Uk writer 2013

Summer 2013

The Writers’ Guild Magazine

THAT DIFFICULT SECOND NOVEL Abigail Tartellin

PLUS

A guide to Guild agreements Daytime drama Clive Dawson in Hollywood

CONTACTS Office 020 7833 0777 www.writersguild.org.uk Editorial and Communications Committee: Zoë Fairbairns, Tom Green, John Morrison, Darren Rapier Opinions expressed in UK Writer are not necessarily shared by the Writers’ Guild Free to members of the Writers’ Guild Design: editionperiodicals.co.uk Print: Hastings Printing Co Ltd ISSN 1748-9385

Bernie Corbett General Secretary corbett@writersguild.org.uk

Susan Wood Personal Assistant to the General Secretary susan@writersguild.org.uk Kate Glasspool Part-time Assistant kate@writersguild.org.uk

For back issues of UK Writer contact the Guild office

summer 2012

The Writers’ Guilde Magazin

celebrating the Dickens Theary Writers’ bicenten guild magazine

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WIN D S C H A N G EO F

Ade Solanke on the Afro-Europea n new wave

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Cover photo:

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Alongside the our small team of professional staff, members of the Writers’ Guild volunteer their time in various ways to assist the work of our union. For a full list of Executive Committee

Anne Hogben Deputy General Secretary anne@writersguild.org.uk

Tom Green Editor, UK Writer tom.green2@gmail.com

The BesT Of TiMes

WHO’S WHO

UK Writer is published by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain 40 Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4RX

2 UK Writer Summer Winter 2011 2013

GUILD CHAIR Roger Williams

TREASURER Andrew S. Walsh

I’ve been a member of the Guild since I started writing professionally. An established member, who understood how important recruiting new members is to the Guild, spoke to me about the Guild after a performance of one of the plays and signed me up.

I was encouraged to attend meetings in Cardiff and learnt tonnes about the industry from writers I wouldn’t have met unless I’d joined. A few years later I became the Wales Representative on the Executive Committee and started taking part in negotiations. I organised events in Cardiff and represented the Guild at the Federation of Entertainment Unions (Wales). Before becoming Chair of the Guild in 2012, I was a Deputy Chair for three years and Chair of the Editorial and Communications Committee. I realised many years ago that writers were the only group that could — and should — represent their interests effectively. We can best do this by working together. The Guild is a small but influential organisation. By encouraging more members to become involved in the Guild’s day to day work we can only be stronger.

After the Guild had helped me resolve a contract/non-payment problem, I turned up at an AGM to learn more about the organisation I’d joined. It was a real eye-opener to discover that the Guild’s officers and committees were all volunteers and that I, as a relatively new member, could get involved too.

Since then I’ve served as chair of the Children’s Committee, formed the Videogames Committee, joined the EC, spent 3 years as Deputy Chair and am now Treasurer. Through this journey I have continued to be amazed at what the Guild manages to achieve and at the huge amounts of work that some writers are prepared to do in their own time to ensure that writers’ rights are preserved.

It’s a difficult working world out there and standing together is the best way to not only survive it, but to make it better.

CONTENTS members (elected at the AGM each June) please see the Who’s Who section on the Guild website.

If you are interested in volunteering to help with the Guild’s work, please contact the office.

4

That difficult second novel

6

The Archers to Birds Of A Feather

8

From The Bill to Beverly Hills

Abigail Tarttelin explains how she found the space and the passion to write it

Sue Teddern on her career as a writer

Clive Dawson on finding favour in Hollywood

16

How to sell your queer idea

Lou Gerring on a workshop for emerging filmmakers at the BFI Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

DEPUTY CHAIR Antony Pickthall

DEPUTY CHAIR Ming Ho

First I was a member of Theatre Writers Union (TWU) which I joined after my first play was given a professional workshop

by North West Playwrights and went on to chair the Manchester branch. When TWU merged with the Guild I stepped back and got on with my writing and being a member. The Guild has made great strides, particularly under Bernie Corbett’s leadership, and when I moved to Liverpool I wanted to be part of making the work of the Guild even stronger. It has helped me on many occasions and every time I meet a writer who is not a member I think they’re missing out and find I can’t help pointing this out. I have helped establish the Merseyside branch and have been representing the branch at the EC.

As a series television writer, I joined for the pension scheme (still a good deal — up to 8% of your fees in employer contributions). It’s lonely at home with your laptop, and I found it was good to meet other writers at the AGM and other Guild events; I realised I wasn’t on my own. The issues that troubled me in my daily working life turned out to be shared by many — but few felt confident to speak up individually. I joined the TV Committee to see what we could do together, and became involved in revising the Guild’s Television Guidelines (due for another refresher!) and on the BBC Forum, helping to negotiate the recently signed new writers’ agreements. These days we can exchange views more easily and instantly via social media — but we still need the collective face of the Guild to represent ourselves effectively as a professional force to be reckoned with. If you’ve got something to say that you think is not being heard, come and say it through us!

18

Banking on Father Brown

Rachel Flowerday on adapting G K Chesterton’s classic detective stories for television

20

WPC 56

Dominique Moloney on creating a new police series for BBC TV

22

Conflict resolution

Gavin Grant on a lawyer’s journey into screenwriting

24

Fitting tribute

Why Ian Buckley wrote a play about his father

26

On the writers’ couch

Richard Bevan on a significant new independent force in British film

28

Giving up the day job

12 BRIEFING qq Arts cuts qq Theatre campaign qq PLR review qq BBC in the West Midlands

14 OBITUARY qq Robert Adams

Stephen Potts on combining careers in medicine and writing

30

Remembering Mac

John Williams on the life and work of Malcolm Hulke

31

Rights of writers

A guide to Writers’ Guild agreements

Summer Winter 2013 2011 UK Writer 3

writing

That difficult DIFFICULT second novel I HAVE been told that second novels are the hardest to write. Perhaps it’s the expectation that you, the writer, will make huge leaps forward in ability. Perhaps it’s because you worry the genre and message of the new novel should complement the first. Perhaps you think: what do I want my oeuvre to say? Will my agent like it?

I came to writing from outside the literary world. In Grimsby, my hometown, I had never met anyone involved with the business of books.

In fact, when I was first published, I felt foolish telling people what I did. Even to me, it sounded a bit unrealistic.

Writing has always been a compulsion for me rather than a passion. It has reared its head from time to time, between badly paid acting jobs, grueling night shifts in a Leicester Square casino and a short, greasy stint in a chippie. A voice would arrive in my brain; my fingers would act as conduit, and I would bang out the thoughts of an imaginary someone.

When I was 19, the voice of Flick, an angry, intelligent 15-year-old boy, arrived to rant, or amuse, or philosophise in my ear. Flick would describe scenes from his life, and sometimes they would be scenes from my life. Gradually, a story formed, and in it were themes that had been brewing in my mind for a long time: frustration at the lack of a decent education, first love, the selfishness of drug dependency.

Eventually I had over 20,000 words on my laptop. I wanted to finish it, but I didn’t consider myself a writer. I thought being a novelist was something you did when you were 50 and had useful knowledge to impart.

Two years went by. Then one night, the compulsion returned. I suddenly knew how to structure the book. It would be in short, punchy chapters and would be aimed at contemporary teenagers, particularly boys; a group I felt was under-represented by current fiction. It would be realistic and not fantastical, with useful thoughts and advice for adolescent readers. I realized although I didn’t know much about the world, I knew more about being 15 than any 50-year-old could claim. I had a mission and because of that I felt I had a right to be a writer.

4 UK Writer Summer 2013

Abigail Tarttelin explains how she found the space and the passion to write Golden Boy

I didn’t consider myself a writer. I thought being a novelist was something you did when you were 50 and had useful knowledge to impart

In the September of 2009, Flick nabbed me representation. With lucky timing, I landed at Conville and Walsh just when new agent Jo Unwin was assembling her list. Soon after, Jo was nominated for Literary Agent of the Year at the Bookseller Industry Awards and over the years, proved an excellent partner in crime.

After several rejections, world English rights to Flick were sold for a small advance to Beautiful Books, notable for publishing John Waters in the UK. While they prepared for publication, my task was to write that difficult sophomore novel.

This time, however, I had an agent anticipating my next work. I had seen how another sale could help my financial situation. I had learnt the shortcomings of Flick and wanted to correct those in Book Two. Perhaps most importantly, there was an expectation that I would write a novel to begin with. Before, it hadn’t mattered whether I finished a book or not. With Flick, I had no timeframe, no deadline, and no one to let down but myself.

This time, there was pressure. With a theme and a feel in mind, I decided I would write the new novel in three months, at a rate of 1,000 words a day. Discipline, which I had never applied to writing before, would be my new watchword.

The work that resulted from this is now titled Unpublished Manuscript One. As my agent pointed out, it contained some great prose, but very little in the way of plot. This was an error of planning: I had not decided why I was writing the novel and what I wanted to say before I embarked on the writing. The learning curve was indeed steep. I pitched Jo a new idea with a strong plot, and she sent me away to write it.

Unpublished Manuscript Two was finished in March 2011. Again, I doggedly attacked it, giving myself a strict deadline. When I took it to my agent, there was great news: I had learnt plotting! I had however, so single-mindedly forged ahead, I had not thought properly about the setting of the novel.

The story took place in the 1950s, and as my agent pointed out, my voice is contemporary and young.

Lesson learnt. I went off to redraft.

But I didn’t redraft. Instead, I became passionate about something. A theme was whispering to me, just as the themes in Flick had. I

woke up one morning, and wrote myself an email: a description of a scene in which two siblings talk about a baby cousin; with the elder of the two upset by the knowledge that he might never have a child, and the younger oblivious to his feelings.

This email became Golden Boy. Golden Boy was published in May 2013 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an Orion imprint, in the UK, and Atria, a Simon and Schuster imprint, in the USA. Subsequently, and so far, it will be published in Spain, South America, Italy, Brazil, the Netherlands, China and Taiwan. In the USA we sold for six figures at auction, and accepted a six figure pre-empt from our UK publishers. My UK editor is Arzu Tahsin, responsible for editing The Kite Runner and The Tiger’s Wife; my US editor is Sarah Branham, editor of numerous New York Times Bestsellers. My editors worldwide are supportive, intelligent, creative, and a lovely bunch of people.

