When I created the BBC Writersroom I had a passionate and fundamental belief in two things. One is that the BBC should be open and accessible to all writers, as we need different and distinct voices to reflect the wonderful complexity of the UK, and secondly we should be active not passive in our drive and ambition to find and support the best writer talent. What started as a small and dedicated team in 1998 attached to Radio Drama (where I was Head), has grown in size and stature, but has never lost sight of the key tenants that made BBC Writersroom pioneering and unique across the globe.
Partnership and boldness, creating firsts has been our mission and without the support of key production talent and the writing community as a whole this would have been impossible. So thanks everyone as I sit at my desk in my final hours!
If there needs any proof that the BBC Writersroom is a wondrous thing then you only need to look back at what an incredible year it's been. The Last Hours of Laura K is grabbing the attention of users online, an ambitious, compelling project that started life two and a half years ago at a wet windy innovation lab in Kent. I was never going to let that go, and there are times where you really have to fight for things and I have done that with BBC Writersroom. Writers often ask me why this and not that, and I say, if it just grabs you by the neck, bites you, then you will and must fight as hard for it as the writer. So my stubbornness with the combined forces of the writers and creators (Gabriel Bisset-Smith, Rachel Delahey, Kenny Emson and Ed Sellek) got us over many hurdles to create this imaginative, immersive online investigation.
So BBC Writersroom is now bigger, stronger and more loved than it has ever been. It's at the heart of so much creativity across the different BBC departments, we have so many fantastic partnerships with theatres and so in a way of signing off I just want to celebrate some of the amazing achievements and partnerships of the past year.
With BBC TV Drama production it has been a fantastic year with From Darkness by Katie Baxendale starting life at a Crime Lab from BBC Drama North, to the brilliant Original Drama Shorts for BBC iPlayer, and a couple of exciting original TV singles in development which started at writer residentials at Bore Place in Kent with Drama London.
CBBC has a couple of amazing animation and interactive ideas close to production, so watch this space. The comedy Boy Meets Girl for BBC Two came from a targeted opportunity with All About Trans, a couple of comedy gems with BBC Comedy are at the latest stage of development and later in spring we have the readings from the five distinct comedy studio talents - again watch this space.
Christine Entwisle won this year's Writer's Prize and her first drama will be on Radio 4 soon and five pilots from a series development lab are close to airing on Radio 4. Kelly Jones won the Wales Drama Award with BBC Wales Drama and National Theatre Wales, the Writersroom 10 are working towards short-form readings at Birmingham Rep from theatres all over the country and, and ... so much more.
But it's the workshops, the events, and the TV Drama Writer's Festival that are so much about who we are. Whether it's the amazing masterclass Paula Milne did on entry points to a group of women writers, or Henry Swindell (Development Producer) talking to a hundred students in a story workshop, or Abigail Gonda (Development Producer) with her London Voices group or me talking about voice. The conversation, inspiration and ideas generated always make everyone in the room a foot taller.
I am so proud of founding the TV Drama's Writer's Festival curated for writers by writers. Last year's festival where Tony Hall, the DG was in conversation with Tony Jordan, writer and found of Red Planet in a session called the TWO Tones was a joy. Or creating the new drama strand The Wire on Radio 3 where over 120 of the most amazing original writers have been commissioned. Bollywood Shorts for BBC Four, Cineast with B3 Media, The 50 with the Royal Court Theatre, a young people's TV Soap in Bradford 'Khidhaar' - in fact I forget how much I have done, and how much of it in strange and extraordinary places! Yesterday I found a piece of paper with time codes of an interview with Hanif Kureishi in the Copacabana Palace (don't ask) or photographs of me in a prison in Sao Paulo where we are surrounded by AK47's (a riot had broken out) or being told by a lady in Sheffield "you've [the BBC] taken off me for years, but now you've given back!" because she so loved the BBC Writersroom Perfect 10 Workshop.
I leave with some sadness but mostly with great excitement for the next adventure. The writer John Patrick Shanley said "All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap.” We all have to do it and the time is right. I leave the BBC Writersroom team, past and present influencing and passionate about the work they do with writers.
So good luck everyone. It takes huge guts and resilience and talent to be a writer so I applaud you all.
