Richard Bean interview

In The Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish talks to playwright Richard Bean.

His new play, The English Game, concerns an amateur London cricket team and certain ideological fault-lines that open up during one hot Sunday afternoon match. A former part-time stand-up comedian, Bean has threaded - as ever - plenty of jokes into the all-male badinage. It's bound to knock audiences for six. But will it have a further life after Leeds and Salford - the places that pioneering theatre company Headlong is taking it to? Unlikely.
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"I've learnt not to raise my hopes," says Bean. "One review of Under the Whaleback [his Royal Court play about Hull trawler-men] said: 'This play will run forever in the West End.' Being naive, I thought, 'Excellent!', but there was nothing, not a phone call.

"These days, I suppose producers think audiences expect a West End play to mean witty lines delivered by Ralph Fiennes - they don't want five tattooed Hull trawler-men dying."

BBC Comedy College - myths and realities

On the BBC Writersroom blog, Micheál Jacob announces that writers shortlisted for interview for the BBC's new Comedy College mentoring programme have been contacted, and addresses some of the myths that have grown up around the scheme.

One, which hasn't yet surfaced but is bound to at some point, is that we are so bereft of projects that we steal ideas from new writers and give them to some mythical group of favourites who exist in a basement of Television Centre waiting to be fed. There is never a shortage of scripts of ideas. There is always a shortage of good scripts and ideas. Indeed, when I ran an online team-writing project called Cleaners, someone claimed I had stolen it which, since it was based on a format I devised at Alomo, was demonstrably untrue. It's a fact of writing life that several people will have a similar idea at much the same time. Although I have only once seen a project set in a public lavatory.

A new Court generation

As Polly Stenham's debut play, That Face (starring Lindsay Duncan, above), opens in the West End, Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com explains how she and other young writers are coming up through the Royal Court's Young Writers Programme (YWP).

Polly Stenham sums up the YWP experience at the Royal Court as one of empowerment. “You never feel patronised and I’ve always been treated with such respect and such grace. The level of care is considerable. They keep pulling you back for workshops and meetings. Once they’ve decided you’re one of them, you really are one of them. I feel very attached to the theatre. I think we’ve all been incredibly lucky.”

The art of titling

In The Guardian, Neil LaBute considers the tricky task of giving a work a title.

Some titles become not just touchstones in the zeitgeist, but go on to become brand names or get a trademark: by this method a Star Wars is born. This is rare: more often, an author pores over a variety of ideas, old notebooks, song titles, quotations, searching for something that captures the imagination while giving the educated uninformed (that's you, dear reader) some sense of the work. In my short career, I've used everything from song titles (Aimee Mann provided This Is How It Goes, while Elvis Costello was the inspiration for Seconds of Pleasure) to pure imagination to name a short story or a play or screenplay. Just because Edward Bond and David Mamet had both already used In the Company of Men (in a play and an essay, respectively), I saw no reason not to call my first film by the same name. It was a bit of a tribute to the writing of two men whose work I admired. It also seemed to capture the spirit of what I was doing better than anything else. For a moment I thought about going with just The Company of Men, but it was so much stronger with that little extra "in" at the start.

Likely Lads on stage

In The Times, Chris Ayres talks to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais about why they're bringing their 40-year-old sitcom, The Likely Lads, to the stage.

The plot follows that of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?: acts I and II are condensed versions of each season. Terry has come back from seven years in the army to find Newcastle changed beyond recognition. Bob is becoming ever more middle-class, while Terry tries to cling on to his youth through beer, birds and football. La Frenais says that the play remains set in the Seventies (“there won't be any mobile phones or Blackberries, none of that bollocks”) and has endured because “Bob and Terry are now considered part of the North East's culture”.

The Likely Lads runs at The Gala Theatre, Durham, from 11 June.

Moffat wins Best Writer BAFTA

Guild member Steven Moffat won Best Writer at the BAFTA Craft Awards last night for Blink (above), his episode of Doctor Who.

The other nominees were:

• Tony Marchant– The Mark of Cain
• Jimmy McGovern – The Street
• Heidi Thomas – Cranford.

