBC Writersroom’s Northern Voices 2020. I’ve recently had the pleasure of going through the pitching and commissioning processes for sketches on CBBC’s The Amelia Gething Complex.

A brief had been sent out with some themes that the team were looking at for season 2 and we’d been told to see where our imaginations took us. Which for me, it turns out, are some very strange places. After binging series 1, a lot of sitting, thinking and daydreaming, I jotted down a list of ideas and waited with bated breath for the workshop.

It was just as well that I’d decided to put some deodorant on that day as I’d found myself feeling a little nervous and clammy, but it turned out that everyone on the Zoom call was lovely and their ideas were very funny. There were 3 of us from Northern Voices and seeing some friendly faces was incredibly helpful for the clammy issue.

The Amelia Gething Complex

The Producer, Assistant Producer and Amelia Gething herself were on the call – no pressure. The word ‘pitch’ often sends waves of dread through me, because I imagine business suits, PowerPoints and smooth scripts. It’s taken a long time, but I’ve realised that pitching is actually explaining your idea and chatting about it – that’s all it is. Mind blown.

Once my adrenaline stopped spiking, it was a really fun couple of hours and felt like an accomplishment in my writing life but, truth be told, I notched it up to experience and didn’t expect a commission.

Colour me surprised when I got commissioned for not 1 but 2 sketches.

Now I had to put the ideas on the page. It was a week for delivery of the first draft of a 1 minute and 1 ½ minute sketch. Cue a sitting, thinking and typing montage. Hit send, cross fingers and try to forget about it.

A few days later, notes were given that were positive, specific (helpful) and felt more like riffing on what my first draft had done. Unexpectedly pain free. So off to work on the second. Cue more sitting, thinking and typing. I had a few days’ turnaround for this one, filled with endless cups of coffee and walks to get some objectivity. And hit send.

In the meantime, I’d been added to the list of sketch writers and the Amelia Gething Complex team had sent a wider call out for sketch submissions, and they also sent another call out a few weeks after that.

I also later received a lovely surprise email, where they asked for another sketch of mine – so 3 commissions in the end from a workshop where I expected nothing out of it. Not bad at all.

Houmi Miura

Main takeaways from my experience?

1) Pitching isn’t scary, it’s talking through your ideas and painting the picture of what you see in an informal way.
2) The people with the power to commission are interested in what you have to say, it’s not a test.
3) Writing short sketches is a writing exercise that’s a lesson in brevity. Everyone should try it once.
4) Finally, writer’s clamminess isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Watch The Amelia Gething Complex now on BBC iPlayer

Writing my first Radio Drama, 'Braids', as part of the BBC Arts Lights Up Festival

2021-03-18T15:36:57+00:00

Over a year on from theatres closing, BBC Arts created, Lights Up, a festival of UK theatre that brings productions into the nation’s homes through TV and radio that were either closed, or never even opened to the public, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Olivia Hannah is an alumni of our Northern Voices writer development group. Her play, Braids was selected to be part of the festival, giving her a new platform for her work and a first Audio Drama credit with BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

Olivia picks up the story of the play's journey from page to stage to radio in a remote working world.

Listen to Braids now on BBC Sounds

Braids is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 20th March at 9pm and on BBC Sounds. BBC Arts and Radio 4 partnered with Live Theatre, Newcastle to broadcast this funny and moving play by Olivia Hannah.

Braids is my first full-length play. It’s been percolating for a long time - most of my life, I suppose, since a lot of it is drawn from experience. There is a healthy layer of fiction between me and the audience, though: it’s personal, but it is not autobiographical. Perhaps because it took so long to make it to the page and become something external to me, the idea of it actually getting a full production has always felt unreal. It came close - there were rehearsed readings at Northern Stage and the Royal Court Theatre in 2018, then it was picked up by Live Theatre in Newcastle as part of a double bill. We almost made it to rehearsals in March 2020! But even then, it felt like a dream. So when coronavirus struck and the run was cancelled, it almost felt inevitable. Of course it wasn’t going to happen! It was always too good to be true.

The Braids team back together following lockdown (director Chinonyerem Odimba and both actors, Olivia Onyehara and Cynthia Emeagi with writer Olivia Hannah)

Pre-Production and Cuts, cuts, cuts…

Having a second chance in the Lights Up Festival has been joyful. We were able to get the whole gang back together - director Chinonyerem Odimba and both actors, Olivia Onyehara and Cynthia Emeagi, were all originally attached to the Live Theatre production. It felt too good to be true again, right up until we started to talk about cuts. The stage play is a little under an hour, but the audio drama slot is 44 minutes, so I had some work to do. I’m not great at cutting my own material. I find it hard to see it clearly. I can’t lose that, it’s saying something I want to say! And I can’t lose that because it’s the thought that gets us to this other thing. And I definitely can’t lose the jokes! But it had to be done, so I (eventually) squared up to it.

The first thing to go was the swearing. There’s still a little cursing in it, but nothing like the impressive thirty-six (36) F-words I racked up in the original stage play. (Do I always swear that much or was I going through something..?) The next specific query was around a racial slur that appears in the first scene, as one character relates an experience of racism to the other. It’s not a word I especially want to hear, but I also didn’t want to paraphrase or shy away from it. There is a moment where the characters try to ease the pain of it with a joke, but it felt too easily misinterpreted as making light of it, so the joke was cut. Conversations about how to handle that moment continued right into recording, with input from everyone. I think the end result works, but I’ll be anxious about it until it’s out in the world.