Golden Boy is a novel about a secret outsider.

Max Walker, the novel’s sunny, sweet protagonist, is a seemingly perfect 16-year-old, living in an outwardly perfect family, in a flawless, middle-class community. His life is charmed, but when an old friend commits a horrific act of violence against him, he is forced to deal with the consequence: that his community, and the girl of his dreams, might find out that Max is actually intersex; a hermaphrodite.

There are two contemporary novels that address this subject, but deal with characters on the periphery of society. What I was wanted to say with Golden Boy was that issues of gender, the trials of being ‘different’, and the discomfort of not fitting in, happen within our society and not on its borders.

Whether one is born intersex, gay, or over-averagely bright is a largely arbitrary incident and not one the bearer has any choice in. For this reason I wanted to speak to ‘average’ readers and not specifically or solely those already at the forefront of progressive thinking about gender and sexuality.

The book came after a hot, busy summer. I had just entered a relationship and was meditating on my role in it. I spent a long time lying in a park in Camden reading The Women’s Room by Marilyn French. Eventually I began to think about how gender affects our identities. Slowly, scenes from the book trickled onto my laptop, until I reached my personal ‘tipping point’ in October 2011 — about 21,000 words. At this point, I felt the manuscript was ready for my rapt attention. I spent a month writing for five hours every day without a break, and found this intensive method of writing suited my short attention span.

By December, the first draft was finished. I took a break, re-read it, and made some changes with the advice of a friend in the industry. I then sent it to my agent, and we did one final edit before submitting to editors for the London Book Fair in April 2012. Within a matter of a few days, I had a UK and a US publisher.

Abigail Tarttelin: It was only by forgetting about writing, living a little, and 99 taking the time to find a personal passion, that I was able to write Golden Boy

I spent a month writing for five hours every day without a break, and found this intensive method of writing suited my short attention span

It took a lot of effort, and three different manuscripts to finish my sophomore novel, but I learnt so many valuable lessons along the way. The most important perhaps was to do with pressure. I felt as if my agent was waiting for a new book and I feared her letting me go if I didn’t hand something in, even though my agent had, in fact, assured me she had no intention of doing this. I worried about not letting my own, rather non-commercial, agenda dominate the story, and I struggled to make it commercial because I was concerned about my finances.

In the end, the most pressure came from myself. It was only by forgetting about writing, living a little, and taking the time to find a personal passion, that I was able to write Golden Boy, a book that takes my very non-commercial gender agenda, teams it with a beautiful, commercial setting and cast, excites my agent and publishers, and of which I am immensely proud.

So do I think second novels are the hardest to write? No. Looking back now, the writing of Golden Boy seems like a breeze. It’s Book Three I’m struggling with.

■■ www.abigailtarttelin.com Summer 2013 UK Writer 5

writing Tom Green talks to TV and radio scriptwriter Sue Teddern about radio, comedy and writing for Birds Of A Feather

You started as a journalist, didn’t you?

Yes, I became a secretary in order to become a magazine feature writer. I had secret thoughts about being a scriptwriter but I didn’t tell anyone in case they thought I was mad.

How did you get your first break into radio?

I was the deputy editor of an in-flight magazine in Holland and one of the destinations was Birmingham so we decided to do a feature about The Archers. I had become an avid listener since moving to Amsterdam (I didn’t have a TV) so I went to interview the team. I had a lovely day, spending time with the actors and seeing it all put together.

And I thought that I would like to try writing for the show. Perhaps I needed to be in a foreign country to have that first go at it; away from family and friends.

So you were commissioned?

Yes. I seem to remember there was something about a character needing a pig movement order, whatever that was. And there was an awful lot of ram raddling as well in my week.

What was it like to go from being a listener and a fan to writing the show?

I didn’t think it came that hard to me. But I did have a short-lived career with The Archers. When I moved back to England they invited me to write some more episodes but I missed a crucial plot point in the storyline document about David Archer splitting up from his fiancée. So all my scripts had to be rewritten and it was a pretty ghastly experience. Also there was this story going around that the then producer wasn’t very keen on writers who were single women, Guardian readers and lived in North London — apparently he felt he had enough of them already — and that described me fairly accurately. So I didn’t get asked back.

But you were invited to write your own radio play?

I started writing a radio play in an evening class taught by JC Wilsher and it became this homework I was never going to finish. I was so sick of it that I told myself I wasn’t going to start anything new until it was finished and when, finally, it was I sent it to the BBC. Clive Brill picked it up and it 6 UK Writer Summer 2013

Taking was broadcast. At that point I was still working in magazines as well but I was interviewing lots of people working in TV which turned out to be quite useful.

You still write for radio — what do you like about the form?

It’s just lovely, so much more respectful than TV and much more room for an original voice. You’re more a part of the process, from casting to pitching in to get tea during the recording. And even though the pay is lower, because you are left more to your own devices and do fewer drafts, it’s probably paid as well pro rata as TV, where you may have to do 10 or 11 drafts of each script.

Has writing for radio changed over the years?

Not really, I don’t think. It has always been experimental in places and that continues. I have noticed that there seems to be more narration these days and I feel a bit old fogeyish about that. For me, part of the challenge of writing for radio is setting the scene so that you don’t need someone saying ‘There are two people sitting in a room …’ And writing for radio still creates challenges for me. I’ve just been storylining the next series of soloparentpals.com and I’m having to work things out just as I did when I started.

Moving on to TV, how did you get to write for Birds Of A Feather?

I got a place at the Edinburgh TV Festival and I heard a talk by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran who were very keen to recreate the American team writing system — they had written the first series of Birds Of A Feather entirely by themselves. At the end of the talk everyone swarmed down and surrounded them but I held off and contacted them for an interview for The Guardian. I then sent them

‘Radio is so much more respectful than TV and much more room for an original voice. You’re more a part of the process, from casting to pitching in to get tea during the recording’

T H G I L F a radio play and they took me on. Other women came and went from the team but I was the only one there for the duration, and I wrote 13 episodes.

Was it a writing team in the American format?

Not quite. We were all quite loud but we were a little nervous about critiquing each other’s scripts.

One or two writers came and went who were either too quiet or too loud but we didn’t go through scripts line by line punching them up. The writers’ meetings were for storylines and character development and generally you wrote by yourself.

It must have been very exciting working on such a popular series.

I don’t think I took it in fully at the time. But it was great, especially at the recording, being able to invite family and friends.

Was it your first experience of writing comedy?

The first to be broadcast. I had written some sitcoms that hadn’t been picked up — I’ve still got them somewhere, printed from my old Amstrad computer on horrible paper that’s more like loo roll. I did have another pilot that was picked up at the same time as Birds Of A Feather but it was never broadcast. And then later I co-wrote another pilot with Jo Brand called Sister Frances — it had a really good cast, including Jo who was very funny but it wasn’t picked up either.

How did you deal with that frustration of shows not getting commissioned?

I’m fairly philosophical about it. Once or twice a year there’s a ghastly experience that feels like a punch in the stomach and you have to get angry about or even have a bit of a cry but things do sometimes return in different forms. In fact, soloparentpals.com came originally from the very first writing class I went to, run by Olwen Wymark who was wonderful.

And you’ve had a series on in the past year, Homefront. What was the starting point for that?

I was coming up with ideas for Pauline Quirke, who I had just worked with for the first time in years.

And I pictured her as Rose Gentle, the women who,

when her son died in Iraq, wanted to get to the truth of what happened and ended up taking on the system. I pitched the idea to a comedy commissioner but it clearly wasn’t a comedy idea. It grew slowly from there and developed in a drama series.

Do you feel an obligation to write roles for women, especially older women, given that there seems to be a shortage of those roles?

I think it comes instinctively. I mean, if someone told me to write something about the army from the male point of view I’d like to think I could do it — but it comes naturally for me to focus on the women. soloparentpals.com is about both Tom and Rosie and I know Tom really well now. But for the past four series, the cast has been mostly female.

You’ve also done quite a lot of teaching — how did you get into that and how has it fitted in with your writing career?

Something else that was very important for me was my first Arvon course, with Geoff McQueen and Paula Milne. I came away from that completely driven and motivated and did several more courses there. Later on, I taught at Arvon and so was able to start in a setting and context I knew and understood. I’ve not had any formal training as a teacher and when I got a job as screenwriter-in-residence at the University of Exeter teaching on their MA, it was a real baptism of fire. I was always hard on myself because I didn’t even go to university but I came to appreciate my practical experience.

And did you find that teaching helped your own writing?

It made me realise what a hypocrite I am. I say to people ‘Don’t get it right, get it written’ but I can’t actually do that myself, I will niggle over the first page for days! Often techniques are most helpful for people as a way in and sometimes, when I’m stuck, I do use what I teach others. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, because writing is hard.

In fact, what I and all writers bring is that we can tell students about the difficult times. It can be helpful for them to know that and to understand that professional writers find it just as hard as they do.

■■ This is an edited transcript of a Writers’ Guild podcast writersguild.org.uk/podcasts Summer 2013 UK Writer 7

hollywood

From The Bill to Beverly Hills Clive Dawson on finding favour in Hollywood

IF IT’S something you aspire to, rest assured that no matter what stage you’re at in your career it’s never too late to have a crack at Hollywood. It goes without saying that you’ll need a little talent, preferably some kind of track record, and a great deal of good fortune. Above all else, you’ll need a good sample script. Getting through the doors in the first place is the hard part; the rest is relatively straightforward. There’s no set way to go about it, but here’s the approach that worked (more through luck than judgement) for me.

Until its cancellation I was a regular writer on the TV series The Bill, and had been for many years. I enjoyed writing for the show, particularly in its earlier incarnation of half-hour, stand-alone single dramas, but towards the end it became clear to many of the writers that the show was unlikely to survive; ITV had tampered with the format to the point of destruction. I’d written for other shows over the years but had never found another ‘home’ and, despite constant submissions and occasional development deals here and there, my original series and single drama ideas never seemed to find favour with the network heads. In short, my screen credits were limited, and once The Bill was axed my prospects in TV didn’t look good.

