Was the writing process different for you when you were creating Series 2 of The Responder?

Do you know what? It wasn’t. I was expecting it to be, and everyone talks about the difficult second album syndrome, but I think I’m just too stupid to get stressed about it! So it was literally just ‘Do It Again’ – I went into a room and did it again.

Do you have a favourite scene or moment across the two series?

I always say this, and people must be sick of listening to it, but it’s still by far and away my favourite scene, which is in episode 1. It’s Chris (Martin Freeman) and Marco (Josh Finan) in the police car driving along.

One, I love it because it’s beautifully shot. It’s in the dark. It sums up what being a copper is so much about which is you and the person you’ve arrested or the person you’re with and that small fish-tank environment. I love that and I love that they captured that so beautifully, the director . It was the first scene that I wrote and it was me talking to me. I wrote it as an exercise which was me being a copper later in life and me being a scally earlier in life sitting in the back of a car. So it’s very much a conversation between me and me. It’s by far and away my favourite scene.

Were there any new themes that you wanted to explore or existing ones that you wanted to build on with Series 2?

The themes that I wanted to explore and expand upon that were important to me were relationships and love. I think every show – literally every show from right the way up to something like is about love and relationships. It’s the whole thing for me. The Responder is not a crime show, it’s a show about those issues. For me, being a father of a two-and-a-half-year-old I was really interested in Chris’s struggle with being a good Dad and holding that in relation to his struggle with how his own Dad wasn’t a good Dad. It’s about his fears about that and his fears about carrying that mark on him. He’s terrified that he’s going to pass those bad things onto his daughter. Those were the themes that I really wanted to look at – fatherhood, love and relationships. To me those are the most important things.

What do you think made The Responder resonate with people?

I’m still coming to terms with the fact that it did resonate with people! It resonated all around the world. I’m still getting stopped by people who want to talk about series one. It kind of caught fire and took off. I think because everyone was expecting it to be one thing and it turned out that it wasn’t. Everyone thought it was going to be Line of Duty (and I love Line of Duty) but it’s not Line of Duty. And everyone thought if it wasn’t that then it would be something like from years ago, and it wasn’t that either. It’s just a programme about people and I think people are interested in people, so it can only be that.

How important is Liverpool as the setting and what does that bring to the story?

It was massively important to me, if only because the way that I wrote it was very much using the rhythms of speech and the people. The people in the show are almost real, well they are real to me, but they’re almost real. I’ve literally just been chatting to someone who could have been in the show. It was very important to me that I got those people in the show and also I love this city, it means a lot to me. It’s nice to do something in your hometown. I think as well, it gives it an identity that maybe it wouldn’t have had if it was set in, I don’t know… Hemel Hempstead. I might write that show next!

What is it about police dramas that makes them so rich for storytelling?

When I was a copper, very very early on in my career a bobby said to me that we’re never going to knock on someone’s door and tell them they’ve won the lottery. You are only ever dealing with strong emotions and dark emotions. It’s very rare that you just have a bland, boring day. Everything is always very heightened. The minute that you heighten life then any kind of drama that you’re writing about it is exaggerated again and heightened further. It’s just fertile ground for plucking stories out (do you pluck things out of fertile ground?) It’s perfect for it. Big emotions – that’s what you want in a drama.

How did your writing journey start?

A very long time ago… it’s like ‘Once Upon a Time Tony wanted to be a writer…’ When I was a kid, I really wanted to be a writer and used to love writing stories at school. The only class I was interested in was English, that was all I wanted to do. But I failed my English exam and I thought that was it, “Oh well, never going to be a writer”. Thirty-odd years later I’m driving a cab after having a nervous breakdown and quitting the police and a lady got in the cab and said to me that she was the editor of a magazine. I said to her "I’m a writer". I don’t know why I said it, but I just said it. Now I look back and I think that I wasn’t lying really, I’d always been a writer but just hadn’t written anything. Hopefully that’s been born out after three novels and The Responder. She told me to send her some stuff, so I had to go away and start writing again. It was like someone just took the finger out of the dam and suddenly all this stuff flowed out of me. I was a writer, there was a thirty-year hiatus and then suddenly I was a writer again. I think I’m almost qualified to say now that’s what I am.

How important is life experience to your writing?

I think for me it’s very important. For my writing it’s very important. But I do sort of take umbrage with people when they say “ah well you’ve got all that life experience, someone who is twenty-one hasn’t got that life experience”. But they’ve probably just got a better imagination that I have. I don’t think life experience is important for everyone. I don’t believe in write what you know, I believe in write what you can imagine. I think people should just enjoy writing. You shouldn’t wait to start writing.

How do you create compelling characters?

I don’t know! I hope I just do it. I think what I do is not just to write a scene between two people. I’ve got one person here and one person there and information is passing between them – what should a scene do? Pass information. When I’ve written that scene I’ll come round behind this character, and I’ll try and move into their head – this is what I’m doing at three in the morning! I’ll move into their head, and I’ll look at the other character through their eyes. So, I’ve got all the information but when I run that scene again in my head I’m trying to see if there’s anything between them that I can use and build on. It might be their appearance – “look at the state of you, where have you been?’’. It’s a bit of human language. When I’ve done that, I’ll come round the other side and look through the other character’s eyes.

Your scene has got to convey information. If it’s not conveying information, then it shouldn’t be there – that’s what people would say. They’re probably right but I don’t necessarily think that’s true. I think there’s always space for a scene where you don’t have to convey as much information in what people say. Sometimes no words are better than a lot of words. People think to make a compelling character that they’ve got to say a lot. Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) in the show doesn’t really say that much. He doesn’t pass that much information on. Sometimes the compelling nature of the character is in the silence as well and what they’re doing with their hands, or where they’re sitting or what they’re looking at. Get in their head, get behind their eyes and look at the world through their eyes.

Any top tips?

There’s one that I wish I had known which is – Don’t get in your own way. I keep saying this over and over. The one thing that stops writers more than any others is themselves. Get out of your way. Start writing. We talk about self-doubt and block and confidence. It’s all you. You’ve just got to write it. Don’t think that you’ve got to buy a new notepad. I’m guilty of all of this, I’ve got about twenty brand new notepads on my desk, I’m guilty of it and that’s why I can speak with a degree of confidence. Stop telling yourself things like ‘I don’t know how to format a script’, just write it. It doesn’t matter if the format is wrong, or you haven’t got the software.

Jimmy McGovern – well if you’re going to get writing advice go to the boss! Jimmy said to me “Write you”. At the time I thought he meant just write my story but as time has gone on, I think what he was saying was to write what you feel is right, don’t write what you think will be a hit or that people are looking for. Don’t try and tailor your work to the current crop of television shows or films. Be you, you’re individual and unique.

What are the benefits of writer development schemes?

The experience – it’s just that. I was part of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom North group (Voices). You have people coming in to speak to the group who I would never in a million years get the opportunity to listen to. People would come in and talk about commissioning and theatre and radio. It’s also a calling-card if you can get onto those schemes it’s a way of other people getting to know you. One of the first people I met at a ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers event was at Stratford in East London (at the writers’ festival). It’s a bit of a hike from Liverpool. I met Helen Black who went on to write Time series 2 with Jimmy McGovern. When I met Helen neither of us had written anything for television but we’re still mates and hoping to collaborate together one day. I’m Britain’s worst networker so it was Helen who came over and put me in a headlock and started talking to me! If you find it difficult to network, just go anyway, you’ll learn stuff, why would you not want to learn stuff?

Can you outline your writing career to date?

Bronágh: I started out as an actor and still am an actor, that was my gateway into writing. I moved from Belfast to London for acting and then when I was over there, I decided to enter the writing competition and ended up getting selected for that. When you’re selected you get to do a performance piece and industry people come along. Luckily ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Northern Ireland were over for it, and they were putting together a team for a new show called 6 Degrees. That led to me going onto the writing team. It started from there really. After that I wrote on lots of C³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and other children's dramas before I made the leap into more grown-up drama. The two areas work exactly the same, it’s just for a different audience. That experience gave me so much, I got to write so many scripts. I think that’s the only way to really polish your skills – by writing as much as possible.

Noel: My journey into writing is a bit random in that my previous career was as a police officer. I’ve always loved storytelling, but I was just writing for myself, almost as self-care, it was cathartic. I never imagined that anyone else would ever read it. Then it came to the stage that I had a finished script and I wondered if it was any good. The only person who I knew in the industry was (one of the creators of Blue Lights). He agreed to read the script and reacted to it really positively. That gave me the confidence to take it out, so I contacted who gave me the name of local producers. I contacted who agreed to read it and took it into development and then out to broadcasters. It was literally the first thing that I’d ever written, which was just crazy! From that I ended up getting an agent. The script was taken to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and (who was commissioner there at the time) said “we love this, but we’ve committed to a cop show in Northern Ireland already” which turned out to be Blue Lights! That’s something which happens a lot – there will be something else similar on the development slate. I was disappointed at the time but now I’m pleased that’s the way it worked out.

Have you been involved with any of the writer development groups or opportunities offered by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers?

Bronágh: I’ve done development residentials in the past when you were known as ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom. I remember one of them was when I was writing for a teenage audience. I’d just had a baby and remember it was bliss because I actually got some sleep! It was great just to be mingling with other writers and it did lead onto some work.

Noel: I was on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers Pilot scheme. It was genuinely brilliant, the best scheme that I’ve done. I got teamed up with a mentor called , this legendary showrunner who also has a foothold in America. It was meant to be a professional mentor scheme but she’s just my mate now. We’re chatting all the time and the advice that she’s given me is unbelievable. She’s put me forward for jobs which have come off. The actual group of writers who were involved in Pilot and being part of that peer group was also great. It’s just lovely being in a group chat and being able to run things past each other. I’m not from the industry, outside of work I’m not involved with people from the industry, so forming that friendship group and being able to ask questions is just so helpful.

How did you become involved with Blue Lights?

Bronágh: I was already working with the production company, , when the first series was happening. , the joint CEO there, gave me my first writing job on 6 Degrees. I was very pregnant when the first series came around and couldn’t also swing getting into the writers’ room, but they said “if it comes back we’ll give you a shout”. I met Dec (Declan Lawn) and he read a spec’ script of mine. Then I was asked into the writers’ room for series 2 with the showrunners Dec, and Noel.

Noel: For me, because Dec had read my police script and I had that USP of having actually done the job, I was brought on board when series 1 was commissioned. I was involved in creating most of the characters and using my experience in shaping the storylines.

Why do you think the show has resonated with so many people?

Bronágh: I think it’s because it very, very cleanly explained aspects of Northern Ireland that people could never get their heads around. I lived in London for 10 years and people were always asking me to explain Northern Ireland, explain Belfast, to explain certain political aspects. People are fascinated by it and there’s only so much you can try and explain when you’re working in a coffee shop to your co-workers who are from Madrid or the north in England. Blue Lights came out and I think people just went "Oh I understand it more now – the layout of the city, the different communities, the trust issues, the differences in the police service". That’s a really hard thing to achieve.

Noel: Blue Lights was character-driven from the start. I remember from day one of the writers’ room that was the plan. On the surface it’s about the police but really, you’re getting to know the characters because they’re thrown into these incredible situations. How they deal with those situations tells you so much about who they are. I think through the fact it’s a police drama you get to know them very quickly and their personality traits – you really get behind them.

For me the best thing about Blue Lights is that it’s unashamedly localised. I think people buy into that. My favourite TV shows are ones that are totally of the place and don’t apologise for it in any way, shape, or form.

How does the writers’ room process work?

Bronágh: Dec and Adam come in with a very clear view of what the overall arc is going to be – the crime story which is always the driving force. That’s not to say that it doesn’t morph and change as time goes on. Within that overall arc we’re free to feed in in terms of guest stories that will come in and out and we do a lot of talking, breaking down our main family of characters and what we’re going to do with them.

At the end of the writers’ room process what do you leave with?

Bronágh: A document, photographs of scribbles on whiteboards, sheets going down the walls! our script editor writes everything up at the end of every day and streamlines it for us. As you can imagine, we’ll be on one episode and then the conversation jumps down the line to another. Sarah has the job of trying to put it all into order so that when we’re reading it over afterwards it’s more organised. I still don’t know how she does that! You leave with a sense of what each episode is – I know this because we walked out with a sense of episodes 1, 2 ,4, 5 and 6 but not so much episode 3 – and I was like ‘great that’s my episode!’ but that was just because we hadn’t cracked it yet in the room, but we cracked it later.

How does it work writing your own episode within the series?

