Orange Play Writing Prize - Scotland

The Orange Play Writing Prize is being run by the Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland for two age categories, 14-18 year olds and 18+. The main prize for each category will be for the play to be professionally produced and be shown for a week at Oran Mor, Glasgow during the 2005 autumn season of lunchtime plays. Short listed entrants will receive high quality professional support to develop their plays, as required.

The plays must be 30 to 40 minutes long, have no more than 3 cast. The only entry restrictions are that the playwright must not have had a play professionally produced before and must be Scottish or live in Scotland.

Story of a book

Fittingly for a book that one internet reviewer said felt as if it had been dreamed up by two mates in a pub for a wheeze, The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists was dreamed up by two mates in a pub for a wheeze.

The story of Gideon Defoe's first novel, from conception to publication, told by Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian.

[Editorial director of Weidenfeld & Nicholson, Helen Garnons] Williams quickly read the manuscript, and liked it, but the days have gone when an editor can make such a financially significant decision alone. She immediately consulted Joanna Carpenter, head of Orion's sales department, for an impromptu forecast of how many copies the book might sell. "You never want a manuscript to be your 'rope book'," Williams says - the work you passionately campaign for, only to see it fail in the marketplace. But even Carpenter makes her judgments primarily on gut instinct and experience, not scientific market research. "It's enthusiasm," she says. "When Helen comes down here with her eyes shining - if you can replicate that in front of a book buyer, you've got it made. It's only with that that books work. Without that, it would be a dreary process." Williams punched Carpenter's forecast into an in-house spreadsheet that uses the estimate to compute a suggested advance to be paid to the author. "The problem is that it almost always comes up with a figure of about £4,000, so you have to ignore it," says Williams. By Monday morning, she had made a low five-figure offer.

Novelists in pods (2)

Four weeks ago we reported that four writers in New York were attempting to complete novels in full view of the public in specially designed pods. Now, as The New York Times reports, they have emerged.

"The time pressure and unexpected attention were incentives," said Mr. [Ranbir] Sidhu, interviewed a few hours before the experiment was over. "People were expecting you to finish a book, something you weren't utterly embarrassed by."

Putting the "litter" into "literature"

Inspired by finding novels littered on Manhattan subways by authors trying to create a word-of-mouth buzz, [Robert] Chalmers devised a scheme to help promote his new book, East of Nowhere.

"It's putting the litter back in literature. I had this idea of bombarding a small town with books, so they end up everywhere and can't be avoided." But why Otley? "When my novel was serialised in a newspaper," he explains, "there was a credit-card hotline number which was actually an answerphone in my bedroom. Only three people called, but all of them were from Yorkshire. So Yorkshire seems to be lucky for me."

On account of its size, shape, and the fact that it competes for the national title of having the most pubs per capita, Otley was chosen. Known chiefly for its portrayal of the town of Hotton in TV soap Emmerdale, Chalmers has come to town with 1,000 copies of his novel and is hoping that handing them out to 4 per cent of the 25,000 residents will give him a slightly more realistic chance of local fame than he has had in London or New York.

The full story is in The Independent.

Baby Cow and Channel X move north

Top independent TV companies Baby Cow and Channel X are opening offices in Manchester, reports The Stage. The move was assisted by funding from film and television development agency North West Vision as part of an initiative to attract production houses to the region and to support indigenous talent.

Leicester Haymarket Theatre gets go-ahead

Multi-million pound plans for the replacement of the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester have been approved by the city council, with work now expected to begin on the site before the end of the month.

The local authority gave the project final approval earlier this week, despite council leader Roger Blackmore previously expressing reservations over the scheme’s rising costs. The new performing arts centre, designed by world famous architect Rafael Vinoly, is now priced at £48 million. This is nearly double its original estimate of £26 million, making it one of the most expensive theatre projects in the UK.

The full story is in The Stage.

The Stage also reports that there is to be a new theatre in the West End - the Sound Theatre on Leicester Square will open on 21 June.

The 200-seat venue will be run by KIT Productions, which will produce its own work as well as transferring productions from London’s fringe circuit into the theatre. There will also be a programme of late-night events for cabaret, music and live art.

Ofcom calls for BBC to link to other broadcasters

The media industry regulator Ofcom has called for the BBC to become more closely linked to other broadcasters as part of its future development. In its response to the Government’s Green Paper on the Review of the BBC Royal Charter, it says:

Ofcom believes that - if the public service system as a whole is to continue to have wide influence and impact in the future - it is essential that the BBC is not allowed to become isolated in a growing - and exclusively commercially-focused - sector.

If the BBC were to become the UK’s sole public service provider, there is a risk that audience tastes would be conditioned by the commercial majority rather than the public service minority; and that producers, writers, editors and other talent would be heavily conditioned by the needs of the commercial sector alone. This would leave the BBC vulnerable to a decline in market share and loss of viewer, industry and political support.

