BBC Writers Feed

The Verb Dramas 2024

2024-03-25T11:09:37+00:00

The BBC Writers in collaboration with Audio Drama North and BBC Radio 3's The Verb, offered writers in our development groups the opportunity to gain a short audio drama commission. Listen to the four resulting dramas and find out more from the writers.

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 BBC 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 BBC Audio Drama North Producer. Below, you can listen to their final audio drama productions, as well as read their experiences of the process.

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

Listen to Kissing with Tongues, written by Amy Arnold.

"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)

Listen to Something Borrowed, written by Alan Flanagan.

"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)

Listen to No Smoking in the Ground, written by Matthew Smith.

"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)

Listen to Ghost in the Machine, written by Karen Featherstone

"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)

The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2023 - Winner Announced

2023-09-25T11:00:00+00:00

We are delighted to announce that Chrissy Jamieson Jones is the 2023 Winner of the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award with BBC Radio Drama North.

The prizegiving ceremony took place at the BBC Audio Drama Conference at Leeds Playhouse.

From 239 submissions, the finalists were:

Benjamin Bee
Chrissy Jamieson Jones (Winner)
Julie Skeat
Lee Thompson (Special commendation)

The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award is a £5000 award for a Northern writer who is new to radio. The winner also gets a 12 month mentorship with a BBC Radio Drama producer and the opportunity to gain a BBC Radio 4 drama commission.

Alfred Bradley Bursary Award finalists (from left) Julie Skeat, Benjamin Bee, Lee Thompson and Chrissy Jamieson Jones (Credit: Andrew Smith)

The winner of the 2023 Award, Chrissy Jamieson Jones said:

“Wow! I am stunned and delighted to have won the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award and can’t wait to hear Mouth on the radio. Thank you to Nadia Molinari and Pippa Day for their thoughtful feedback and support and thank you to the judges and the BBC Writer’s Room for this fantastic opportunity.”

Alison Hindell, Commissioning Head of Radio 4 Drama said:

“It was great to read all the shortlisted plays but Chrissy’s stood out for its confident pacing and sophisticated structure, as well as a moving and gripping portrayal of two women brought together in circumstances neither of them would have chosen. The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award is an important element in the nurturing of new writing from the North of England and we are proud to be able to continue to support it.”

Alfred Bradley Bursary Award Winner 2023 Chrissy Jamieson Jones (Credit: Andrew Smith)

Lee Thompson, receiving a Special Commendation for the 2023 Award, said:

“I’m thrilled to have received a Special Commendation for my script Awaydays. It was brilliant working with Jessica Mitic to develop the script into something I’m very proud of. It was amazing to hear an extract read out along with all the other brilliant finalists on Saturday. I’m very grateful to the Alfred Bradley Award and BBC Audio Drama North for the opportunity.”

Lee Thompson receiving his Special Commendation for his play Awaydays at the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award Prize Giving 2023 (Credit: Andrew Smith)

The Award was established in 1992 to commemorate the life and work of Alfred Bradley, the distinguished BBC Radio Drama Producer. Previous winners include Lee Hall, Peter Straughan, Cat Jones, Furquan Akhtar and most recently Paul Jones.

Find out more about the shortlisted writers, read synopses of their scripts and their biographies

Find out more about the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award

The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2023 | Longlist Announced

2023-06-12T10:27:00+00:00

Submissions for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2023 opened earlier this year and we received over 200 applications from writers living across the North of England.

After careful consideration, we’re delighted to announce the writers who have reached the longlist for The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2023 run by the BBC Writersroom in conjunction with BBC Audio Drama North:

Rory Aaron
Oghomwen Adeyinka-Edward
Sian Armstrong
Benjamin Bee
Karen Featherstone
Annie Grace
Sofia Hadley-Johnson
Chrissy Jamieson Jones
Emmy Khan
Matthew Kirton
Craig Lumen
Nathan Powell
Mark Robertson
Mandip Singh Dhesi
Julie Skeat
Matthew Smith
Juliana Sumsion
Lee Thompson

The shortlist will be announced in early July after which the selected writers will each be assigned to a Producer in the Audio Drama North team who will work with them to prepare their scripts for Audio ahead of the final judging process.

Thank you to all who entered, it was a pleasure reading your work. We would encourage you to keep submitting to our future opportunities, including our Open Call submission window which will be accepting submissions towards the end of this year.

Do keep across our website for details of the latest writing schemes and events on our scriptwriting Opportunities page.

The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award is a bi-annual opportunity for writers based in the North of England who are new to writing for audio. It offers a £5,000 bursary to the winner as well as the chance of a Radio 4 Drama commission.

The Award was established in 1992 to commemorate the life and work of Alfred Bradley, the distinguished BBC Radio Drama Producer and is run by Audio Drama North in conjunction with BBC Writersroom.

Find out more about the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award including previous winners, great tips and advice on writing for Radio and read scripts in our online Script Library.

The Verb Dramas

2023-02-28T09:50:00+00:00

The BBC Radio 3 programme The Verb is a weekly "Cabaret of the Word", featuring the best poetry, new writing and performance, presented by Ian McMillan. The programme has regularly collaborated with us at the BBC Writersroom, offering the opportunity for writers from our Drama Room development group to gain a short audio drama commission and the chance to appear as a guest.

Having been selected, the writers underwent a swift but thorough development process with a BBC Audio Drama North Producer. Below you can read their experiences of the process and listen to their produced audio dramas.

Listen to Adulting written by Georgia Affonso and performed by Chloë Sommer, Jenny McIntyre and Jason Done.

"When ADULTING was picked for The Verb it was a real sense of achievement for me. I’d pitched an idea a few years ago that hadn’t gone through, this was totally fair enough (I reread it recently and it was dull as dishwater) but you don’t feel super hopeful at the time. This was a moment for me to say to myself, look – you’ve got better!

We were limited to less than 10 minutes, and I am someone who can ramble. This is where working with a fabulous producer like Lorna Newman, who directed and produced my piece, is invaluable. Lorna focussed my ideas; we talked a lot about weight and food and culture and trips to the doctors and she made sure she knew what I was trying to get across – a pro!

Getting to sit in the recording was a dream. One of the best bits of script-writing is when you get to hear brilliant actors like Chloë Sommer, Jenny McIntyre and Jason Done bring your piece to life.