Those were the easiest cuts. I also needed to lose a thousand words right away, and earmark another thousand just in case. We ended up needing that reserve, and more. I struggled to see where significant chunks could come out. As well as the cuts, producer Pauline Harris had some great notes about how to make it work for radio. Braids is already mostly driven by dialogue, but there are moments where the action won’t read well without some tweaks. Then there were some edits I wanted to make for myself, and the draft was ready to send off. Not the ‘final’ draft - that comes in the edit after recording, shaped by the director and producer.

Rehearsal day!

Chino, Olivia, Cynthia and myself gathered on Zoom for a few hours one Friday to work with the script a bit before recording. Seeing actors make the characters real is the magical part for me. I found I was weirdly nervous, then realised it was the first time I’d really been through this process. It made me very glad to have the rehearsal time, and not just be diving straight into recording. I felt better prepared for it. Olivia and Cynthia read it right through once and then went over each scene. Chino’s approach is forensic; she catches all the nuance and intention in the dialogue in a way that’s almost unnerving. How does she know what I was thinking..? The partly personal nature of the story makes the whole experience slightly unnerving. The feeling of being seen by others is part of the reward, but there’s a discomfort to it as well. Thank goodness for that layer of fiction. At one point during rehearsal day, a conversation is sparked about blackness, mixedness and growing up outside of Black communities. It was great to have the space for that conversation, and it also informed the portrayal of an offstage character.

Hearing the full read-through was so lovely, just delightful and satisfying and... about six or seven minutes too long. So I spent the weekend sweating over cuts again. Pauline looked at it as well and suggested some cuts. As alarming as the chunks of red ink looked, I could see that they worked. I was anxious about losing jokes, but there was plenty else that could go. By Monday, our first recording day, the script was a bit slimmer… although still not slim enough, it turned out.

Cynthia recording Braids remotely

Recording…

I found my nerves were gone. I was just excited to get going. We all accessed the virtual system used for recording from our homes; the actors also had “proper” mics and pop shields. It was audio only, but the sound was so clear and immediate that it felt easier than video calling - you could hear multiple voices at once, without delays (initial tech issues aside). We went through the scenes in order, first giving the actors the edits for the scene and then doing two or three takes. Between takes, Chino and the actors talked through it and decided how they wanted to approach the next take. Again, I was delighted with how clearly they all saw the characters. I worry so much about not portraying them properly, but Olivia and Cynthia just nailed it. I recognised the versions of Jasmine and Abeni they created. Those are my girls! I was also struck by how nuanced voice work is, how changes in tone and pace can give a scene a whole new texture.

Halfway through day one, Pauline let me know we were running long already and more cuts were needed. I immediately began sweating. What else could go? Lots more, of course. A play is much more than dialogue. I found some cuts we could make as we recorded, then spent the evening looking for more. On day two, we continued working just as we had on day one. I became aware of how little time I had left in the process, and a little melancholy crept in. That soon dissipated at the end of the day when I found we were still running long and there were yet more cuts for me to do. By now, I was approaching it with a lot less sentimentality. I was still protective of the jokes, but took out much more than I had previously. I’m still not sure if it was enough because the final cut came in the director’s edit. After the rest of us had finished, Chino and Pauline edited the material into what listeners will hear on Saturday night. I’ve heard it and really, you would never think those two actors weren’t in the same room. And yes, I did a little cry. It feels like the play never really existed until now.

I’m just absurdly happy that the Lights Up festival has given Braids another chance to find its audience, and I can’t wait for listeners to meet Jasmine and Abeni.

Braids by Olivia Hannah will air on Saturday 20th March 2021 on BBC Radio 4 at 21.00 and will be available to listen again on BBC Sounds

Writer Tony Schumacher introduces The Responder, his new drama for BBC One

2021-03-08T15:04:46+00:00

Filming begins in Liverpool today on BBC One’s The Responder, a distinctive new take on crime drama from the makers of The Salisbury Poisonings, Dancing Ledge Productions.

The Responder was created and written by ex-police officer Tony Schumacher (who was part of our Northern Voices writer development group) and is his first original series for television. The Responder holds a mirror up to the emotional extremes of life on the front line of British policing - sometimes darkly funny, sometimes painfully tragic, always challenging.

Watch Tony introduce The Responder below.

Tony Schumacher introduces The Responder

Find out more about The Responder, including the cast, on the BBC's Media Centre website

Find out more about our Northern Voices writer development group

Writing Danger Mouse

2021-01-27T09:24:00+00:00

Olivia Hannah is part of our Northern Voices writer development group based out of Salford (pre Covid). She describes a recent workshop for the group which broke down the process of creating and writing an episode of CBBC's hit animation Danger Mouse.

So, 2020. That was a year. I spent most of it as part of the BBC Writersroom Northern Voices group, which began with monthly trips to Media City in Salford and ended with a Zoom party. The scheme comprised a series of writing workshops, covering just about everything script and TV-related. We had dedicated sessions on structure, character and genre, on writing for comedy, children’s TV and continuing drama, and Q&As with writers, agents and indie producers. Alongside this, we worked with script editors to write a spec' script and pitch document to send out at the end of the year. It was challenging, fun and eye-opening. When Lockdown 1 landed, the workshops moved to Zoom and the post-workshop pub debriefing moved to WhatsApp. One of the benefits of this was that there was a little more flexibility to add workshops to the schedule, and so in December we had an additional session with Andrew Burrell on writing Danger Mouse.

Danger Mouse on CBBC (Image Credit: BBC/FremantleMedia Limited)

Full disclosure: I was crazy about the original Danger Mouse series as a child (he may even have been my first crush...) and was completely uninterested in the whole idea of a reboot. I couldn’t imagine it would have half the charm of the original. But when the workshop was scheduled, I started watching it and was delighted to find I was totally wrong in that assumption. All the best things about the original series have been preserved: the sarcastic narrator, the wit, the bonkers, action-filled plots, and - most importantly - the essence of the central characters and their friendship. I felt nostalgic for David Jason, but the new voice actors are brilliant. I immediately loved it, and made my sister watch some episodes with me (“the Queen is a CORGI”).