A Special Award was given to writing duo David Croft and Jimmy Perry, whose work includes Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Hi-Di-Hi!

Jeff Nathanson interview

For the Writers Guild of America West, Matt Hoey talks to Jeff Nathanson about writing the new Indiana Jones movie.

Working on an Indiana Jones movie might be a daunting prospect for any writer. But only to a certain degree, says Nathanson. At least for him. “Luckily, just being a screenwriter, in general, you're used to being slightly uneasy and uncomfortable and nervous and petrified,” he says. “So I was no more uncomfortable writing this than I am writing any other movie. At some point it could be any movie you're working on.”

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (screenplay by David Koepp, story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson, based on characters created by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman) will open worldwide on 22 May.

Writers' Guild and DACS event

You are invited to a private view of the Romance exhibition at the Kowalsky Gallery, London EC1, hosted by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS).

Thursday 15th May, from 6.30 – 9pm
Readings will begin at 6.45pm

Tickets: £5 in advance or on the door. Book a place in advance by emailing naomi@writersguild.org.uk

Celebrating the season of spring in leap year, the Romance exhibition brings together sculptures, ceramics, paintings, prints and photography by over 30 artists including Sir Peter Blake, Rose Hilton, Tom Phillips RA, Shani Rhys James, Stuart Semple and many more.

At the private view, there will also be chance to hear readings by six selected writers on the theme of Romance:

Gabriel Bisset-Smith is one of the core writers at the Soho theatre. He is a member of the BBC writers' room and the SPARKS radio scheme. He has been on attachment at the Royal Court and had plays produced at the Hampstead Theatre. He took part in this years 24 hour plays and he is currently writing new projects for Teatro Vivo.

Paul Boakye is an experienced professional writer, broadcaster, and creative project manager. He is the recipient of myriad business and writing awards and prestigious accolades including advising the Power Inquiry and a recent invitation to meet The Queen. While currently writing his first novel, Paul will also start a Creative Writing MA at Goldsmiths College in September, and is on the lookout for a new agent to help him market his work. See the author’s blog at www.paulboakye.net

Guy Ducker worked as assistant editor on hit movies like Calendar Girls, BAFTA winners like The Warrior and many more. Between these jobs Guy started writing feature film scripts and making short films. So far he has written five full-length scripts, one of which is in development and another of which recently earned him a place on the prestigious TAPS course. Guy’s short film Telling Mark has played international film festivals and has been shown by the BBC, HBO and Sky. He has directed a section of a film called “Nineliveslondon” – a multiple director feature about the July 7th bombings.

Lauren Kemp is an editor at KnockBack magazine and a leading mouthpiece of British feminism. She has featured in the Guardian and Observer magazines and also runs a very successful sideline editing texts, emails and wall posts for hapless friends in romantic quandries.

Claire Wilson currently has a Teen Thriller called Back To Jack under option with Element Films, a drama short called Birthday Girl in development with Orange Wasp Productions and a dark comedy series under option with the BBC. Her family drama script Re-Posession was awarded Runner-Up 2008 for the Tony Doyle Scholarship and she was also short-listed for the UK Film Council's 25 Words or Less competition.

Jake Yapp has written for Never Mind the Buzzcocks on BBC2, and his series Pleased To Meet You on BBC7 last year was nominated for the Sony Award for Best Comedy. He's currently preparing a one-man show for Edinburgh. You can watch him mucking about at www.youtube.com/jakeyapp

More information about the Kowalsky Gallery and the current exhibition can be found at: www.kowalskygallery.co.uk

Gender roles in Hollywood films

In The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wonders whether women will ever get the chance to take the lead in Hollywood movies.

Nobody likes to admit the worst, even when it’s right up there on the screen, particularly women in the industry who clutch at every pitiful short straw, insisting that there are, for instance, more female executives in Hollywood than ever before. As if it’s done the rest of us any good. All you have to do is look at the movies themselves — at the decorative blondes and brunettes smiling and simpering at the edge of the frame — to see just how irrelevant we have become. That’s as true for the dumbest and smartest of comedies as for the most critically revered dramas, from “No Country for Old Men” (but especially for women) to “There Will Be Blood” (but no women). Welcome to the new, post-female American cinema.