I’m looking forward to pitching more ideas to Audio Drama in the future."

- Georgia Affonso

Listen to Cramond Island written by Tim Barrow and performed by Jason Done and Emma Laidlaw.

"I loved writing for radio. I haven’t before. My eyes and ears were opened to the possibility by an opportunity presented as part of the BBC Writersroom Drama Room 2022 cohort. I was dead chuffed to have my pitch chosen.

If a radio audience can be transported anywhere I wanted to take them to a windswept island in the Firth of Forth and back in time, deep into nostalgia and old dreams. 10 minutes seemed too brief a stay, but actually allowed plenty to space to explore these characters and tell their tales. Producer Jess Mitic was brilliant – she got the story, the tone, the world and all its swirling undercurrents, and saw in the script possibilities I hadn’t explored. I love and admire the respect she has for radio audiences. Her notes were easy and exciting to address and always helped enrich the story or heighten the drama. She also noted stuff she liked!

Most of my work is in theatre and I was delighted to find how beautifully the worlds of theatre and radio correlate. I like working with silence and physical action – storytelling without dialogue – and happily learned that these are entirely possible in radio. I learned that actors can invest hugely in radio dramas, and am so pleased and proud of these performances. And I learnt that the audio FX team are truly wonderful – they created an astonishing soundscape, which truly captures the world of Cramond Island."

- Tim Barrow

Listen to Floater written by Alex Riddle and performed by Jonathan Keeble and Emily Pithon.

"The miracle of radio drama is that you can do just about anything with it: go back in time, into outer space, bring untold stories into people’s headphones. So I wasn’t entirely certain how my low-key romance set in your local Specsavers would be received. Getting the email to say that the piece had been commissioned was one of the highlights of my year.

Over a couple of Zoom sessions, I worked with my brilliant producer Vicky Moseley to add clarity to some of the more obscure references, punch up the jokes, and make sure the piece didn’t fall foul of the BBC’s editorial standards… I was more than happy to make a few required tweaks, but retaining the phrase ‘d*ck pics’ was apparently the hill I was willing to die on. I punched the air when the email came through saying that it had been cleared for broadcast.

Heading up to Manchester for the recording, I was full of excitement and the unique terror of a writer wondering what their lines will sound like in the mouths of others (“…but will they empathise the half rhyme of the penultimate monologue. The whole piece will fall apart otherwise….”). But, sat down with a cup a tea at the read through, any lingering nerves melted away as I listened to Emily Pithon and Jonathan Keeble, these two wonderful actors, work their magic and watched as Vicky and the team brought Floater to life. Just a lovely day."

- Alex Riddle

Listen to the writers' interviews on The Verb with Ian McMillan on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

Georgia Affonso shares her round up of the Drama Room 2021/22 group's sessions

How my Alfred Bradley Bursary Award-winning play 'Patterdale' was produced for BBC Radio 4

2022-03-09T18:10:43+00:00

Paul Jones is a Liverpool writer who won the most recent Alfred Bradley Bursary Award. His winning play Patterdale quickly went into production and was broadcast in February.

Listen to Patterdale on BBC Sounds

Listen to Patterdale on BBC Sounds with an introduction from writer Paul Jones

Patterdale started life as a short story I wrote in 2015 - part of a collection set in neighbouring roads in south Liverpool.

I’ve always written but didn’t commit until my forties. I did night school classes with the WEA, took an OU degree (unfinished) which led to me having some short stories published and then studied a Creative Writing MA. None of these courses are essential but I find it helpful being in an environment where writing is treated with respect.

During the first lockdown, I was midway through John Yorke’s screenwriting course when I saw on BBC Writersroom's opportunities page that the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award was reopening. Patterdale had a strong central voice and I decided to adapt the story as a radio play. I wrote it like a film script but was constantly on the lookout for moments when sound would benefit the story – a bird’s wings, a swing park, a door being kicked in.

The application process was simple – I already had a BBC account from previous submissions to BBC Writersroom. I answered a few basic questions then uploaded the script. I found out a few months later I’d been shortlisted. I worked with two assistant producers in developing Patterdale, Lorna Newman and Jess Mitic. We batted the script back and forth and their input was essential. Writing is obviously a solitary business, but their critiques and suggestions helped make it stronger.

Paul Jones hears that he's been announced as the winner of the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2021 (the ceremony was held over zoom due to the Covid-19 pandemic)

There were 5 writers in the final and I was surprised and pleased to hear my name called out – the award comes with a £5000 prize and a 12-month mentorship with a BBC Radio Drama producer. Jess Mitic called straight afterwards to congratulate me. I then spoke to Pauline Harris, the director, who told me the play was scheduled for broadcast just two months later – an unusually quick turnaround.

I only wanted native Liverpudlians as the dialect is rooted in local knowledge. The production team found the children via local drama groups, and Pauline was open to my suggestions for the adult actors and in understanding the need for authenticity. I turn a programme off if I hear a dodgy accent, so this was vital.

At the readthrough on the first morning Patterdale ran 15 minutes short – it’s a pacy play but this took everyone by surprise as the word count/page count was usual. I sat in the recording suite with Pauline and Sharon Hughes (Shush), the sound engineer, writing new scenes and passing Pauline new bits of script, while Simon Highfield supported the actors inside the studio. Pauline also contributed ideas for key scenes and line changes while trying to direct. This made the process stressful at times, but Pauline and Shush remained remarkably calm. Monday evening was spent looking through previous drafts of the script for scenes that with a bit of rewriting could be worked back into the play.

The Award was established in 1992 to commemorate the life and work of Alfred Bradley, the distinguished BBC Radio Drama Producer and is run every two years by Radio Drama North in conjunction with BBC Writersroom.

Handing your work over to other people is like watching your child go off to school for the first time, and like an over-anxious parent it was hard to let go. Now I’ve listened a few times and have a little distance, I can see it for what it is - a standalone drama that read well on the page but didn’t complete its journey until the actors and production team brought it to life - excellent performances and direction, sound design that deepened the world both inside and outside Tommy’s head, and music that helped drive the story forward.

Patterdale was broadcast last month on Radio 4 and was selected as Drama of the Week.