So I went into the workshop with Andrew with fairly high expectations of a fun time, and I wasn’t disappointed. We began with a fairly painless ice-breaker (possibly easier because us Northern Voicers already knew each other), talked a little about the series, picked an idea from a few we’d submitted ourselves before the workshop, and then got started on breaking the story for an episode. The idea we picked: Danger Mouse has a bad hair day.

Penfold with Danger Mouse

We began by talking about the importance of DM and Penfold’s friendship, then about DM’s flaws and how having a bad hair day might affect him. We decided his vanity wouldn’t be able to take it and he’d lose his mojo. We decided the bad hair day was caused by Penfold doing DM’s hair and making a mess of it, making it grow uncontrollably. All the way through, Andrew nudged us to think about how ideas could play out as action on screen and we soon had DM battling wildly growing, sentient hair. More and more wild ideas followed, on a galactic scale. We talked about who would make a good antagonist and decided Count Duckula was the best fit for a story about vanity.

As we worked, Andrew steered us through the structure, explaining the four-act structure most commonly used for animated shows, starting with The Simpsons. It follows the arc I’ve become familiar with, from set-up and inciting incident, through rising action to a midpoint and beyond, to a resolution. Our protagonist recognises the flaw standing in their way and changes to overcome the antagonist. It’s all there, in a simplified form and with some specific features, like an apparent win that instead worsens the crisis in Act IIa and a moral decision in Act IV.

Structure is the element I have struggled the most to master. Another Northern Voicer (I’m afraid I don’t remember who!) said it’s like physics and I strongly agree, in that I know it’s important and underpins everything, but it is incomprehensible to me and I just kind of hate it. I can’t hear the word in a writing context without shuddering a little. Not in this session, though; it was very painless and made sense. I found it was much easier to think of what job the action should be doing at each stage, and find some ideas that worked.

Olivia Hannah

As we threw in ideas, discussed them, focussed on what worked and discarded what didn’t, Andrew wrote everything up and read through it once we’d finished. It was so satisfying to hear a funny, coherent story come out of all the jokes and suggestions and what-ifs we’d thrown into the mix. We then created a logline, and there it was. Our outline for an episode of Danger Mouse.

After I’d logged off, I had a big grin on my face. Talking about ideas and creating stories is my favourite part of the process, and the fun thing about doing that with Danger Mouse was that it felt like absolutely anything could be on the table. Should DM also get a wicked set of acrylics? We decided against it in the end, but you know what? I’ll always have that mental image. The experience also solidified a thought I’ve had for a while, which is that working in a writers’ room could be a really enjoyable job for me, and probably a logical next step if I can swing it.

The other feeling I was left with was a sense of completion. Everything we’d learned in the craft workshops came into play: protagonists and antagonists, structure, storytelling through action, loglines and treatments. Although I’ve spent months thinking about those things as I wrote my pilot, there was something very clarifying about bringing it all into play for one episode outline. Things clicked into place. It almost felt like a final exam (albeit a very fun one) and a very fitting way to round out the year.

Find out more about our Northern Voices group for 2020/21

Andrew Burrell on the Danger Mouse reboot

Read Danger Mouse scripts in our library

Lockdown Learnings from two of our Northern Voices writers

2020-05-11T14:16:41+00:00

BBC Writersroom is as busy as ever during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked two of our Northern Voices writers (Sara Cocker and Léonie Higgins, two-thirds of Manchester's Eggs Collective) to describe how their recent day devoted to Comedy writing played out in a socially-distanced world.

Léonie Higgins and Sara Cocker

Hi, we’re Sara and Léonie, a pair of writer-performers based in Manchester. We’re part of the BBC Writersroom Northern Voices group for 2020, which means we get access to monthly sessions led by industry professionals from across the broadcast landscape. There are 18 of us, and although we’ve only all met in the flesh twice, we’re using the time in lockdown to replicate the experience we should have had, trying just as hard as everyone else in the world to maintain breezy social bonds with only fibre-optic broadband and a couple of in-jokes.

This month’s session was about comedy writing. It all happened on Zoom (where else?), but we tried to make it feel less remote by firing up the group chat. We tried our best at doing some banter on WhatsApp, and played a drinking game where you have a sip of tea whenever the cornerstones of great writing are mentioned (amongst them, ‘voice’, ‘authenticity’ and, for the instant jackpot, ‘Fleabag’). To replicate our whole experience, we’ve put some dispatches from the WhatsApp frontline below (in italics) and you can play along with the drinking game, using whatever beverages are left in the Co-op.

For the session, we collectively overdressed. People were wearing make-up and bras only to realise that this was actually a cameras-off situation. There’s something v depressing about seeing your own face, fully made-up, reflected in your blank computer screen. But we made the best of it. Leanna and Houmi put their BBC lanyards on, and the rest of us pretended we were at Media City by imagining our bedrooms filled with lifesize cardboard cutouts of BBC Sport presenters.

SESSION ONE

Our first session was beamed live from the WFH desk of BBC Writersroom Development Executive, Simon Nelson. Simon talked to us about what makes a script stand-out from the reading pile: original, authentic voice (DRINK!); brilliant, robust, three-dimensional characters with a comic flaw that drives the story; a plot that hits the ground running. A page one that makes you want to turn to page two.