Fortunately, I’d never entirely given up on the hope of working in film. I’d had an original screenplay (a World War II psychological thriller entitled The Bunker) produced many years previously. Although I all but disowned the director’s turgid film version the screen credit itself was welcome and my screenplay continued to prove a well-received writing sample. Nevertheless a subsequent film project, funded by the UK Film Council, ended up in legal limbo due to the collapse of the 8 UK Writer Summer 2013

production company, and my long-standing agent gradually seemed to lose interest in promoting me.

Now, with my regular TV work gone, it was time to either sink or swim.

Against this backdrop, I decided to risk a little of my own money obtaining an option on a published short story, The Animators, by the prolific British author Sydney J Bounds. It’s an extremely creepy 11-page science-fiction thriller that I first read in an anthology many years ago, and I’d always felt it could form the basis of an effective film. A series of internet searches and emails to publishers finally led me to Philip Harbottle, the agent representing the estate of Syd Bounds. My initial query was polite and simple: were the rights to the story available, and if so, would it be possible to negotiate an option? To my amazement, the answer to both questions was yes. Phil was extremely accommodating and we eventually agreed an option for an initial sum, against a larger additional payment if the project went into fully-funded development.

The next stage was to persuade a production company to take the project seriously. I was prepared to develop the screenplay on spec, but my agent’s assistant suggested we run it past a couple of companies to gauge their response. The first company to look at the story passed, but the second, Michael Kuhn’s Qwerty Films, immediately asked for a meeting. Both Michael and the head of development Alex Arlango loved the short story, but rightly wanted reassurance that I could expand it into a workable 90-minute feature. I subsequently wrote a short treatment on spec which impressed them sufficiently to put the project into development. After only two more drafts the screenplay was put into circulation to agents in the hope of attaching a director.

Although Qwerty were extremely enthusiastic about the project I didn’t realise that I’d written a game-changing screenplay until I began receiving feedback from a number of other sources. The first indication was when I learned that the script had been voted onto the 2010 ‘Brit List’ of the best unproduced screenplays from across the UK and Ireland. Soon after, I attracted the attention of a highly respected film agent, Josh Varney, with whom I now enjoy the most rewarding agent/writer

NICK WALL

relationship I’ve ever had. It’s fair to say that he did more for me in our first year together than my two previous agents had done in 15. He kindly stoked further interest from agents in Hollywood and before long I was signed by the Gersh agency in Beverly Hills.

Everything flowed from that one script. A single well received screenplay really can transform your career. Dozens of meetings followed, one of which ultimately landed me another film development deal, this time at Working Title. In short, the script got me noticed. There are, of course, other ways to achieve the same end-result — winning a prestigious award, for example, or writing a piece of particularly stand-out television — but for me, this one script was the key.

With the film based on my script in preproduction, and another already in development, I set a date to fly out to Los Angeles so that Gersh could ‘introduce me to the town’. Subsequently, my agents arranged a breathtaking array of meetings.

In LA, taking a series of back-to-back daily meetings is jokingly called ‘making the water-bottle run,’ since you’re invariably offered bottled water (‘Still or sparkling?’) by the receptionist at every company you visit. The water-bottle run is almost a rite-of-passage for Hollywood newbies. At the same time, I would have the opportunity to pitch a new, original project I’d been working on. In truth, the prospect of verbal pitching filled me with dread;

Liev Schreiber in 99 Last Days On Mars

I’ve never been particularly good at it and I much prefer to present my ideas in writing whenever possible. However, Hollywood plays by a particular set of rules so I had little choice but to bite the bullet and prepare an exciting verbal pitch as best I could.

The schedule of meetings pretty much dictated where I would need to stay. Though expensive, Beverly Hills was clearly the most central and convenient location. A rental car was also a must, since a number of meetings were in relatively distant locations. Using Google Maps I planned out the routes and parking arrangements for each, in advance. With several appointments booked for each day this preparation proved indispensable; on some days, I found myself racing against the clock from one meeting to the next, with little time to think. In Hollywood, meetings are very often delayed or postponed at the last minute, so staying in constant contact with your agent throughout the day is essential. If he or she is particularly efficient, new and previously unscheduled appointments might even be arranged at very short notice. Whenever possible, I researched the execs and producers I was due to meet and printed off notes that I could use ahead of each meeting to fully prepare myself. IMDbPro is a great source of information and is money well-spent.

‘Hollywood’ has become a generic term for the entire LA-based film industry but in fact only Summer 2013 UK Writer 9

NICK WALL

one major studio, Paramount, still has its lot in Hollywood itself. Universal, Warners and Disney are to the north in the San Fernando Valley and Fox is to the west in Century City. MGM no longer has a studio lot. Of the independent production companies, some are based on the studio lots but the remainder are spread all across Los Angeles.

Is an agent or manager an essential requirement to obtaining access to these studios and indies? The short answer, unless you have a well-connected uncle, is yes, particularly if you don’t live in the US. However, obtaining Hollywood representation, whilst not easy, is far from impossible. If you have a good, forward-thinking UK agent they should have no problem helping you to look for representation overseas.

For the record, my agents are friendly, easygoing, down-to-earth guys; not at all the shark-like, clichéd Hollywood agents I, and probably many writers, often imagine. They treated me to dinner on my first evening in LA and ran through the various meetings they had lined up, putting me completely at ease about the whole process.

The actual meetings were relaxed, informal and friendly. The famous saying, ‘Hollywood is the only place in the world where you can die of encouragement,’ certainly has a ring of truth, though that’s not to suggest that anyone I met was insincere. In every case, when I was promised projects to consider, source material to read, 10 UK Writer Summer 2013

Most of the filming 99 for Last Days On Mars took place in Jordan

■■Last Days On Mars (working title), adapted

by Clive Dawson from the short story The Animators by Sydney J Bounds is scheduled for release in the autumn of 2013

or follow-up conversations to be arranged, they were as good as their word. Even the verbal pitching was, I found, far easier than anticipated.

The responses were uniformly enthusiastic and positive even when the listener passed on the project. It helped that the pitch had a strong, highconcept hook that grabbed their attention from the beginning.

Be prepared to give a concise rundown of your career at every meeting, and to chat about your favourite movies and sources of inspiration. It also helps if you can say you’re currently busy, or have a project about to start up; it adds to the impression that you’re ‘hot’. However, don’t be tempted to fib about what you’re currently doing, because you’ll be asked all about it in great detail. Before leaving, hand over your card. More often than not you’ll be given one in return, which is a sure sign that you may keep in touch. Out of approximately 40 meetings, only a couple of places failed to hand over a card or invite me to stay in contact.

If you’re lucky, and you have several meetings lined up ‘on the lot’ at one of the major studios, you’ll have a bit of time in between to wander around the standing backlot sets, or to grab a snack in the commissary or visit the studio stores.

If the trip has been properly arranged to maximise your exposure, it’s probably as much ‘down-time’ as you’ll have during the day.

One thing that quickly became clear was

Unless you intend to uproot and move to the US, don’t ever take your eye off the ball in the UK. We have an active, respected film industry, despite the pall of gloom that seems to hang continuously over the business

the extent to which the spec script market has collapsed over there. One exec told me that he used to receive five or six spec scripts per day.

Now, he’s lucky to get three or four per week.

Companies have become far more wary of taking a risk on original spec material than they used to be; working from source material — short stories, novels and magazine articles — is considered a much safer bet. Even though I hadn’t known it at the time, my gamble of risking money on a short story option was by far the best approach I could have taken.

Ultimately, what you get out of such a trip is largely up to you. I was offered numerous scripts, stories and novels to read and I made sure to follow up on each one. Many were not of sufficient interest and, tempting though it is to chase after projects for the sake of it, the best course of action is to be honest and politely decline if a project doesn’t fully excite. On several occasions I actively pitched for projects, only to be beaten to the finish line by other writers. Nowhere is competition more fierce than in Hollywood. However, I eventually landed a rewrite of a movie for Fox, which is still in development, plus ongoing interest in the original idea I pitched.

A final word: unless you intend to uproot and move to the US, don’t ever take your eye off the ball in the UK. We have an active, respected film industry, despite the pall of gloom that seems to hang continuously over the business, and you’ll probably stand as much chance of landing your next development deal here as you would in the US. Either way, the two industries feed off each other; success in one place leads to success in the other. Working in Hollywood is not necessarily a distant or impossible dream, even if your roots are here in the UK. ■■ Clive Dawson’s website is at screenwriting. demon.co.uk

ADAPTING THE ANIMATORS Clive Dawson explains how he put a short story on the screen Syd J Bound’s story The Animators concerns an accident on Mars, in which a curious geologist, Pugh, is killed in a cave-in. But Pugh’s body refuses to lie down. Invaded by a malign Martian intelligence, Pugh goes after his astronaut colleagues, one by one …

I decided I had two possible approaches to the script adaptation: I could focus on the crew of a rescue mission from earth, going to the aid of colleagues on the surface who had already unleashed something terrible; or I could play it out, as in the short story, by focusing from the start on the explorers themselves. I chose the latter, though the former approach could perhaps have worked equally well. I made the crew astronautscientists, on a mission to search for traces of life that may have existed on Mars in the distant past. Inspiration for this came from the 1996 announcement by NASA (later retracted) that scientists had found fossilised bacteria in a meteorite from Mars. Even now, via robot probes sent to the planet, the search is on for indisputable evidence of extinct life.

Syd’s story featured an all-male crew of six. I added two characters and made some of the crew female. I kept the three key locations of the short story but needed more for the screenplay. Research was vitally important, as knowledge of the reality of the Mars environment was essential in building a believable architecture for a manned mission to the planet.

The basic ‘spine’ of the screenplay was already apparent in the short story and, with the addition of a mid-point ‘twist’, it neatly comprised the

second act of a classic three-act structure. Within this I built an introduction to the characters and their world, added new set-pieces, and crucially, since the short story ended on an abrupt and particularly bleak note, devised a suitable set-piece ending.

The hardest job on the script was fleshing out the characters and their arcs, particularly as I wanted to make each character somehow responsible, through their character traits, for the fate that befell them.

The second most important job was imbuing the script with Syd’s creepy atmosphere and a sense of inescapable horror.

The entire narrative is set against a backdrop of enclosed, pressurised spaces — chambers, rooms, airlocks and crawlways — getting progressively more claustrophobic as the story progresses. Even out on the surface of Mars there is no escape; everywhere the characters go they leave footprints and vehicle tracks in the Martian dust, easily followed by a pursuing antagonist.