Over the past year I’ve written another radio play, adapted from a story in the collection I was working on a few years back, a comedy-drama for theatre, and two television scripts.

Winning the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award was a huge surprise and a terrific confidence-booster. I’m grateful to Alfred’s family for continuing his important work in supporting new voices and to BBC Radio 4 Drama for enabling those voices to be heard.

If you’re thinking of writing a radio play, do it. What have you got to lose?

Listen to Patterdale on BBC Sounds

Download and read Paul Jones' original script for Patterdale from our script library

Find out more about the Alfred Bradley Bursary for writers in the north of England who are new to audio drama

Our opportunity Write Across Liverpool closes for applications on Thursday 10th March at noon - find out more

The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2021 - Winner Announced

2021-12-13T16:34:58+00:00

We are delighted to announce that Paul Jones is the 2021 Winner of the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award with BBC Radio Drama North.

Listen to his winning play ‘Patterdale’ now on BBC Sounds

From 342 submissions, the finalists were:

Jilly Sumsion
Emilie Robson (Special commendation)
Houmi Miura
Paul Jones (Winner)
Duncan MacInnes

The winner of the 2021 Award, Paul Jones said:

“I'm very pleased and proud to have won the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award and am looking forward to hearing Patterdale performed. Thank you to the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award judges and to Lorna Newman and Jessica Mitic for their support in its development.”

Alison Hindell, Commissioning Head of Radio 4 Drama said:

“Radio 4 is delighted to continue supporting this important award recognising the talents of new writers in the North of England. We look forward to hearing Paul’s play on the radio next year and to watching his future progression.”

Paul Jones hears that he's been announced as the winner of the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2021

Find out more about the shortlisted writers, read synopses of their scripts and their biographies

Find out more about the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award

How my script "The Lemonade Lads" was produced for BBC Radio 4

2021-07-19T09:31:35+00:00

Faebian Averies is the current Wales Writer in Residence with BBC Wales, National Theatre Wales and BBC Writersroom. She describes how her winning script "The Lemonade Lads" was produced as a Radio Drama for BBC Radio 4 during lockdown.

The Lemonade Lads is due to be broadcast today, Monday 19th July on BBC Radio 4 and on BBC Sounds. My mum said she’s getting scones in for the event. I said it’s about lemonade - she said she prefers scones.

It doesn’t seem ages ago when I was walking back to my parent’s house to tell them I’d won Wales Writer in Residence. BBC Wales had told me they wanted to interview me about being shortlisted for the award but when I arrived, they ushered me into the studio, put me on air and told me I’d won. I think the video footage of me winning sheds some light on how overwhelmed (and inarticulate about it) I was. It’s been an incredible journey so far and I urge people to apply to these schemes as I never thought I’d win and it really has allowed me the proper time and support to develop my career.

This external content is available at its source: Watch as Faebian Averies finds out she is the new Wales Writer in Residence, live on BBC Radio Wales

I went into my first meeting with BBC Radio Drama in Wales around December last year and I think what I quickly realised was how interesting writing for radio is. I’d performed a few of my own monologues for audio but aside from that I had been writing a lot for screen up until that point, having spent the year prior in BBC Writersroom Welsh Voices, so for radio I had to start learning how to write for a relatively new medium to me.

The BBC sent me a huge archive of audio dramas and for about a week I exclusively wore headphones seeing how radio worked from a writing perspective. I then learnt how amazing it is to go from the idea, to working on the script, to it being recorded and then to hear all the magic that is created by post-production. I’ve really loved that - hearing it come to life - I think audio is such an immersive, unique platform for storytelling and it’s safe to say I’ve fallen quite in love with it.

The BBC Writersroom Welsh Voices 2019/20

This play is a product of lockdown in a way, not so much in its subject matter, but its entire conception, process and recording took place remotely. I’d actually met my director, James Robinson, in real life at a Welsh Voices session but for this project we did everything over zoom. The biggest challenge for me was the distractions that come with working from home. In fact, as I write this the building work that went on during the time I was writing and recording The Lemonade Lads is still in full swing, and I’m thinking back to last Christmas when I was putting together the first seeds of this story, shopping online for ear defenders, whilst everyone working remotely across the country was trying to concentrate through their own working from home distractions.

This external content is available at its source: Faebian Averies recording Lemonade Lads drama from home during lockdown

James and I did all the redrafts over email and zoom and then when it came to recording, the cast and production team were in their homes, everyone surrounded by several pillows (Connor Allen by a whole mattress, Steffan Rhodri in a tent), crossing our fingers for as minimal external noise as possible. Luckily, we weren’t interrupted too much and over the course of the two recording days it was an unbelievable joy to hear the words that I’d written tucked away in my bedroom being said by an amazing cast who breathed so much life into the story.

Faebian Averies with the Wales Writer in Residence Award

So, as I sit listening to The Lemonade Lads being broadcast into people’s living rooms on Monday, nervously working my way through several scones - I will be thinking of how very grateful I am to all the people who helped get my work to this point. The panel for the Wales Writer in Residence Award, Helen Perry (former Development Producer for BBC Writersroom Wales), James Robinson, the production team, the amazing actors and the glorious people who sell ear defenders online. It’s been an overwhelming experience for me and I have developed a deep appreciation for a medium that is so rewarding for a writer to work in.

Listen to The Lemonade Lads on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 19th July 2021 from 2pm or on BBC Sounds

Find out more about Faebian Averies on our blog

Keep an eye out on our website and social media for announcements about the next Wales Writer in Residence opportunity

Three writers commissioned for BBC Radio 3's The Verb - Listen to their short dramas

2021-07-14T12:00:00+00:00

Our ongoing and close partnership with BBC Radio 3's "cabaret of the word" The Verb has resulted in several series of short audio dramas, commissioned from writers from our development groups, many of which have gone on to be nominated and shortlisted for BBC Audio Drama Awards. In many cases this offers those writers their first broadcast credit.

For the most recent series we put a call out to writers we were working with (including those from all our development groups) for short audio drama scripts based on the theme of "Experiments in Living". Over 50 scripts were received, which were read by the BBC Writersroom team, with a longlist of 18 going through to be read by the BBC Audio Drama North team. As always it proved extremely difficult to whittle them down, as the standard and range of ideas was so high, but ultimately three were chosen to be developed and produced.