Elsewhere in the NYT, A.O. Scott asks why men in Hollywood must always be boys.

The attachment to the emotional world of childhood and adolescence — along with the fetishistic, fake-ironic clinging to tokens of that world — is so widespread that it almost escapes notice. Impulsive, self-centered, loyal to our pals, anxious about women, physically restless, slow-witted and geeky: that’s just what we’re like, isn’t it? John Updike once remarked that in America “a man is a failed boy,” but it increasingly seems that a man is, at last, a triumphant boy, with access to money, sex and freedom but without the sad grown-up ballast of duty and compromise.

Skins and IT Crowd win at Rose d'Or

Channel 4 series Skins (created by Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain) has won Best Drama at the Rose d'Or TV Festival in Switzerland, reports BBC News.

The IT Crowd, written by Graham Linehan and also shown on Channel 4, was named Best Sitcom.

Self-published book on O'Conner longlist

A self-published collection is on the longlist for the €35,000 Frank O'Connor international short story prize, it was announced yesterday.

Gilded Shadows by Mary Rochford joins works by authors including Anne Enright, Roddy Doyle and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Scripting the future?

An invitation from the Writers' Guild to an event in Birmingham on 18 June.

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain invites you to a meeting on 18 June to discuss the future of new writing in the West Midlands following the Arts Council’s decision to cut funding to Script, the agency for developing writers in the region.

The meeting will be opened by a panel discussion between Nicholas McInerny, chair of Script, Caroline Jester, Literary Manager of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Jonathan Davidson, Director of Midland Creative Projects Ltd and the Birmingham Book Festival, chaired by David Edgar, president of the Writers’ Guild.

Representatives of West Midlands theatres, television, radio and film producers and arts agencies will be at the meeting. All writers are welcome to this FREE event.

Following the success of our first meeting in March, the West Midlands branch of the Writers’ Guild will be officially launched, and celebrated with a glass of wine. Venue: The Birmingham Rep (St Paul’s suite), Wednesday 18 June, 7.30pm

Our last meeting was oversubscribed so please RSVP as soon as possible to WMWritersGuild@aol.com

Amazon and independent publishers

Following the recent controversy about Amazon insisting that print-on-demand books must use its Book Surge system if they are to be listed, Lloyd Jassin for the New York Center for Independent Publishing argues that the situation should be a wake-up call for the industry.

It strikes me that from Amazon's large and powerful river might flow not just POD books, but e-books, books disaggregated and re-purposed for mobile hand held devices, audiobooks and other digital derivatives -- whether now known or hereinafter invented. Our hope is that in the swirl of that digital river, we will see new digital revenue streams emerge for smaller and independent presses.

If Amazon remains committed to the indie press segment, and acts as a bridge not just between publishers and traditional readers, but between publishers and digital readers, it becomes an enabler, and, perhaps, the best friend an indie publisher could have.

However, Amazon's favoritism to Book Surge is a slippery slope that could easily decrease diversity. Amazon is steering consumers to books that are produced by its owned-and-operated press.

Michael Hirst interview

For the Writers Guild Of America West, Shira Gotshalk talks to British screenwriter Michael Hirst about writing The Tudors.

Having written screenplays prior to this, are you enjoying writing episodic television?

It is the most enjoyable thing I have ever done. Of course, one of the reasons is totally selfish. In movies, the writer is, beyond a certain point, incidental and a bit of a nuisance. But in series TV, the writer is God. And given the choice, I prefer to be God. Although I did say to the production team the first year, considering I was God, they'd given me a pretty crappy car to drive around in.

And the other is because you have time to develop ideas and fall in love with your characters. I just find it's very pleasurable and a great creative joy to do that.

Series two of The Tudors will run on the BBC later this year.

British Soap Awards 2008

As BBC News reports, it was a good night for Hollyoaks at the British Soap Awards last week. The Channel Four drama took six awards, more than any other show. However, the title of Best Soap went to the BBC's EastEnders.