Bronágh: You have an idea of the overall arc of the series, something will stand out with every episode, so you know what that episode is. Your A storyline – in terms of what incident your characters are called out to on the streets in that episode (for example) is still up for grabs and you get to bring that to the table and decide what you would like to do with the main characters within your episode – while keeping an eye on how it falls in the whole thing. That bit is really satisfying.

Noel: We knew from the beginning that Adam and Dec would write the beginning and end of the series, so we knew that episodes 3 and 4 were up for grabs. There’s a big storyline for which the crescendo happens in episode 4. That storyline was inspired by my real-life experience, so I agreed with Bronágh that I’d take episode 4. But before this point all four of us together with the producers had come up with the entire series and knew pretty much what was going to fall into each episode. Once the writers’ room stage is finished it’s about Bronágh and me going off and writing our outlines of what our individual episode are going to look like. Then after that we’ll all work on it together, agreeing and moving stuff around. The script editors are also involved at this stage. Once we get the sign off then it’s off to write the full script.

What are you most proud of about your episode?

Noel: For series 2 I campaigned to have a character who is a cop who’s a bit of a rascal and we’ve got him in a new character called Shane (Frank Blake). I’m proud that in the first draft of my episode, how I’d written him resulted in him being re-written in earlier episodes to get him to that point. Without giving any spoilers there’s a scene that I refer to as the Harry Potter scene – that’s where Shane comes to the fore – that’s what I’m most proud of.

Bronágh: In my episode I got to pitch a big emotional storyline. Everybody calls it the ‘tearjerker’. I got to write for Stevie (Martin McCann), who I just love as a character, and I got to delve deeper with him and into his past – through the job and his relationship with Grace (Sian Brooke). I think it takes things in a slightly different direction.

Why do you think people should watch Blue Lights?

Bronágh: I think it does that thing where it swings a lens onto another area of Belfast – which is such a complicated city. The show is doing this amazing thing of taking an aspect of the city and trying to interrogate it a bit. As Adam and Dec interrogate it the audience get to learn about the inner workings of this place. It can still baffle you – as it still baffles a lot of us who live here, but I think they’re just going deeper and deeper and through this world of policing you get to see so many other walks of life in Northern Ireland. Adam and Dec are journalists, and they know how to do this stuff. It feels great to be in the hands of people who are really good at that.

What’s the best piece of career advice that you’ve been given about writing?

Noel: I did a writing course with and he gave out his top ten tips. Number one was ‘Don’t be an a***hole’ – and I’ve never had any other piece of advice which has surpassed that! Because it’s all about relationships. If people enjoy working with you they are going to come back to work with you again.

Bronágh: For me the best piece was from . She said, ‘Just get it done’. I’d written a first draft and brought it to her with all the typical insecure writer caveats of ‘it’s really rubbish, it’s really bad, I could do another draft etc etc’ and she just took it from me and said, ‘You got it done. That’s the difference between people who want to write and people who write. We can’t collaborate with anyone unless you have something. We can talk all day about ideas (and a lot of the job is doing just that), but at the end of the day we’re going to need a script.’

As soon as you have a script you’ve something to work from, something to polish and to improve. Just get it done!

Watch Blue Lights Series 2 on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer from Monday 15th April

How would you set the scene for This Town?

Steven Knight (writer) - The setting and backdrop for This Town is 1981, Birmingham and Coventry. ‘81 was a time of turmoil and change in every sense - in society, in politics but in music as well. This series opens with a riot and I hope the sense of ‘riot’ continues throughout the whole thing. , it happened in Handsworth, Birmingham and I’ve used that to introduce four very different characters who will come together.

You might say it’s about music or it’s about people who are drawn to a certain type of music, but I’ve tried not to do that. I didn’t really want to do a thing about people who form a band, which is part of what it is, I wanted to create a group of people who have no choice other than to form a band because all the other options are so bleak. Having said that I hope ‘bleak’ isn’t a word that people use to describe this, because what I’m trying to do is meet these people living their lives on big, sprawling housing estates in the early 80s and it’s beautiful. The place is beautiful. The series is not trying to say ‘isn’t it awful’.

Where did the idea for This Town come from and why did you want to write this story?

Steven - It originated with , the production company, who suggested creating something to do with this sort of music. That struck a chord with me because this was the era when I grew up and I’m from similar places to where the music originated.

At the time it seemed completely normal, but when you look back there was a period when in Coventry and then Birmingham that a certain sort of music appeared. Suddenly everyone seemed to come together regardless of differences like race. You’d go to a Birmingham football match and go to the pub after the match and someone would turn up with a record player and plug it in and everyone was united. The point being that it wasn’t deliberate or forced, or anyone at the time said “this is good”, it just happened. Music was everywhere. Not just the younger generation but parents and uncles and aunties would have a party and everyone would turn up and everyone had their song which they did. People were just singing all the time. In pubs people would sing.

I thought it would be interesting to tell a story set at that time. I tried not to tell a story of four people who form a band but four people in very very difficult circumstances which they can only escape from if they form bands.

Music is such a force of hope for so many of us, especially at that time of your life?

Steven - Music appeals to some part of your psyche that isn’t rational or reasonable. The characters are not seeking it out or trying to find it – this thing is finding them. A lot of the character stuff is based on real people’s experiences – the character of Gregory for example. I’m trying to get the reality of people’s lives into the story, the unusualness of reality.

What part does music play for the different characters?

Steven - For each character there is a role for music. For Bardon music for him is this Irish rebel music, it represents what his dad does, the danger, the jeopardy and the thing he doesn’t want. For Dante it’s words and he can’t cope with how they come to him, he needs to get them away. For Deuce, Dante’s dad who is a preacher, there is gospel music which for him is the lifeline to save him from addiction. Estella, Bardon’s mum, could’ve made it in the 60s and 70s, because she is a brilliant singer – and luckily Michelle Dockery is also a brilliant singer. For Estella music is what might’ve been. It’s a different thing for all of them but it fits when they all come together. 

The setting is so vital to the story?

Steven - Yes, there are these two council estates, and you could approach it by saying ‘isn’t it a shame, these poor people’ but for people who live there you don’t think like that. It’s brilliant, it’s glamorous and it’s dramatic. The idea is that those blocks look beautiful.

And all the influences and sounds come together to make this series unique?

Steven - I think so. We’ve been so fortunate with our performers and our director and the people who have contributed music, so I’m really excited about that – by the time you get to episode six it’s on fire!

Paul Whittington - Director

I read Steve’s script a couple of years ago now and I know it sounds like a cliché but it was one of the best scripts I’d ever read. The energy really leapt off the page and the vitality of these characters. Also, it’s interesting that it’s a very personal piece for Steve because actually it felt very personal for me too. The more personal you make something in the writing of it then the more universal it becomes. All the themes of being that age, being a teenager and that search for identity, ‘Who am I? Who is my tribe?’ Expressing that through the music that you listen to and the clothes that you wear – I think that’s something that we can all relate to.

I have a particular nostalgia for it because I remember that time, I’m from the Midlands too. It’s nostalgic but also universal thematically. You could set this story at any stage of history since the invention of the teenager!

How do you recreate those locations at that time?

Paul - Birmingham offers a lot in terms of the locations and people were very welcoming to us. If you say you’re working with the guy who created Peaky Blinders the doors open! The Brummies are rightly very proud of that show.

We found an area called in Birmingham – a sprawling estate with green spaces and woodland and then a location in Coventry that we wanted to be a bit more insular and inward looking – an incredible estate that has a large tower in the centre and four low rise blocks around each side that felt like a fortress. We had these two very distinctive and different locations.

How did you select the music for the incredible soundtrack?

Paul - Steve had written a lot of stuff into the script. Reading the script with a playlist in your head brought a lot to life. We also had a fantastic composer, , who wrote all the original music. He brought that time together with something that feels very contemporary.

Did you think ‘oh no I didn’t get this song in’?

Steven – I really tried not to think about it in terms of, it’s got to be about music or have a forensic analysis of what music was there at the time or even worse, try and be pure about things. It’s not based on the story of any specific band. People were listening to all kinds of different music. That’s why I wanted Leonard Cohen in there – just the last thing you’re expecting.

Steven this is the first production out of your new Birmingham studios isn’t it? How important is that?

Steven - We did it before we were ready, which was good! It’s a project that I’ve been working on for about eight or nine years, to get a studio there in Digbeth which is quite a rough but also cool bit of Birmingham with lots going on. We’ve got 20 acres of land with a mix of industrial warehouses and Victorian architecture. I love it. We’ve got Masterchef moving in and a lot more stuff coming. For me to be shooting in Birmingham was incredibly important. I love I think it’s beautiful! There’s a lot of in this show! I just wanted to take the bits of Birmingham that I’ve always thought are just amazing and great to look at and put them on screen and see if anybody agrees.

When you were writing the show did you have more than one season in mind?

Steven – Yes definitely. I think if you’re going to write a show you have to think that you’re going to be with these people for quite a long time and you’re going to get to the end of their journey. What’s good about television rather than film is that you can have a character who is unsympathetic for a long time and then redeem them. There’s always a thought that these characters are going to mature over quite a long period of time.

What’s the connection to the political context of the time and does it have contemporary resonance?

Steven - I think yes, fracture and destruction of society and pessimism. My intention was to take all of that bleakness and then find out that people will make it through. These characters are in very, very difficult circumstances, not through any fault of their own, and find ways to get out of them. At least you can have a laugh and a song.

Watch This Town on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One from Sunday 31st March

The Verb is a weekly "Cabaret of the Word", featuring the best poetry, new writing and performance, presented by Ian McMillan. The Verb is a longstanding collaborator with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers, offering the chance for writers from our development groups (including Scripted, Writers' Access Group, and Voices) to garner a short audio drama commission - and also the opportunity to appear on the show. 

Once selected, our alumni writers underwent an intense development process with a ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Audio Drama North Producer. Below, you can listen to their final audio drama productions, as well as read their experiences of the process. 

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers alumni selected for the most recent Verb audio dramas are Amy Arnold, Alan Flanagan, Matthew Smith, and Karen Featherstone. 

"I was so happy to have my radio play selected for The Verb – KISSING WITH TONGUES was the first thing I’d ever written for radio, and I really wasn’t sure how my writing would translate given that I have mostly worked on television scripts before now. Once I got started, I found the loose brief – to simply ‘celebrate language’ – and also the tight 7-8 minute timing really focused my brain, getting me to think hard about the purpose of every word (I can sometimes tend towards verbose when left to my own devices!)

"My script editor Pippa Day was brilliant in helping me hone the finer story details, and I loved the day I spent in the studio with her and Lorna Newman, who directed the play with so much energy and enthusiasm. Hearing the actors performing my words was really special – for me it was the first time I’ve experienced that, and it gave me a renewed excitement for radio as a storytelling medium. Listening to the final edit felt so intimate and romantic - the perfect way to dive into the inner thoughts of my two characters as they mull over their feelings for one another. I’m so grateful I got the opportunity to create this piece through being part of Writersroom, and look forward to writing more for radio in the future!"

- Amy Arnold

Listen to the full episode of The Verb including Amy's introduction to Kissing With Tongues (at 44 minutes)

"Anyone who's spent more than five minutes in an Ann Summers knows that it's the fate of humanity to eventually fall in love with machines, so I decided to pitch 'Something Borrowed' -- about a dead relationship resurrected by some ungodly combination of AI and wishful thinking. I love writing for radio because there's this inherent weirdness to it, the audience with an ear cocked to their wireless (slash bluetooth headset) will pretty much sign up for anything, so it feels like a great space to explore genre stories. After getting the initial pitch accepted, I faced the agonising uphill battle of bringing an idea to life -- only kidding (I don't work down a mine), it was all smooth sailing with the wonderful producer Vicky Moseley guiding me through several drafts.

"The main challenge was getting so much story into about 8 minutes while still keeping the characters intact and interesting, but Vicky was the perfect collaborator the whole way through. Recording radio is always so much fun, and (after getting over being star-struck by meeting a former Corrie star) I was bowled over by the performances of Jenny Platt and Andonis Anthony. Andonis found the slowly growing humanity in this artificial-intelligence-turned-spurned-boyfriend, while Jenny achieved the impossible by doing an Irish accent that I, a curmudgeonly Irish person, found flawless. I can't thank Vicky, Jenny, Andonis (and Lorna Newman, and others who worked on the project) enough for allowing me to have so much fun bringing this story of literal "it's PC gone mad" to the nation's earholes."