The three dramas were broadcast in the The Verb episodes on 25th June, 2nd and 9th July with their writers (Emilie Robson, Paolo Chianta and Miles Sloman) appearing as guests on the show.

"These Verb dramas really explored and celebrated the possibilities of radio, the always abundant theatre of the mind. The writers created images that stayed in my memory long after the pieces had ended, hanging around in my ear like stories that felt timeless and modern at the same time." (Ian McMillan, presenter of The Verb)

“I love the way the Verb dramas this year experimented with perspective, sometimes in surreal and surprising ways - whether we were listening to the thoughts of a philosopher cat, the words of a parrot – or the voices of ghosts, or near ghosts. ‘Other than human’ presences were at the heart of this series, and somehow this made the language feel especially luminous.” Faith Lawrence (The Verb Producer)

Listen to all three below and find out more from their writers.

Sebastian (et moi) by Emilie Robson

Sebastian (et moi) explores the fraught relationship between cat and owner in the midst of the lockdown, strained furthermore by the peculiar intellectual prowess of the four legged former. At a time when we were all experimenting in living differently, Sebastian the cat takes it to the extreme, bending language and quoting Sartre, while locked in the bathroom with his long suffering owner Elle.

Brighter Later by Paolo Chianta

1973. Troubled troubadour Nick Drake is a man of few words. Hazel is a woman of a few too many words. Johansson is a parrot of exactly nine words and he’s damned if he’s letting them clip his nails.

The Fisherman's Elegy by Miles Sloman

“Nothing stays the same”. George has his father’s words ringing in his ears as he leaves the safety of the harbour and ventures out into Mount’s Bay at the southern tip of Cornwall - down where the weather-beaten moorland tumbles into the sea. He’s the last of a long line of fishermen who have weathered storms, industrial overhaul and the gentrification of the village that he calls home.

Fisherman’s Elegy explores the duality of living in a place of contrasts; often at odds with those that inhabit it and which seems to change with each turn of the tide. George must navigate the choppy waters of the Atlantic, his personal grief and wrestle with the legacy placed upon him - facing up to the burden of expectation and the responsibility of tradition.

Listen to BBC Radio 3's The Verb, Fridays at 10pm and on BBC Sounds

Find out more about BBC Writersroom's writer development groups

Listen to previous series of The Verb Short Dramas:

2019 series on the theme "Space"

2020 series on the theme "Renewal"

Creating U.Me: The Musical

2021-05-07T09:58:51+00:00

U.Me is an international love story staged for radio and podcast which has its world premiere on the BBC's World Service on Wednesday 12th May 2021 at 7.45pm via www.bbcworldservice.com/musical. We caught up with the composer and lyricist Theo Jamieson to find out about the genesis and creation of this innovative and timely work of musical theatre.

Listen to U.Me on Wednesday 12th May at 7.45pm on BBC World Service and on BBC Sounds

Listen to Everything Stops: The opening track from ‘U.Me: The Musical’

How did you first become involved with U.Me?

Simon Pitts, the show’s creator and a Commissioning Editor for BBC World Service, got in touch with me via Twitter. He was looking for a writer for a radio-musical project and he had heard my songs on Soundcloud. What followed was a series of phone calls and emails in which we knocked around ideas and generally got more and more excited about the project’s potential. Simon invited Steve Levine (Culture Club, The Beach Boys) to produce the music and the BBC Philharmonic to perform. Very generously they embraced the project.

What was it that appealed to you about the project?

Musicals can gestate for up to 8 years before they reach an audience. Here was an opportunity to create an unabashedly maximalist piece in 7 weeks. On the one hand: lunacy. On the other, these long development periods - though they can precision-tool a show - can also result in a pretty significant estrangement between the authors and their original impulses. This was not a risk here. There were other risks… not this.

The musical forces available on this project were a huge draw. I like the idea of musics as technologies or emotional weapons - symphonic orchestral forces are amazingly powerful, as is a pop rhythm section produced to the hilt. For me, as a composer, it’s the equivalent of getting my hands on giant, somewhat dangerous toys. Tons of fun.

U.Me: The Musical - in production Stephen Fry will be the very special guest narrator along with two young lead actors Anoushka Lucas and Martin Sarreal.

Could you sum up U.Me for the audience in one or two sentences?

U.Me is an hour-long radio musical about a romance between two 20-somethings on opposite sides of the planet. It’s about the act of courage and imagination it takes to form a real connection with someone you’ve never met, and how the isolation of lockdown has in some ways normalised and encouraged this possibility.

Can you introduce the main protagonists?

Rose Darrow is 25 years old, talented and ready. One month before the start of the pandemic she moves to London to embark on her adult life - a life which she’d always dreamed as vivid, vital and varied, a life which - one year in - now consists of working alone in her room and staring at a laptop, while her dream city gathers dust outside, its dial turned to the off position.

Anoushka Lucas plays Rose Darrow in U.Me

Ryo Miike is a 29-year old Japanese-American. Intelligent, curious and with a gnawing sense that he’s chosen the wrong life for himself. Ryo is attempting to course-correct by abruptly abandoning his San Francisco career in web-design and heading to Kyoto to find himself, staying with university friends.

Martin Sarreal plays Ryo Miike in U.Me

How did you develop the storyline and who was involved in that process?

Simon Pitts and I wrote the story together. In early December 2020, Simon came to me with the initial brief, which was: “a radio musical in reaction to the Coronavirus pandemic which would generate joy.” The question then was what kind of joy? Comedy? Thriller? Against-the-odds hero’s tale? Something to make you dance? Something to make you think? We found ourselves writing a romance. Romantic energy was going to be our joy-generator. We were going to write big feelings and let our characters spread out emotionally. We were going to put them through it and bring them out again. It would be this kind of thing.

We spent a month working out who our lead characters and their circles were. These elements suggested themselves quickly and intuitively, and we stirred in our own experiences and the experiences of our friends and family together with what what we were seeing in the news. I started writing the songs on December 28th.

Why do you think this story works in this format - of a musical for radio and podcast?

I meet everything through my ears. Live theatre is thrilling and disturbing to me (in the best way) but I can have an intense experience just listening to music on the tube, relentlessly scrolling back-and-forth on a particular climax or corner-turn in a song. It’s music/sound/lyric that makes me ripple.

