Back in 1987 I’d been working in the BBC Radio Drama department for six years and having had a number of jobs in the script unit (first reading unsolicited scripts and then editing the Afternoon Play slot) I was finally working as a full time drama producer.
It seemed to me at the time that radio was in danger of losing out on a new generation of writers, who were going straight to theatre or television, and I proposed to Michael Green, who was then Controller of Radio 4, that we launch a national search for new writers for radio drama.
The first BBC Radio Young Writers Festival, which was open to writers aged 15 to 30, opened with a call for scripts in January 1988. By the closing date at the end of May we had received over a thousand plays, and in October that year twenty new plays were broadcast. Writers like Benjamin Zephaniah and Jeanette Winterson were already established names, but most of the writers were having their work produced for the first time, and quite a few of those writers, including Hattie Naylor, Craig Warner, April de Angelis, Anthony Neilson, Jeremy Raison and Sean Moffatt, have since gone on to become established writers for radio, theatre and television.
A second festival was broadcast in 1991, and a third in 1995. Altogether over eighty writers received their first radio broadcasts and the final roll call of writers includes playwrights Roy Williams and Tanika Gupta and TV and screen writer Abi Morgan. Michael Sheen, Norman Beaton, Ian Dury, Alan Cumming and Phil Davis were amongst the actors who took part.
We’ve chosen ten plays to mark the 25th anniversary of the first Young Playwrights Festival on BBC Radio 4 Extra:
- Listen to My Inside Mind by Abigail Docherty
- Once in a Lifetime by Sean Moffatt
- A Sweet Dessert by Abi Morgan
- The Box by Hattie Naylor
- The Colours of the King’s Rose by Anthony Neilson
- Great Men of Music by Craig Warner
- Burn Your Phone by Andrew Wallace
- Homeboys by Roy Williams
- Caught by Sarah Woods
- Hurricane Dub by Benjamin Zephaniah
And we’re also broadcasting the cabaret that launched the first festival. The Word Made Fresh, introduced by Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson the guise of ‘Victor and Barrie’, and featuring the first BBC radio performance by up and coming comedian Steve Coogan.
I’ve very much enjoyed listening back to all of these programmes, and talking to some of the writers, actors, producers and commissioners who were involved in the three Young Writers Festivals. I hope that you enjoy listening, and perhaps some of you might be inspired to get writing.
The BBC Radio Young Writers: 25 Years On season broadcasts on Radio 4 Extra from 12th- 18th October 2013. Find out more about the season on the BBC Radio 4 Extra site.
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