Winners were determined by a mixture of panel and viewer voting. The ceremony will be broadcast on ITV1 on Wednesday at 8pm.

Babelgum

On The Guardian's film blog, Spike Lee heralds a new online film portal, Babelgum.

We're talking about a new era in film-making here. Babelgum is an internet TV portal and most of these films were explicitly made to be viewed online. This provides the opportunity for young film-makers to put their work in front of a global audience and to get feedback. Feedback is a healthy thing, whether its positive or negative. I can testify to that.

The six-hour scene

On his blog, American screenwriter John August outlines his approach to writing a feature film scene.

In this case, it took six hours to get one scene written. And it wasn’t, on the surface, a particularly challenging scene: Two characters in a room, talking. A very clear in and out point, with the bookending scenes already written. But it was a beast to get on paper.

Sharps

BBC Writersroom has announced a new competetion, Sharps.

This is an open call by BBC writersroom to find the next generation of writing talent. We want writers with the talent, ideas, insights, and imagination to captivate an audience. We are looking for a fresh, surprising, entertaining take on a universal theme.

To apply, send us an original 30-minute TV script exploring 'the nation's health'. It doesn’t need to be a hospital precinct drama – you can explore 'health' in its broadest possible senses.

Twenty writers will be selected for a workshop, which will involve writing exercises as part of the selection process.

Eight final writers will be selected for a week-long residential, with an intensive focus on developing their work, craft, and writer’s 'toolbox', with input from BBC Drama Production and professional writers.

Each of the eight writers will also receive a £500 bursary, mentoring from in-house development teams at the BBC, and a showcase rehearsed reading with professional actors.

The deadline is 16 June. Full details and an online submission form are on the Writersroom website.

John, Yoko and...Gail Renard

In The Times, Luke Leitch tells how Guild TV Committee Chair, Gail Renard, met John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Montreal in 1969.

When the security guards changed shift, Gail says: “We rushed and knocked on the door and Yoko answered. She was with her daughter, Kyoko, who must have been 5. I remember Yoko saying, ‘Come in' - and finding myself in a room with John Lennon. It was overwhelming. They had been travelling and he was very hungry, and for some reason they couldn't get room service. I had chocolate in my handbag, and I said, ‘Do you want the chocolate bar?' It sounds daft, but he was touched, and said, ‘Really?' We got to chatting.”

Instead of turfing her out, Lennon asked Gail if she wanted to conduct a radio interview with him. The problem, he said, was that it wouldn't be until that evening: could she stick around? “I had to ring my mother. She ended up speaking to John. You wouldn't want to cross my mother - a tough little lady.” Permission granted, Gail joined the entourage and ended up staying for the week-long bed-in, going home only at night.

Update: One other minor detail, Lennon gave Gail the handwritten lyrics of Give Peace A Chance...

Guild publishes online guidelines

The Writers’ Guild has produced new guidelines to help members writing online drama and other content. While some online content falls within existing minimum terms agreements, much does not, and the guidelines will provide a benchmark for both writers and producers.

The introduction to the guidelines states that:

The Writers' Guild is aware that its members are increasingly being commissioned to write online drama and other literary content for ‘new’ or ‘non-traditional’ media, particularly as part of initiatives like the BBC’s ‘Multi-platform Commissioning’ drive.

This content may be developed to compliment existing radio or television programming or as standalone new media content. It can be almost anything ranging from fixed diary entries, interactive blogs, daily character blogs, biographies, single voice ‘vox pops’, audio diaries, in-vision blogs, online games and a myriad of other types of short-form audio, audio-visual or literary content intended as existing programme support material or as standalone on-line only propositions.

We hope that these guidelines will give members some idea of how they might be approached, contracted and paid for this kind of work. As with all our rates, these are minimums and members may be able to negotiate upwards of these. As with any commission, the writer is at liberty to accept the fee and terms offered, or not. If you are a Guild member and you need further advice as to a particular commission or deal you are offered, please contact the Guild office.

The full text can be downloaded from the WGGB website.