President Edgar

At the Guild's AGM on Friday 1 June, David Edgar was confirmed as the new President of the Guild for a three-year term.

David Edgar is one of this country’s’ leading playwrights, having worked in the theatre, TV, film and radio. He is perhaps best known for his large-scale dramatisation of Nicholas Nickleby for the Royal Shakespeare Company and for television.

Other key works have included Pentecost, which won an Evening Standard award in 1994; The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs; Albert Speer, based on Gitta Sereny's biography of Hitler's architect; and Playing With Fire. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has at various times served as Resident Playwright at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Fellow in Creative Writing at Leeds Polytechnic, Professor of Playwriting Studies at Birmingham University and Literary Consultant for the RSC.

For the Writers’ Guild he has recently led the negotiating team creating an updated Minimum Terms Agreement covering the RSC, Royal National Theatre and Royal Court – which he has officially signed today, the first day of his Presidency. As President of the Guild he will speak for writers on public issues and will have a non-voting seat on the Executive Council.

David Edgar’s appointment continues the Guild’s tradition of choosing leading writers as its President – he takes over from the TV writer and novelist David Nobbs, while previous holders of the post have included J.C. Wilsher, Ian Curteis, Rosemary Ann Sisson and Alan Plater.

You can hear David Edgar in conversation at a Guild event on 7 June.