For the most part, Musical Theatre recordings serve as a record or evocation of the live experience (though the audio realisation of cast recordings is generally stupendous now), U.Me is different in that the endeavour was to make the audio version of it the ur-form. So all the “staging” and storytelling was to be achieved with music, text and sound. Though this could limit you in some ways it also affords possibilities for more elegantly traversing different styles of storytelling: pure naturalism, flights of fantasy, and subterranean interiority can co-exist much more comfortably in an audio medium. This turned out to be a good fit for our story: our characters live in their bedrooms, their heads, their computers, their imaginations, so cordoning off these zones with the severity and definitiveness of a visual medium didn’t feel as natural as audio, which can describe the queasy-ecstatic blurring of them far more deftly.

Composer Theo Jamieson on writing for U.Me: The Musical

Music or lyrics first?

Same time. I don’t find it useful to separate the streams. The emotional reality of a lyric is changed totally depending on pitch, dynamic, accompaniment - and the notes, the chord-voicings, the rhythmic movement, become vastly different objects depending on the text. These diverse elements are - not to oversimplify it - one thing. The music is not itself without the lyric - the lyric is not itself without the music, and all elements are participating in one single dramatic or energetic impulse. This includes orchestration and production, they are part of one thing. That’s not to say you don’t zoom in on a constituent part - a sequence of rhymes, a melody, a bass-line, a viola bowing, a reverb - but they’re meaningless without the context of each other. They’re one giant multi-form creature. Like Tetsuo at the end of Akira.

Can you explain a bit about your writing process? Apparently you had a pretty punishing daily delivery schedule to meet?

For this project, writing for seven weeks, I had to generate 1.5 minutes of material a day or I was behind. It was both horrifying and sort of refreshing to have it be that stark.

Preview of 'Life in Lockdown' - from U.Me, the BBC's new musical

What have you learned on the project?

This project made a vivid case to me for the excitement and value of making a musical fast. It’s easy to forget this when you gaze in awe at the scale of the form, and when you’re familiar with the orthodoxy of how the modern musical is generally midwifed. I don’t want to undermine the long, considered, development-period method which has yielded so many rich and form-defining works, however it wasn’t always this way: time was writers of musicals would write and produce a show a year and if it worked it worked if it didn’t it didn’t, and that method has provided just as many rich and form-defining works. Working in this way makes me hopeful there’s room for both.

Listen to U.Me on the BBC World Service and BBC Sounds on Wednesday 12th May 2021 at 7.45pm

U.Me: Download the Podcast

Find out more about U.Me, the production and the cast

The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award - Shortlist Announced

2021-03-22T12:11:19+00:00

Five up-and-coming writers have been shortlisted for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award with the winner set to be announced in September.

The five writers and their shortlisted plays are:

Driving Lessons by Juliana Sumsion (Lancaster)

Kelly Ann is twenty-one and wants driving lessons, but she has Downs Syndrome. Everyone including her own family doubts her ability to learn. Can she prove them all wrong?

Pica by Emilie Robson (Newcastle)

There's something about Kae; something earthy, creepy even; as if she's done a few laps of this world already. And if folk weren't talking about her before, they are now she's vanished.

Mabel by Houmi Miura (Manchester)

Awaiting the outcome of a school investigation, teacher Suzi, is trying to stay vegan and not having a nervous breakdown, until she finds an unlikely saviour in a brutally honest talking houseplant.

Patterdale by Paul Jones (Liverpool)

A young boy in foster care runs away to his nan's house. As he runs, his story unfolds.

Dagger Lane by Duncan MacInnes (Hull)

A retired DCI George Young enlists his carer, Simone to help unearth past evidence exonerating his dead West Indian best friend from 1956 before George's Alzheimers erases any possibility of justice.

The five shortlisted writers are now busy developing their radio drama scripts with mentorship from a BBC Radio Drama North Producer ready for the final judging process this summer. The selected winner will be announced in September and awarded a £5,000 cash bursary in addition to receiving a 12 month development mentorship with a Radio Drama Producer where they’ll continue to develop their drama script for a chance to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

We wish everyone the best of luck and look forward to announcing the winner later this year.

Find out more about the writers below.

Juliana Sumsion

Juliana (Jilly) Sumsion is a writer from Barnsley. Initially training as a teacher of the Deaf, she went on to make original plays and cabarets with Disabled adults at the Dukes Theatre Lancaster. She has also devised plays in British Sign Language and is passionate about Disability rights.

A course with New Writing North in 2017 ignited her desire to write for television, theatre and radio. Since then, she has been longlisted for BBC Writersroom and Box of Tricks/Sky Studios Award. New Pictures have just optioned an original drama series, which is now in development.

Jilly’s writing is inspired by real people, lesser-heard voices and her working-class background. She is currently writing a comedy drama series set in Preston which jumps into the world of social work. She is also developing ideas for children’s television that celebrate neurodiversity. Jilly is half-way through an MA in Scriptwriting at Manchester Writing School, which she is loving!

Emilie Robson

Emilie Robson is a screenwriter and playwright originally from South Shields. In 2019, their play Moonlight on Leith (co-written with Laila Noble) was named runner up at Theatre Uncut’s Political Playwriting Award ceremony. In 2020, Robson’s play GAME was selected for artistic development with The Traverse in Edinburgh. Robson’s short Sebastian (et moi) was broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb and her audio drama PICA received a full production with BBC Radio 4 after receiving special commendation at the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2021. She was one of 12 participants on the Channel 4 2021 Screenwriting Program, selected from a record 3,800 submissions and currently has projects in development with Home Team, DNA films and Firebird Pictures amongst others.

Houmi Miura

Houmi Miura is a Japanese British female writer, theatre-maker and performer based in Manchester. She’s a graduate of the BBC Writersroom’s Northern Voices 2020 scheme, has been in the writers room for HATTORI HATCHI (Red Productions), written sketches for CBBC’s THE AMELIA GETHING COMPLEX and has recently written and performed a monologue for New Earth Theatre’s SIGNAL FIRES. She is also currently developing her solo show, IN THE BEGINNING WOMAN WAS THE SUN, which has been supported by HOME, Eclipse, Unity Theatre and Arts Council England. Houmi loves to playfully explore themes of identity within the everyday, through a fantastical lens and her name's pronounced "homey", which is both the gift that keeps giving and the bane of her life.