- Alan Flanagan

Listen to the full episode of The Verb including Alan's introduction to Something Borrowed (at 32 minutes, 40 seconds)

"Radio is a visual medium. Well, no. But hold on...

"When I think about audible storytelling - like a podcast, radio advert or interview - the bits that stick with me are the moments where I can visualise the scene. So this was my mission throughout the writing process: write visually. Sure, write well, but for the love of God write visually.

"I committed to an idea which is specific and absurd. On the very first page of my script, a Huddersfield Town fan transforms into a donor kebab. This set the tempo. The rest of the story must evolve from this foolish imagery to keep the listener guessing and, ideally, bewildered.

"My commitment to ensuring the story was populated with lush yet unfamiliar imagery led me to expecting higher standards from my writing. It's all well and good to imagine bizarre illustrations, but none of this imagery is worth spit unless it actually means something. Therefore I interrogated the story's characters, themes, language and structure much more than I usually do; ensuring the ambitious visuals are complimented by ambitious storytelling.

"What I'm trying to say is, more radio dramas should open with a kebab mutation in the John Smith's stadium."

- Matthew Smith

Listen to the full episode of The Verb including Matthew's introduction to No Smoking in the Ground (at 13 minutes)

"My play GHOST IN THE MACHINE was my third attempt to have my work included as part of The Verb, so I was thrilled when it got selected. In a way, having being rejected before helped, I think, as I stopped second guessing what I thought the team would like.

"I just wrote about something which had been bothering me (my increasing claustrophobia in MRI machines; I’m a disabled writer and have had a lot of MRI scans). It was a happy coincidence that the weird noises an MRI machine makes meant they were going to contribute to a rich soundscape. I’m told the sound designers got quite excited at the challenge.

"Developing the piece with the wonderful Pippa Day, and then being invited to the recording were huge factors in me feeling that this piece was going to turn out very close to how it had played in my head. There was a slight delay when we had to find the correct pronunciation of the word ‘parapharyngeal’, but the patience and dedication of Pippa, the actors and tech team paid off. It was really one of the best experiences I’ve had of my writing being produced."

- Karen Featherstone

Listen to the full episode of The Verb including Karen's introduction to Ghost in the Machine (at 22 minutes, 30 seconds)

Can you tell us about Domino?

Domino Day is about a very powerful witch, who doesn't understand the true extent of her powers. All she knows is she needs to feed off the energy of others and she uses dating apps to find her victims. There is a coven of witches based in Manchester that see her as a threat and want to stop her before she hurts someone.

Why did you decide to set the series in Manchester?

The series was originally set in London but the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ are really keen to represent other regions and to film and set dramas all across the UK. I’ve always thought Manchester was just such a cool city - a little bit of old and new, especially in the fashion sense. The swagger is just different to London so I thought it would be unique to set a witch show here.

What makes the series unique?

Domino Day is unique as it's about witches but looks at modern relationships as well. It's a very sexy show, blending relationship drama with the supernatural, which I think young people will love.

What are the key themes?

It’s very sexy and dark but also the main character Domino is finding herself throughout the series, which I think a lot of young people can relate to. So the show is also about self-acceptance as well as how you connect to people in the modern world, especially when there are apps everywhere.

What did you want to explore and develop in this story?

I really wanted to explore sisterhood. Obviously, there are guys in the show but I see the series as a real display of sisterhood, as you've got Domino and this coven of witches. For me, the three main witches are Sammie, Kat and Domino so it's a real display of Black Girl Magic on screen.

What made you write it as a genre?

I just love the supernatural genre. The Americans have done it so well with the likes of True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, etc. And I just thought...we need our own show in the UK!

Where did you find inspiration for this story?

A lot of my own dating stories are in there and Domino's journey is a lot like the journey I've gone on in finding myself as a writer, finding my own voice and learning how to own my own power and magic.

What in the show do you think audiences will most relate to?

I think everyone will relate to the dating and the dating apps. I think they'll also relate to those core themes and the feeling of life being a little bit out of control and trying to regain it.

Where does the story begin? Who do we meet in the beginning?

We first meet Domino in the bathroom of a bar. Her nose is bleeding and we have no idea why, but she seems to know the reason for it. She cleans herself up, goes back into the bar and we see her waiting for a date. Whilst she's there, she starts chatting to the barman, played by Percelle Ascott. There's an obvious natural connection between them and it's the sort of perfect real life meeting which is so rare in the dating world, but then her actual date arrives. We can immediately tell he's not right and there doesn't seem to be any chemistry between them but Domino is desperate to go back to his house and when she does, we find out why...she needs to feed.

From that point, how does Domino's character develop?

Domino is trying to understand why she needs to feed. She's only known one other witch in her life, her ex-boyfriend, so she's trying to find out what kind of witch she is whilst this coven of witches are circling her trying to find that out as well. So she goes on this journey, but is also trying to figure out how to be a good person with the immense power she possesses, compared to the other witches.

You touched on the female relationships in the series, can you tell us more about the coven?

Yes, each coven member goes through their own journey with her. Sammie, who is an aura witch, is the first to see how much Domino is struggling. She’s very empathetic towards her and is the first of them to really make contact. Whereas Kat, who's the coven leader, is a bit more guarded. Jules is the newbie to the coven who initially doesn’t really care about being a part of it but goes on her own journey to seeing the coven as a sisterhood. And Geri is just quite angsty. She really dislikes Jules’ indifference at the start but then they sort of come together at the end.

Which scene is your favourite?

The first time Domino feeds off a date. It's one of the scenes that was the most clear in my mind when I wrote the script as I really wanted to do this "rug pull" moment where the show is suddenly introduced as supernatural - whereas beforehand it could've been mistaken for just a normal show about relationships. I really wanted the audience to fear for Domino in this setting and be worried that the guy might take advantage of her but then for it to become a really powerful moment for her.

Can you give us an overview of the cast that you've assembled? Siena is of course BAFTA-nominated…

I knew Domino was going to be a tricky character for someone to play, especially in the first couple of episodes where she isn't connected to the coven yet. We needed someone that could really get inside her head and feel what she feels. Siena has this really great way of portraying vulnerability, but also strength in just one look. It's hard to describe but there's just something in her eyes that when I watched her casting tape I just said "that's my Domino" and everyone was on the same page. We were lucky we got her so early on.

And what about the coven?

The coven is amazing because they're all friends. Babirye is just Sammie in a way, they’re very warm and caring. Molly is more serious than Jules, the character she plays. Jules just doesn't care but Molly works really hard and you can see that in all her takes. For Alisha, I really wanted a strong black woman as the coven leader. She goes on her own journey with her attachment to magic which sort of echoes Domino's in a way, and that's how she connects to Domino. And Geri, like Jules, is sort of the light relief as it's a very dark show and sometimes we needed some light moments. And then the guys, Percelle and Sam are both very good looking men with different qualities. They show themselves as different potential love matches for Domino so it's interesting to see that love triangle play out.

How's the collaboration been with the other writers and director?

There are two other writers on Domino Day, and , who are doing an episode each. It's been great to do the writers' room with them and that whole process. I know writers' rooms are more of an American thing but I'm a very collaborative person. I always want to hear ideas that will make my ideas better.

If you could describe Domino Day in one sentence what would it be?

Domino Day is dark, sexy and deep - it has a lot to say about the world.

What was your pathway to becoming a professional screenwriter? When did you first even think that was a possibility and what did you do about it?

I always knew I wanted to get into visual storytelling. I went to university to study media with a focus in directing, but then came across screenwriting. It was a career path I’d never even considered before and I completely changed my trajectory. I studied it further after graduating — doing an MA in Screenwriting at LCC. It allowed me to hone my craft and build a portfolio of scripts I could then send out on spec. I then spent a few years sending out scripts, trying to get an agent and/or an option, but it was years later when a spec script of mine got into the hands of , who were looking for writers for their upcoming show . Getting that first credit really kickstarted my professional writing career — I was able to get my agent and then more credits followed until I finally got my first original show greenlit.

Before that point were you writing TV spec' scripts or were you writing for the theatre?

Yes, I was writing lots and lots of spec scripts. Lots of genre in there too, which the industry doesn’t do a lot of. I had done a couple of short plays soon after graduating at local theatres like , but I always knew I wanted to primarily be a TV writer writing High End TV.

What's the most useful advice you've received on your writing journey?

To not focus on the competition in the industry and trust that your own voice is unique. With lots of writers and producers out there, I think there’s a danger to always look at what others’ are doing. But everyone’s journey and path is different and their own. You do need resilience for the moments of rejection, but your passion for the stories you’re telling — stories you need to tell — will always carry you through.

Watch Domino Day on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Three and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer from Wednesday 31st January 2024

The Fellowship was created in partnership with the award-winning Leeds writer in 2019 and was first awarded to Bradford writer Kat Rose Martin in 2020. It continues in memory of Kay, who passed away in 2022, with a new three year investment from the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, , and .

Through her poetry and spoken word, Kirsty has always been a champion of her home city of Bradford, showcasing and giving voice to its unheard stories. Her work champions those traditionally underrepresented on stage and screen through humour, drama and exploring non-traditional form. She was part of the campaign which helped Bradford win the coveted . Her debut play Cashy C’s: The Musical was performed in a non-traditional theatre space – a former frozen food store in Bradford city centre – and was set in a recreated cash convertors, exploring the multiple lives of those who passed through the shop.

During her Fellowship, Kirsty will explore stories of adoption and severance from the perspective of birth families, working with local birth mother groups to research and develop both a play and TV pitch which tells the stories of how and why children get taken into care, with authenticity, intricacy and integrity.

Kirsty is the first of three Fellows over the next three years. Each will receive a bursary and spend their year on attachment with Leeds Playhouse and Rollem Productions to develop their own script and TV pitch, as well as receiving a place on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers Voices writer development programme.

Kirsty Taylor said: "Being awarded this Fellowship feels like a massive and timely next step for me. The opportunity to develop my ideas through the legacy of Yorkshire's iconic Kay Mellor who properly championed people like me, where my background, voice and experience is not only welcomed but embraced feels really special. I'm passionate about telling authentic stories about real people, so the support this Fellowship offers will really allow me to explore how I go about doing that to bigger audiences, in new and different forms with the critique that's crucial in taking my work to the next level. Buzzing.”

Gaynor Mellor Creative Director of Rollem Productions said: “We are so excited to be announcing Kirsty as this years Kay Mellor Fellow. Her work shone through during the application process and her playwriting has the ability to portray often gritty and dark subject matters with warmth and humour, much like the work of Kay. We will be welcoming her into the Rollem family with open arms and can’t wait to transfer her incredible playwriting skills into the world of television."

Councillor Jonathan Pryor, Leeds City Council’s executive member for economy, culture and education, said: “This inspiring programme is the perfect tribute to the remarkable legacy of Kay Mellor and it’s wonderful to see her home county’s proud tradition of nurturing local talent and creativity continuing.

By working together and helping Yorkshire artists like Kirsty to bring their work to the stage, we can give these unique, northern stories a bigger voice and profile as we pass the torch to the next generation of Yorkshire playwrights.”

Head of New Writing for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Jessica Loveland said: "The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers team is thrilled to be partnering with Leeds Playhouse, Leeds City Council and Rollem Productions on the Kay Mellor Fellowship this year. We can’t wait to start work with Kirsty via our ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers’ Voices writer development group, and we look forward to supporting her as she brings her unique voice to TV writing.”

Leeds Playhouse Artistic Director and CEO James Brining said: “Kirsty is a great champion of stories rooted in Yorkshire, and is particularly passionate about exploring working class lives and the perspectives of women, so it is fitting that she will follow in the footsteps of the brilliant Kay Mellor. Kirsty has great skill as a writer, crafting her work with much care, truth, humour and integrity. We can’t wait to welcome Kirsty to the Playhouse, to support in her development as a playwright and to learn from her unique artistic perspective. We look forward to seeing what she creates during her Fellowship year.”

In addition to the Fellowship, Leeds Playhouse launched The Kay Mellor Fund in 2023, to raise money to nurture local writers – something that was always very close to Kay’s heart – through its industry-leading Furnace Artist Development programme. This fund will support locally rooted writers through bespoke investment, mentoring and training opportunities.

Read a blog post by Kat Rose Martin, the first recipient of the Kay Mellor Fellowship

The first series of The Tourist was the most watched drama of 2022. What were the challenges and opportunities of writing the second series?

[Jack Williams] Writing a second series is always hard and when we wrote the first series, we weren’t planning on a second series.