Looking beyond Syd’s story, I watched every decent science-fiction/horror film I could lay my hands on, soaking up influences along the way.

I’d already tackled themes of confinement, isolation and group hysteria in a previous feature, The Bunker, so I was able to draw on that to a large extent. Indirect credit should also be given to scriptwriting guru Robert McKee whose one-day Horror Genre seminar provides incredible insight into the intricate mechanics of a much under-rated field.

Adapting a published work for the screen can sometimes prove to be a curse instead of a blessing. In this case, it was an absolute pleasure. I hope I’ve been able to do justice to Syd’s story.

Summer 2013 UK Writer 11

briefing

Arts cuts: Show us your evidence – theatre campaigners challenge Fin Kennedy’s In Battalions campaign takes the fight over arts funding cuts to the government CULTURE MINISTER Ed Vaizey made a formal response in April to playwright and Writers’ Guild member Fin Kennedy’s In Battalion report on the impact of arts funding cuts that drew on data from surveys sent to theatres across the country The minister argued that the picture presented by Kennedy and his co-author Helen Campbell Pickford was unduly negative and there remained ‘plenty of scope to innovate in order to preserve and foster the high quality new theatre writing’.

The previous month more than 60 of the UK’s best-known writers and other theatrical professionals — including Sir Tom Stoppard, Michael Frayn, Caryl Churchill, Mike Leigh, Sir Richard Eyre and Vicky Featherstone — signed an open letter to Ed Vaizey urging him to take the report the threat to new British playwriting posed by the government’s latest round of spending cuts revealed by the report.

Its results showed venues having to cancel productions, produce fewer new plays, commission fewer writers, and cancel a host of creative research and development — from attachment programmes; to open-access workshops; to new writer development schemes; to unsolicited script reading.

As well as cuts closing down entry points to the profession, the report also identified a creeping culture of risk-aversion around new work as financial instability takes hold.

Theatre professionals contributing

12 UK Writer Summer 2013

Dear Mr Kennedy effort that you both Helen Campbell-Pickford for the time and I am writing to thank you and your colleague ng. writi re ’, looking at the state of new theat put into producing your report, ‘In Battalions challenging times. I take the temperature of the sector at these I welcome the work that you have done to s. issue the they could give consideration to sent your report to the Arts Council so that out of this report. accept some of the dire predictions coming It may not surprise you to know that I do not — but much harder to within the sector — natural as they may be It is easy to highlight fears and concerns Government is This tion. extremely challenging financial situa work out how to deal with them amidst an sure that the sector make to I am determined to do everything I can wholly committed to arts and culture and g funding going itisin term damage. We are doing this by prior gets through this difficult period without long directly to arts organisations. the longer term our S sectors need to play their part in that. In But we need to reduce the deficit, and DCM and stable public omy l, will benefit hugely from a strong econ sectors, which rely on a mixed funding mode ry funding, Arts direct Government funding and National Lotte finances. Overall, if you take into account ament, 2010-2015. funding for the arts over the life of this Parli Council England will receive £2.9billion in nal percentage, re the arts share of Lottery income to its origi That is in part down to our actions to resto raising it from 16% to 20%. investment in both Council England has sought to protect its Looking specifically at your concerns, Arts theatres that new work during the last funding round. Most writer development and the production of with an important ge cash cut in funding of just 2.3%. Theatres present new writing received a below avera h received an abovet, Live Theatre Newcastle and Paines Ploug new writing record, such as the Royal Cour average rise in funding. ng. In 2011/12 it ry-funded programme also supports new writi The Arts Council’s Grants for the Arts Lotte . In 2010/11 the value on new writing to the value of £2,792,727 funded projects which were wholly focused 9.

0,89 £1,07 was of this financial year the value was £2,040,485 and in the first six months nce on making 40 playwrights to offer support and guida The Arts Council also held a workshop for also have met with you may cil Coun ramme. I believe that the Arts applications to its Grants for the Arts prog ts for the Arts funding can help. to discuss writer development and how Gran have actually by name in your survey I noticed that eight Of the eighteen organisations that responded isation shows no organ one and 2 for this year set against 2011/201 received significant increases in funding ved increases recei 24 ed, theatre organisations which are fund change in their funding. Furthermore of all for this year ing fund all ctions whilst 11 showed no change. Over in funding set against 23 which show redu /2012, an 2011 for £50m t stands at £66m set against a figure of for the organisations mentioned in the repor increase of over 30%. time, I was also ern being felt in the sector at this difficult Whilst I in no way deny the overriding conc ism, resilience, the comments in the report that speak of optim interested and heartened to read some of sector. the Government is continuing to support the innovation, and making the most of the way and foster the high y of scope to innovate in order to preserve There is no room for complacency, but plent quality new theatre writing.

Ed Vaizey MP and Creative Industries Minister for Culture, Communications

to the report voiced serious concerns about the diminishing opportunities for young playwrights to develop their talents and stressed the importance of theatre as the training ground for

the TV, radio and film industries. All stand to lose a generation of talent, with writers from less privileged backgrounds particularly badly hit.

The open letter to Vaizey

expressed disappointment with this public remarks, in particular a recent speech in which he said that to suggest there is any sort of crisis in the arts was ‘rubbish’ and

minister Vaizey ‘scaremongering’.

The letter read: ‘We believe the findings of In Battalions are to be taken seriously. They are representative of a wider trend within our industry. If the next generation of playwrights are not properly supported, this could seriously affect output in a few years’ time, and new plays are vital to the future health of British theatre — not to mention a driver of growth in the economy.’

Fin Kennedy said: ‘We took the project on in our own time in good faith, and in response to comments made to me by Ed Vaizey himself, that Arts Council cuts were having “no effect”.

‘He offered to look over any evidence to the contrary, and even to raise it with the Arts Council if I could show there was a problem. I believe we have showed there’s a problem, but Mr Vaizey seems unwilling to accept the evidence we have sent him.

‘In an email to one concerned young writer he said: “There is no evidence of any impact on new writing”. Anyone who’s read my report will see that that’s demonstrably untrue.

‘We’re still really keen to engage with Mr Vaizey about our ideas for how to fix this problem — he’s our Culture Minister after all — but we really do need him to take this issue seriously and to engage with us, as he promised he would.’

The open letter calls on Mr Vaizey to undertake his own research, ending: ‘If [your] response is still that there is “no evidence” then we would ask that you provide evidence of your own, which backs up your position as thoroughly as the In Battalions authors have backed up theirs.’

■■ For the latest updates on the campaign go to: finkennedy.blogspot.co.uk/ ■■ You can also join the campaign against arts funding cuts at www.lost-arts.org

CAMPAIGN TO DEFEND THEATRES Equity, The Stage and the Theatrical Management Association have launched My Theatre Matters! a campaign that grew out of concern about threats to funding for many UK theatres, particularly from local government.

Sheffield Theatre, for one, is facing a council cut of £100,000, only weeks after being named regional theatre of the year at the Stage 100 awards.

The campaign plans to encourage theatres to mobilise audiences to voice support for local venues and tell their own stories about why the theatre matters to them.

Harnessed to a national campaign, these local voices can give real weight to the argument in support of public funding for

theatre. Actors will be delivering curtain call speeches in theatres asking for support from audiences and the campaign will be spreading the word through social media and its website.

Writers’ Guild president David Edgar said: ‘Regional British theatre was one of the great success stories of the 2000s — particularly in its production of new plays.

‘There’s now a real prospect of all that going to waste.

Playwrights join directors, actors and other theatre-makers in defence of the network of local and regional companies which is at the heart of Britain’s great theatre achievement.’

Few changes in PLR review AFTER TWO years of dithering and a desultory consultation process, the government has finally decided the fate of the Public Lending Right scheme — it will cease to be an independent agency and come under the wing of the British Library, but the office and staff in Stockton-on-Tees will carry on as before.

PLR — which pays authors 6p each time one of their books is borrowed from a public library — was an unfortunate victim of the incoming coalition government’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’ (which also cooked the goose of the UK Film Council, only to transfer most of its functions to the British Film Institute).

PLR registrar Jim Parker welcomed the announcement: ‘The Government realises staff here do a great job and we have had tremendous support from authors from all over the UK.’ In fact the overwhelming outcome of the consultation was opposition to any change at all.

According to Culture Minister

Ed Vaizey, authors should notice no change to PLR. He claimed that transferring management to the British Library will save £750,000 over 10 years.

Writers’ Guild general secretary Bernie Corbett commented: ‘This whole affair has been an unnecessary charade, wasting the time and resources of authors’ organisations and the government to achieve a purely cosmetic change and a saving too small to be measurable — all for the sake of one headline over two years ago.

‘In the meantime the government has done precisely nothing to extend the PLR scheme to ebooks and audiobooks, as legislated by the previous government just before the 2010 general election.’

■■ F o r m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n s e e www.plr.uk.com/allaboutplr/news/ whatsNew.htm and www.gov. uk/government/news/ed-vaizeyannounces-transfer-of-authors-publiclending-right-to-british-library

Summer 2013 UK Writer 13

briefing Birmingham: The Midlands raises a tt

quarter of the BBC’s licence fee take, but only 2% of BBC income is spent in the region

Guild backs Midlands broadcasting campaign THE BBC’S Midland region raises a quarter of the BBC’s £3.6 billion licence fee take, but only 2% of BBC income is spent in the region. Expenditure per licence fee payer is £804 in London, £82 in the north of England, and just £12.30 in the Midlands.

These statistics were presented to 80 actors, writers, producers and other television makers crammed into a Birmingham pub to launch a campaign to insist that the BBC gives more back to the Midlands region.

Speakers included Equity’s Tracey Briggs and Writers’ Guild President David Edgar. Along with BECTU, the Guild is officially supporting the campaign. The last Guild executive council meeting supported the Campaign for Regional Broadcasting’s demand that more BBC production be brought back to Birmingham.

As Tracey Briggs and David Edgar pointed out, BBC Birmingham has a proud history in both television and radio drama, and not just in the

‘golden age’ of the 1970s, when David Rose was producing groundbreaking plays and films by David Rudkin, David Hare, Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell.