Paul Jones

Paul Jones is based in Liverpool and writes fiction and drama.

He was an actor until his early 40s, when he returned to education, studying with the Open University, before going on to complete an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. Since graduating he has studied screenwriting courses run by John Yorke and Jed Mercurio.

Paul has been shortlisted/longlisted for the Galley Beggar prize, The Bridport prize, and the Quiet Man Dave prize.

He was commissioned in 2017 by Ten Ten Productions to write a play for teenagers, as part of the government’s Prevent strategy. 'Civilised' centred on how young people are recruited into white nationalist movements. He is currently under commission to the same company to write a series of short films about a teenage friendship group.

Patterdale is the third radio play that Paul has submitted to the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award and the first to be shortlisted.

Duncan MacInnes

Duncan MacInnes is an actor/writer from Hull. After starting his creative career at The Northern Theatre School in Hull and then at The Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts (LIPA), he has gone on to have a career as an actor spanning twenty years. His writing highlights include ‘Waste’ which was written for the ‘Boom’ festival at The Bush Theatre, ‘Why Are We Whispering?’ a one-person show for Theatre Royal Stratford East / Home Theatre Project and short film ‘Echo Road’ which was supported by Channel 4. Duncan’s first full length play ‘Dagger Lane’, is a crime suspense thriller observing northern England’s relationship with immigration both in the past and present through the eyes and mind of an ex-police officer with dementia.

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

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

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

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

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

Listen to Braids now on BBC Sounds

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

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

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

Pre-Production and Cuts, cuts, cuts…

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

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

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

Rehearsal day!

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

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

Cynthia recording Braids remotely

Recording…

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

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

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

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

The Verb - Listen to 4 new short dramas

2021-03-01T17:15:46+00:00

The BBC Radio 3 programme The Verb is a weekly "Cabaret of the Word", featuring the best poetry, new writing and performance, presented by Ian McMillan. The programme has regularly collaborated with us at BBC Writersroom, offering the opportunity for four writers from our development groups to gain a 5 minute audio drama commission and the chance to appear as a guest.

The most recent opportunity challenged writers to be experimental with language and to create a short piece of work based around the theme of “Renewal” and any meanings this evoked or inspired.

As with every opportunity we run, we were overwhelmed by the high standard and breadth of ideas that were submitted. Ultimately we selected the four ideas that felt the most original and bold while reflecting and embracing the theme, together with meeting the requirements of the audio medium to grab the listener and give them a new experience.

Having been selected, it was all go for the four writers as they underwent a swift but thorough development process with their BBC Radio Drama North Producer. They ended up being some of the first audio dramas to be recorded remotely when we first went into lockdown as a country this time last year.

Despite the initial set-back and the missed opportunity to all be in the same studio for the recording, we're delighted with how each of the dramas has turned out and how they demonstrate each writer's individual talents and voice. Listen to them below.

Ian McMillan presents The Verb on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

“I like the way the rhythms of ordinary speech are put under pressure by the needs of the compressed narrative. The sound world, like the writing, seals you into these dramas in a way that never lets you go.” - Ian McMillan (Presenter of The Verb)

“These short dramas can make you feel like you’re caught in someone else’s train of thought – you discover how strange language really is – and that’s something I really value in these scripts" Faith Lawrence (Producer of The Verb)

“They’ve been like little vibrant jewels of sound. - the scripts, have had a precious jewel quality – small moments that stay with you, I like how they’ve taken little everyday moments, a haircut, or an attempt to follow a recipe and show how important they really are” - Jessica Treen (Assistant Producer of The Verb)

Listen to Please, No Shouting in the Reception Area by Jacob Welby

Please, No Shouting in the Reception Area is about a woman who attempts the simple task of getting her passport renewed but is faced with a bureaucracy so convoluted that it tears down the fabric of her own reality.

Please, No Shouting in the Reception Area was broadcast on The Verb on 17th April 2020 - Listen to the whole programme

Listen to Avocado Fried Rice by Alissa Anne Jeun Yi

Avocado Fried Rice is all about a strained mother-daughter relationship, living with dementia and reconnecting with your cultural roots through cooking. ‘Renewal’ in Avocado Fried Rice is the renewal of the mother-daughter relationship - Through learning to cook the recipe her mother has long forgotten, the daughter also gets the opportunity to ‘renew’ and deepen her connection with her heritage - and also to ‘renew’ and reinterpret an traditional, family recipe in her unique, more Westernised way - merging the culture her mum is from and her own; and creating something new and different that celebrates both worlds.

Avocado Fried Rice was broadcast on The Verb on 1st May 2020 - Listen to the whole programme

Listen to Ghosts by Lucy Burke

Ghosts is an exploration of grief, specifically looking at how Freya - a young woman in her twenties - comes to terms with her life continuing when the person she intended on living it out with is taken away unexpectedly. It explores Freya's emerging feelings of guilt and the challenges she faces trying to move forward, of renewing her life plans but in a different way.

Ghosts was broadcast on The Verb on 26th June 2020.

Listen to Reflection by Lettie Precious

We all have insecurities; most of them are fuelled by our own beliefs and experiences through the world we live in. Our insecurities dictate how we see the world and how we think the world sees us. What truths or lies does RED’s reflection tell them? Maybe Peckham High Street has the answer.

Reflection was broadcast on The Verb on 26th February 2021 - Listen to the whole programme

Find out more about The Verb and listen to programmes now on BBC Sounds

Listen to last year's The Verb short dramas

The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award - Longlist Announced

2021-02-18T10:33:47+00:00

Submissions for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2021 opened in September 2020, following a launch event at the BBC’s national poetry and spoken word festival, Contains Strong Language. At that event, BBC Writersroom Development Producer, Alice Ramsey and Radio Drama North Producer, Gary Brown interviewed previous winner Cat Jones (read the interview on our blog, including great advice).

We received over 300 applications and after careful consideration we’re delighted to announce the 21 writers who have reached the longlist.