[Harry Williams] It was only when we asked ourselves, what does a second series look like that we realised there's an interesting question at the heart of a second series. Which is, Elliot now knows he’s done this awful thing - what does carrying that around look like? Can you forget something as massive as that? And how does that affect his relationship? The first one was always supposed to be a love story, and this sort of continues in that vein.

How did the themes of the story for series two come about?

[Jack] The idea for season two started with the characters. We talked about what we loved about writing and making the first series, and what we enjoyed as both viewers and writers. For us, that's the relationship between Jamie Dornan’s character and Danielle MacDonald's character. The thing we wanted to write about was “what does that look like if it continued?” With the revelations at the end of series one, can you continue a relationship with something like that? Can you look past the past?

[Harry] Additionally, we wanted to move it to a different country because we felt we had done Australia and none of Elliot’s history is from there. In series two we are asking where did he come from? 

What were your ambitions for series two?

[Harry] The ambitions were to continue what we did with series one, which was to strike a balance between the comedy, thriller, emotive elements of the drama. So, for series two we have dialled it up a bit as we know Jamie and Danielle can handle the balance so well.

What did you want to achieve with the look and feel of this series?

[Jack] Visually, series one was very distinct: we loved the way it looked and felt, our director [] did such a good job, and while obviously we wanted it to have a lot in common with that, it is a new country, it’s a new story. The Australian outback is very different from the very green and rainy country that is Ireland. So, we’ve been trying to take what we did in season one and keep that very cinematic feel, getting some big wide landscape shots and finding a sensibility that works for series two.

What sort of Elliot do we see in this series?

[Jack] After the events of series one we left Elliot in a state of complete despair. Elliot was on his deathbed, and he gets that message from Helen. So, when we pick up in season two, we find him in a relationship, and he is trying to move on and enjoy his life, but he is about to find out across the series that you can't leave things behind that easily. And more importantly can Helen forget his past and accept this new version of him?

What is it about Helen and Elliot's dynamic that you wanted to develop in a new series?

[Harry] I think there's a really unexpected romance in the first series, where Helen is so naive and just such a good person. In the first series, she was pretty much the only nice character. So having Helen with this deeply flawed man Elliot, who is trying to change, and watching their chemistry throughout was endearing. It is something we wanted to see more of and exploring their relationship was exciting. 

Tell us a bit more about the new characters and what they bring to the story.

[Harry] There is Ruairi Slater who's the local Garda, and a little bit like the Helen of series one. He is a new cop character who comes in, but has also got his own story, his own mystery, and is a new flavour that plays into this story of him and Helen. Ruairi instantly likes the look of Helen, and their story gets kind of weird.

[Jack] There’s also the McDonnell family. They're a very important element to this series. We've got Frank, who's the sort of patriarch of the McDonnells,. He’s a slightly sinister, history-obsessed man who believes in the value of knowing your past and where you come from. We also have Frank’s children Donal, Orla and Fergal. We find that the McDonnell clan clearly have some kind of agenda with Elliot, as he's kidnapped by them in episode one. We don't know what it is, but he's done something to seriously upset them. Elliot of course has no memory of it, and that kicks off the events of the second series. On the other side there is the Cassidys where we have Niamh, who is this wild unpredictable, and slightly feral woman.

What should audiences expect from series two?

[Jack] Audiences should expect the same show they enjoyed in series one. The story does continue, but it's also its own new and unique journey. There's more of the thrills, surprises, and offbeat characters. Everything in this series is dialled-up to 11, with a bit more of everything thrown in; hopefully it’s more thrilling, and hopefully funnier.

Please can you sum up series two in one or two sentences?

[Jack & Harry] It’s surprising, funny, Irish, exciting, and offbeat.

Watch The Tourist - Series 2 - from 9pm on New Year's Day on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

Catch up with Series 1 of The Tourist now on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

Read the scripts for Series 1 of the Tourist in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers Script Library

Watch an interview with Harry & Jack Williams

Matthew, Can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved with Men Up?

Yes, I received a two-page fact sheet from , laying out that one of the first medical trials in the world happened in Swansea in 1994 and asking whether I would be interested in adapting this as a drama. I was quite busy at the time, so I said to myself, “Well, this is the last thing that I need right now, to read another document!" But then as soon as I read it, I thought, “OK, I have to do this. Why hasn't this been done before?” My first thought was that it's the Full Monty with Viagra. I just thought, “This has to be a drama”.

So it wasn't a story that you'd heard about before?

No, I had no idea that this happened in real life.

What research did you have to do subsequently?

I spoke a lot to Doctor David Price, who is the actual doctor who ran the trial, and who still lives in Swansea. He just retired last year, and he is a brilliant storyteller. Obviously, because of patient confidentiality, we couldn’t talk about specific individual patients. All the stories in the drama are fictionalised. But what was brilliant was just getting the stories of the time. The mad stories that you couldn't make up.

What kind of stories?

Things like that Pfizer had FedExed him over the porn to use in the trial on VHS. And after his kids were in bed and he switched on the video he realised it was pretty crap and, you know, it wouldn't do! So, he called Pfizer and said, "look, this is not very good. I don't think this is going to going to work". And they said, "Well OK then go and buy your own porn". And because, you know, being a fine upstanding gentleman of Swansea, he kind of fled in the middle of the night with his wife to Newport to a sex shop to buy the porn in Newport. So, he would tell us all these stories and it was just incredible. And, you know, a lot of the stuff we didn't have the time to put in the film, but talking to David Price, the doctor who ran the trial was invaluable.

One of the first big things I came across was the ‘Viagra myth’. A lot of men take Viagra and they think once they take Viagra and it works that all their problems are going to go away, but invariably that doesn't happen. So I wanted to be truthful to that as well. I also learned that gay men weren't allowed on the trial. So I thought, what would it look like if a gay man tried to get on the trial? And so, those stories and ideas were the genesis for the fictionalised men in the drama.

Was that a challenge when you were trying to translate the story to the screen?

Not really, in fact it was kind of freeing to go, well, these were the types of men on the trial, these were the challenges they faced. And then to take that and run with it.

We adhered very much to the framework of the trial. So, the different kind of pills they had, whether that was a placebo or the real thing, a double blind trial. But then within that framework, to fictionalise those men was actually really freeing rather than oppressive or daunting.

So how did you discover your five key characters?

I'm from Cardiff, just down the road from Swansea, so I know how these men talk and their rhythms and I was able to write that authentically. But it was also important to show a cross-section of people. So for one person on the trial, I said, well, I want the drug to work and it's really good. And then for another character, I thought, well, I want it to be more complicated and the drug works, but actually it's not going to solve the kind of problems they’re experiencing in their marriage. And then, as I said before, I wanted to include a gay character and I thought if one was a little bit more middle class, that's interesting.

The mid-nineties feel like ten years ago, but it really was another time, you know. here and in America, . So I was just trying to explore a broad cross-section of characters, but predominantly working class, and all Welsh. It was such a joy to talk, to write and write these characters in their authentic voices.

How important is Swansea as a location?

Swansea looks incredible on screen. Dylan Thomas called it an ugly, lovely town and  called it a . You have the sweeping coastline, the beach and it's just stunning. And then in the background, you have the industrial Port Talbot steelworks. This story really happened in Swansea. This drug, which came from this trial is now known pretty much by literally every adult on the planet. So, it was important to honour that. Also just seeing Swansea on screen is brilliant. The opening shot is a drone shot over Swansea. It just looks incredible.

What do you hope people will take away from having watched Men Up?

What I hope people take away is, is that it's OK to talk. This is a drama about the first Viagra trial in the world, but actually it's really a story about mental health and communicating. It's about a group of men who are unable to talk to their partners or to their friends about what's happening to them. And by the end of the film, most of them, if not all of them, are able to do that. And for me, at its heart, that's what it's about. So what I would like people to take away, is that, whether we're talking about erectile dysfunction or mental health, men's mental health especially is still a taboo subject. So, if the audience can come away thinking, well, these five men can end up sitting around talking about what's bothering them, maybe I can do that with my friends as well?

What was your pathway to becoming a professional screenwriter? When did you first even think that was a possibility and what did you do about it?

I was an actor when I was a teenager, and then detoured into reading History and Politics at university and then took another weird detour to get my toe into corporate law, which was just horrible and crazy!

But my proper route into the industry was ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom. I did the in around 2010 with . We had three months in the classroom. During that time we also wrote an episode of Doctors and then we were put on the shows, EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City, it was sink or swim. My first episode of primetime network television was EastEnders, which was just incredible. That was my pathway into the industry. And I always remind people that I didn't get on the Writer’s Academy the first year I applied but had to reapply.

Before that point were you writing TV spec' scripts or were you writing for the theatre?

Even when I was in uni interviewing to be a corporate lawyer, and that process was ongoing, I knew I didn't want to do it. So, I wrote a script, I pitched a script about a character who was, (you might wonder where this came from!) choosing between a life of law and a life of being an actor. But it was much more fun than it sounds! It was called Friends of Dorothy, and it was set in London. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I had no idea. But I wrote it and I sent it to , who I had worked with as an actor years ago, but hadn't heard from or spoken to since, and incredibly she came back to me. She'd read it, and she said, “I love it, I'd love to make it”. But it never got made! Actually an element of it became the episode of  I wrote for Nicola and many years later, but that gave me the confidence to go, “Actually, I'm not going to be a lawyer, I'm going to pursue writing". So for the next two years, I was writing stuff on spec and eventually got on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ writers’ scheme. But I always say if it wasn't for Nicola Shindler, I’d be a corporate lawyer. So thank goodness for that!

Are there any shows that you're particularly proud of writing?

I'd have to say that first episode of EastEnders, which was really special because, you grow up with EastEnders and that writing credit at the end, it's so iconic. So that is a really special moment and just writing ‘Interior Queen Vic’ for the first time was incredible and also writing for , which I loved.

Then I moved to the USA in 2016 and started working more over there. I worked on , the Netflix show for three years and being in a big American writers' room was both brilliant and terrifying. So that was another pivot point.

How would you compare working as a screenwriter in the US to the UK?

It's completely different in Hollywood, in L.A on a show like Sabrina with a big traditional American writers’ room. Even though it’s called a writers’ room not much actual writing happens. Actually it's a lot of talking and pitching. And that is a completely, completely different skill-set. To sit around a table with fifteen people and pitch stories and talk about stories is a completely different thing to sitting in your room alone crying into a computer! So it took me around six months to get up to speed and learn how to verbally pitch stories and keep up with the system.

Do you think that feels unnatural coming from our more reserved British culture?

It's very different, but for me the most reassuring thing was that I had done a lot of Casualty and we did a kind of Casualty mini writers-room for our episodes. In essence the conversations about story and character are completely the same. There's no secret formula. The only real difference is money and the ability to keep those fifteen writers in a room while you're talking about episodes. So with Casualty, there would be, I think, four writers. We could each have a morning or afternoon to talk about our episode, which was great, but would not be enough time for a show like Sabrina. There we would do nothing for two weeks but talk about the episode that we were breaking. Essentially that comes down to budget. But the actual conversations about story and character were exactly the same.

What's the most useful advice you've received on your writing journey?

The two pieces of advice I like the most are that it's a marathon, not a sprint and rewriting is easier than writing.

So, I still do this today. I will write the scene in its worst kind of basic form. For example,

“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
“Let's get divorced.”
“Okay”

Just so it's on the page and then I can keep going back and rewriting that because I have something set down, even if it's absolutely rubbish.

If anybody saw that ‘vomit’ draft of my script I'd never work again, but there's something on the page to work with. That feels manageable. Whereas if you're staring at a blank page, that can be overwhelming. So just get something, anything, down and then keep rewriting.

Watch Men Up on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer from 9pm on Friday 29th December

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ FILM

Both lonely for different reasons, ALI (Adeel Akhtar) and AVA (Claire Rushbrook) meet through their shared affection for SOFIA (6), the child of ALI’s Slovakian tenants, whom AVA teaches. ALI finds comfort in AVA’s warmth and kindness and AVA finds ALI’s complexity and humour irresistible. Over a lunar month, sparks fly and a deep connection begins to grow. However, the legacy of AVA’s past relationship and ALI’s emotional turmoil at the breakdown of his marriage begins to overshadow their newfound passion.

Written and directed by BAFTA-nominated Clio Barnard (The Selfish Giant), ALI & AVA premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival Directors’ Fortnight and received multiple British Independent Film Award (BIFA) and BAFTA nominations, going on to win two BIFA’s including Best Actor for Adeel Akhtar.

