Behind the scenes on Coronation Street

Are journalists finally waking up to the fact that soap can be taken seriously? After Guardian TV critic Rupert Smith's script for Doctors, comes Barbara Ellen's attempt to write for Coronation Street (The Observer).

A lifelong fan, she goes behind the scenes to try and discover what makes the show tick, and takes along a few scenes she has written to show to series editor Gareth Philips.

When I got home, Philips was kind enough to ring me with a 'critique' of my scenes. Well, I say 'kind'. I ask him to be 'brutally honest' and he takes me at my word. This line is totally overheated. That line Blanche wouldn't say. This line about Audrey and hair dryers is pathetic ('If you're going to do camp, you have to be a lot sharper than that!') That line of Ken's is so weak it's a 'sackable offence' ... And so on.

Indeed, only one line (one!) passed muster (something about rain on a washing day being a shame), but overall I was guilty of 'straying too far into sitcom territory'. 'We are pedantic whiners,' says Philips. 'But I make no apologies for that.' It would seem that I was right about it being harder than it looks to write for Coronation Street (though maybe not as hard as listening to someone tell you that you're absolutely hopeless at it).

Postscript: Ellen calls the Street producer "Tony Young" throughout her article. His name is, in fact, Tony Wood.

Writing topical monologues

Channel 4's new comedy writing competition requires entrants to write a three-minute topical monologue. To help newcomers to the form, we asked comedy writer Dave Cohen for his top five tips.

1. Read the newspapers. Not as daft as it sounds, sometimes a sentence jumps out at you and you come up with an instant punchline.
2. Try and avoid the obvious or the ongoing old story - if there's another joke to be had out of the Blair-Brown leadership battle that hasn't been done yet it'll take you too much time to think of it.
3. Look at the quirkier stories in the news - you can find them in newspapers, on the net, even on ceefax. Often there'll be a simple gag off the back of them.
4. Try and be different. Go off on a tangent, find a topic where you hear the same obvious jokes being made and try and look at the story from a completely different angle.
5. Listen to shows like News Quiz and Parsons and Naylor, the current topical shows on the radio. You can catch up with them on the net. Watch Have I Got News For You. Don't nick the jokes (instant disqualification, because everyone else will have heard them,) but get the feel for the structure of a gag, and listen to how the professionals tackle the week's stories.

Dave is currently working on Have I Got News For You and will be doing a stint on The News Quiz in June/July. He has also written for Rory Bremner, Dead Ringers, Spitting Image and many more.

The Beeb shall inherit the earth

The BBC is embracing the internet revolution, reports Wired.com, putting it well ahead of the US TV networks.

The greatest irony here is that it takes a publicly-funded broadcaster from a cozy liberal democracy to teach America's lumbering, anti-competitive Hollywood dinosaurs what a real, competitive offering looks like.

TV over the internet

A recent BBC test streaming TV programmes live over the internet, leaked out to the public. Is it the start of a broadcasting revolution, asks Paul Hayes in The Stage.

The BBC’s research and development arm, based at Kingswood Warren, was conducting a test for the streaming of the BBC’s television channels to UK-based broadband internet customers, in a move to provide a service similar to that already offered free for all by BBC Radio, whereby all stations are available to listen to live over the internet, with selected programmes stored in a ‘Listen Again’ archive for at least a week following transmission.

New Writing Ventures 2005

Booktrust is seeking entries for New Writing Ventures 2005. There are three categories: fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

New Writing Ventures is a series of national prizes being launched by The New Writing Partnership in collaboration with Arts Council England. It is designed to help launch the careers of writers who are expected to make an impact on the world of books, writers and readers in the coming years. The winner in each of the three categories in 2005 will receive £5,000. In addition, the winners and two shortlisted writers will be given development opportunities by Arts Council England in the region of £5,000 to support bespoke individual development plans which could include workshops, mentoring and professional advice.

The awards are administered by the national charity dedicated to promoting literacy, Booktrust. An independent charity, Booktrust runs several successful reading campaigns and manages numerous literary prizes. The submission deadline is 1 July 2005. The shortlisted authors will be announced in September 2005, and the awards will be presented at the second edition of New Writing Types held in Norwich from 24-28 October 2005

Channel 4 comedy writing competition - details

Further to the announcement earlier this month, Channel 4 have now published details of their comedy writing competition.

Channel 4 are launching a new initiative to find the best new unpublished comedy writer or team of writers. The winner will have the opportunity over a 12 month period to receive writing commissions from leading production companies for a range of Channel 4 comedy and entertainment shows, earning up to a minimum value of £20k.

To take part, submit a three-minute topical monologue and three non-topical sketches of no more than three minutes each in length.

