Archives for March 2007

This week I’m working at the National Student Drama Festival, running workshops on writing, acting and directing. It’s a fantastic week-long event, consisting of discussions, workshops, masterclasses – and ten student shows seen by a panel of selectors through the year, from all over the country.

So far this year, we’ve seen a revival of Robin Soans’ Talking To Terrorists, and a newly devised cabaret show with puppets about child abuse, The Ordinaries. The latter had some strong line writing in it, although the strongest moments were those where they resisted their tendency to over-write and allowed simple visual moments to speak.

Later this week, as well as revivals of The Night Heron, Iron and Stone Cold Dead Serious, we’re going to be seeing new plays by Charlie Brafman, Lee Barnes, and Al Smith – who’s currently part of the BBC’s writing academy. There’s also more puppetry in Haozkla, a devised show from Edinburgh University.

Some of the best theatre work I’ve ever seen has been at the NSDF. There’s a willingness to experiment, and for the audience to accept experiment, that is rarely seen elsewhere: not least because there’s no financial pressure at all. There’s also a high level of debate and discussion that promotes and encourages excellence.

I’ll be blogging about the new shows, I hope, later in the week.

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I was wondering if you have had any of those scripts come to you yet for 2007 and what precisely is writersroom role in the development process since you are a rarity in the industry for accepting unsolicited manuscripts. Do you ever feel a bit bogged down by the very amount of scripts you receive?

Our script readers are at the sharp end of the unsolicited system but although the volume of work we receive can be daunting, it's also a delight when they find something good. In terms of entirely unsolicited work, so far this year I'd say I've read around twenty really good scripts from writers whose work I did not previously know (although I read solicited work from writers too). I have either met or am fixed to meet the writers of these scripts in order to talk about their work. From that point on, the development process is tailored to each writer and dependant on the needs of BBC departments and programmes. These writers will be in the running for forthcoming development schemes that we run within the BBC. I also pass scripts on to other departments to see how they respond to them. There is no set path for development and it can take longer for some writers than for others - but to shamelessly purloin a phrase, writersroom is for life and not just for Christmas.

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Richard,

how can you be objective, or critical about the scripts you read when you have so many to get through? I would think they all merge into a blur after you've read three or four? I find it difficult to believe that you can actually pick out a good script when having to read so many.

- Walter

There are times when it can feel a bit overwhelming, this is true, and it’s at that point that tea becomes necessary. However, it’s extremely rare that we ever have to read the volume of scripts that were attracted by the BBC Talent competition that I mentioned below. In that instance 3000 scripts had been budgeted for, and 5085 were received, which surprised everyone. However, having stated that we’d read every submission cover to cover for that particular scheme, that's what we did.

In the normal run of things, a group of three or four readers will meet once a month (and a second group meet later in the month), for a sift day. During this, we’ll read the first ten pages of every script that’s submitted to the writersroom. Most readers will get through thirty or forty scripts in a day. This may seem like a lot, but remember that at this stage we’re looking for a generally positive impression rather than the detailed critical analysis that we’ll aim for later, when those that we feel have potential will be taken home and read in their entirety.

Most readers take about eight to twelve scripts home, which they’ll write a report on: this is included in the letter back to the writer. Generally I’ll spread this reading over more than one day to help me to approach each script with a fresh eye. The department also receives a wide variety of scripts: one moment you could be in a feature-length historical epic, the next in a student flatshare sitcom. This helps stop everything becoming a big verbal mulch.

writersroom receives around 10,000 scripts a year, and as a public service broadcaster it’s important that the BBC considers all of these writers seriously. However, that’s a lot of scripts to get through, and we’ve ended up with the system that we think is fairest, and most useful for the BBC. As with any system that involves people, it’s not flawless, but we hope we’ve got it about right. Like any writer, when I’m reading another rejection letter it’s easy – and satisfying – to think that the system is wrong and that the reader just didn’t get it. It’s much harder to look again at what you’ve written and ask, how can this be better?

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I hope to one day start writing in this blog. I would like to start writing scripts.

An interesting thought and suggestion. For now, however, script submissions still have to come via the usual, hard-copy route!

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As an American writer who follows and has recently submitted a work to writersroom, I certainly find the patient waiting and sheer size of the industry particularly daunting, if not outright intimidating. I was curious as to how often, as the Development Manager, you come across a script that one of the other readers has passed along and you say, "Wow, where did this one come from? This is amazing." Versus, "Oh, why did they pass this along?"

The simple answer is: there are never enough 'wow' scripts. I rarely query why a reader has passed me a script - there is always a good reason why it's worth another look, even if that isn't reason enough to take the writer forward. There are a lot of scripts out there - yet everyone in the industry is desperate to find that rare, brilliant, sparkling, original, stand-out script. It does happen. I do pass them on. They can and do get made. And it is unfortunately a rarity. But rest assured that we get very, very excited when something special turns up.