Cliff Hollingsworth - from rags to riches

Cliff Hollingsworth, the writer of forthcoming Hollywood movie Cinderella Man, has spent his career being ignored, reports the WGA. Until now.

I made the decision to sit on [my other] scripts until Cinderella Man came out. Had I known it was going to take this long, maybe I would have made a different decision, but I guess now I'm glad I did. I've always been told it's a night-and-day difference between a produced writer and an unproduced writer in terms of how [the industry] treats you … That's why these new scripts I've written haven't gone out anywhere.

Comedy - Solved

Excellent. Comedy has been solved.

Comedy website Chortle reports that Dr Helen Pilcher and Timandra Harkness have identified the formula that determines a sitcom's success.

It is: (F(RD + V) + S) / A

Where: R is the recognisability of the main character, D is their delusions of grandeur, V is the verbal wit of the script, F is the pratfall factor, S is the difference in social status between the highest- and lowest-ranking characters and A is the success of any scheme.

And with that, we comedy writers can puff our cheeks out, clap our hands together, emit a satisfied "good!" and then head down the pub. Forever.

We have uktvGOLD to thank for that, apparently.

Soho Theatre - five years on

It is five years since [Soho Theatre] artistic director Abigail Morris and an equally intrepid board and staff officially opened the venue in Dean Street, London. The building remains the only one to be bought on the open market by an arts organisation using Arts Council England money. It had been a synagogue in its past and perhaps something still resonates that causes it to be such a community-driven venue, run with an almost religious devotion.

Jeremy Austin in The Stage profiles one of the country's leading new writing theatres.

What is Alan Yentob for?

According to the BBC's Press Office:

Alan Yentob is Director of Drama, Entertainment and CBBC, a position he has held since April 2000. In June 2004 he also became the BBC's Creative Director.

Alan is at the creative helm of the BBC and has overall responsibility for BBC drama, entertainment and all aspects of the BBC's children's output across all media.

He has responsibility for a significant film division and is the focal point for talent management across the whole of the BBC.

But what does all that actually mean? Rachel Cooke in The Observer spent a day with him in an attempt to find out.

I would say that the greater part of his job involves talking: on the phone, in meetings, at parties. In some respects, he is a human vacuum cleaner, sucking up ideas as if they were so much dust. In others, he is the great soother. Perhaps because he can be sensitive to criticism himself, he is adept at making others feel good about their own contributions. In an organisation as huge, political and potentially bitchy as the BBC, I imagine even a bit of this goes a long way. He genuinely wants to make a difference and the idea of doing so, after all these years, still excites him.

Dracula blogged

Bram Stoker's Dracula re-told in a real-time blog. Thanks to The Guardian Online for highlighting this link, as well as one to a discussion of what they call metafiction.

Ismail Kadaré wins International Booker

Ismail Kadaré is today has been named as the winner of the first ever Man Booker International Prize.

Kadaré, born in 1936 in the Albanian mountain town of Gjirokaster near the Greek border, is Albania's best-known poet and novelist. He has lived in France since 1990, following his decision to seek asylum stating that: "Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship." Harvey McGrath, Chairman of Man Group plc, said:

"Ismail Kadaré's novels shine a light on the mores of his native Albania. His writing reflects not only the complexities of a nation coming to terms with its freedom, but also his own personal experiences, and make him a worthy recipient of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize."

Ismail Kadaré will receive the prize of £60,000 and a trophy at the Award Ceremony on 27 June 2005 in Edinburgh.

In accordance with the rules of the recently announced separate prize for translation, Kadaré will choose a translator or translators to receive an additional prize of £15,000.

Comedy - Sitcom Writers At War

I like to think of writing as a noble, elegant and largely solitary pursuit. When a writer does go to meet other humans they may also be writers and, unencumbered by professional jealousy, they have the satisfied understanding that they are in accord and privileged to share conversation with another writer (as opposed to a Labour Party press officer, a convicted baby smuggler or Princess Michael of Kent).

Unfortunately, writing is now about going out into the world with a stack of paper under your arm marked "writing"; finding someone else with a similar stack of paper; and then kicking each other violently in the shins. The one who drops their stack of paper first is clearly not as good a writer as he thought he was.

I'm talking about a tendency to make writers battle it out head-to-head (or head-to-head-to-head-to-head... as the case may be).

I was reminded of this by a press release from the USA about Bravo TV's Situation:Comedy.

Bravo's new series will allow viewers to go behind the scenes of national television as neophyte writers will earn the opportunity to produce and sell a sitcom - but the eavesdropping audience will give the final thumbs-up by choosing the winning entry that will be broadcast on Bravo.

[...] the lucky five writers were flown to Los Angeles, where they were thrown into the deep end of the creative pitching pool. They then submitted their ideas to NBC network executives who green-lighted two of the scripts to go into production as 15-minute presentations [...]

The final two "wannabe" writers (or writing teams) were thrust immediately into the high-energy, high-stress world of television production. Viewers will be with them as they meet their staffs and find that they have to share many of their key staffers.