Adam Bennett-Lea
Al Lockhart-Morley
Alexandra Hannant
Amandeep Singh
Amy Drake
Duncan MacInnes
Emilie Robson
Emma Doherty
Houmi Miura
Jemma Buntin
Juliana Sumsion
Kevin Cuffe
Lydia Hirst
Matthew Kirton
Nick Maynard
Nicole Joseph
Paul Jones
Paul Roberts
Sara Cocker & Léonie Higgins
Susan Pierce
Tamsin Rees

The shortlist will be announced in March, with those writers then working with BBC Radio Drama North to develop their radio drama play for the final judging process in September.

Thank you to all who entered, it was a pleasure reading your work and we would encourage you to keep submitting to BBC Writersroom opportunities.

The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award is a £5,000 writing bursary to Northern writers new to radio and the chance of a Radio 4 drama commission.

The Award was established in 1992 to commemorate the life and work of Alfred Bradley, the distinguished BBC Radio Drama Producer and is run by Radio Drama North in conjunction with BBC Writersroom.

Find out more about the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award including previous winners, great tips and advice on writing for Radio and read scripts in our online Script Library.

Creating the Docu-Drama Peking Noir

2021-02-05T12:34:11+00:00

Peking Noir tells the life story of Shura Giraldi, a Russian émigré to China in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. But the known facts of Shura's story were incomplete, which is where drama can fill in the gaps.

Historian Paul French and Dramatist Sarah Wooley explain how they worked together with producer Sasha Yevtushenko to create the Audio drama/documentary Peking Noir.

Listen to Peking Noir now on BBC Sounds

Listen to Peking Noir on BBC Sounds (starts at 52 seconds into the audio)

Paul:

Peking Noir is the life story of Shura Giraldi, a Russian émigré to China in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. Shura was a minor character in my true crime book ‘Midnight in Peking’ who fascinated readers. However, there wasn’t really space to tell Shura’s whole life story in that book. Sasha Yevtushenko, our producer at the BBC, was interested in Shura – both as a mercurial character and also as a symbol of the largely forgotten massive Russian exodus after 1917.

But Shura’s story also had so many gaps – perhaps a bank robber, a drug dealer, a nightclub entrepreneur and entertainer, lover of a government official and a Chinese warlord - so many issues that would be fun to dramatize. There were also aspects of Shura’s life that had fascinated many readers – that Shura sometimes presented as a man and sometimes as a woman depending on how that best suited Shura’s plans and moods – this felt quite contemporary.

Shura’s story, incomplete as it is, filled with gaps and suppositions, is still one of the best case studies we have of the life of an intersex person in the first half of the twentieth century. That’s both rare and interesting as well as quite important to recover. I had worked with Sasha and the dramatist Nick Perry on an earlier docu-drama retelling the story of the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong-nam at KL Airport, most probably at the behest of his half-brother, and the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un so I knew the format worked and Sasha suggested that I meet Sarah, who often works on dramatizing ‘real’ stories – Chappaquiddick, Rodgers & Hart and Hammerstein, Andy Warhol, the story of the National Theatre etc. It seemed an ideal pairing. Docu-drama works best where we simply can’t ever know all the facts, where there is always an element of informed guesswork that can help bring the story to life and convey real experiences.

The only known photograph of Shura taken before repatriation to Russia at the Talati hotel in Tianjin. (The handsome man he's sitting with was portrayed as the character named Anton in the play but in reality we don't actually know who he is)

Sarah:

I was asked to join the Peking Noir team by the producer Sasha in early 2020 and met Paul a few days before the first national lockdown. Before we met, I read all his books and at the first meeting we discussed the outline for the story and how the project might work over six episodes of fifteen minutes, all three of us throwing ideas around. After that, Paul went away and wrote a timeline of Shura’s life based on everything he had learnt from research – the facts (with records, pictures, memoirs where he had them) – and the rumours, gossip and suggestion. We had a google drive site and simply shared everything on there – Paul uploaded texts, pictures, a Spotify playlist in the hope that it would inspire myself and Sasha with characters, locations. When we had the first drafts of drama scenes, we could use those sources to ensure that though we were imagining scenes we were not distancing ourselves too far from history.

From that, I was able to start drawing up a detailed outline for each episode, making sure there were enough interesting twists and turns, plot progressions and exciting turning points etc. Sasha and Paul then gave me notes on the outlines and once we had that structure loosely in place I started to write each episode. Starting in a linear way (which is in fact Episode 2) and working forwards from there. There was a lot of scope for dramatic invention but we also had enough facts to give the whole thing a good clear shape.

Where possible we tried to incorporate ideas and developments into the dramatic script to 'up' the drama and reduce the documentary aspect to make things more exciting. I basically wrote the whole thing like an action film. As I went along I invented characters (always based on Paul’s research) – Marie for example is an amalgamation of two real people. Sasha then themed each episode. So Episode 2 was The Russian Exodus , Episode 3 was The Warlord and Shura coming to terms with being intersex etc so I knew what I needed to cover in each episode. We didn’t go back to Episode One till all the other episodes had been written and redrafted. Sasha would helpfully remind me that I didn’t have to sneak in any disguised exposition as Paul would be always be on hand to narrate to the listener, helping them leap from time zones and places with just one line. This allowed me to concentrate on the action. In terms of notes I’d deliver a draft of each episode and then get notes from Sasha and Paul and I’d re draft based on those notes.

A note given to Paul from Vladimir Nelsky and sent from Brazil which describes Shura and the photograph.

Paul:

As the process went along we always tried to ensure that everything was historically justified. For instance we knew that Shura’s warlord lover had a lot of money and did buy property in Peking. I knew from my research that warlords in China were inveterate train robbers (think Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong in the movie Shanghai Express). I was able to show Sarah historical records of such train robberies, what sort of hauls the warlords got, what they spent their money on. She could then fire her imagination and dramatize a train robbery.

It is challenging however to bring this time and place to life. China, and Russia have a lot of history, even just the first fifty years of the 20th century and it’s not really taught in schools. As we say at the start of the show – ‘Set during two revolutions, and two world wars. It is a tale of bank robbers, jewel thieves, bordello madams, drug smugglers and...survival against the whirlwinds of history.’ That all needs some explaining, the drama needs to be placed in context as well as letting the audience know what we do know and what we are imagining so we intercut narration and drama with readings from memoirs, actual witness testimony and quotes from various well known characters of the time (including Chairman Mao!).