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Hello and welcome to our shiny new blogs. This is a slightly belated welcome as our other bloggers have already started posting - but better late than never. Kate Wincup has been blogging about her residency at BBC Comedy North for a little while, Richard Hurst has just joined her and there will be more to come.

Since the writersroom message board was discontinued, our website has missed a sense of interaction with users of the site. So we're hoping the blogs will redress that balance with something new and personal. Writersroom is an open door to the BBC in terms of the information we provide, our unsolicited script system and the public events we occasionally run. The BBC can seem like a big, daunting, unassailable place and we try to counter that by making writersroom a more accessible point of contact. We hope the blogs will be an on-going conversation with users.

I'm the Development Manager at writersroom. But don't let that put you off. I won't be a regular blogging personality as such - but I will be around and about. Our website is in line for a much needed overhaul so do keep an eye out for that. For fans of Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt, take a look at the script for the first ever episode of Life on Mars. It's a great piece of scriptwriting and as good a place as any to start if you want to write for TV.

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You’d have been proud, a friend of mine said to me, I went to the theatre last night.

Proud? Really? Going to the theatre isn’t a duty, although as Anthony Neilson writes, it often feels like it because it’s boring.

His article feels uncannily like the announcement of the small child that the Emperor is naked. I’ve sat in ever so many plays wondering what possessed the writer to think that anyone else would give a damn about anything that’s happening on the stage, and I’ve read ever so many reviews that made me think that critics have become so used to the boredom that they don’t notice it any more.

And it’s not usually a matter of duration, either. If I were to make a list of my top ten plays of all time, I reckon at least one Robert Lepage epic would make the cut, and possibly even the 22-hour marathon The Warp, whereas Stoning Mary, despite it’s sub-hour running time, wouldn’t.

Theatre doesn’t have a monopoly on boredom, however. Films, TV, books, opera, comedy; you name it. Internet poker, my favourite waste of time, is very much characterised by long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sicky, nervous excitement. But somehow in the theatre the fact that it’s live makes it worse. In comedy if you’re bored you can heckle: the same, unfortunately, isn’t true in Chekhov. You’re stuck there, and it’s considered rude to leave. This, incidentally, is part of the success of The Warp. No-one cares if you nip out in the middle of that. The entire pace of the thing, and relationship with its audience, is much more laid back.

I don’t know what the answer is. I’m sceptical of Neilson’s comments about spectacle, which all too often seems to be used as a way of covering up a lack of real engagement with an audience. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so polite, or perhaps theatres should be designed to allow people to leave easily if they’ve had enough. Maybe it’s just that writers should have his sole commandment, THOU SHALT NOT BORE, blu-tacked above their computer screens.

I’d be interested to hear other solutions.

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I’m a freelance writer and director, and I’m one of the reading team for the writersroom.

After doing an English degree I trained as a director at the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and moved to London when a show I’d co-written and directed there transferred, disastrously, to a now-defunct pub theatre in Chelsea. As I worked at various places on the Fringe in London and Edinburgh, I found that what I enjoyed doing most was comedy, and much of the stuff I’ve done as a writer and director has been funny, or was intended to be so.

In 2000 the BBC launched the Talent scheme, and I was asked to join the 30-strong team of readers by a development producer who’d seen my sketch group in Edinburgh. The competition received many more scripts than expected, and I ended up reading over 300 sitcoms in the space of about a month; a sort of baptism by fire.

When the writersroom started reading scripts for the comedy department a couple of years later, I think they reckoned that anyone who’d managed to read that many sitcoms without chewing off his own feet was probably the person to get, and I’ve been working in a freelance capacity for them ever since.

When I’m not reading submissions I’m working on my own stuff – I really must get round to looking at that unfinished novel – and running workshops in writing, acting and directing. And when I’m not doing that, I’m playing internet poker.

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I've had another hectic week. As well as working on my new script for the BBC I've had rehearsals for my final Uni theatre project too. Learning lines is certainly harder than writing them, as Hollyoaks is on literally all the time. I've been waiting for that teenager to give birth to her secret baby for months, but surely she could have held off for another couple of weeks until I've got a bit of work out of the way...

I'm back in at the BBC next week so I'll be able to get some feedback on my episode ideas. I'm sure you're all gagging to know what they are but I'm not risking someone stealing my amazing ideas and snatching that comedy award right from under my nose. I've also started writing a short film which we hope to make in the next few weeks. That sounds a bit dubious but I can assure you it's nothing racy, just two Nuns having a punch-up on the moors. Good family entertainment.

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