Deadlines for submissions is July 14th.

Finalists will be chosen by a selection panel comprised of Channel 4 commissioners and celebrity comics. The winner will be announced at The Edinburgh Television Festival in August.

Update (20/05/05) Read Dave Cohen's Top 5 tips to writing topical monologues.

Five ventures into original drama

Five is making an ambitious move into home-grown drama, developing a number of shows from leading production companies, as part of a push to redress the poor representation of the genre on the channel.

In a bid to strengthen its reputation in drama and entertainment, the broadcaster has confirmed it is working on programmes for 2006 and has promoted Abigail Webber to the new role of drama editor to oversee the projects.

The full story is in The Stage.

The Play's The Thing - Channel 4

Finally writers are to get their chance in the world of reality TV. Following Operatunity and Musciality, Channel 4 is launching The Play's The Thing, which will see "novice playwrights" submit work to producer Sonia Friedman. The winning script will get a West End run.

There is a report in The Guardian.

"Obviously from a commercial point of view it's completely bonkers," Ms Friedman said. "I have been working in the West End for five years, and there are very few new plays in the West End that haven't already been supported by the subsidised theatre sector or have come from the US. It's primarily because the risks are just too high. With The Play's The Thing, I have been set a challenge and I want to know whether we can fulfil it."

Update 1: There's now a page on the Channel 4 website. The contest is strictly for non-professionals (i.e. people who have never been paid for dramatic writing for radio, television, film or stage). The closing date is 1 July 2005.

Update 2: Edel Brosnan has pointed out in a comment to this post (see below) that by entering the competition, writers surrender all their copyright in the submitted piece.

John Whiting Award

The John Whiting Award, administered by Arts Council England, is intended to help further the careers and enhance the reputations of British playwrights and to draw to public attention the importance of writers in contemporary theatre.

The Award is made to the writer whose play, in the judges' opinion, most nearly satisfies the following description: a play in which the writing is of special quality; a play of relevance and importance to contemporary life; a play of potential value to British theatre.

The judges do not have to regard whether or not the play has received a production, or is likely to receive a production or publication. It must, however, have been written during the years 2004 and/or 2005. The value of the award is £6,000. The judges' decision is final.

Any writer can apply who has had one of the following in the calendar years 2004 or 2005:

1. An offer of an award from the Arts Council (e.g. Grants for the Arts)
2. A commission from one of those theatre companies in receipt of regular or Grants for the Arts subsidy from the Arts Council
3. A premiere production by a theatre company in receipt of Grants for the Arts subsidy from the Arts Council

Translations are not eligible.

Contact Charles Hart (Charles.Hart@artscouncil.org.uk) for further information or an application form .

Meyer-Whitworth Award

Supported by the Royal National Theatre Foundation and dministered by Arts Council England, the Meyer-Whitworth Award is intended to help further the careers of UK playwrights who are not yet established. Candidates will have had no more than two of their plays professionally produced.

The award is made to the writer whose play, in the judges' opinion, most nearly satisfies the following description:

1)a play which embodies Geoffrey Whitworth's dictum that "drama is important in so far as it reveals the truth about the relationships of human beings with each other and the world at large";
2)a play which shows promise of a developing new talent;
3)a play in which the writing is of individual quality.

The judges reserve the right to advise that no script meets the required standards of the award and that therefore the award should not be made.

The value of the award is up to £8,000. The award is given by a panel of three judges whose decision is final.

Contact Charles Hart (Charles.Hart@artscouncil.org.uk) for further information or an application form .

The Children’s Award

The Arts Council is inviting entries for its Children’s Award for playwrights who write for children.

Submitted plays should be suitable for children up to the age of twelve and be at least forty-five minutes long. They must have been produced professionally between 1 July 2004 and 30 June 2005. This may be a first, second or third production of a play written within the past ten years. The playwright must be resident in England.

The value of the award is £6,000.

Contact Charles Hart (Charles.Hart@artscouncil.org.uk) for further information or an application form .

Guild backs BBC strikes

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain has announced its support for a series of one-day strikes by employees at the BBC aimed at preventing large-scale cuts in BBC staffing and operations.

The staff involved are members of BECTU and Amicus (producers, technicians, admin staff, etc) and the NUJ (journalists). The staff unions held ballots which produced large majorities in favour of strikes.

The walk-outs will take place for 24 hours on 23 May and 48 hours on 31 May and 1 June, with a fourth stoppage to be announced to create the "greatest amount of disruption" possible.

In a statement The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain said that it supported the views of the BBC staff unions.

