Looking for some reading over Christmas and New Year? We've just dropped a batch of new scripts into our online script library from BBC Dramas released during 2022. The best way to learn how to write scripts is to read them!
This is Going to Hurt
Painfully funny, heartbreakingly honest – welcome to the weird world of an NHS labour ward. Ben Whishaw stars in Adam Kay's raw, ridiculous rollercoaster diary of a doctor’s life.
Based on Adam Kay's book and set in London during 2006, This is Going to Hurt was critically acclaimed and a hit with audiences, particularly for the central performances by Ben Whishaw and Ambika Mod. The drama was recently named as number 10 in the Guardian's list of the 50 Best TV Shows of 2022.
The Responder
Under pressure, fraying at the edges. In relentless night-time Liverpool, copper Chris is paired with a rookie. Will they save or destroy each other? Starring Martin Freeman.
Written by former Merseyside Police Officer Tony Schumacher (a previous member of BBC Writersroom's Northern Voices), The Responder hit our screens back in January. It went on to be named Best Drama 2022 at the Edinburgh TV Festival and came in at number 5 in the Guardian's run-down of the best TV shows of 2022.
Life and Death in the Warehouse
The story of trainee warehouse manager Megan, who, desperate to keep her new job, bullies her pregnant friend Alys, to get her pick rate up, putting Alys and her baby at risk.
Following previous BBC Three factual dramas like Murdered by my Boyfriend and Murdered by my Father, Life and Death in the Warehouse examined the experience of the invisible army of warehouse 'pickers', every second of whose working lives is timed and monitored in order to enable today's obsessive online shopping habits. Written by Helen Black (a winner of our Kudos North Writers' Award) and inspired by real-world accounts of working conditions it has gone on to be nominated as Best Single Drama in the Broadcast Awards 2023.
Crossfire
A holiday turns from heaven to hell with a gunshot - and the consequences will linger long after the final bullets are fired. Nail-biting thriller starring Keeley Hawes.
Thriller Crossfire hit BBC One screens in September. Written by Louise Doughty it was her first original series for television following successful adaptations of her novels, including Apple Tree Yard.
Doctor Who
Following the conclusion of the thirteenth series of the revived era of Doctor Who (which began in 2005), three 2022 special episodes were broadcast, bringing to a close both Jodie Whittaker's incarnation as the thirteenth Doctor and Chris Chibnall's as the Doctor Who showrunner.
Chris Chibnall wrote all three episodes with co-writer Ella Road for Legend of the Sea Devils.
Read the scripts for Eve of the Daleks, Legend of the Sea Devils and The Power of the Doctor
Red Rose
School is about to finish for the last time. For many teenagers, this signals the beginning of the next stage of their lives. For a group of working-class friends in Bolton, there is no next stage. The summer stretches out in front of them with an infinite sense of possibilities, but when one of the gang downloads the mysterious Red Rose app, plans change. What starts innocently as a game of admiration rapidly descends into something much darker.
Written by Bolton-born brothers the Clarkson twins Red Rose launched on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer in August.
Conversations with Friends
Prepare to get intimate. Two students and a married couple enter a tangled web of friendship, infidelity and lies.
Following the huge success of the previous adaptation of Sally Rooney's novel Normal People the same team adapted her debut 2017 novel Conversations with Friends for BBC Three, launching in May. Writers include Alice Birch, Mark O'Halloran, Meadhbh McHugh and Susan Soon He Stanton.
Read the scripts for the first 3 episodes of Conversations with Friends
Wreck
Welcome aboard the ship of nightmares. Searching for answers about his missing sister, Jamie joins the crew on a mysterious cruise liner. Conspiracy, comedy and a slice of slasher.
Created and written by Ryan J. Brown a second series of Wreck is now in development for the BBC.
More recent additions to the script library
Other recent additions to the Script Library include:
Sherlock- Read all 4 Series of Mark Gatiss' and Steven Moffat's modern retelling of Sherlock Holmes.
Dracula- Transylvania, 1897: terror awaits. The blood-drinking count has set his sights and teeth on London. A spine-tingling reimagining of the classic, from the creators of Sherlock.
Luther- Read all five series of Neil Cross' critically acclaimed detective series, Luther.
Latest Opportunities
Keep up to date with writing opportunities from BBC Writersroom, across the BBC and the wider industry on our Opportunities page.
Coming up in the New Year is the Comedy Collective Bursary from BBC Comedy Commissioning (open from 9th - 30th January), the Writers' Access Group from BBC Writersroom (open from 24th January to 18th April) and the Hot House from Climate Spring, BBC Writersroom and BFI Network (open from 10th - 31st January).
If you're thinking of entering the Comedy Collective Bursary then brush up your knowledge of great Comedy scriptwriting with the TV Comedy section of our Script library including Alma's Not Normal, Back to Life, Detectorists, In My Skin, Inside no. 9, Motherland, People Just Do Nothing, Rev, Two Doors Down and many more.
