TV show ignores writers

Further to the post below, this account of the more common experience of script-writers being totally ignored is sent to me by Julius Hogben

In the first of his new BBC TV series last night, Cambridge University don Nigel Spivey set out his subject, “telling stories in pictures”. Beginning “in the dawn of time”, as TV presenters so often do, he declared that “ the same technique has proved crucial to the success of every film made today.”

He then managed to tell the story of Ulysses and the Cyclops by statues, with his own narration, without featuring the key role of Homer. Later, he hauled on George Miller director and co-writer of Mad Max to say “One cannot underestimate the effect of special effects and music in modern film storytelling.” Fair enough. You suspect that Miller’s co-writer on Mad Max must have been quite significant, not to mention his two other co-writers on Mad Max 2.

Tune in next week for more on How Art Made the World Without Writers?

TV critic credits writers

It's not often that a soap or series writer gets a name check in a TV review. So for two to be mentioned in one piece (Media Guardian, free registration required) must be something of a record. The luck couple are Colin Wyatt (EastEnders) and Nick Fisher (New Tricks).

Regular readers will remember that the reviewer, Rupert Smith, recently accepted a challenge from Mal Young and wrote an episode of Doctors. Maybe all reviewers should be given the same opportunity.

Children's book prizes

How richly should we reward high achievement in children's writing? Even Philip Pullman, that matchless inventor of parallel worlds, might think twice about devising an imaginary kingdom that endowed an annual prize for young people's literature worth a cool £385,000 - from the public coffers - to the winner. The lucky author collects this fairy-tale crock of gold from a genuine princess and caps a week of official festivities with a lecture in the nation's parliament.

As it happens, Pullman has merely shared this year's Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, founded and funded by the Swedish state in tribute to the creator of Pippi Longstocking and the values that her books uphold. The enormous cheque, and the dazzling limelight of this week's jamboree in Stockholm, has been split between the fabricator of His Dark Materials and the Japanese illustrator Ryôji Arai. All the same, Sweden's generosity has a truly folkloric aspect, down to Wednesday's meeting with the Crown Princess - who arrived, one trusts, in a glass coach drawn by white mice - and the mythically round sum (five million crowns) of the award itself.

More on children's books prizes from Boyd Tonkin in The Independent.

Making Hay

If you can't get to the Hay Festival, you can follow it all week on The Guardian's Hay Festival blog.

More genteel than most is that of Alexander McCall Smith, a man whose professorial demeanour frequently collapses into mildly hysterical laughter over a deeply funny hour that ranges from German academic nomenclature to a one-legged sausage dog.

He is, he explains, suffering from a condition that he caught from Armistead Maupin at a San Francisco party. "This is a medical issue – serial novelism. There is no cure – you write serial novels and then you die."

Who's blogging

In recent weeks we have started to open this blog up to a greater range of authors.

Dutch screenwriter Thessa Mooij is sending occasional reports from America, where she lives, and Edel Brosnan will be submitting posts next week from the Listowel Writers' Week.

We're planning daily posts from the Edinburgh Festival this summer and are always on the lookout for other ways to increase our range of coverage. If any Guild members are interested in contributing, drop me a line c/o of the Guild office.

Wilson is the new Children's Laureate

Despite fears among her supporters that literary snobbery would stand in her way, Jacqueline Wilson has ... been named as the new children's laureate, arguably the most popular - and populist - author to hold the position to date.

Following in the footsteps of Quentin Blake, Anne Fine and Michael Morpurgo, the author of Tracy Beaker, Double Act, Bad Girls, The Illustrated Mum and numerous other acclaimed novels for children will receive a bursary of £10,000 and will hold the post for two years.

More about Jacqueline Wilson in The Guardian.

Double re-commission for New Tricks

The BBC has given TV drama New Tricks and double re-commission.

Filming will begin on the eight-part third series later this year. The fourth series of a further eight one-hour episodes is due to be shot in 2006.

It's the first time that more than one series of a drama has been re-commissioned at the same time, but it could be the sign of things to come.

Jane Tranter, Controller, Drama Commissioning, BBC says: "Double commissioning is designed to allow independent production companies the creative freedom to think further forward with their development of long running drama for the BBC.

"This is a clear commitment from us to continuing to secure the very best drama for our audience, and another way of making BBC commissioning more nimble."

New Tricks is made for the BBC by Wall to Wall television. It was created by Roy Mitchell and Nigel McCrery, and writers on the current series are Roy Mitchell, Nick Fisher, Karen Maclachlan, Howard Overman and Danny Miller.

New plays for The Globe?

Dominic Dromgoole, who will replace Mark Rylance as artistic director of The Globe theatre in London at the end of this year, has told The Stage that he wants to find a place for contemporary work alongside the Shakespeare.

"I think the Globe is a very magical place, a very special place. It’s already achieved so much. I would like to see some contemporary playwrights trying to fill that space but Shakespeare will remain as the core. If the modern plays are out there, I would like to take that risk for next season.”

Listowel Writers' Week; 1st-5th June

Annual Irish literary fest Listowel Writers' Week begins next Wednesday, in Listowel, Co. Kerry. Featured events include workshops on everything from crime writing to song writing; lunchtime and evening theatre; book launches and of course readings and/or Q & A sessions with writers - Robert Fisk, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Jack Mapanje, Carol Ann Duffy, Joe Simpson, Lawrence Block, Booker prize-winner D B C Pierre and many many more.

Irish writers at Listowel include Booker nominees Colm Toibín and Roddy Doyle, as well as Ronan Bennett, Michael Longley Pauline McLynn and Ross O'Carroll Kelly.

As a local girl and Guild member, I'll do my best to blog the highlights.

The axing of Westway

Westway, the World Service radio soap will be axed this summer as part of the BBC's latest round of cuts. Madness, says Dominic Dromgoole in Media Guardian (free registration required).

Surely we give money to the BBC so it doesn't have to enter the same frantic and sweaty games as everybody else, and so it can balloon off in new and interesting directions. The purpose of the BBC, I always assumed, was to nurture the wildest plants in our society and to tidy, with a gentle but sure hand, the most hidden corners in our room. Both functions were served by Westway. Why is it letting it go?

johnaugust.com

If you want to get inside the mind of one of Hollywood's top screenwriters,try johnaugust.com.

John, who wrote Go and Swingers and has adapted Big Fish and Charlie And the Chocolate Factory, offers advice to aspiring writers and comments on past, present and future projects.

Black theatre in the West End

Should you venture into the West End at night this week, you'll find not one but two pieces of black British theatre.

Elmina's Kitchen by Kwame Kwei-Armah, originally commissioned by the National and now starring the playwright himself, is the first new black British play to open in the commercial sector. And The Big Life, a riotous ska musical developed at Theatre Royal, Stratford East, is the first black British musical to open in this famous postcode.

More in The Independent.

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.