We watched an episode of Derry Girls together (the one with the dead dog that’s not dead), as Simon talked us through the mechanics of structure and character: notice how each character pushes the story forward by acting from their flaw. Erin lives like she’s in a movie about herself, everything she does comes entirely from that. She could stop the story by clearing up all the confusion, but her comic flaw doesn’t allow her to, so we are driven onwards and the crisis escalates. The truth, of course, outs and by the end of the episode there’s the traditional sitcom reset: no-one has learnt anything, no-one has changed. So we can all be back on the settee, same time next week, for more misadventures with the characters we love.

In the break, Ellie had some ginger nuts in Hull. Taiba helped herself to a jam slice in Halifax. Over in Leeds, Samran had his breakfast.

SESSION TWO

Session Two was with comedy writer and story producer, Sarah Morgan, who kicked off by explaining the ‘The Sitcom Family’. This is the theory that, in most hit sitcoms, the four central characters fall into the roles of Patriarch, Matriarch, Craftsman and Clown.

It all sounds very gendered, but it’s not, which Sarah demonstrated by using the example of The Beatles. John’s the patriarch: the driver, the decision maker. Paul’s the matriarch: the voice of reason, the soft place for the others to land. Ringo’s the clown - very much the Bart Simpson of the most influential rock band of all time - and George is the craftsman.

Sitcoms are all about the characters, she said. In fact, often the ‘sit’ is the least important part. But they need to be trapped together in some way: there has to be a fundamental need for them to keep interacting, which could be financial, sexual, or just a fear of what would happen if they left.

The first line for each character should be a joke that tells you who they are. The first episode of Friends is a masterclass in that. For example, everything Joey says tells us very clearly, “Hey, I’m a sex guy who likes sandwiches”. And remember that every character thinks they’re the star of the show. The E character doesn’t know they’re not the A character, so they need as much detail as the lead. Gunther has dreams too.

In comedy the stakes don’t have to be objectively high, but they’ve got to feel sky high for your character. If the character cares, and we care about the character, then we’ll care about those stakes too.

The BBC Writersroom Northern Voices writers 2020

SESSION THREE

The third session was from BBC Comedy Commissioning Editor, Gregor Sharp, who talked to us about what audiences expect from comedy nowadays. There’s been a gradual sophistication of comedy as a genre: comedy shows now have characters with real psychological depth. There’s been an evolution in how we consume stories, a shift in viewing appetite, so we’re less used to watching shows where the characters are just vessels for jokes.

There are always landmark moments that bend what’s possible in the format, shows like Outnumbered, The Royle Family, Fleabag. (DRINK!)

Someone asked Gregor what they’re not looking for at the moment, and the main headlines were: give Zoom-based lockdown pitches a swerve. Unless it’s genre-bendingly brilliant. Nor are they looking for confessional, self-discovery shows at the moment. Unless they’re genre-bendingly brilliant. Basically, that seems to be the caveat to any piece of advice. If it’s genre-bendingly brilliant you can write what you want.

Similarly, if you’re worried you’ve not got enough experience? Well, if you’re funny enough, you’re experienced enough.

Look, he said, treatments are always hard to write, scripts are in the doing, and if you’re creating something for a mass medium you’ve succeeded when it reaches a mass number of people.

They’re looking for scripts full of compelling characters, that are unexpectedly funny and somehow hit the zeitgeist before anyone else knows what the zeitgeist is.

SESSION FOUR

Our fourth session was with comedy producers Jim Poyser and Rebecca Papworth. Jim and Rebecca don’t work together, but they had a lot of similar advice to share. When you come in for a first meeting with either Jim or Rebecca, they’ll want to have a good chat about your idea, but also get a sense from you that you’ll be prepared to work hard and take getting notes well. They’re looking for that idea that stands out from the crowd, and they both love a grafter.

Their advice was to read scripts of successful shows to see how economical they are, how tight the technique. Your characters should have soul, and an authentic point of view. (DRINK!)

If you’ve got an agent, your script is much more likely to be read by a producer. The relationship between writer and producer is so key, you'll be working closely together on a shared vision, so make sure that the relationship works for both of you. It’s helpful, if you do get a meeting, to have a few ideas up your sleeve.

So, take notes well, be flexible with your work, be prepared to graft. Oh, and have a fabulous voice (DRINK!) with an original concept. And if it’s a comedy: be funny.

Following some frankly terrifying advice about how it’s a good idea to be funny on social media, Jacob sent this meme, direct from the the Silicon Valley of the north (Sheffield), in 5 seconds flat:

SESSION FIVE

Our final session was with This Country writer and performer - actual Kurtan - Charlie Cooper, and the series director, Tom George. This was such an inspiring session, but maybe surprisingly, it was really reassuring (not intimidating, which it easily could have been from two lads who are partly responsible for one of the most beloved and lauded shows of recent years).

Charlie told us that when he and (co-creator of This Country) Daisy May Cooper write together, they do it in short bursts. Daisy lies on a bed, they improvise a bit as they write and when they run out of steam, they knock it on the head for the day. Both Tom and Charlie talked about the importance of finding the working practice that’s best for you. Do whatever works, whenever you’re most creative, and don’t feel guilty about what shape that takes. All the work you do is valuable, bad ideas can lead to good ideas. It’s not about how many pages you do each day or your self-imposed deadlines. Know when to call it a day when you hit a wall.

Charlie Cooper sharing advice during the Northern Voices session

They talked about a book called ‘Daily Rituals’ (currently priced at £89 from one online retailer, or £5.99 for the e-reader version, so take your pick starving artists), which goes through the massively varied daily routines of history’s most creative geniuses. We’ve not read any so far that involved sitting in elasticated waistbands chaining grab bags of Doritos in the midst of a global pandemic, but we’re only about 10 pages in. Apparently Beethoven counted out sixty coffee beans per cup, which does sound like the sort of thing that starts to really matter seven weeks into lockdown, so we’re gonna stick with it.