ALI & AVA - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

ALI & AVA - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

ALI & AVA - Read the script

Written and directed by Frank Berry (Michael Inside), AISHA charts the experiences of a young Nigerian woman as she seeks international protection in Ireland. Caught in limbo for years in Ireland's immigration system, Aisha Osagie (Letitia Wright) develops a friendship with former prisoner Conor Healy (Josh O'Connor) who she meets at one of the accommodation centres. Aisha and Conor's growing friendship soon looks to be short lived as Aisha's future in Ireland comes under threat.

AISHA - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

AISHA - Read the script 

BENEDICTION explores the turbulent life of first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon, through the eyes of the revered writer-director Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives). Sassoon was a complex man who survived the horrors of fighting in the First World War and was decorated for his bravery but who became a vocal critic of the government’s continuation of the war when he returned from service. His poetry was inspired by his experiences on the Western Front, and he became one of the leading war poets of the era. Adored by members of the aristocracy as well as stars of London’s literary and stage world, he embarked on affairs with several men as he attempted to come to terms with his homosexuality. At the same time, broken by the horror of war, he made his life’s journey a quest for salvation, trying to find it within the conformity of marriage and religion. His story is one of a troubled man in a fractured world searching for peace and self-acceptance, something which speaks as meaningfully to the modern world as it did then. Starring Jack Lowden, Peter Capaldi and Geraldine James, BENEDICTION was the late Terence Davies’ final film.

BENEDICTION - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

BENEDICTION - Read the script

Written and directed by Georgia Oakley, BLUE JEAN is set in England, 1988, when Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government are about to pass a law stigmatising gays and lesbians, forcing JEAN (Rosy McEwen), a PE teacher, to live a double life. . But when a new student arrives and threatens to expose her, Jean is pushed to extreme lengths to keep her job and her integrity.
Following its World premiere and People’s Choice Award at the Venice Film Festival 2022, BLUE JEAN was BAFTA and BIFA-nominated, receiving four BIFAs including Best Screenplay for Georgia Oakley.

BLUE JEAN - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

BLUE JEAN - Read the script

Created, written, directed and narrated by award winning UK music artist Andrew Onwubolu, aka Rapman, BLUE STORY follows best friends TIMMY (Stephen Odubola) and MARCO (Micheal Ward) who go to the same high school in Peckham but live in neighbouring London boroughs. When Marco’s beaten up by one of Timmy’s primary school friends the two boys wind up on rival sides of a never-ending cycle of postcode gang war in which there are no winners, only victims.

BLUE STORY - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

BLUE STORY - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

BLUE STORY - Read the script

Directed by Phyllida Lloyd’s (Mamma Mia!, The Iron Lady) from a screenplay co-written by lead actor Claire Dunne and Malcolm Campbell, HERSELF follows SANDRA (Dunne), a young Mum struggling to provide her two young daughters with a warm, safe, happy home to grow up in. Beneath the surface, Sandra has a steely determination to change their lives for the better and when it becomes clear that the local council won’t provide that home, she decides to build it herself from scratch.

With very little income to speak of and no savings, Sandra must use all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality. At the same time, she must escape the grip of her possessive ex-husband and keep him away from her and her girls. The lionhearted Sandra draws together a community of friends to support her and lend a helping hand and it is the kindness and generosity of these people and the love of her young daughters that help rebuild her own strength and sense of self.

HERSELF - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

HERSELF - Read the script

The debut feature from writer-director Claire Oakley, MAKE UP follows RUTH (Molly Windsor) as she travels to a seaside holiday park to stay with her boyfriend TOM (Joseph Quinn) during off-season. Settling into her new environment she makes a new friend in the form of make-up enthusiast JADE (Stefanie Martini) but after finding evidence her beau might be cheating on her, RUTH’s desire to uncover the truth turns into an obsession and she begins to realise she might be looking for something else entirely.

MAKE UP - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

MAKE UP - Read the script

Directed by Raine Allen-Miller from a screenplay by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, RYE LANE follows YAS (Vivian Oparah) and Dom (David Jonsson), two twenty-somethings, both reeling from bad break-ups, who connect over the course of an eventful day in South London - helping each other deal with their nightmare exes, and potentially restoring their faith in romance.
Released in March 2023, RYE LANE recently received 16 BIFA nominations and won two awards - Best Breakthrough Performance (Vivian Oparah) and Best Original Music (Kwes).

RYE LANE - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

RYE LANE - Read the script

Written and directed by Jane Campion (The Piano) and based on the novel by Thomas Savage, THE POWER OF THE DOG stars Benedict Cumberbatch as charismatic rancher Phil Burbank who inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his brother George (Jesse Plemons) brings home new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love.

Following its World Premiere at the 2021 Venice Film Festival where Jane Campion took the Best Director award, THE POWER OF THE DOG went on to receive multiple awards including the 2022 BAFTA for Best Film and the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Director.

THE POWER OF THE DOG - Full details on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Film website

THE POWER OF THE DOG - Read the script

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ TV DRAMA

Family drama with a boy with autism at its heart.

THE A WORD - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

THE A WORD - Read the scripts

Death in Devon. DI Humphrey Goodman relocates from tropical Saint Marie to sleepy Shipton Abbott, cracking cases and hoping for happily ever after with fiancée Martha.

BEYOND PARADISE - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

BEYOND PARADISE - Read the scripts

For three police recruits in Belfast, the pressure is immense. Facing criminal gangs and divided communities, they don't know who to trust. The odds are, they won't all make it.

BLUE LIGHTS - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

BLUE LIGHTS - Read the scripts

Sibling rivalry never sounded so epic. Candice Carty-Williams's electrifying drama of family and fame, with an original soundtrack from the biggest names in black British music.

CHAMPION - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

CHAMPION - Read the scripts

Live the lie to find the truth. Outsider Becky obsesses over influencer Chloe – until tragedy pulls her in deeper than she ever dreamed possible. Thriller starring Erin Doherty.

CHLOE - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

CHLOE - Read the scripts

One call can change everything. In the emergency control room, Gabe deals with life and death. One day, the life on the line is his own. Gripping thriller with a stellar cast.

THE CONTROL ROOM - Read the scripts

America, 1890 - two strangers are drawn together in a violent landscape built on dreams and blood. An epic tale of love, revenge and power starring Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer.

THE ENGLISH - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

THE ENGLISH - Read the script for episode 1

The contemporary thriller returns for its third and final outing. Brothers Jake and Max find themselves back in Scotland where the welcome isn't as warm as they'd hoped for.

GUILT - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

GUILT - Read the complete scripts

Everyone’s a murderer, you just need a good reason and a bad day. From death row to a quaint English village, Steven Moffat's devilish drama with David Tennant and Stanley Tucci.

INSIDE MAN - Read the scripts

The friendship that defines your life - and will push your loyalty to the limits. Life-affirming drama with a killer 80s soundtrack, starring Martin Compston and Tony Curran.

MAYFLIES - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

MAYFLIES - Read the scripts

It's normal to hate the people you love. A makeshift family bound by defiance, chaos, poverty and pain. A wild, swaggering tale of love and friendship, starring Daisy May Cooper.

RAIN DOGS - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

RAIN DOGS - Read the scripts

There's no rule book for marriage, as two newlyweds navigate their way through love and independence. An uplifting story of life with Down’s syndrome from the makers of The A Word.

RALPH & KATIE - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

RALPH & KATIE - Read the scripts

An inspirational teacher is courted by a student, triggering a complex criminal case. A sinister real-life story starring Timothy Spall and Anne Reid.

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT - Read the scripts

Sex, secrets and suspicion - the true story of a duchess publicly shamed in a high society divorce that gripped the nation. Starring Claire Foy and Paul Bettany.

A VERY BRITISH SCANDAL - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

A VERY BRITISH SCANDAL - Read the scripts

Riots, scandals, fractured families and familiar faces - Waterloo Road is back with a new term and a whole new attitude. Who said education was easy?

WATERLOO ROAD - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

WATERLOO ROAD - Read the scripts

Life is full of surprises. A gruesome shock for a wealthy family, and a young detective with horrors of his own. It's a deliciously bloody, twisting race against time.

WOLF - Watch on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

WOLF - Read the scripts

Can you tell us about the premise of Time Series 2 and how it relates to Series 1? 

Jimmy McGovern: It’s very different from series one because life is very different inside a women's prison. I am probably speaking out of turn here, but I think it's less imprisoning and restrictive than it is inside a men's prison. You go into a men's prison and it would not be unusual to find men who are banged up for twenty-three hours out of twenty-four. That’s not quite the case inside a women's prison. 

Inside a men's prison, you very much see wings. You know, the old stone walls and cell doors all the way down, a hundred yards or so. It’s very hard to find that inside a women's prison. You might find the odd wing, which is for induction and maybe punitive sort of terms, but the women will tend to live inside a unit, fifteen, twenty, thirty women inside the household units, often with access to a kitchen and showers and things. The front door is always locked, of course, until they're allowed out. 

The biggest difference of all is that men are quite suspicious inside the men's prison. When you go in there and talk to them, they want to know what's in it for you. Inside a women's prison in general they’re quite prepared to talk, because you're from the outside and they can tell you their story and they will. So, it will look different, it will sound different, but it is about imprisonment.

How has that affected the stories you’re able to tell this time?

Inside a women's prison (not all women's prisons, but in our prison in Time) there's an MBU, a mother and baby unit. So, I mean, you get nothing like that inside the men's prison. A man would have no access to his kids except when the kids come to visit. Inside a women's prison you can rear your baby. You can be pregnant in that prison and give birth to your baby and have your baby with you usually up to about the age of around 18 months.

Could you introduce us to the central three characters in Time Series 2? 

There’s Orla (played by Jodie Whittaker) who's in for a short sentence. And that asks the question, are short sentences any good? There's Kelsey (Bella Ramsey) who comes in under the influence of heroin, but it's not the story of a heroin addict having to come to terms with not having heroin because you can get heroin inside a British prison unfortunately. 

And there's Abi (Tamara Lawrance), who has committed what many people would say was an unforgivable offence. And we tell her story of how she comes to terms with that unforgivable offence, but also how the other women have to come to terms with it as well. 

They’re the three stories, but there are other stories as well. There's a nice restorative justice theme, stories of the chaplain, you know, who's played by Siobhan Finneran.

What is it about the prison precinct that is so effective for storytelling? 

It's different in the women's prison from the male prison. But in both there's the very strong notion that you do not grass. Anywhere else if somebody was doing something nasty to you, if somebody was making your life hell, you would simply inform, you would tell a supervisor or an officer or anybody further up the pecking order, the chain of command, that this was happening, and it would be stopped. But you do not do that in prison. If you did do that, your life would be worse, you know? So that's the most interesting thing for me. I think, you know, you strip away things and you become the person you are, almost naked, you have to stand up for yourself in this very strange environment and protect yourself. That's not easily done.

Do you look back on your early career in TV as a kind of apprenticeship? 

Yes it was. I remember the first six months of when I didn't know anything, and I just did exactly as I was told to do by people who'd written for television and I hadn't written anything so of course they knew more than me. I did as I as I was told, and it was dead. Everything I wrote was dead. It took a while for me to invest something of myself in that story, to take a story I was being told to tell but tell that story in my way and inform it with my attitude towards life, my own voice, and become those characters one hundred percent. You need to become those characters and face the situations they are facing, totally concentrating on that and giving of myself, you know. 

It took me a while to learn that, and you've got to learn that because if you don't, then you're no longer a writer, you're a secretary. You're jotting down notes that the producer or the main writer is giving you and slavishly following those notes. That's secretarial. That's not creative in any way. How you listen and still own your story is a big test for any writer. You've got to listen. You know.

How did you end up working on Time Series 2? 

Helen Black: So I was on holiday and told by my agent not to pick up my emails, to have a break. But then I saw that she had e-mailed me! So I picked it up and it said, Jimmy McGovern wants to write series two of Time set in a women's prison, and he'd like a female co-writer and would I like to have that conversation with him in Liverpool? So I said, Yes, I would like that conversation! So I went up to meet him and then he asked me to come on board and we wrote it.

What was the writing process for Time Series 2? How did that partnership work? 

Well, we spent a fair bit of time together. Not in a typical writers’ room, no white boards, nothing that you would see in the other writers’ rooms that I've been in. We were just in a little quiet, dark room above Radio Merseyside, and we would just talk with our producers about what it might be. Jimmy had some ideas, some strong feelings about what he wanted to say. 

And then I told him all my experiences and then we went to visit HMP Styal, part of the women's estate. And then eventually, when you can't put it off anymore, Jimmy wrote episode one, I wrote episode two, and then we switched. And then we kept switching until we were in a position that we were happy with. And then, of course, you get the production notes down the line. So that was pretty much the process.