Once I saw Sarah’s first dramatic scenes I could then write the narration around them so that the listener (hopefully) understands the context of the scene, the time and place and what we actually knew and what we surmised. Both the drama and the narration would change as we bounced the script between ourselves and Sasha. Eventually we found we could get a good balance and hopefully not repeat points made in the narration or in the drama and vice versa giving us scope to put as much into the two hours as possible.

Paul French (Historian) and Sarah Wooley (Dramatist)

Sarah:

Once we were all happy with the shape of the drama, Paul added his narration. There were times when it was more helpful and economical to drop a scene and have that be narration. Of course it’s all very well me writing bank robberies, shootings, and drug smuggling but someone has to make that world work for the listener and under lockdown conditions. We all agreed that we needed to cast an incredible group of actors and someone remarkable as Shura. Sasha and Paul had worked with Daniel York Loh, Chris Lew Kum Hoi and Leo Wan before and a casting consultant very helpfully put Sasha in touch with a number of possible actors who identified as non-binary for Shura, we chose the brilliant Maggie Bain.

We ended up recording the whole thing remotely and then BBC technical producer, Peter Ringrose brought it all to life in the edit. This was a massive amount to do in normal circumstances let alone under lockdown.

Peking Noir

Paul:

Now the project is finished I think for me the biggest lesson I learnt was to let myself go when working with a dramatist. As a content originator you feel a certain ownership of the story and perhaps a greater affinity and protectiveness over the characters (especially as in this case they were mostly real people). I think that’s natural. Conflicts between authors and adaptors are commonplace. But this was always a partial story, full of gaps. At first I was nervous about what Sarah would come back with but when I saw the first few scenes I realised that we were going to take the story to a height that would be impossible without a great dramatist. It was those scenes, and not the narration placing them in historical context, that would make Shura and the rest of the cast of characters come alive.

Once you get past the sense of proprietary about the story then it all becomes a little more fun. I’m aware that at times I might have had to say, ‘sorry, I don’t think we can do that…’ when we strayed from the historically justifiable, but it wasn’t often. It was fun to be able to say to an experienced dramatist ‘we need a bank heist, a drug deal, a shootout, a revolution, a war!’ and get one back on email the next day. I hope we get to do it again, I have a few more ideas...

Listen to Peking Noir now on BBC Sounds

Read the script for Peking Noir in our Script Library

A Million & Me - Two new BBC Radio Scotland Dramas for BBC Children in Need

2020-11-10T12:55:43+00:00

In our line of work, we get to collaborate with the best creative teams around and one of our most productive partnerships has been with the BBC Radio Scotland team. In the last two years alone, we have created opportunities that led to seven original comedies produced and broadcast by Scottish based writers. Not bad results!

While exploring what we could do next with the radio team, they suggested adding BBC Children in Need into the mix. Their impactful programme, A Million & Me, focusses on supporting children’s mental health and in particular 8-13 year olds who are beginning to struggle with it and their emotional wellbeing. We were left inspired by the ambition of this programme and off the back of those conversations our next writer opportunity was created.

Aimed at our past and present Scottish Voices writers groups, we asked for audio pitches that reflected this theme of issues around mental health and young people. Michael Richardson’s and Brian McIver’s pitches stood out and they soon found themselves commissioned for their very first audio drama. Supported and guided by BBC Radio Scotland Drama Producer, Kirsty Williams, Brian and Michael worked across the summer on their audio dramas with Kirsty expertly leading the way. The end result is two thought provoking audio dramas that remind us how difficult and challenging life can be for young people in 2020.

We asked Brian and Michael to share their experience of writing for radio for the first time:

Brian McIver

Fissures by Brian McIver, broadcast Wednesday 11th November at 11.30am, Listen now on BBC Sounds

A group of young people on a respite weekend go on a journey through a mountain cave system which will challenge them in ways they never thought it could….

I wanted to explore how young people can feel trapped by their situation and often struggle to accept help. And having read about BBC Children in Need supported groups who take young people off on outdoor adventures, I thought that’d be a great setting for my characters to get stuck in the dark – literally having to find their voices to progress.

The key advice I was given when writing for radio was to think of it as a visual medium. To be economical with the use of action, language and air and to create pictures for the audience. Thankfully I was in very good hands. And when Kirsty gathered an incredible cast of talented young actors to perform my story, it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Listen to Fissures for 30 days from broadcast

Michael Lee Richardson (photo credit: Ashleigh Jane Cosgrove)

The End of the World by Michael Richardson, broadcast Thursday 12th November at 11.30am Listen now on BBC Sounds

A witty and touching drama about a father and son that really need to learn how to communicate better...

I had assumed writing for radio would lean a lot more into the parts of writing I’m really comfortable with, writing dialogue and jokes. So I was surprised to hear Kirsty say that radio drama is the most visual medium to write for - and I soon learned what she meant! It’s been a really interesting challenge; creating a world for the listener through context cues and sound, and it was absolutely fantastic to hear that world brought to life in the studio and work with two really amazing actors.

I’ve been a youth worker for ten years now, so I’m really aware of the stigma there can be around young people opening up about their mental health, especially amongst boys and young men. I think A Million & Me offers to meet young people where they’re at, and help them access support that’s relevant to their age group, hopefully before some of those stigmas have settled.

Listen to The End of the World for 30 days from broadcast

BBC Radio Scotland Drama Producer Kirsty Williams

If this has piqued your interest, Producer Kirsty Williams has some top tips for first time radio writers…

Audio drama devours story. Feed it.
Paint as few characters as you possibly can. Make each of them emotionally rich and psychologically complex. Thin characters sound thin when there are no visuals to hide behind.
It’s an interactive medium. Help your audience paint vivid and tangible pictures in their imagination. That applies to the entire sound world you’re creating as well as to the stories characters tell and share.
Audio drama isn’t about sound, it’s about significant sound. Give your audience subtle clues to understand any sounds that are not characters speaking. And don’t disembody the sound world when you write a script (eg. “SFX: a door opens”) – link everything to the characters and world you’re creating.
Always think about rhythm and pace – playing with these elements changes nearly everything.