The Guild deplores the 15 per cent across-the-board cuts because they are bound to have a bad effect on the production of drama, sitcom, sketch shows and other genres that involve Guild members.

Virtually all Guild self-employed freelancers rather than employees. Therefore the Guild was not involved in the strike ballots and is not officially part of the unions' "Fight for our BBC" campaign. Under trade union legislation it would be wrong for the Guild to instruct or encourage members to withdraw their labour.

However, Guild General Secretary Bernie Corbett said: “I hope Guild members will show maximum possible support for the staff unions when they take strike action. The dates are known in advance, so if Guild members have meetings or appointments planned for those days, I hope they will rearrange them.

"If they have deadlines on those days, I hope they will refrain from submitting material while staff are on strike – whether this means submitting it a day early or a day late. Many producers and managers will be on strike themselves, so Guild members should consider discussing with them in advance how they can react to the strike situation.

"The minute any Guild member thinks there is a serious problem, they should ring me at the Guild office and I will advise them how to proceed. Also, there are likely to be picket lines at most BBC premises. I would encourage Guild members to join the picket lines if they can, and show their solidarity with the BBC staff. After all, we all want to preserve the best possible public service broadcasting service for our country.”

An Englishman (and his dog) in Brooklyn

For a debut novel that pays tribute to the wonderful power of books, it seems only fitting that the Writers' Guild meets its author on National Library Day. 'National' in this case meaning 'American'. English writer Wesley Stace lives in brownstone Brooklyn. His novel Misfortune is published in the U.K. by Jonathan Cape on May 19. On May 29, Stace appears at the Hay-on-Wye festival, which calls his book a "vivid Gothic masterpiece".

On the day of the interview, a book review in the New York Times calls 18th-century bawdy London a "precursor of our own ambiguous times." Hm. Ambiguous maybe in the sense that American libraries are reporting book-lending stats to the FBI. But a few gay guys on a mission to give the country a make-over or people running out of acronyms to pigeonhole themselves into a sexual category hardly make for bawdiness. In America, sex is a competitive sport. Pleasure doesn't seem relevant, which it was for those 18th-century Clerkenwell barmaids.

Real sexual freedom is the main theme of Misfortune, whose protagonist(e) Rose is raised as a girl by the richest man in 19th England and a surrogate librarian mother. When she hits puberty, the father prefers not to face reality - but after a soul-searching trip to Narcissus-land in a mythic Hellenic part of Turkey, Rose decides to stick to her guns.

Wesley Stace: "Believer magazine published this phenomenal article about the Michigan's Womyn Festival that only women are allowed to attend. Five years ago, they threw out transsexuals, who went on to start Camp Trans. It's like civil war between the two, which is the saddest thing, if you think that's what the sexual revolution and gay rights have led to. Rose would find all that insane. Not because she's old-fashioned, but because of her character.
In this huge world where everything is permissible, everything is still very much pigeonholed. In fact its getting worse pigeonholed, because things are easier to describe and you can find exactly what you want on the internet. Twenty years ago, you would have a hard time finding American fans of English football. Now you can even find the people in New York who support Arsenal."

Misfortune grew out of the ballad Miss Fortune that Wesley Stace wrote for his alter ego John Wesley Harding, as part of his long-standing career as a singer/songwriter with a loyal American fanbase. That was eight years ago. How did it grow into a 544 p. novel?

WS: "I never wrote more than a hundred pages of my other novels. They were all set in the present, they were very memoir-ish and I didn't enjoy writing any of them for even one word. When I was writing in the present tense [interrupts: "What was that?" His dog Grey is digging up something in the garden] I found myself continually distracted by things in the present. I would want to make fun of Diana Ross, Subarus, your iPod and celebrate them and talk about them. Starting this book I knew that I'd bitten off more than I could chew and that I would finish it. I knew it was going to take years. By setting it in the past, I could have a fictional character set in a completely blank space. Then I would start to get pictures in my head. Without all the distractions, I was able to let my characters talk about essential things: life, love, art, books, their relationships, their conflicts."

At times, Misfortune flirts with Dickens' epic swagger and Henry Fielding's verbosity, but ultimately, Rose's voice is strong, confident and contemporary. Early on, Stace, who feels "very much like an English writer', got a priceless bit of advice from Rick Moody.

WS: "He said: 'I'm giving you the exact advice you don't want to hear. This is not where American literature is at right now, so you need to finish it first, and make sure it's fully thought-out.' Misfortune is completely irrelevant to modern American literature. I might have more in common with women writers, like Anne Patchett or Katherine Dunne who write larger books. If you compared that to the thin books written by men who must have agonised over every single word...My book is written in the spirit of: 'I have a big story to tell, let's tell the story'."