Was the setting of Time a world that you were familiar with? 

Yes, because when I was a lawyer, I was visiting prisons quite regularly, so I didn't feel uncomfortable visiting jails at all. And I'm from a very working-class background, so just writing about ordinary people felt like an easy and comfortable place for me to be.

You started your writing career as a novelist before writing television. What’s the most surprising thing that you have found out about writing for television? 

That ninety-nine percent of it never gets made! Whereas when you write a book, you write a book. And if you're already under contract there will be a book. It might not do brilliantly, but there will be a book. 

In TV you can be under contract to a producer. You can be under contract with a broadcaster. You can be virtually filming and it can still get axed at any time. And I think that's something that new writers need to know - that having something in development is just a start. There's no promise, but you just have to approach it as if it will get made and it's going to be bloody brilliant. Otherwise, you won't enjoy the process. You might just get a bit cynical and jaded. And so, I would say, just imagine in your mind that this is going to get made and how fantastic that will feel when it's on telly.

Watch Time on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

Read the scripts for the first series of Time in our script library

On a Thursday afternoon two years ago, my now-husband was quietly minding his own business when his AMY-PANIC radar began twitching. Opening the bedroom door, he could hear me downstairs, my voice clambering up an octave as I struggled to answer a question in an interview for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom's Drama Room group.  

I knew Sam, my partner, was listening in because I started to receive a flurry of random text messages to prompt me (yes, he’s a good egg). Despite this lovely softball question from a panel of friendly, brilliant people - the panic had bedded in like a weed and I choked. 

I did not get a place in the Drama Room that year. It was the first time I’d made it to the interview stage after three previous applications had ended up nowhere. When I got the initial email to say I had been shortlisted I thought it was a really niche scam. I think I spent most of the interview just waving my arms around in disbelief like a lottery winner and telling everyone how grateful I was to even be in the same online meeting as them. 

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom is the holy grail of script competitions - not only is it FREE (cue the applause) but its reputation as a course and a birthplace of talent is almost unmatched across the industry. The Drama Room scheme comprises a year-long programme of workshops from some of the biggest names in UK drama, followed by a dedicated development process with a script editor to write and polish a complete drama spec script. So the thought that I had turned my only chance at impressing the people who run it into a bin fire broke me a little bit. But somehow, in the midst of the flappy arms, I must have said something of vague interest as I ended up being selected for the 2022 ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Northern Voices programme instead. 

Voices is a three-month (now six-month) regional programme run by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom. You become part of a close cohort of writers, all taking part in various workshops and sessions with writers, producers, agents etc, while working towards developing an original idea into a pitch document and treatment. It was my first time sitting in a room surrounded by writers in a similar position to me. We all had totally different things to say and ways of saying them, but were united by a shared desire to tell stories and learn more about how to make a career out of doing that. 

It was only really during those three months that I genuinely started to believe that writing was something I could pursue seriously as a career. I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t writing in some form or another - although I don’t think anyone’s going to be rushing to option the sketch show I wrote about French bread and electricity pylons with my cousins aged 11 - but it was always just an outlet and definitely not something I truly thought I would ever do professionally. Even in my early twenties, before Voices, it felt like a fantastical job, like being an astronaut or a mermaid - which I think is how a lot of writers feel. I just knew I wanted to be around stories, and people who love to tell them, so I did everything I could to get close to them.  

Which is why when I finally did get through my second ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom interview to be part of Drama Room without a complete mental evacuation, and got the email to say that I had been accepted onto the 2022/23 course, I felt like high-fiving my earlier self for persevering - I wanted to do that girl proud.

In classic writerly fashion, I have far too many words to explain how much I’ve loved my year being part of the Drama Room, and I really genuinely can’t believe it’s about to come to an end. The writers I have met during this programme are all extraordinary and have such unique voices that I’m excited to champion and see flourish. Our Whatsapp group has been a thing of beauty throughout - a place for communal meltdowns, unabashed mutual praise and promotion, and plenty of perfectly-placed memes. It has been a massive year for me personally and professionally, but to be here at the finish line with everyone else holding a completed spec script (okay that’s bending the truth slightly, but give me two weeks and a printer) feels pretty euphoric. 

I would definitely be singing a different tune if it weren’t for the exceptionally astute (and endlessly patient) Jeremy Page and Connor Richmond, who were the script editors assigned to work with me on my spec script throughout the year. As a script editor myself, it was illuminating to be on the other side of the table (the side of irrationally self-righteous denial, intense over-analysis, and spirals of overwhelming despair). But it was also so joyful to be able to discuss my script with people who felt as fully invested and immersed in the world and the characters as I did. They, along with the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom team, pushed me to create something that I was nervous to do but now feel proud of. They also made me feel safe to indulge in all the weirdest possibilities my brain wanted to explore so I could calibrate from there. Which is why you won’t find a talking picture of Barbara Stanwyck in my script anymore. Take it up with them. 

For our first six months on the programme, we would convene three or four times a month over Zoom - plus a few in-person sessions spread across the year - to listen and talk to various different speakers about all aspects of writing for TV and radio. It’s hard to condense down my favourite moments and sessions from the programme as a whole because each speaker brought such a distinct viewpoint and journey with them. We’ve been privileged to spend whole days breaking down story structure with the likes of and , while script and story consultant Josie Day talked us through character in a way that has changed how I think about the wants and needs of all my protagonists (and indeed of many real people I meet). We also gained more practical insights into the worlds of producing, commissioning, and agency representation - all the vertebrae that form the career backbone of writing, which helped to demystify and legitimise what had once felt to me like a cheese-induced fever dream. 

Speaking of those… Our session with writer, producer and story editor , diving into the world of writing for animation, was probably my surprise highlight of the sessions. Where else would you get to spend four hours crafting the perfect villain, in the shape of a devious rapping pigeon, to propel Danger Mouse and Penfold through a hypothetical episode?  

Much like the crime-fighting mouse himself, I have so many more tools in my arsenal now when it comes to approaching the stories I want to tell. Most of all I feel empowered to be braver, to take risks with my writing (although not ones involving Barbara Stanwyck), and not to be afraid to fail. Recently I was invited to submit a short radio play via ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom for The Verb, a Radio 3 programme which celebrates language. Despite initial reservations, never having written for radio before, the gamble paid off and my play was commissioned. Listening to actors perform my play was a really special experience and one that has fired me up to try more new things.

Immersing myself in the world of television drama, both as a script editor and as a writer, has proven to me that the biggest, most annoying obstacle I’ve had to overcome when writing is me. Self-doubt can be so paralysing. It’s what made me panic in my first interview - what if everyone suddenly realises I’m terrible at this? What a relief looking back now that I didn’t just stop there. If I hadn’t submitted a script to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom that fourth time I wouldn’t have made it onto the Voices programme. If I hadn’t submitted a fifth time, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post (so some of you reading might wish I hadn’t). So if you are umming and ahhing over applying - just do. It takes a lot to push that doubting voice aside, but it will always be more boring and depressing to keep listening to it.  

Having worked in drama for five years now, starting as an editorial assistant and working up to become a script editor, I feel so privileged still to get to spend my time surrounded by people who love and believe in storytelling as passionately as I do. Being part of the amazing script teams that I have worked with has made me a better storyteller. Being on the Drama Room and Voices programmes and becoming part of the incredible network of writers that make up the UK screenwriting world has pushed me to take writing seriously for myself. There are so many things that uplift and enrage and inspire me, and I feel excited to commit them to paper (laptop screen). It is because of all of the people mentioned above that I now can and do call myself a writer. Maybe not as cool as an astronaut or a mermaid, but I’ll take it.

Find out about all the writers who took part in Drama Room 2022/23

Would you like to be part of the next Drama Room or Voices writer development groups? To be considered you must enter a script into our Open Call script submission window. This year the window is open between 12 noon on Tuesday 7th November and 12 noon on Tuesday 5th December.

Find out full details of the Open Call

We're very pleased to announce the thirteen writers selected to be part of our Drama Room writer development group for 2022/23. They were selected following our Open Call submission window which closed in January 2022.

Across the first six months of the programme, the writers attended targeted training and development, including craft workshops (with practical writing exercises), masterclasses, introductions and networking events. For the latter half of the programme, the focus is on writing, for which they receive the support of a Script Editor for a further six months to develop their original spec' scripts.

Our overall aim for Drama Room is to develop and prepare talented emerging writers for the television drama industry by equipping them with the core skills, industry knowledge and connections to set them on the right track to gain ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ broadcast commissions.

We’re excited to see all the amazing things this talented bunch will go on to do! Find out more about them below.

Would you like to be part of the next Drama Room writer development group? To be considered you must enter a script into our Open Call script submission window. This year the window is open between 12 noon on Tuesday 7th November and 12 noon on Tuesday 5th December.

Find out full details of the Open Call

Drama Room 2022/23 writer Amy Arnold reflects on being part of the group

Amy Arnold

Amy is a Macclesfield-based writer. She spent several years wandering all over the UK and beyond, working a variety of weird and wonderful jobs (including a brief, surreal stint milking cows), before settling by the Peak District so she could pursue her passion for stories, scriptwriting, and owning a golden retriever.

Amy loves to explore social power imbalances and family dynamics in her writing. In 2021 she made the final shortlist from over 5000 entries for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Drama Script Room with her TV drama pilot VOID, and was selected as part of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Northern Voices cohort for that year. Amy's environmental thriller BONE AND FEATHERS earned her a place on the Drama Script Room for 2022/23, and earlier this year her short radio play KISSING WITH TONGUES was broadcast on Radio 3's The Verb programme.

Amy is also a script editor at a Manchester-based production company, where over the past year she has been involved in the development and production of a variety of shows for Netflix, ITV, Amazon and UKTV.

Adam Bennett-Lea

Adam is a Manchester based script writer and editor who uses comedy and genre-mashing to tell stories of queer, Northern and working-class joy. Adam’s comedy-drama DRAGGED UP won New Writing North’s ‘Channel 4 Writing for TV award’ in 2019, and the show is now in development with Bonafide Films and Channel 4.

Adam was a member of the writers room for WATERLOO ROAD, and currently works as a Storyliner on HOLLYOAKS as well as a freelance script reader. His BFI funded short film I KNOW A PLACE is now doing its festival run and he’s working towards his first comedy feature. Being from Warrington, Adam is passionate about championing the places and people we don’t often see represented on screen.

Represented by Independent Talent.

Rhiannon Boyle

Rhiannon was awarded the inaugural ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ NTW Wales Writer in Residence 2019. Her winning script, SAFE FROM HARM, was commissioned for broadcast on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4. In the same year Rhiannon was also chosen to be part of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Welsh Voices scheme.

Her theatre work includes KILL ME NOW for Dirty Protest, which had a successful digital run at the 2021 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and her one-woman show ANFAMOL (UNMOTHERLY) with Theatr Genedlaethol, which was the first Welsh-language production to be staged following the re-opening of theatres in 2021. The play received heralded plaudits, including a beautiful four-star Guardian Review.   ANFAMOL was commissioned by S4C to be a five-part TV drama produced by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ STUDIOS in 2022. It aired in September and has so far been a huge success. ANFAMOL series two is now officially in development. 

Rhiannon was also commissioned to write an adaptation of Caradog Pritchard’s classic Welsh novel ONE MOONLIT NIGHT (UN NOS OLA LEUAD) broadcast in English on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Wales and on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Cymru in Welsh. Welsh language screenwriting credits include S4C’s GWAITH CARTREF, POBOL Y CWM and STAD. Rhiannon’s pilot script for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Drama Room, MS I LOVE YOU, is a semi-autobiographical comedy drama based on her own experience of begrudgingly forgiving her dad for past behaviours when he was diagnosed with the debilitating illness MS.

Represented by United Agents

Sophia Chetin-Leuner

Sophia is a writer and teacher from London. Her first play, SAVE+QUIT, toured the UK and Ireland, becoming an Irish Times Pick of the Week and ending up at the Vaults Festival, where it was published by Nick Hern Books as part of their Best of the Vaults in 2017.

Sophia received the Dalio Foundation Scholarship to study at NYU Tisch’s Dramatic Writing MFA (2016-8). On returning to London, Sophia was in the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers’ Group (2019). While there she developed THIS MIGHT NOT BE IT, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting and longlisted for the Verity Bargate Award (2020). It will receive a full run at the Bush Theatre in February 2024 and will be published by Nick Hern Books.