This session was like extra gold dust for us, because we’re a pair of writer-performers. Director Tom is also a part of the writing and storylining process on This Country, and they talked to us about how writing in a pair or a team means that you’ve got to try and take the ego out of it. Don’t censor anything, share your ideas even if they’re appalling. You have to have trust in each other.

A nice practical tip, was to share scripts with people you share a sense of humour with, they don’t have to be in the industry. For Daisy and Charlie, this person is their mum. If she laughs at something, they know it works. Thank the vicar for Mother Cooper then, eh?

Here we are in happier times, swinging by the cardboard cutout of CBeebies The Furchester Hotel (Media City branch).

Meet the Northern Voices 2020 writers

Follow @saracocker and @leoniekate on Twitter

The Northern Voices Writers 2020

2020-03-06T12:51:50+00:00

The Northern Voices Writers 2020

We’re delighted to announce our BBC Writersroom Northern Voices for 2020. These 17 exceptional writers are embarking on a year-long development programme with expert masterclasses, pitching opportunities and introductions to an industry hungry for new and exciting talent.

The group will also deliver an original TV spec' script with the support of the BBC Writersroom North team and an experienced script editor.

The writers have all been carefully identified through BBC Writersroom open call opportunities, talent scouting and nominations from our partnerships with new writing organisations and theatres in the North of England.

Through Northern Voices, previous writers have successfully received BBC credits, agent representation and industry mentorship. The Northern development programme has a track record of identifying stand-out writers including Tony Schumacher who has recently been commissioned by BBC Two to write his first original series for television and Sharma Walfall who is writing an episode of NOUGHTS AND CROSSES for Mammoth Screen/BBC.

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

Taiba Amla

Taiba Amla

Originally from Lancashire, Taiba Amla is a writer based in West Yorkshire. In 2016 Taiba’s first short screenplay was longlisted for Create 50’s international film The Impact. She was selected for New Writing Norths talent lab Significant Ink and went on to win the 2018 Channel 4 & Northumbria University Northern Writers Award for TV Drama, mentored by Bonafide Films. Since then, Taiba has been selected to participate in the BFI Northern Exposure Short Film Script Lab and recently been commissioned by the BFI to develop her first feature film with Finite Productions. Taiba is also currently developing her first documentary with Producer Sarah Dunn.

@TaibaAmla

Gemma Bedeau

Gemma Bedeau

Gemma Bedeau is an emerging Scriptwriter and Comic writer from Leeds. Gemma was one of the winners of the Airplays radio play competition with Leeds Playhouse, Leeds College of Music and BBC Radio Leeds with her debut radio play Soon Come. Her Radio play The Ladies Room was performed and recorded for BBC Radio 3 at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe. As a comic writer Gemma has written for the Eisner nominated Princeless comic series for Action Lab and her blaxploitation comic series Afroella landed her a Glyph Award nomination for best female character and features in the Museum of Uncut Funk.

@GemmaBedeau

Leanna Benjamin

Leanna Benjamin

Leanna Benjamin is a Graeae Theatre Write to Play alumn and a West Yorkshire Playhouse Fuse writer. She is a passionate storyteller, performer, jewellery designer and human rights activist.

Leanna enjoys using her creativity to share stories that inspire, encourage and to provoke a change.

Leanna won first prize at the 2013 Ilkley Literature Festival for her hilarious monologue Sister Joy. Leanna performed her piece ‘I Smile’ at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2016, at WOW BRADFORD and at the Southbank centre as part of the WOW London festival.
Leanna completed the Graeae Theatre ‘Write to Play,’ playwright course in 2019 and is working on a new play about what really it’s like to be an overcomer and challenging society’s definition of disability.

Leanna Benjamin

Ellen Brammar

Ellen Brammar

Ellen is a Hull-based writer and founding company member of Middle Child Theatre. Her theatre credits include, I HATE ALONE (2017) with Middle Child, WALK IN THE PARK (2019) with Back to Ours, TEN with Hull Truck Theatre (2019) and ORDINARY PEOPLE (2016) with Middle Child and Leeds Playhouse. She is currently writing a new show for Middle Child which is in the ‘I have no idea what it is!’ stage of development. She was longlisted for the BBC Comedy Script Room in 2016 with CULTURED and shortlisted in the same year for the CBBC sketch show, CLASS DISMISSED.

Over the past year, Ellen has mostly had a baby attached to her boob and is now excited to get back to writing and seeing what her sleep-deprived brain can create.

Agent: Dan Usztan at United Agents

Malcolm Canvin

Malcolm Canvin

Malcolm is a writer living in Newcastle upon Tyne with his wife and daughter.

Born in Canada, he then studied in Scotland, worked in London and finally settled in the North East a few years ago.

Malcolm has written for several years; developing scripts for film, television and radio across both Comedy and Drama. He was long-listed for the BBC Writersroom Script Room for Comedy in 2019 and is very excited to have been selected for Northern Voices 2020.

Sara Cocker and Léonie Higgins

Sara Cocker and Léonie Higgins

Sara Cocker and Léonie Higgins have been working together for seven years as two-thirds of Manchester’s Eggs Collective: writer-performers making sharp, fun, culturally-observational work. With a background in cabaret-theatre, they have taken their live shows to the Edinburgh Fringe, Latitude Festival and Soho Theatre and across the UK in two national tours.

In 2017 they adapted their live show ‘Get A Round’ for BBC2’s Performance Live strand, followed up by ‘Smile Love It Might Never Happen’, a mini-series for BBC iplayer. The shows were respectively nominated for Best Comedy Programme at The Royal Television Society NW Awards in 2018 and 2019.