In addition, audiences will watch the entire process through casting, set design, rewrites, rehearsals, taping and post-production. In the end, they will see each completed presentation and can vote online for the sitcom they believe should get a shot for broadcast on television. The winner will receive a cash prize of $25,000 and exclusive representation for one year with a major Hollywood talent agency to further help launch a successful writing career in film or television.

I think it's time I took up knitting.

This form is already with us in Britain where the BBC's Last Laugh competition will involve the winners in television appearances. In fifty years we've managed to conjure up Hancock, Steptoe & Son, Fawlty Towers and the mighty Cilla's World of Comedy without reducing writers to dancing media monkey-boys.

The next writer to join the ranks of Galton & Simpson could be someone you first saw completing an obstacle course to win a treacle tart or soaping their genitals in a glass walled latrine.

LBC book club

A new book club run by London radio station LBC has been criticised for selecting titles on the basis of payments made by publishers, reports Jack Malvern in The Times.

Books that appear on the Book of the Month feature on Daisy Sampson’s drive-time show on LBC are selected not by a panel of experts, but by the books’ publishers, who pay £10,000 to get a book on air. Despite criticism from authors, who believe that readers will be misled by the book club, LBC said that it had no intention of informing its listeners of the five-figure fees.

Mostra, the marketing agency which set up the club, said that although it would allow a range of views to be broadcast on each book, LBC would not broadcast any review featuring severe criticism.

Antony Beevor, the author of Stalingrad and chairman of the Society of Authors, described the LBC book club as a “deeply cynical” exercise. “It puts complaints about bungs given to booksellers to get them to put books in their windows completely in the shade,” he said. “Obviously it is just a way of buying publicity. If you are buying an advertisement it should be made clear that it is an advertisement.”

Book Slam

When Ben Watt, one half of the dance duo Everything But The Girl, told the author Patrick Neate that he wanted to put on a bookish event at his west-London bar Cherry Jam, Neate wasn't very encouraging. "I told him it was a stupid idea," he says. Two years later, Book Slam - a monthly night hosted by Neate - has become the brightest example of a new trend in live author events. The scene has its origins in the slam poetry scene and the concept is simple: authors known and unknown read extracts from their work and DJs and bands play in between.

Literary festivals and author readings have always been a staple of British literary culture, but Book Slam is different. It's just like a night down the pub, only with story-telling thrown in. "I wanted to put on a night that I actually wanted to go to," said Neate. "I could be really highfalutin' about it, but Book Slam is just an excuse to listen to good music and literature and not worry that I'm 34."

The full story from Claire Allfree is in The Independent.

Power-cut at the Guild

The Writers' Guild offices have suffered a complete power-cut. Please be patient if you are trying to contact the office. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Guild chair backs BBC unions

Graham Lester George, Chair of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, has added his support for the action that broadcasting unions are taking against cuts planned by the BBC. Speaking at the Euro-MEI General Assembly in Budapest, where an emergency resolution supporting the unions was backed, Graham said that "We [the Guild] believe in the BBC and in its virtues".

Comedy - Hay, Hay, Hay... wassup!?

Don't panic, I won't speak in that kind of urban lingo any longer. It's unbecoming in one, such as I, bespectacled and pasty faced. I can't stand it any more than you can.

I'm Graeme and Tom Green has allowed me to be the blog's comedy writing correspondent. I'll try and ensure that no opportunities for comedy writers slip through this particular cybernet. I'll also point you at articles, news and interviews relating to comedy.

First up then, the previously mentioned literary behemoth that is The Hay Festival has a nifty online programme and allows you to view all the events that are humorous in nature. (Don't let the fact that what then appears is headed by Max Boyce fool you, it really is a listing of comedy).

You can create similarly tunnel visioned listings for other, far less important, categories such as philosophy and history by palpating the little widgets on the right of the page.

Haype This Haylps.

Update: On closer inspection I now notice that the only event left under the comedy category that you can see without the aid of a TARDIS is Ned Sherrin. Note to self: "Future posts to be more useful".

In a desperate bid to recover face, here's a snippet from the BBC Comedy Blog about comedians at Hay:

Later, Braben regaled the audience with gag-filled reminiscences of working with Eric Morecambe, Ernie Wise and Ken Dodd. (Sometimes even topical: he said Tony Blair's back problems were down to "the way he's been lying")

Braben churned out one-liners for Dodd's relentless six-gags-a-minute act for 12 years. Counting the jokes that never made it, it's been estimated that he wrote more than half a million jokes for Dodd alone. "You have to write 300 gags to get 60 - you always have to overwrite," he said.

Writing half a million jokes for Ken Dodd. Imagine. Like some kind of Gag-Gulag (shudder).

Midsomer Murders an international hit

Midsomer Murders, based on the books by Caroline Graham, is the UK's second most successful TV export, reports BBC News.

The ITV drama sells to 201 countries, second only to Gillette World Sport which sells to 240.

The full survey of UK TV exports for 2004 is available from Pact.