Her other play, PORN PLAY, was also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize and was a finalist for the Verity Bargate Award (2022). It received a week-long workshop at Soho Theatre in May 2023, directed by Milli Bhatia.  Sophia also loves writing for TV and Film. She is currently working with production companies in the UK, including Two Brothers and Mam Tor, USA and Scandinavia to develop her original ideas for the screen. Her TV pilot FIX was shortlisted for the C21 Drama Script competition (2021).

Sophia is represented by United Agents.

Mohamed-Zain Dada

Mohamed-Zain, goes by the name Zain, is a playwright and cultural producer. His first writing credit, EMILY (GLITCHED) IN PARIS was for the Royal Court Theatre’s Living Newspaper series in March 2021.  Zain’s producing and directing credits include 2019 Outspoken Prize winning short visual poem, THE MOON IS A MEME and 2020 Outspoken Prize-nominated animation short, OTHERSTANI.  Zain is an alumnus of Soho Theatre Writers Lab 19/20, Royal Court’s Introduction to playwriting 19/20 and the School of High Tide programme 20/21. Zain was also part of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ London Voices 21/22 and most recently, he was part of the Tamasha Playwrights Collective 21/22.

In March 2022, Zain wrote a short play, LOOT as part of the Royal Court's SW1 project for local sixth form students in Westminster, the play was performed in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.  Zain's debut play, BLUE MIST is currently running at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre until 18 November 2023.

Represented by Casarotto Ramsay & Associates.

Samuel Evans

Samuel is an east-end-born queer support worker. Sam started writing short stories as a teenager about the nocturnal strangers he would meet on the top deck of London buses in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep. His first play TOMORROW got him an agent and he started writing plays with the National Youth Theatre, Arcola, and Almeida’s community groups absorbing the voices of others whilst maintaining his own.

Whilst working as a drag queen door host in Soho he was awarded a scholarship to NYU in New York for Dramatic Writing. There, he quickly discovered a passion for TV writing when Spike Lee, his professor, told him he had a work ethic that was bananas and a unique voice, whilst calling an agent to recommend Sam to them. When Sam submitted a script I WILL SURVIVE, INNIT about a young man becoming a drag queen to survive a sexual assault and get people to believe him, he landed himself in London Voices. This script also got him nominated for the Brit List by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Studios. Sam is currently participating in the EastEnders Shadow Scheme.

Alan Flanagan

Alan Flanagan is a writer and actor from the Irish countryside who’s worked in London for the past decade. He’s written over 50 episodes of Channel 4 continuing drama HOLLYOAKS, including two hour-long specials and an episode which won him Scene Of The Year at the 2022 British Soap Awards. His original thriller PAPERTRAIL has been optioned by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Studios, cosy crime show REP optioned by Lime Pictures, and sci-fi drama SHUFFLE is currently in development with a production company in the USA.

Theatre credits include rural horror EYES TEETH SOIL, sci-fi romance THE SILVER BELL, and sexual health comedy BINGO, which he is currently adapting for television. He has a radio short in production with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 3’s The Verb, and has written over 30 episodes of horror audio drama DARK SHADOWS— as well as writing for the DOCTOR WHO and DORIAN GRAY audio series.

Awards include Best Actor and Best Writer at the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, while he’s lectured screenwriting at Brighton and Sussex universities.

Represented by Phil Adie at Nick Turner Management.

Daniel Katanchian

Daniel is a British screenwriter from London. Earlier this year Daniel was a participant on Channel 4’s 4screenwriting 2023 programme, selected from thousands of entrants to develop a new pilot script from scratch. Daniel is developing drama series and feature film projects with several production companies across Britain.

Daniel currently works in non-scripted TV where he develops documentary films and series. He has developed shows commissioned by Netflix, Amazon Prime, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and Channel 4 over the past four years

Represented by Alex Bloch and Doorie Lee at 42 Management.

William Mager

William, also known as Billy, is a British writer originally from Sheffield. William is passionate about authentic onscreen representation, creating compelling and diverse characters that reflect his own lived experience. He is currently developing his original spec script, REUNION, with Warp Films and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Drama.

Prior to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writers Room, William was one of 12 writers on 4Screenwriting 2022. The resulting script, LOVE DAY, is in development with Pure Fiction and Channel 4.

William has also written for Children's TV including CBeebies, CITV and Channel 5 Milkshake!.

Represented by Christine Glover at Casarotto Ramsay.

Tom Mair

Tom Mair is a screenwriter from the Scottish Highlands currently based in London. He wrote the multiple award-winning short film DELOPING (yes, two wins counts as 'multiple' - he checked), which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2022 and was screened worldwide. 

Tom is currently writing a new, original drama series for Sky Atlantic and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Scotland, in addition to developing several other projects with independent production companies like STV, Two Rivers, The Lighthouse, and FilmNation.

When not writing, Tom works as a script editor and recently finished collaborating with Andrea Gibb for her soon-to-be-announced, four-part television adaptation of a Sunday Times' best-seller.

Represented by Julia Tyrell at JTM.

Nk’iru. Njoku

Nk’iru. is a Nigerian writer-director based in London and represented by Sarah Williams at Independent. She was in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ London Voices 2021 cohort. In 2022 she got into The Writers Lab UK & Ireland where she developed her comedy-drama pilot, BIG SHOES. 

Nk’iru.’s writing career is over 16 years old and was established in Nigeria, where she lived until 2018. For nearly 8 years she was the head writer of long-running continuing drama, TINSEL. She wrote for several other Nigerian series and was episode writer, script doctor, head writer, director, and consultant showrunner on various country-specific seasons of MTV’s drama series, SHUGA.  For 8 years she moonlit in non-fiction as a content director then head of content of PROJECT FAME WEST AFRICA, an Endemol music-based reality franchise produced in Nigeria by Ultima Studios. She also has credits on FAR FROM HOME a Netflix Original produced in Nigeria in 2022.

In 2019 Nk’iru.’s short filmORÍKÌ written and directed by her, won the award for Women in Film at the Black Star International Film Festival, Ghana. It screened at Cannes Pan African International Film Festival, AFRIFF (African International Film Festival), and Female Eye Film Festival’s International Women’s Day Program, TIFF BELL Lightbox, amongst others. 

Represented by Independent Talent.

Michael Lee Richardson

Michael Lee Richardson is a writer and filmmaker based in Glasgow. They are passionate about telling rich, authentic stories about queer and working class lives and culture. They have film and television projects in development with a range of different production companies including their first feature, A GOOD SPELL, with Bombito. They have also written prose and poetry, radio drama and children’s nonfiction.  Michael is an Edinburgh Television Festival Ones to Watch and an alumni of Young Film Foundation, Torino Film Lab and EIFF Talent Lab.

Michael’s first short film as a director, JUST JACKIE, is currently in post-production. Michael’s first short film as a writer, MY LONELINESS IS KILLING ME, won a BAFTA Scotland Award in 2018. It’s been shown on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Scotland, and at film festivals around the world. Michael’s most recent short, WHO I AM NOW – directed by Jack Goessens – debuted at EIFF 2022 and is currently on its festival run.  Outside of writing, Michael likes 80s makeover montages, witches and having a little look around the shops.

Represented by Louisa Minghella at Revolution Talent.

Lily Seriki 

Lily is a screenwriter. London born, bred and based.   A recent graduate of the National Film and Television School’s Screenwriting MA, her graduation pilot won the NFTS popcorn award and is now in development with Popcorn Group.

She likes to write genre-bending stories centring the empowerment, joy, and friendships of girls and women who don’t fit in.

She’s addicted to cuteness and social justice and hopes that by finding the recipe for irresistibly adorable characters, she will be able to indoctrinate many unsuspecting viewers with her militant woke agenda.

What compelled you to tell this story?

Primarily it was coming across the real-life stories of the Magdalene Laundries. I just couldn't believe what I was reading. It was Peter Mullins’ film that first introduced me to it. I couldn't believe that it had happened, but I also couldn't believe that I didn't know that all this had happened. Most people outside of Ireland didn't know that this had even occurred. And then I'd read that the last one closed in 1996. And so, primarily, I was inspired to do this just by a sense of outrage, I guess you'd call it. And I wanted to do it in a very particular kind of way where, because it was so unknown, I wanted to kind of cast the net wide, and get the story out there to as wide an audience as possible.

Can you introduce the lead characters, Lorna Brady and Detective Colman Akande?

When we first meet Lorna Brady () in 2015, she has a strange sleepwalking habit, and we're not really sure where it's come from, or how this has begun. In the small fictional town of Kilkinure it’s become weirdly accepted in a way that people just whisper about it happening, and they make fun of her for it, but no one really openly acknowledges it. Her story kicks off when she discovers a dead body in her house and has no idea if she's responsible for what appears to be a murder. Because of her sleepwalking habit and because of her past, she can't fully trust herself, so she’s the ultimate unreliable protagonist. She then comes to learn that this this dead person in her house has a very unique connection to her past and may well hold the key to knowing what happened to her daughter who was taken away from her at birth. She comes to conceal the body and begin an amateur investigation where she's playing both detective and prime suspect – she's sort of investigating herself and whether she was responsible for this woman’s death.

Colman Akande () is a detective from Dublin, who begins our story, investigating what seems to be an unrelated murder case of a priest in Dublin. But when the priest’s car turns up in Kilkinure – the town that Lorna's from – he has to go to Kilkinure for the investigation. It's not long before we realise that the two cases are linked – the dead woman on Lorna's floor and the dead priest in Dublin. So, Colman starts out very much as an antagonist to Lorna, with him being the detective who is after her without even really realising he's after her specifically. But it's not long either before we're going to realise that there is a really personal element to this for Colman too, where it’s revealed that he himself was born in a Mother and Baby home in Dublin. It’s this personal element that's going to be driving him and getting him into lots of trouble, going a bit rogue. 

The Woman In The Wall is multi-layered – examining a horrific tragedy in Ireland’s history, while also telling a compelling whodunit crime drama. Can you talk about how the two elements work side by side, and why you decided to take this approach as a writer?

In order to tell a story about the Magdalene Laundries, I wanted to tell it in such a way that it would reach as wide an audience as possible. And so, I leaned away from doing a straightforward drama or social-realist peace, and I wanted to kind of blend it with genre, partly because that's also my natural sensibility as a writer. That's the kind of stuff I like to write and the kind of stuff that I like to watch. But it also felt like an interesting challenge to try and tell a compelling ‘whodunnit’ crime drama, not just in a way that would sort of get the issues we explore out to as many people as possible, but in a way that it would hold its own too. My hope is that someone in a random corner of the world, someone who's never heard about the Magdalene Laundries is going to sit down to watch this show because they want to watch a heightened type of murder mystery, and it will totally deliver on that and they will be engaged by it but then by the end of all, they've also learned all about the Magdalene Laundries too. So, I wanted to do both of those things to make each element better. 

What were your motivations and inspirations for the series?

There was definitely the subject matter of course, which is the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby homes, other similar institutions in Ireland which were state-funded and run by the church. It was also partly the fact that very little has been done around these institutions. There was a state apology to the survivors and victims in 2013, and there have been compensation schemes but not much else beyond that. This still isn't taught in the Irish curriculum. We spoke to charities quite a lot during the research process for this series, and when you see the way that these people were treated and the way they're still being treated, it's infuriating. I think there's still a long way to go. When it comes to the tone of the series I was looking at and , filmmakers like , who blend genre really well or do one particular type of genre really well. They were the inspirations for the storytelling, tone and genre.

Despite the fact that the drama is inspired by real-life events, the town and the events that happen to the characters in the story are totally fictionalised. Why did you take that route into the story?

For a couple of reasons. We didn't want to link ourselves to any one particular place, person or series of persons. We wanted to protect the survivors in that sense. It was also to give ourselves the opportunity to collate as many of these stories. By setting it in a fictional town, we could imagine our own Laundry and Mother and Baby Home and could create a whole bunch of new characters who've had experiences very similar to many real different women from across the country. That was the thing that probably excited me most about having a fictional town, that it allowed us to tell as many of those stories from across the country, while still setting it in quite a heightened world. It allowed for our town to be fairly busy, and for there to have been quite a lot of terrible things happen there.

It's such an incredibly dense and delicately layered piece, but with a lot of twists and turns. How was staggering that and structuring a thriller?