Most recently, with support from The Space, they made a trio of mockumentary shorts, ‘Amazing Men’, presented online and on screen as part of HOME’s Orbit Festival. They regularly collaborate with communities across the north of England to create performance shaped by people and place, including a show for Accrington Market, a parade for St Helens and a power ballad for Preston.

Agent: Kate Haldane at PBJ

@SaraCocker

@LeonieKate

@EggsCollective

Olivia Hannah

Olivia Hannah

Olivia Hannah is a Newcastle-based playwright. She was a member of the 2017/2018 Royal Court Writers’ Group (North), during which she wrote her first full-length play, Braids, which was longlisted for the 2018 Alfred Fagon Award for Best New Play. Braids will be performed as part of double bill at Live Theatre in April 2020. She was a 2018/2019 Associate Artist at Live Theatre in Newcastle where her short play Home for Christmas was performed as part of the Live Theatre Christmas Crackers show in December 2018. Her short play Michelle was performed at The Exchange in October 2019 as part of Workie Ticket Theatre Company’s Women Warriors project, working with female veterans to share their experiences. She received an Early Development award from the BFI to write a treatment for the Braids feature and is currently working on the first draft of the screenplay.

@_oliviahannah_

Kerry Kolbe

Kerry Kolbe

Born in rural Cumbria, Kerry's unconventional upbringing with artist parents was culturally rich but financially poor, so for a long time the idea of relying on writing for a living felt frivolous and terrifying to her. Instead, after studying psychology and working as a journalist, at age 25 Kerry set up a company with a friend, raising millions to set up a media centre and make films with under-represented residents of Barrow-in-Furness.

In 2013, Kerry directed the Oscar-qualifying short documentary The German Who Came to Tea and was a fellow of the Clore Leadership Programme. This led to a placement at Kudos Film and TV and she then spent three years at UCLA studying screenwriting before taking up a place at the National Film and Television School and she graduated with a Masters in Screenwriting in 2019. Kerry's script SWALLOW won the 2019 Cinestory Feature Fellowship and was finalist in numerous international competitions.

@kerrykolbe

Houmi Miura

Houmi Miura

Manchester based Houmi is a Japanese British female writer, theatre-maker and actor. She trained in an MA in Professional Acting at ALRA North and has been making contemporary theatre in a variety of ways for 5 years. Houmi has previously produced and provided dramaturgical advice for JACK THE LAD at Hope Mill Theatre (2016).

In 2019, Houmi was awarded a Made at HOME grant, a SLATE commission and Arts Council funding to create her 1 woman show, IN THE BEGINNING WOMAN WAS THE SUN.

@houmimiura

Sarah Nelson

Sarah Nelson

Sarah’s first play Flatmates was selected for The National Students Drama Festival while she was a student at The Central School of Speech and Drama. She taught Drama for seven years before leaving to pursue writing and directing. She has worked with a variety of community organisations and Theatre companies. She is associate writer at the nationally renowned Oldham Theatre Workshop and Artistic Director of Big Umbrella Theatre Company for Adults with Learning Disabilities. She is a visiting lecturer at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and The University of Salford. She was the 2019 winner of the INSPIRE award for Women in Film, Art and Media and her play, ‘Letter to Boddah’ won a BOBBY award for Best at the fringe 2019. Recent credits include, ‘The Secret of Christmas Eve’, (Oldham Library) ‘Prom’ (Oldham Coliseum) ‘Letter to Boddah’ (Edinburgh Fringe). In 2016, she was commissioned to write and direct the opening of the new Odeon cinema in Oldham, a large scale outdoor performance, ‘On The Shoulders of Giants’. She is currently directing Oldham Theatre Workshop’s Actors House company, in their original piece ‘Because Brian Cox says so’.

@snoutymctrotter

Samran Rathore

Samran Rathore

Samran Rathore is an actor, spoken word artist and playwright. He is co-artistic director of British Asian led theatre company Tribe Arts and his writing and poetry include stories of identity and belonging.

His mission is to elevate the British Asian and Muslim presence on television from current stereotypes in order to change societal perceptions as well as challenging cultural expectations.

He is currently working on an anthology with Peepal Tree Press to publish his poetry later this year.

He also holds a MA in Race and Resistance from the University of Leeds and a Law degree.

@SamranRathore

Kat Rose-Martin

Kat Rose-Martin

Kat was born and is based in Bradford working on a slate of projects and ideas across film, theatre and television. She made it to the final 4% of 2019 BBC Writersroom for Drama and was a finalist in BAFTA Rocliffe TV Drama.

Kat is the writer in Residence at Sneaky Experience. She has also worked with Out of Joint workshopping her play £1 Thursdays. She was commissioned by the Bronte Society for her co-written play Jane Hair and is currently working on a commissioned audio series with Audible as well as MyDG, an online Interactive series based on CBBC’s The Dumping Ground.

Kat is currently on The Bank at Sheffield Theatres, a 14-strong cohort of writers, directors and producers who are supported and mentored by the theatres.

Kat is the inagural winner of the Kay Mellor Fellowship, giving her the unique opportunity to develop a stage play at Leeds Playhouse and a TV project at Rollem Productions.

Agent: Jennifer Thomas at United Agents

@KatMartin92

Eve Steele

Eve Steele

Eve is an award-winning writer and performer who has written several plays for radio and stage. Her most recently broadcast Radio 4 play, Torn, was a finalist for Best Single Drama, 2020 BBC Audio Drama Awards. Her latest 45 minute radio play, Grow, was recorded in January 2020 and is part of the series Fault Lines, narrated by Glenda Jackson. Eve has recently been commissioned by HOME to write a full length play for their main stage. She has also just been commissioned to write a full length show for Chester Storyhouse and Fallen Angels Dance Theatre. Eve grew up in Moss Side, Manchester, became involved in drugs and crime at a young age and is now clean, sober and (relatively) functional, with two children and a lot of stories to tell.