The Birmingham studios at Pebble Mill once produced 10% of BBC output.

Since the announcement of the move to Salford, BBC Birmingham has lost its pioneering factual unit to Bristol, the Silver St soap, and its last one-off drama producer. Its state of the art radio studio sits empty except for the few days a month of Archers

recording. Its only television drama goes out on daytime TV. Using BBC statistics, campaign chair Mike Bradley has calculated the huge disparity between what the BBC raises from the Midland region and what it spends. Nearly a third of what the BBC spends in London comes from the region. The aim of the campaign is to demand a fairer deal for the Midlands’ television makers.

■■ The campaign has an online petition at www.crbmidlands.org.uk

whole new profession for himself in writing, becoming chair of the Writers’ Guild in Scotland in the 1990s. One of the good friends he made through the Guild was Alan Plater.

Bob’s wit was legendary and he was sought-after as an after-dinner

speaker. His plays, The Roup and Scrappy, have toured Scotland. He recently had two books published and had just completed a new play based on his experiences in wartime.

He was a truly heroic individual and will be sorely missed.

obituary ROBERT (BOB) ADAMS

A truly heroic individual

By Alannah O’Sullivan ROBERT ADAMS OBE was an extraordinary man. A paratrooper in WW2, he was also a first-rate runner who coached Ghana’s first athletics team and brought them to Britain after the war.

Working back in the UK, he soon

14 UK Writer Summer 2013

became managing director of various firms, including A. H. Mackintosh Furniture in Kirkcaldy. He was awarded an OBE for his services to the industry.

His charitable works are numerous and, on retirement, he created a

briefing

Summer 2013 UK Writer 15

film making

How to sell your queer idea Lou Gerring reports on a workshop for emerging filmmakers selected by the BFI’s Lesbian and Gay Film Festival THE BFI’S Lesbian and Gay Film Festival selected 30 emerging filmmakers to take part in a one-day workshop at the end of March to develop a nonmainstream or ‘niche’ idea for the marketplace.

Supported by the Creative Skillset Film Skills Fund, as part of A Bigger Future 2, the three criteria for application were: 1 filmmakers had to identify as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transexual or transgender — normally I avoid labels, but they do come in handy for opportunities like this; 2 they had to have had a short film produced and screened theatrically — luckily a short film I scripted had screened just weeks earlier — in an old, converted church five mins from where I live — but still, there was popcorn and a live pianist and everything, and 3 they had to submit an idea for a gay-focussed feature which could be workshopped on the day.

Oh. Despite being gay and writing stories since the age of about four, I didn’t actually have a script or an idea with a gay protagonist. Which is quite shameful, I think. I’m not sure if it’s just because I’ve never felt the need, personally, to write about that part of my life or I’ve just been put off by what is unappealing to the market. A gay protagonist could possibly alienate about 80% of your audience (unless of course they have lots of gratuitous girl-on-girl sex and then you get the straight male demographic too) and when you sit down to write a new script, you’re already faced with so many challenges and obstacles that will get in the way of it ever being made, so why make your difficult life even more difficult?

On the other hand, I think all kinds of experiences should have a voice and accessible representation on screen, and gay experience is beginning to filter through positively into mainstream viewing. Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids are Alright took over $34 million at the box office and was nominated for four Oscars yet still retained her 16 UK Writer Summer 2013

When you sit down to write a new script, you’re already faced with so many challenges and obstacles that will get in the way of it ever being made, so why make your difficult life even more difficult?

unique, distinctive voice, in my opinion.

So did I have a duty? Possibly. I remembered something the Guild’s TV committee chair Gail Renard once said: ‘Write what you want … not what other people want’. This workshop seemed to be not just a great opportunity to meet other filmmakers and industry speakers who were all out there getting their films made, but a chance to learn how to express my gay voice in a way that might have universal appeal and redeem myself into the bargain! So I set to work brainstorming some ideas and after several hours had a logline for a lesbian romcom: When struggling screenwriter, Darcy Downer, is dropped by her agent and dumped by her girlfriend on the same day, she just wants to get drunk and die. She is saved by a chance meeting with a cheery musical theatre director turned life-coach who tells her to visualise the most difficult challenge ever and see where it leads her. Darcy writes this off as hocus pocus but suddenly out of nowhere a copy of The Hollywood Reporter lands at her feet. It’s a sign: JODIE FOSTER IS SINGLE. This seemed like bloody genius at the time.

Until I read the other delegate’s brilliant ideas. But at least I was on the course and had something to work with.

The day kicked off with a friendly, humble conversation between three successful UK-based filmmakers: Dan McCulloch, producer of The Comedian which was playing to much acclaim at the festival; director Eva Weber whose The Solitary Life Of Cranes was selected in the annual Sight & Sound review as one of the top five films of the year and writer-director Hong Khaou who is still in post-production on his first feature Lilting which he made with help from Film London’s Microwave scheme, and was shown at Cannes this year.

All three showed clips of their work and were happy to share their wisdom and personal strategies for success. They all seemed to agree that funders do not generally perceive queer cinema as commercial but that this should not stop filmmakers from making their films. At the end of the day it is about the script. People are committed to telling great stories, not an agenda or issues. And sometimes surprising things can open doors. Hong’s

TIM FRANCIS

script made the Britlist and suddenly he had agent requests and the freedom to chose one he knew would not try to steer him toward the more lucrative gigs on the soaps. For Eva, attending festivals is paramount. She said it’s so important to build relationships with the programmers on the circuit so you can get to know which festivals they work with and submit any subsequent films directly to them.

Our next session was with the exuberant Beadie Finzi, director of Britdoc, who was so totally passionate, knowledgeable and comfortable with her subject that I almost wished I had a factual idea to pitch. She said there is an ‘insatiable desire for documentary,’ and encouraged us to think ambitiously and globally about the new opportunities available. It’s on the rise as a cultural form, standing up against fiction features at festivals and even in the cinemas. With journalism in crisis, people are looking to factual filmmakers for respect. ‘They are seen as brave and committed — not corporate players. Their independence is valued.’

However, at the moment there are no slots and funding sources have dried up, so you’ll need to be in it for the long haul and be prepared to fill up the credit card. Go to festivals, she urged. Book ahead for cheap flights. It’s the only way you’ll get a sense of the current climate and have a clear grasp of why your brilliant idea needs to be made right now.

And don’t discount docudrama. The BFI love it and these films are ‘totally being made!’

In terms of pitching, Beadie stressed it was important to have a genuine, emotional connection to your subject. To show integrity and clarity. At Good Pitch, Britdoc’s regular event to connect films with new allies and partners, filmmakers are encouraged to pitch naturally, and this is great advice, I think, for all writers. Even though I have

Beadie Finzi, Head 99 of Britdoc, speaking at the Tell Me Your Story workshop

USEFUL LINKS bfi.org.uk There’s a lot happening at the BFI. Keep up to date here. creativeskillset. org/film britdoc.org Non-profit film foundation supported by Channel Four scriptangel. wordpress.com Hayley McKenzie’s superb blog has the most comprehensive list of screenwriting courses out there, and if you subscribe you’ll get monthly updates.

no intention of ever making a documentary, I left this session feeling energised and positive about my own work.

The story development workshop with development exec Angeli Macfarlane was equally insightful and inspiring. Angeli was incredibly generous with her knowledge of the fundamental dynamics of story and thoughts about how to attract the widest audience possible without compromising a unique, perhaps radical or ‘niche’ voice.

The first thing she stressed was that the story is paramount. Not the message. She asked a few of us about our ideas and encouraged us to think in refreshingly simple terms about audience. Even with a script that doesn’t follow the conventional Hollywood model, it’s important to identify who your story appeals to at an early stage. The audience should feel either ‘yes, I feel like that too’, or ‘I get what that might feel like’, or ‘I recognise that could be me but I have different situations, such as loving parents.’

And this led onto a discussion about developing our world view, which she identified as a skill and one of the major things she interrogates her writers about. It is the truth in the world view which drives our story sometimes and, she said, if we’re not clear about what that is, then we’re not clear about what we’re trying to say. Be credible. The audience does not have to sympathise, but they have to believe.

She also ran through some basic stuff about structure, which seems so obvious and yet which I find particularly hard to implement in my own work and was relieved to hear other writers did too. She said another main problem she finds with indie scripts is passive characters. Yep, I’m hearing her! But she solved my main bugbear so simply. A character can be negatively active! For example a passive character can be forced to act against their will — and there’s your conflict! I’m a big fan of Blake Snyder and Billy Mernit, but generally I find screenwriting how-to books hard work. Like an essay on semiotics. It just doesn’t go in. But when the theory is delivered in handy nuggets of gold in a helpful, clear way, it just seems to make sense.

Which is one reason why I’d recommend doing courses like this. And, in particular, I think it’s well worth writers getting themselves onto BFI workshops and seminars. They treat you very well and, once you’re in their system, they’ll involve you in other events. We’ve already been invited to parties, networking drinks and other free workshops. They seem to be really keen to nurture writers and filmmakers — and don’t forget, besides training, they also provide funding. We’ve all been invited to apply for two places on a mentoring scheme with either Beadie or Angeli. I’ve decided to put Jodie Foster Is Single on hold and go with another idea. However, if anyone knows her, do pass on my number.

Summer 2013 UK Writer 17

television

Banking on Father

BROWN Rachel Flowerday on adapting GK Chesterton’s classic detective stories for television

JANUARY 2013 was possibly the scariest time of my life. A fortnight into the month, starting the new daytime schedules after the transfer of children’s to CBBC, my first original series (co-developed with Tahsin Guner, another BBC Writers’ Academy alumnus) began transmitting. We had no idea how our liberal (but loving) adaptation of GK Chesterton’s bite-sized priestly mysteries would sit with a daytime audience more used to Cash In The Attic. But how had we even come to be writing period whodunits for wintry British afternoons?

It was all down to Ann Widdecombe. Thanks, Ann. Back in 2011, Tahsin and I (at this stage, barely acquaintances, much less creative collaborators) were at the end of the road with a pair of original detective dramas we had independently pitched to BBC Daytime through John Yorke and Will Trotter. Much as the Beeb liked what we had invented, they wanted something a little more bankable in order to risk their limited cash.