Having the writers’ room was a definitely a huge help. We had really cool writers involved, Margaret Perry, Courttia Newland, Miriam Battye, Jamie Hannigan, who helped me do exactly that. The way that I tend to go about it is that from the beginning that I have milestones set in my head. For example, I knew how episode three was going to end before I even started writing episode one. I knew that this scene would be in episode five, and that scene would be the middle of episode six, etc. etc... So, for me, it was setting up these milestones, and then tying up the gaps in between them. The way I tend to work is sometimes I'll think of a moment that just seems really cool or mad to me, and I think, okay, “How can I make this work?”, which is the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do as a writer. You're supposed to allow your characters to take you to that point, and we do do that. But there is something that comes out of just kind of painting yourself into a corner for a moment and seeing if you can work your way out of it. Because if you can, in a way that stays true to your characters and to the tone of the story you're trying to tell, then you get to have your cake and eat it. You have an amazing moment that hopefully feels true to form, and not contrived. Because when that stuff doesn't work, you just throw it out. That's the benefit of being able to throw everything at the wall and think up some mad ideas. 

What was your research process when writing the scripts? Did you speak to any Laundry survivors to gather first-hand accounts of their experiences?

Yes, we did. Initially we did our own research, and we had our own researcher on the project who was amazing. That was a case of trawling through all of the first-hand accounts that were available from these women. Watching all the films, all the documentaries, reading all the books and all the newspaper articles we could find. And afterwards we felt like we had a solid foundation, we then reached out to a number of different charities and groups.

We had a consultant who was incredible, she was able to help guide us a little better and was able to answer our much more specific questions, and when we all felt comfortable we reached out to a few survivors via her and spoke to them first-hand about their accounts. That was just incredible. By that point, we'd read dozens of accounts and we'd watched interviews, but still nothing quite prepares you to hear those stories first-hand from another human being who's actually been through this experience.

What was really inspiring was who they were as people. I feel so fortunate to have been able to speak to them. It was also really, really inspiring for them to just be so behind the idea of the project. 

The Magdalene Laundries began in Ireland in the late 1700s, followed by Mother & Baby Homes in the 1900s. Shockingly, the final Laundry did not close until the late 90s close to when this story is partly-set in the mid-80's. Many people in Ireland will remember these tragic events but why do you think it’s important to tell this story to audiences today?

I would say that while people in Ireland know about this, I would argue that a lot of them still don't fully know all the details as much as they think they do. So, it's important for that reason, of course, within Ireland, to tell this story. You can always know more. But then, for people living outside of Ireland, most don't know about this at all.

When I tell people that last laundry closed in 1996, and the last Mother and Baby home closed in 1998, they can't believe it, because the stories sound so medieval - they are medieval. It's hard to say why people don't know about this. It's interesting that such an incredibly awful, harrowing piece of Irish history that ceased to exist relatively recently, isn't more well known. It’s hard for that not to feel like an active act of repression, or covering this up, or brushing this under the rug. It’s this sense of shame that stopped people talking about this for years, and I feel like it's still stopping people from talking about it. It is still affecting quite a lot of people, and there must be thousands more who don't even know that they've been affected by it.

The further you get into it, when you start reading about illegal adoptions, and falsifying death certificates in order to prevent birth mothers from finding their sons and daughters, this idea of “move on” just isn't tenable.

What is your hope for the series?

If I have one hope, it’s that this will start a conversation about the events that took place. That would be my one hope – as simple as that. I have lots of other hopes, obviously I want people to enjoy the series, I want it to do well, I want people to watch it. I want them to be entertained by it as a thriller and as a detective story and all those things. But mostly, I just want to start a conversation. As I mentioned earlier, I want someone to sit down and watch the series, someone who has never heard about this before, and then I want them to start looking into it, and to start talking to their friends about it, saying “I can't believe this actually happened”. I want it to start a conversation.

There is a lot of dark humour within the scripts, can you tell us about your decision to include it?

I don't know if I’d call that a decision as much as that it's just my natural instinct, my natural way to write - especially when it gets to anything uncomfortable. And this is deeply uncomfortable. Maybe that's an Irish thing in general. It's definitely my natural way of writing, just to go at it with some comedy. I also find that the dark humour, it's weirdly more realistic - in my life experience anyway - than just doing a straight drama. I find that in the most horrific experiences in life, there are always weird moments of humour and things that don't quite belong. Someone saying something the wrong way, or it not coming out quite right - that I think is just realistic. So, I would say it's a natural instinct. But at the same time, if I stop and think about it, it's probably the perfect way to tell a story like this.

Watch the Woman in the Wall on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer

Read more interviews with the cast and crew

Can you talk a little bit about the inspiration behind the series?

Penelope: So, we were doing some research around con artists, and we learned that there was a strong correlation between the behaviours, patterns and tactics of con artists and how they operate on their victims and other kinds of abuse, for example domestic violence. And we wanted to write a story which explored that and which put the victims of that abuse at the centre.

Ginny: There are new ways of communicating now, but the way that we con people has basically stayed the same, because it’s about lying and convincing somebody that the world is different than it really is. This is something that happens quite a lot on social media, I think, which makes it quite a relevant story.

What about the title? It’s quite unusual, but it’s perfect. Who came up with that?

Ginny: We went through various options, but that one, which wasn’t our original title, was on the first page of the pitch that we brought to . After we’d been through a number of different titles, none of which quite worked, I think it was Naomi [De Pear] who suggested that we could just use the whole thing as the title. As soon as she mentioned it, it just sort of clicked. It seemed like a really fun idea, and it really fitted the show. It was there from the beginning, hiding in plain sight.

Can you tell us a bit about Alice and Cheryl’s relationship?

Ginny: Well, the problem with Cheryl - the fundamental flaw, in fact, with Cheryl and Alice, is that their relationship is based on a lie that Alice tells right at the start. And so, from then on, even though they are on the same side and working towards the same cause, trust is always going to be a big issue for them.

Penelope: Alice is in a kind of catch 22 as she feels if she exposes the truth about Rob to Cheryl, she may not be believed. So she goes down this path of using the tactics that maybe she’s learned from Rob himself in the past in order to try and expose the truth about Rob and ultimately help Cheryl.

So anyone is capable of conning, it doesn’t have to be as sinister as Rob. Would you agree?

Penelope: You could do it. You might not feel very good about yourself when you’re doing it, but anyone could learn the tactics. There are steps and patterns.

Ginny: But most people with any empathy would choose not to do it because of the damage.

Penelope: Which is part of the journey that Alice goes on in the show. When she sets out, Alice wants to right the wrongs she feels were done to her and her family in the past. But as things go on, she begins to realise the effect that it’s having on Cheryl. And I think she realises that Rob needs to be stopped entirely. When Cheryl finds out that she has essentially been betrayed by somebody she thought was her friend, there’s a moment when she has to decide what’s more important – whether stopping Robbie is more important than her anger towards Alice… you’ll have to see what happens.

The series addresses a variety of topics: family, trauma, depression. Can you talk a bit about some of these key themes?

Penelope: The trauma of being the victim of a con is something that we really wanted to explore, both as an individual and the family around that victim, and even the community around them. Because in the case of Alice, lots of people have given money to that scam, and they’ve persuaded other people to give money to that scam. So, it is very traumatising when you realise that you’ve been complicit in other people becoming victims. And we wanted to look at the trauma in the long-term of being a victim of a scam. It’s something that really can affect your self-esteem, your ability to trust other human beings. We wanted to show that relationship 20 years later, in a way, because this is something that is still affecting them: every day they are still living with the financial, emotional and psychological repercussions of this crime which happened to them, basically, which has never been prosecuted. That’s very common with this kind of crime.

And the cast, of course, is amazing. How involved were you in the casting process for this?

Penelope: Very involved. Lots of online meetings. It was very important to us to cast the three of them together because that triangle, if you like, is such an important part of the whole story, that they all fit together. And we feel very happy with how that went.

Ginny: I think like all really good actors, they take the character and take it to the next level so that they have now occupied our imagination as those characters, and we hear their voices as the voices of the character. Yeah, they’re great.

And the last question, why do you think audiences are so fascinated by crime for entertainment and con man stories? Do you think people take it seriously enough?

Penelope: Con artists break boundaries, don’t they? And they know how to beat the system, and that makes them successful in getting their aims and in achieving the goals.

Ginny: And in this story, Cheryl and Alice have to go outside their comfort zones, break some boundaries, and beat the system in their own way. And that’s what makes it interesting.

Penelope: I suppose that as a society, maybe we don’t take it seriously enough. I do think we’re becoming more aware of the impact of this behaviour on individuals. But it is still really difficult to prosecute, it is still really difficult to gather evidence.

Ginny: The police do take it seriously, but they are also aware of how little they can do. We spoke to the police when we were making the show, and they made it very clear that it’s very difficult to get enough proof, especially when these cons often don’t come to light at the time. It often takes a while for victims to realise that they’ve been conned. And then there’s a lot of shame about coming forward. So, that scene in the police station where Alice comes to terms with what’s happened to her and tells somebody for the first time is important, I think.

Watch The Following Events Are Based on a Pack of Lies on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer from Tuesday 29th August at 9pm

What encouraged you to apply for the Fellowship? How did you find the application process? What idea did you submit for your application?

When I saw that and were partnering up for a , I knew that I had to apply. Leeds is my local producing theatre, and Kay Mellor had been such an influence in all the TV I watched growing up. She represented that female working class voice that so many of my stories are about. I remember watching and thinking there was nothing else like it on the screen.

There were a few stages to the application process, even at the interview stage, I learnt so much. I walked away with ideas and a plan of how to develop my idea further, and then later got the phone call – I felt like my insides had turned outsides, I was that excited.

I submitted my sample script which was a play called £1 THURSDAYS and a pitch for an idea about women who worked in adult services. It explored the nature of exploitation both in the arts industry and in online sex work.

What stood out to you during your time on the Fellowship? Was there anything that surprised you?

What surprised me most during the Fellowship was getting to peek behind the curtain at the day to day running of a big regional theatre and a TV production company. Getting to sit in on meetings and see how decisions get made, how development actually works. I had all these pre-conceptions about what the conversations in decision making rooms were like and it wasn’t at all as I imagined. That insider insight for TV and theatre is invaluable. It helped me to understand how rejection is more than likely not personal or about the idea but about lots of other moving parts and metrics that need to be aligned across a slate of work.

Did you discover/learn anything new during the experience?

Something that I learnt during the fellowship was how different writing for TV and theatre is and how to really lean into what is special about each medium. In the theatre you have the audience’s attention, and they are present in the space with the actors for a LIVE experience. What opportunities does this present? Then with TV, the audience have a hundred other distractions, so how can you draw them in, hold their attention, keep them glued to their screens. And then what is similar with both mediums – character, emotional heart.

I learnt a lot about what sort of writer I want to be. I’m still learning this, but a full year to really refine and focus my voice, helped to define the stories I was wanting to tell next.

How did you find working with Kay Mellor?

Working with Kay was incredible. Something I’ll cherish forever. Her feedback was blunt and to the point. I loved that. No messing about, she’d say, "but nothing happens, you have to make something happen!". She was gifted at story engine and seeing story potential in everything. How can we make things worse for our characters? She had brilliant anecdotes from her vast experience that always made me laugh. One thing that struck me was how much she supported new writers, not just myself. She would attend awards ceremonies and events and say people’s names. She would mention my name to people. I will never forget that. It’s so important to pay it forward and SAY A NAME whenever we can.

What work did you create as a result of the Fellowship?

During the fellowship, I developed a TV pitch – WHIPPED and a play CHEAP AS CHIPS. From the same seed of an idea – the women in adult services. The TV pitch introduced me and my voice to commissioners for the first time. The play is currently under commission with . As I worked on the ideas, they became very different on a surface/plot level but they both had the same beating heart, themes, and knotty central argument.

What advice would you give to anyone who is hoping to apply/be selected for the ?

If you’re thinking about applying, really consider what story YOU WANT TO TELL. Kay always spoke about how she loved fusing real life experience with fictional stories. So, think about a feeling or situation that feels true and relatable to you and then start spinning that story web and branching out from there. Be ready to learn, absorb everything, make mistakes, and really commit to the opportunity. opened so many doors for me. It was basically a fire-lighter for my career. And with the additional team-up this year with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom Voices, it’s basically the hottest ticket in town for a new writer. Embrace it.

Kay was and is an inspiration. She put Northern voices on the stage and screen and let down the ladder to support and nurture so many new writers. I’m proud to be a tiny part of her legacy, and thrilled that this scheme is continuing so go for it, grab the bull by the horns and apply. Kay paved the way, now it’s on us to keep those warm, complex, Northern characters coming down the pipeline.

The Kay Mellor Fellowship is a year-long paid opportunity for a writer based in Yorkshire and the Humber to develop their writing for stage and screen. Applications are open until Tuesday 29th August 2023, 10am.