Updated theatre rates

The updated minimum rates for theatre writers working under either Theatre Management Association (TMA) or Theatre National Committee (TNC) rates have been published.

Both have been increased in accordance with inflation. Full details are available from the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.

Authors peak at 50

The cult of youth is over. Or it should be. New research from American company Lulu, reported by BBC News, has revealed that the average age of writers who topped the hardback fiction section of the New York Times Bestseller List from 1955-2004 was 50.5 years.

Fighting back against the critics

The dangerous proximity of critics and practitioners in the theatre, by Dominic Dromgoole in The Guardian.

There is hardly any art form that enforces such proximity between practitioner and critic as the theatre. Film critics skulk into viewing rooms in the morning; literary critics flop on to sofas at home with the latest novel; art critics stalk around galleries at their leisure. It's only the theatre that forces everyone to sit in the same room, all contributing to the same event. I have great friends whom I have seen less often over the past 10 years than I have seen Michael Billington. Which is as good an argument as any for not working in the theatre. The proximity makes for passion.

Sony Radio Award winners

The Vladimir Nabokov story, Laughter In The Dark, dramatised by Craig Higginson, has won the Gold Award for drama at the annual . Sony Radio Academy Awards Produced by Catherine Bailey, directed by Maria Aitken and with sound design by Howard Davidson, it starred Geraldine Alexander, Roger Allam, Sarah Badel, Ewan Bailey, Lauren Bird, Alan Cox, Tom George, Claire Price, David Shaw Parker
and Tracy Wiles

The judges commented that:

"Maria Aitken's beautifully crafted and paced production of this lesser-known Nabokov tale drew a brilliant performance from Roger Allam, strongly supported by every member of the cast. The atmosphere of cruelty, sleaze and menace was almost palpable, making this a gripping listen."

Laughter In The Dark was made by Catherine Bailey Productions for BBC Radio 3

The Silver Award went to The Permanent Way, by David Hare. (Producer: Catherine Bailey, director: Max Stafford-Clark)

Bronze went to Banana Republic, by Greig Coetzee (Produced and directed by Claire Grove).

Comedy Awards

The Gold Award for comedy The National Theatre Of Brent’s Complete And Utter History
Of The Mona Lisa, written by Patrick Barlow.
- Producers: Bruce Hyman & Helen Chattwell
- Director: Martin Duncan
- Editor: Jake Roberts
- Performers: Patrick Barlow as Desmond Olivier Dingle, John Ramm as Raymond Box
- Additional material: John Ramm & Martin Duncan

The judges commented that

"The National theatre Of Brent continue their singular pursuit of turning the historical into the hysterical. A very funny, very different, beautifully observed and, on occasion delightfully informative romp through the story of the world's most iconic piece of art."

The National Theatre Of Brent’s Complete And Utter History Of The Mona Lisa was an Above the Title productions for Radio 4.

The Silver Award went to The 99p Challenge, written Kevin Cecil, Andy Riley, Tony Roche and Jon Holmes. (Producer and directed by David Tyler)

The Bronze Award went to Clare In The Community, written by Harry Venning & David Ramsden. (Produced and directed by Katie Tyrell)

Novelists in pods

In New York three novelists have taken residence in special pods where they will write in full view of the public. There's a full report in

The New York Times.No cameras will record this voyeuristic experiment, though visitors can peep occasionally (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m). The potential for public humiliation comes not from the perils of constant surveillance, but from the more familiar writers' problem of failing to meet a deadline. Make that deadlines. They will give weekly readings of their works in progress on Saturdays at 8 p.m., and take part in two public discussions scheduled for this coming Sunday and May 22.

Coronation Street wins best soap

Coronation Street was awarded best soap at The British Soap Awards last night, reports BBC News. Long-time Street writer John Stephenson was given a special achievement award.

25 Words or Less: Director’s Cut

There's an interesting piece in the latest issue of Scriptwriter magazine about a new initiative from the UK Film Council - 25 Words or Less: Director's Cut.

Previous 25 Words or Less contests have invited writers to submit pitches for films in certain genres. This time they have asked two leading directors, Danny Boyle and John Crowley, to set the briefs.

The title of "25 Words or Less" is slightly misleading, in fact. You also have to submit a one-page outline and ten pages of script. Writers must be Full Members of the Writers' Guild or have an agent in order to apply.

The Film Council's Development Fund, with the respective director and production partner, will select two writers to receive funding: one to work with Danny Boyle and Pathe UK and one to work with John Crowley and Intermedia UK.

Development funding of £10,000 will be offered to each successful writer to cover a first draft original script and one set of revisions based on the story idea.

The closing date for applications is 11 July 2005.