Roll up, Ms. Widdecombe. She had just put out a Radio 4 show discussing her favourite novelist GK Chesterton and his Father Brown short stories, about an unassuming Catholic priest who moonlights as an amateur detective. John pitched the stories to Liam Keelan (then BBC head of daytime), and within days Tahsin and I were asked — independently — to create treatments, building a precinct and supporting characters around the central priest.

Parish secretary Mrs McCarthy first drew breath in an email to Ceri Meyrick, our producer, in which I pitched a ‘doughty, no-nonsense 60-something lay second-in-command who’s kind of a mother-figure but who probably also slightly fancies him/dotes on him … someone to check facts for him, to protect him from the wrath of the diocese, to make sure he eats …’ Some of that original email is now on the BBC Father Brown website in her character biog. That’ll learn me.

Just one meeting took us from a bunch of people who had scarcely worked together to a crack drama team. Or something. We spent a chilly December day driving around the Cotswolds, where we had settled on setting Father Brown: the original stories have no precinct, with Father Brown popping up in Paris; on a boat; in a country house — great fun, but way too costly for daytime telly.

We saw amazing houses, met a Reverend and toured the vicarage that became Father Brown’s presbytery, and over a pie-and-mash lunch in a local pub locked down the gang of characters, era and Gloucestershire village setting of our interpretation of Father Brown. Tahsin and I had two weeks, working remotely, to amalgamate our treatments. By January, we had script commissions. By June, Ceri and director Ian Barber were shooting them.

So it was quick — but not painless. The greatest strengths of Chesterton’s stories are also, inevitably, what makes turning them into TV drama most difficult.

18 UK Writer Summer 2013

NEIL IRVINE

BBC

Mark Williams as Father 99

Brown, with the rest of the cast Inset Rachel Flowerday and Tahsin Guner on a research trip

tt

Their brilliant central conceit of an unassuming, innocent-seeming, easily-overlooked priest who in truth knows the darkest secrets of men’s hearts — and who is out to solve crime not to mete out justice, but to save souls — set us the challenge of creating a dramatic character who can drive the story, yet who retains these key qualities, rightly prized by Chesterton aficionados. And the tales themselves tend to follow an arc of brilliantly described build-up with a final twist in the tail — perfect for bite-sized prose, but nowhere near twisty enough for 50 minutes of TV drama. Tahsin and I both chose to reinvent existing Chesterton stories, layering them with new tensions, motives and, in my case, a whole new murder that arrived fully formed into draft three. Later writers created their own stories within our world — five out of the ten episodes are adaptations, five are original.

There were more changes. In the original stories (spoiler alert!) Inspector Valentin(e) is short-lived — the culprit of an early murder, he is unceremoniously dispatched. We knew we needed an ongoing detective, and it seemed obvious to rehabilitate Chesterton’s invention. With two middle-aged men in lead roles, we then started looking for strong female characters, across a wide age/class range, who could hold their own alongside them — Lady Felicia and Susie joined Mrs McCarthy in the line-up. Though Tahsin and I were involved in pitching casting suggestions, we could not have dreamt of the amazing actors Ceri and her team signed up. The read-through of our first two eps was magical — Mark Williams was Father Brown, Sorcha Cusack brought along a Cork accent and made Mrs. McCarthy emphatically her own, and Hugo Speer (Valentine) turned up without even having a contract yet — their faith in the scripts could not fail to excite us.

All we needed now was good weather in June.

In England.

Yeah.

It poured. Our cast hid under giant umbrellas between takes. And yet … somehow the finished article looks sunlit and amazing. Like stablemate Land Girls, it makes the most of being entirely shot on location; the chocolate-box good-looks of the Cotswolds are shown off to perfection — though we know they often cover something sinister under the surface.

From just the rough montage shown at the August wrap party, we knew the cast and crew had more than done justice to the work we, Ceri, script editor Neil Irvine, and the other writers had put in. We were all immensely proud of Father Brown — but there’s never a guarantee that your audience will share your excitement. The alchemy of transmission is the moment you know whether what you’ve put the last year of your life into is gold — or dross.

But we could not have been luckier with our reception. Don’t get me wrong — there’s at least one irate Chesterton fan who would happily see me meet a fate more suited to the victim of a murder mystery than its writer (thanks, Twitter) — but, to our immense relief and delight, the vast majority of public response have been more than kind. The listings magazines and newspapers gave us an unprecedented amount of coverage for a daytime drama — no doubt much due to the photogenic backdrop and renowned cast — but in truth, their accolades are only important to the extent they draw an audience to the show, who then have to make up their own minds.

We were also lucky with the unexpected snow, which meant that everyone in Britain not careering down a hill on their tea-tray was glued to the telly on an icy Monday afternoon. It gave us a boost to get word-of-mouth in action.

The criticism we got most often — and it’s a lovely criticism to get — was ‘why is it buried in daytime?’. The simple answer is that daytime were the people who had the vision and the bravery to commission us (Catholic priests aren’t top of many drama controllers’ go-to lists), and they have the expertise to make chocolate-box period drama on a shoestring.

Afternoon TV should not be a second-class citizen and, hopefully, by continuing the tradition set by Land Girls, The Indian Doctor and 32 Brinkburn Street, we’ve helped draw an audience to future drama in the post-lunch slot.

Not least Father Brown series two (plug alert!), which we’re currently writing, hopefully for transmission in early 2014. We can only hope that audiences once again embrace our (re)vision of a bespectacled priest on his ramshackle bicycle, solving crime because he believes even the worst of criminals can be saved.

Summer 2013 UK Writer 19

television Dominique Moloney on creating a new police series for BBC TV BACK IN 2010 the producers at BBC Birmingham were looking to commission a returnable daytime crime series in the vein of Dixon of Dock Green. As fate would have it, I had written a proposal about a young WPC in the 1950s, and executive producer Will Trotter liked it enough to take it through the various stages of development.

At the time I had more than 20 episodes of BBC TV’s Doctors under my belt, and had been lucky enough to work on all three series of another BBC series, Land Girls (created by Roland Moore). So the team at BBC Birmingham were familiar enough with my work to trust me with creating the characters and to begin storylining an original series.

I have always been fascinated by 1950s culture, especially what it meant to be a woman in that decade. After a brief taste of freedom in the fields and munitions factories of World War Two, an entire generation of women were forced back into the domestic sphere. There were, of course, those who chose to pursue a career, but it was rare for them to venture beyond the limited gender roles assigned to them. This is why I wanted to tell the story of Gina Dawson, a young woman entering a traditionally male dominated world, having to fight daily to prove her worth as a police constable.

From the outset I knew that if I was to do the subject justice I had to do a lot of initial research (we later had a dedicated research team to flag up any historical inaccuracies).

The more I delved into the period, the more I realised what rich territory it was. I was amazed to discover, for instance, that if a police woman (and this only applied to the women) decided to marry and have children, she would be instructed to leave the force, an ultimatum unthinkable today.

Those dedicated enough to stay were officially relegated to dealing with women’s, juvenile and children’s issues and, no matter what her rank, she was expected to do the typing for even the lowliest male colleague.

Naturally I was also hungry to hear stories of police women who took similar risks to the men, and it turned out there were indeed a determined few who were able to force their way into the thick of it. They proved vital for undercover and detective work, and were recognised for their more compassionate approach to policing. These brave women put their lives on the line, just as they continue to do today. WPC56 is about one such heroine, dedicated to her job but forced always to choose between love and career.

By the start of 2012 Will Trotter had secured a green light from the controller of daytime. I was assigned episodes one, three and five, and writer Ray Brooking was brought on board to 20 UK Writer Summer 2013

PC in No matter what her rank, she was expected to do the typing for even the lowliest male colleague

write episodes two and four. Working closely with Will, Ray, producer Mike Hobson and script editor Grainne O’Boyle, we began crafting the scripts to make the fictional world of Brinford (a satellite town of Birmingham) a living, breathing reality.

We were keen to tap into some of the darker realities of the 1950s, and not just portray the police as the ‘goodies’ chasing the ‘baddies’. It was a time where racism, sexism, homophobia and antisemitism were commonplace, and individual officers were not beyond using violence against suspects or taking backhanders. The central investigation in the series is of a rather chilling murder, and the scripts do not pull their punches, despite being pre-watershed. The series has a lighter side to it too, and there is humour peppered throughout.

With a fresh young cast of colourful characters, we enter a world of juke box cafés, smoke-filled dance clubs, teddy boys and rock & roll.

Police squad: the cast of WPC56 with tt

Jennie Jacques (foreground)as Gina Dawson

the fifties The writing process took about seven months to complete. Each script ran on average to seven or eight drafts, and there were times when Ray and I had to jump back and forth between episodes as deadlines often overlapped. It was invaluable having our script editor keeping an eye on continuity as, inevitably, things got complicated given the multi-stranding with various police cases running in tandem. But the process was never dull; it was one of those all too rare occasions where you wake up each morning genuinely excited by the day’s writing ahead.

We were finally ready to rumble into production in early November. On the eve of filming we had a read-through at BBC Television Centre, which was a chance for the producers, cast, writers and production team to assemble for the first time and run through the first two scripts. With a strong cast in place, including 23-year-old Jennie

Writing a police drama with strong characters, there is scope for ever more stories to unfold

Jacques taking the leading role of Gina Dawson, the atmosphere was electric and we all felt certain we were about to make something special.

As any scriptwriter knows, it’s an odd feeling getting to the finish line when the majority of the work on a production is only just beginning. After several months of immersing yourself in a world of your imagination, suddenly your job is done and it’s over to others to embody those characters, and make their own discoveries.

Production took place entirely in and around Birmingham. It was filmed back-to-back in two blocks, the first directed by Ian Barber, the second

by Niall Fraser. The shoot lasted for two months, wrapping just days before Christmas. Visiting the location I was struck by the extraordinary attention to detail reflected in the sets, props, costumes, hair and make-up. Despite a relatively tight budget and an even tighter schedule, the atmosphere was cheerful throughout and the crew operated like a well oiled machine, the majority being well used to a fast turnover from working on Doctors.

For this reason I was confident the quality on screen would be of a high standard. However, nothing quite prepared me for the thrill of seeing the finished first episode at a cast and crew screening the week before broadcast. Tightly edited, visually rich, a superb musical score by Debbie Wiseman, and powerful performances from the entire cast; I was overwhelmed.