@_evka_

Jacob Welby

Jacob Welby

Jacob Welby is a Sheffield-adopted screenwriter and filmmaker. He is one-third of Hidden Picture Films, a production company specialising in the representation of hard-to-reach communities within the North.

Jacob’s screenplays combine dark humour with genuine heart. His short radio play ‘Bangers and Mash and Infidelity’ won Script Yorkshire’s radio play competition. His short (and very NSFW) animations reached mild viral fame and have been shown in international festivals.

He is currently co-directing a horror short about dealing with anxiety and writing a new feature length micro-budget film. His monologue ‘The Dregs At The End Of The Night’ is being performed at the Leeds Literary Festival in March.

When not writing in the third person, Jacob enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons and taking dogs for walks.

@JacobTWelby

Joseph Willis

Joseph Willis

Born and currently living in Sheffield, Joseph has always written from a young age, inventing horror stories in his backyard after accidentally seeing ‘Alien’ when he was 5. Whilst at York University, he set up his own horror theatre company Danse Macabre Productions which was nominated for the Les Enfants Terribles Award 2018. Danse Macabre Productions also run the London Horror Festival Playwriting Competition; with the festival itself being co-produced by Joseph and the Artistic Director, Katy Danbury. Over the past 2 years, Joseph has begun to move into film, developing scripts with the BFI, FNA Digital, Kato Films and filmmakers Grandmas and Simon Dymond.

He is a Gemini, a vegan (not another one), a lover of Singin in the Rain and his style can be described as darkly humorous surrealist realism, as if David Cronenberg and Andrea Arnold had joined forces and decided to write a sitcom.

@fallsoveralot

Introducing the Northern Voices Writers 2019

2019-05-15T14:53:01+00:00

We are delighted to announce the writers for our Northern Voices development group for 2018/19.

Northern Voices is a scheme for exciting diverse writing talent based in the North of England. The group is made up of ten writers, who are halfway through a 12 month development programme, looking to expand their writing skills and break into writing for broadcast.

These are writers we have been identified through BBC Writersroom schemes and open submission opportunities, talent scouting and by recommendations through our partnerships with new writing groups and theatres in the North of England.

Over the course of a year we work with and support these ten writers, who participate in workshops and training on writing for radio, television, film and digital platforms. Monthly sessions are led by industry professionals from across the broadcast landscape and involve a mix of masterclasses, practical writing and pitching workshops, networking opportunities and the chance to discuss and share work. They also work on a spec' script and receive script-editing support.

Some members of the group have already had short drama scripts developed and produced to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3's The Verb as part of a joint initiative with BBC Writersroom.

We’re excited to work with these writers and help them gain further BBC broadcast commissions.

Meet the Northern Voices 2018/19 below:

BBC Writersroom Northern Voices 2018/19. Aina Khan, Georgia Affonso, Guleraana Mir, Mandip Singh Desi, Zodwa Nyoni, Steven Routledge, Tony Schumacher, Allison Davies, Sharma Walfall, Matthew Ingram

Aina J Khan

Aina J Khan is a journalist who has written for Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, VICE, The Independent, and Middle East Eye. She has worked in broadcast with ITV News and on numerous documentaries examining topical social issues with ITN Productions, Channel 4, BBC Three. Over the last three years, she has worked with Southbank Centre, the UK’s largest arts centre, on the Women of the World (WOW) Bradford festival, which celebrates women and young girls and takes a frank look at the obstacles they face. Earlier this year, she wrote her first play on a British-Pakistani teenager’s love for Michael Jackson’s music which made its debut at the Bradford Literature Festival.

Georgia Affonso

Georgia Affonso is a script writer and theatre maker who specialises in comedy and storytelling. Georgia was the first Associate Young Writer for Northern Broadsides and wrote 'From the Ashes' a project linking BTEC students from Calderdale College to Northern Broadsides' production of Hard Times.

In 2017 Georgia wrote ‘Hornsea’ for Here and Now, a commission for Lit UP as part of Hull UK City of Culture 2017 in collaboration with playwright John Godber and two young playwrights which toured libraries and arts centres in the East Riding.

In 2016, Georgia was selected for The Writing Squad, a programme supporting young writers based in the North of England.

Georgia is co-manager of No Door Theatre, a female-focused theatre company that performs ‘pay-what-you-feel’ productions and scratch theatre nights in fringe venues. No Door Theatre produced Georgia’s first play ‘forgive-me-not’ at Zifferblat Edge St, in December 2016.

She frequently collaborates with composer Sophie Sully. Recently they have produced 'Three poems by an Angry Bird' for Collective31, 'Salt Fiend' a spoken-word piece for No Dice Collective, ‘Stick-Stock-Stone Dead’ for Manchester University Music Society’s Estival and ‘Dora’ produced by Manchester Contemporary Youth Opera.

Georgia graduated from the Music and Drama undergraduate degree at the University of Manchester in 2016.

Guleraana Mir

Guleraana is a writer, theatre practitioner and one half of The Thelmas, a female-led theatre company devoted to empowering women to redress the equality imbalance in the arts. She is passionate about creating diverse stories that are rooted in our modern society and using her voice to explore what makes us human.

Her debut play Coconut premiered at Ovalhouse, London in April followed by a national tour. It earned her an OFFIE nomination for most promising playwright. She regularly writes for community and youth groups and has recently worked with organisations such as AGE UK Westminster, Unicorn Theatre, Rightful Place Theatre and Peer Productions.

