The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award - Shortlist Announced

Five up-and-coming writers have been shortlisted for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award with the winner set to be announced in September.

The five writers and their shortlisted plays are:

Driving Lessons by Juliana Sumsion (Lancaster)

Kelly Ann is twenty-one and wants driving lessons, but she has Downs Syndrome. Everyone including her own family doubts her ability to learn. Can she prove them all wrong?

Pica by Emilie Robson (Newcastle)

There's something about Kae; something earthy, creepy even; as if she's done a few laps of this world already. And if folk weren't talking about her before, they are now she's vanished.

Mabel by Houmi Miura (Manchester) 

Awaiting the outcome of a school investigation, teacher Suzi, is trying to stay vegan and not having a nervous breakdown, until she finds an unlikely saviour in a brutally honest talking houseplant.

Patterdale by Paul Jones (Liverpool)

A young boy in foster care runs away to his nan's house. As he runs, his story unfolds.

Dagger Lane by Duncan MacInnes (Hull)

A retired DCI George Young enlists his carer, Simone to help unearth past evidence exonerating his dead West Indian best friend from 1956 before George's Alzheimers erases any possibility of justice.

The five shortlisted writers are now busy developing their radio drama scripts with mentorship from a BBC Radio Drama North Producer ready for the final judging process this summer. The selected winner will be announced in September and awarded a £5,000 cash bursary in addition to receiving a 12 month development mentorship with a Radio Drama Producer where they’ll continue to develop their drama script for a chance to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

We wish everyone the best of luck and look forward to announcing the winner later this year.

Find out more about the writers below.

Juliana (Jilly) Sumsion is a writer from Barnsley. Initially training as a teacher of the Deaf, she went on to make original plays and cabarets with Disabled adults at the Dukes Theatre Lancaster. She has also devised plays in British Sign Language and is passionate about Disability rights.

A course with New Writing North in 2017 ignited her desire to write for television, theatre and radio. Since then, she has been longlisted for BBC Writersroom and Box of Tricks/Sky Studios Award. New Pictures have just optioned an original drama series, which is now in development.

Jilly’s writing is inspired by real people, lesser-heard voices and her working-class background. She is currently writing a comedy drama series set in Preston which jumps into the world of social work. She is also developing ideas for children’s television that celebrate neurodiversity. Jilly is half-way through an MA in Scriptwriting at Manchester Writing School, which she is loving!

Emilie Robson is a screenwriter and playwright originally from South Shields. In 2019, their play Moonlight on Leith (co-written with Laila Noble) was named runner up at Theatre Uncut’s Political Playwriting Award ceremony. In 2020, Robson’s play GAME was selected for artistic development with The Traverse in Edinburgh. Robson’s short Sebastian (et moi) was broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb and her audio drama PICA received a full production with BBC Radio 4 after receiving special commendation at the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award 2021. She was one of 12 participants on the Channel 4 2021 Screenwriting Program, selected from a record 3,800 submissions and currently has projects in development with Home Team, DNA films and Firebird Pictures amongst others.

Houmi Miura is a Japanese British female writer, theatre-maker and performer based in Manchester. She’s a graduate of the BBC Writersroom’s Northern Voices 2020 scheme, has been in the writers room for HATTORI HATCHI (Red Productions), written sketches for CBBC’s THE AMELIA GETHING COMPLEX and has recently written and performed a monologue for New Earth Theatre’s SIGNAL FIRES. She is also currently developing her solo show, IN THE BEGINNING WOMAN WAS THE SUN, which has been supported by HOME, Eclipse, Unity Theatre and Arts Council England. Houmi loves to playfully explore themes of identity within the everyday, through a fantastical lens and her name's pronounced "homey", which is both the gift that keeps giving and the bane of her life.

Paul Jones is based in Liverpool and writes fiction and drama.

He was an actor until his early 40s, when he returned to education, studying with the Open University, before going on to complete an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. Since graduating he has studied screenwriting courses run by John Yorke and Jed Mercurio.

Paul has been shortlisted/longlisted for the Galley Beggar prize, The Bridport prize, and the Quiet Man Dave prize.

He was commissioned in 2017 by Ten Ten Productions to write a play for teenagers, as part of the government’s Prevent strategy. 'Civilised' centred on how young people are recruited into white nationalist movements. He is currently under commission to the same company to write a series of short films about a teenage friendship group.

Patterdale is the third radio play that Paul has submitted to the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award and the first to be shortlisted.

Duncan MacInnes is an actor/writer from Hull. After starting his creative career at The Northern Theatre School in Hull and then at The Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts (LIPA), he has gone on to have a career as an actor spanning twenty years. His writing highlights include ‘Waste’ which was written for the ‘Boom’ festival at The Bush Theatre, ‘Why Are We Whispering?’ a one-person show for Theatre Royal Stratford East / Home Theatre Project and short film ‘Echo Road’ which was supported by Channel 4. Duncan’s first full length play ‘Dagger Lane’, is a crime suspense thriller observing northern England’s relationship with immigration both in the past and present through the eyes and mind of an ex-police officer with dementia.