The week the series aired was somewhat nerve-wracking as I had only seen that first episode in advance. But it was great to experience the anticipation of each episode as an audience member, tuning in every day. And watching it I was surprised how I was able to engage with the stories on a purely emotional level, forgetting all the nuts and bolts of how we pieced it together.

The audience ratings were high, and built steadily as the series progressed. There were also several online forums for public feedback, including Facebook, Twitter and an official BBC blog I was asked to write. I was humbled by the sheer number of people who took the time to write in and thank the BBC for the show. Some of those voices were serving and retired police officers who shared their own experiences of policing through the decades.

WPC56 is just the latest of a slate of exciting new projects being produced by BBC Birmingham for daytime television. With the promise of an early evening repeat for the series, and the ever growing popularity of on-demand viewing, shows made for this time slot are able to reach a far wider audience than would have been imaginable just a few years ago.

Our hope for WPC56 is to go to a second series and beyond. The joy of writing a police drama with a strong ensemble of characters is that there is scope for ever more stories to unfold. If you ask me, Gina Dawson’s adventures are only just beginning.

Summer 2013 UK Writer 21

T C I L F CON screenwriting

resolution

THERE IS a typically cringeworthy acronym in corporate-lingo-jargon known as the BATNA. The letters stand for the ‘Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement’. The theory goes that whichever side in a negotiation has the better BATNA has the stronger negotiating position, as they are less likely to settle for an unsatisfactory (albeit fully negotiated) agreement.

When I first heard the term ‘BATNA’, I was a solicitor who wanted to be a screenwriter. My goal was to somehow negotiate my way to becoming a working, paid, screenwriter — even though I naturally assumed this was a totally unrealistic dream. In trying to maintain a level head about my

Gavin Grant on a lawyer’s journey into screenwriting

career, I knew I had to work out the best alternative that would make me happy. What was my BATNA? Back in 2009, I wrote an article for a Scottish legal magazine as part of a feature called ‘Films in Focus’, in which lawyers were asked to reveal their favourite film about the law. When I heard the magazine was running the feature, I remember being very keen to write something — anything — just to get the chance to talk about films and filmmaking. I wanted to avoid the courtroom drama and the predictable Grisham adaptation, so I plumped for the crime thriller Dirty Harry. And I got completely carried away. I effectively wrote a mini academic essay on the right-wing attitudes and

BAFTA winners!: (Left to Right) Fiona Hyslop (Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs), Gavin Grant, 99 Pamela Barnes and David Newman with the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award for Best Entertainment 2013

22 UK Writer Summer 2013

Gavin Grant with tt actor Rowan King filming on location

‘rule of law’ themes underpinning the film. Oops. I have always loved movies.

At that time, I was working as a solicitor with Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP. Outside of work, I had developed a growing interest in screenwriting and was attending evening classes at the University of Edinburgh. I became mildly addicted to books about the art and craft of screenwriting. I was learning about the film and TV industry, but, more importantly, I had started writing scripts.

The hobby quickly became a passion. Between late 2010 and late 2011, I had left Shepherd and Wedderburn — by far the most difficult decision I have ever made — and started a masters degree in creative media practice at the University of the West of Scotland. My focus was on screenwriting and filmmaking. I wanted to make a short film as a way of showcasing my writing, that I could send to film festivals, put on the web and use to try to get noticed in the industry.

During the MA course, I pitched a half-baked idea for a spoof ‘Visit Scotland’ style tourist video set in a small Scottish village to two of my university colleagues (David Newman and Pamela Barnes). They were interested in working on it but, in order for it to work as a film, it needed a story.

So I wrote a script and added a topical slant — Scottish independence. The film became a satirical mockumentary imagining the west coast town of Greenock as an independent state and featuring interviews with its new president and inhabitants.

We called it The State of Greenock.

At the same time as studying the MA, I continued my legal career part-time with the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority. Whilst these competing aspects of my career might seem quite different, it has become clear to me over the last three years that the legal practitioner and the screenwriter share a common

it has become clear to me over the last three years that the legal practitioner and the screenwriter share a common goal — conflict resolution

twitter.com/ StateofGreenock ■■ Gavin Grant is a rights executive with BBC Scotland

goal — conflict resolution. The driving force behind all storytelling is conflict. Without conflict in a film there is no story, just a bunch of things that happen. If there were no villains in Dirty Harry, there would be no story. What would a character like James Bond do if there was no criminally insane maniac trying to take over the world?

Audiences do not want to watch a guy sitting at a desk, happily counting the clock down to 5pm then driving home. Tuxedo or no tuxedo.

Just as the lawyer must negotiate agreements and resolve conflict in the best interests of his client, so the screenwriter must challenge his characters and resolve their conflicts to the satisfaction of his audience. The filmmaker must achieve the best outcome for his audience within the timeframe of his film (be it 10 minutes or two hours). The lawyer must negotiate the best outcome, or achieve the BATNA, for his client — often in similarly tight timescales.

My screenwriting career may be in its early stages, but it is an exciting time — The State of Greenock recently won with the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award for Best Entertainment 2013.

Everyone involved in the film is very proud of the achievement and it is a great reward for a real collaborative team effort. The success has allowed us to call in some more favours for the spin-off web series, which is being broadcast online over the course of April and May. The hope is to build on the BAFTA success, generate some interest in the work and develop a career as a screenwriter in the film and TV industry. Maybe such a career, with conflict resolution at its heart, is not so far removed from the legal world as it might at first glance appear.

Maybe not all acronyms are cringeworthy jargon.

Maybe a screenwriting career isn’t a totally unrealistic dream.

Summer 2013 UK Writer 23

theatre

Fitting tribute Ian Buckley on why he wrote a play about his father

BEING THE son of a Savile Row tailor, and visiting his small Soho workshop over many years (including stairwell and toilet-cleaning duties!), I got to know the trade of high-class tailor very well.

I also got to know Soho very well. The reason?

My father worked from a small, somewhat dark, workshop in a well-proportioned Georgian terraced house that had seen better days. When I knew it in the early 1960s it was full of tailors like my father, working in their often cramped little rooms, for prestigious high-class gentleman tailors whose grand shops were in Savile Row. My father’s employer was one of the most prestigious of these: Henry Poole. Dad’s actual workshop was in Broadwick Street, off Wardour Street and, wonder of wonders, it was in the same house that William Blake, the great English poet, had lived in. It had the blue plaque to prove it. Unfortunately this national treasure has not withstood the march of progress. In its place now stands a squat, ugly block named William Blake House — they haven’t even bothered to replace the blue plaque.

Like many tailors my father was, and still is, a strong communist (as is my mother). Fighting against Hitler led him to believe communism was the only system that could withstand fascism. He was also a strong trade unionist, joining the NUTGW (National Union of Tailor & Garment Workers) and fighting for better conditions for his fellow tailors.

He combined his communist party duties with his obligations as a trade unionist all his life.

He was blacklisted early on in his workinglife. Before the Second World War, he was being trained for management by Horne Brothers. The company announced a wage cut for the company’s machinists — all of whom were women. My father was the only cutter (at the time all men) to join

24 UK Writer Summer 2013

them on strike. When the machinists reached a deal and returned to work, my father was left stranded. Banned from factory work, it was then he turned to high-class bespoke tailoring, serving an apprenticeship and becoming a trouser-maker of the highest quality.

I was born into this communist family. It was at once an exhilarating and difficult experience.

Exhilarating because you grew up with such strong admirable ideals: socialist man and woman, equal in all areas, forging a finer, more peaceful world where opportunity would be for all people, where the wealth of the economy would be communally owned, where there would be no rich and poor, no exploitation and no war.

Difficult because as I grew up, I realised not all communists measured up to these ideals. And in parts of the world where our socialist system was in operation, amidst the undoubted advances working people were making, horrible things could happen to people which seemed to go against the very basis and essence of my ideals.

This is why growing up in a communist family is both a wonderful and a sad experience.

It’s wonderful because you grow up with such admirable, beautiful ideals — ideals I cherish and fight for to this day. Sad because you have to incorporate into your system, into the deepest recesses

of your personal history, the tragic and often brutal things that were done in the name of your beloved system alongside the undoubted and spectacular advances they made for working people.

All this is relevant to the writing of my play. It’s the background to it, the soil it sprang from.

More immediately its genesis was as follows.

One day my father, at the age of 89, told me that he went traipsing half way across London to Bethnal Green Labour Party rooms for the retired section of his trade union’s monthly meeting. I was astonished. I tried to dissuade him, anxious he might have an accident, fall getting on and off the London Tube. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘It’s my union duty.’ A few weeks later I asked him what happened at these union meetings. He began to tell me stories that made me laugh and made me cry.

Just four of them left, two Jewish and two nonJewish, in their mid to late 80s, one even in his 90s.

All still firm communists — but the minute they sat down, at least two of them would be striking sparks off each other for supposed betrayals and mistakes committed an age ago.

I started to write my play. I had to capture this unforgettable group of men, one of whom was my father. In their own small way they symbolised the political currents that had shaken and shaped much of the twentieth century. I had to write a play as a memory and a tribute to them and to their continuing belief in their better world, to their amazing energy and to their comradeship.

This, then, is The Tailors’ Last Stand.

Photos from The 99

Tailor’s Last Stand at the Baron’s Court Theatre: Richard Ward, Edmund Dehn and Tony Parkin, Terry Jermyn (in the waistcoat)

Summer 2013 UK Writer 25

film

On the

COUCH Richard Bevan on a significant new independent force in British film

WITH PUBLIC funding of British movies now mainly in the hands of the BFI, Creative England and regional screen outlets, it is encouraging to see a new major independent player on the scene: Cascade Pictures. The company is aiming to think big with cinematic features in a broad range of genres. Through its Cascade Media Development arm it plans to make films with medium-tohigh-budget British movies for a broad range of different markets.

‘Cascade Writers’ Couch’ recently hosted an event at the sixth BFI Future Film Festival in association with the Met Film School. The event focused on the development process for producers and, after a brief presentation, eight producers pitched their projects to a panel that included Cascade’s Sam Cheetham, actress Joanne Froggatt (Emmy award winner for Downton Abbey), Chris Simon (founder and producer at Embargo Films) and Anthony Alleyne (Writer/director and tutor at the Met Film School). I spoke with the company’s founders Cora Palfrey, Daniel Campos Pavoncelli and development consultant of Cascade’s Writers’ Couch initiative Sam Cheetham about the organisation’s ambitions.