Mandip Singh Desi

Mandip Singh Dhesi is a freelance screenwriter from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. He holds a B.A in Art History and Religious Studies and an M.A in International Development and Education from the University of Leeds.

He spent a year teaching English in China after completing his TEFL qualification and also spent time in India where he completed a certificate in Film-making from the Institute of Moving Images (IMI) after which he wrote, produced and directed three short films.

Mandip has travelled the world twice and lived on three continents. He is a lover of the arts, thrives on new challenges and has a taste for adventure.

He has been screenwriting for just over twelve months and was this year longlisted by the BBC Writersroom for the Kudos North Writers’ Award and made the Second round at both the Nicholl and Austin Screenwriting Competitions. Mandip has also reached the shortlist for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award for BBC Radio Drama run in partnership with BBC Writersroom.

Zodwa Nyoni

Zodwa is a playwright and poet. She was the 2014 Writer-in-Residence at the Leeds Playhouse via the Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme. She has previously been Apprentice Poet-in-Residence at Ilkely Literature Festival (2013) and BBC Radio Leeds (2006).

Plays include: ODE TO LEEDS (West Yorkshire Playhouse, 2017), WEATHERED ESTATES (Hull 2017 City of Culture / Roaring Girls ,2017) and BOI BOI IS DEAD (Co-production between West Yorkshire Playhouse, Tiata Fahodzi & Watford Palace Theatre, 2015). She was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2015. Radio credits include: SONNETS IN THE CITY: LOVE AGAIN (BBC Radio 3, 2016). Her work is published by Bloomsbury.

Zodwa is currently working on her Radio 3 Drama, ‘A Khosian Woman’ which will be recorded on location at Summerhall during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Steven Routledge

I am a fifty year old writer for life, having written anything and everything since I was old enough to hold a pen. I am married with two teenage daughters and live in Newcastle upon Tyne. My day job is a senior Pharmacy manager in the largest mental health NHS Trust in the country.

I have always written in any genre, and any time period, and I love to learn new things and discover new ways of telling stories. I have written dozens of short stories, novels, stage plays and screenplays, latterly concentrating on screenplays as my medium of choice.

I have had my screenplays longlisted by BBC Writersroom many times, and made it to the interview stage for Drama Room 2018, which led to me being part of Northern Voices. I have also been shortlisted for the 2016 North Tyneside Library’s Short Story competition.

Tony Schumacher

Tony Schumacher had one dream when he was a kid, and that was to be a writer. Instead of becoming a writer he bombed out of school aged 16 with no qualifications and a sigh of relief. He worked his way around the world as a roofer, a jeweller, a bouncer, a barman, a binman, and on board cruise ships selling underpants, before eventually returning to Liverpool to become a response policeman dealing with 999 jobs morning, noon and nights.

Eleven years later, after a breakdown and a period of homelessness, he found himself driving a taxi around the night-time streets of Liverpool. That was when he remembered his dream and finally started to write.

His first three novels have since been published by HarperCollins in the USA, and since then he has been mentored by Jimmy McGovern as part of the ScreenSkills High End TV Writers Bursary Scheme (2018) and been invited to join the BBC Writersroom Northern Voices Scheme. He has recently been commissioned by LA Productions to write Episode 3 of Clink, a new Female Prison Drama for Channel 5.

Allison Davies

Allison is a writer from north East England.

She has published short stories and poetry in a number of lit zines. Her work for theatre has been presented at a variety of venues including Northern Stage, ARC Stockton, Live Theatre, CAST, Camden People's Theatre, Alphabetti Theatre and in Prague.

In 2011 Allison was listed for the Alfred Bradley award and in 2012 her screenplay ‘Swimming Lessons’ was shortlisted for BBC Drama Room. Her first play ‘Weather to Fly’ was produced in 2013. Allison has recently had her short radio drama, ‘Hagstones’ broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb (Listen Now at 31'36 into the programme).

She is currently working on The Devil Danced in Our Eyes, a collaboration for theatre with writer/performer JonLuke McKie, a radio drama, and has recently been given a place on the BFI Northern Exposure Short Film Lab where she will be getting her first film off the ground.

Sharma Walfall

Sharma was born and raised in Manchester and graduated from Salford University with a BA in Media and Performance. In 2015 she won the inaugural Channel 4 & Northumbria University Northern Writers Award. Subsequently receiving a placement with Lime Pictures where she wrote her first televised credit – an episode of HOLLYOAKS which aired in January last year.

Since then Sharma has been developing her original series ideas including OUT OF BOUNDS which was awarded a development commission with TriForce Creative Network Writer’s Incubator and was subsequently read as part of Sky’s popular industry table reads.

Sharma has made it to the final stage of Original Voices Emmerdale and will start a seven week placement in the story office in late October this year. She has recently been selected to be mentored by Jack Thorne as part of the Screenskills and Dancing Ledge scheme, where she will receive a development bursary to work on one of her other original serial drama ideas. She is also a finalist for the ITV and Red Planet Pictures Prize. Sharma’s writing is tender, she writes young voices with aplomb and is exceptionally deft at crafting ensemble multi-stranded drama. Sharma is represented by David Kayser at Casarotto & Ramsay Associates.

Matthew Ingram

Matthew is a Welsh-born, Northern-adopted writer who writes principally for theatre. He has been developed by Sherman Theatre, Leeds Playhouse and The Writing Squad, is currently working on projects independently and with Northern Broadsides. Matthew was shortlisted for the 2018 BBC Writersroom Drama Room.

Northern Voices is his first venture into writing for broadcast media and he has already had his short radio drama, ‘Personal Space’ developed and broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb. Listen Now (at 19'00" into the programme)