How did the organisation come about and what are its aims?

Daniel: Mark Fisher, who was the chief financier of the Icon UK group, set up the Cascade group last year. We manage a fund of £40m which we can invest to financially package films. We also have a money chest of around £150,000 through Cascade Development to exclusively develop material, whether that’s to option books, scripts or partner up with producers who already have a script. In that instance we can come on board and help develop new drafts and polish up the project and then hopefully everything we develop will be financed by Cascade Pictures.

How does Cascade nurture and support new writers?

Daniel: Part of Cascade Development is to help new 26 UK Writer Summer 2013

Cora Palfrey and Daniel Campos Pavoncelli 99

talent, writers who aren’t currently represented and have a movie script but who can come to us through our Writers Couch system. It’s an opportunity to pitch the project you are passionate about and bring it to market. A big part of Cascade’s remit is to find partners to develop a project with the writer.

Cora Palfrey, formerly the European chief financial officer of Exclusive Media Group is keen to stress that the pitching process is not a competition.

Cora: It’s really about trying to nurture and help people to get into the industry and find partners for a project. For instance we’ve had some good meetings with the BBC, Creative England and the BFI. So if we see something come through the door that we think is right for us at Cascade, then we will find a partner to come on board and help the writer develop the project. So we look for people who can mentor the writer and take them to the next level.

Daniel: Basically if we like the script we can option it and develop it in-house or, if we like the writer’s writing, we can option other ideas that we think are right for us. It is important to stress that would-be applicants must already have a feature film project written at least as a first draft before pitching online via Cascade’s Writers’ Couch. Sam Cheetham, development consultant and manager of Cascade Writers’ Couch explains more about the process.

Sam: The application is all done online. We ask for brief contact details, the project synopsis, character breakdown and then the first ten pages of their script. On average we receive about 150 applications a month. Myself and a team of readers go through the applications which is really about trying to find that spark of talent rather than focusing on the project. We break down the applicants to 24 who will then all come in to pitch where

If Cascade likes a script and wants to develop it will the manuscript be optioned?

they are given ten minutes to win us over with their project. We then make a decision whether we want to request to see a full script. It’s then that we’ll know if the project really is for us.

Cora: Yes and it’s at that point that we will advise them to get representation. We don’t want a writer to feel that they are being taken advantage of by us at all, so at that point we will encourage the writer to get an agent — and one of their choice, not ours (although we can recommend some).

The important thing is that a full script has to be written before applying?

Sam: Yes. There are four main rules. You have to be over 18; based in the UK; have a full feature length screenplay; and be unrepresented by an agent.

And then the next step is the process of developing the script and inviting other people on board?

Is Cascade looking for something specific in terms of types of stories?

Cora: It could be an occasion when we don’t need to bring somebody else on board, but in other situations where the talent is new to this they will gain from more experienced people coming in to help them.

Sam: It’s got to be something suitable for Cascade because we’re very focused on international commercial products. If it’s unlikely to get an audience it’s not for us.

What do you think is the main ongoing problem with British films in terms of infrastructure?

If Cascade decides that a script isn’t quite for it but it likes the writer’s style are there other opportunities that may benefit them?

Cora: Certainly. If it turns out that the original script isn’t a fit then we will ask if they have other projects that may be of interest, or it may be that we have in-house projects that we think the writer will be suited to. We can then put them on to that project and, if need be, bring in more experienced people to nurture them through that stage.

Has Cascade any plans to do something similar in television?

Cora: We’re not running anything for television yet but part of the model is to be doing something by the end of the year. We just want to focus on Feature films for the first year.

You all have worked in various areas of the film industry before and know what a massive risk the film industry is.

So do you have any specific strategies to try and minimise the risks?

Cora: We are aiming to back a wide range of projects reflecting genres to cater for different audiences and tastes, be it teen thrillers, adult dramas or comedies. This is one way of making sure that we are not investing all our resources in one area — basically putting all our eggs in one basket.

We are purposely developing a diverse slate and also keeping an eye on the financial side, so focusing on a budget range between $5-8m and then in year two progress with bigger budgets and so on.

Sam: On the development side of things part of the thorough selection process is about actually getting projects made, which isn’t always the case in the industry. Obviously some projects won’t get there and we’re mindful of that, but others will get on the screen with the help of the right partners and contacts we can bring to the project.

We are aiming to back a wide range of projects reflecting genres to cater for different audiences and tastes, be it teen thrillers, adult dramas or comedies

Sam: We come back to the fact that it is a very risk-oriented industry and development is a very long process which often requires backing before you go into development. The good thing about Cascade is that we have these two separate companies where we can go into development with our projects and feed a project through Cascade Media Development and hopefully then to Cascade pictures to get it into production and out of the door.

So you need to have that level of security to get something into production in the first place, have the right team behind you and faith in a project. That faith stems from the very people who are pushing the project and who have limited resources because they’re probably working on all manner of productions in the first place. It’s a small industry and there’s only so much people can take on at a time.

Cora: Money is out there, although it’s concentrated in specific areas. Again, one good thing about Cascade is that we are open to different genres and one of our strengths is that we are aiming to entertain in a diverse way through teen films, horror, action movies and dramas. That doesn’t mean that anything considered ‘niche’ is off the radar, it depends on the story and subject although we understand that the process needs a different strategy because it is difficult to get an ‘art-house’ film out of the door.

Daniel: I think cinema generally is quite healthy at the moment in that it looks at different audiences and ultimately that’s what we at Cascade are trying to do as well. We want to bring British movies to a wide audience, one that is diverse with different kinds of audiences. Not just the teens who go to see horror films but also older audiences for dramas and the 35-plus range who have money, who love to get out to the cinema — it’s a whole chunk there in itself to cater for.

Summer 2013 UK Writer 27

writing Stephen Potts on combining careers in medicine and writing

A FEW years ago I stood at a crossroads, uncertain which way to go. Should I quit the day job and throw myself into full-time writing, or continue trying to combine the two? I wrote about the decision in this magazine, and many readers offered advice. As so often, events — two young children — took over and made my decision for me. I could inflict the financial uncertainties of a full-time writer’s life upon myself, but not upon my family. So I carried on, and now find myself invited by the editor to offer views on the day job question.

I read somewhere that only 15% of published writers earn a living from their writing. So nearly all of us need a day job, raising questions about how we regard it; how it relates to the writing; how we assign our time and energies between day job and our writing projects; and how we shut off from one when engaged in the other.

My day job is in medicine. I’m a psychiatrist in a busy general hospital, seeing people in A&E, the medical and surgical wards and the transplant unit.

Medicine is a notoriously hard taskmaster, and I bemoaned its ‘all or nothing’ nature in my earlier article. I’ve worked part-time for most of the past 16 years, though currently part-time means 36 hours a week plus one weekend in four on call. This is far too much like full-time work for me, but if I am to do less, someone else has to do more, and that’s not been an option for some time, though I live in hope.

There is one day a week when I am not in the hospital. I try to be ruthless in protecting my writing Wednesdays, though I do still get calls. I suppress irritation about them, aware that writers’ day jobs are often resented. In the extreme (and I am not here talking about my own job) they leech upon our time, our energies, our enthusiasms, perhaps our creative sparks: and we endure them only for the income they bring, for they offer nothing reciprocal in the way of new perspectives, new insights or new skills to carry into our writing lives. If it is hard for a non-writer to get up each day and drag her weary frame into a dreary workplace, then — perhaps — how much harder for a writer who wants to break free, who scribbles and taps away in stolen moments, and dreams nightly of the Big Break which will allow her to walk into the boss’s office with a smirk and tell him where to put his P45. But if the Big Break doesn’t come, going to work each day with that extra burden of desperate hope will eventually become intolerable.

As someone who didn’t study literature, journalism, or creative writing, and didn’t go to film school, I wonder, perhaps naively, whether 28 UK Writer Summer 2013

If it is hard for a non-writer to get up each day and drag her weary frame into a dreary workplace, then — perhaps — how much harder for a writer who wants to break free

a resentment of the day job (coupled with the feeling that it wasn’t meant to be this way) is more prevalent in those who have. Getting anywhere in writing is a long game. You have to endure years, perhaps decades, of rejections, during which you hone your skills, find your voice, and grow in confidence despite the difficulties. Someone setting out in their early twenties hoping to quickly establish a full-time career from writing, after a writing-related degree, is almost certain to be disappointed, however stellar their talent, and however gilt-edged their connections. So what do such writers fall back on, to make ends meet, while the long game plays out? It seems they have a Hobson’s choice between starting from scratch in a new career; getting a job with low skills (and therefore low wages and little chance to get by while working part time); or teaching writing, and thereby perpetuating the cycle for another generation.

So what would be included in the job description for a writer’s ideal day job? It should pay enough to be able to live on a part-time salary, but not so much as to accustom a would-be writer to luxury. It should be varied, with much direct human contact, exposing the candidate to new worlds of human experience, and new forms of conflict (in short, new stories), but it should allow immersion in these worlds to be intermittent, rather than continuous: it should be as easy to jump out as it is to dive in. Above all it should not suck away so much time, energy and interest as to leave the writer a husk, staring at an empty page but with no idea how to full it: a writing career can do that unaided.

Writers need skins which are simultaneously thick and thin. We have to be sensitive enough to the world to want to write about it, and at the same time impervious to the slings and arrows that accompany any attempt to do so. We must be human Goretex: the rains of rejection run off our mallard backs, while the vapours of story, conflict and drama diffuse freely through our semipermeable outer membranes.

Medicine fulfills some, but not all, of the criteria in the job description, and it is (or was) easier to leave completely for a time than to try to combine it with other things: I’ve left twice, for periods of one and four years, but always returned. There is no doubt that medicine offers exposure in full unflinching detail to the stories of people in crisis, with all the conflicts they bring to A&E or the ward: but it is not always easy to leave them behind at the end of a working day, and go home to write novels of historically set adventures at sea or screenplays adapted from them.

I read with envy the accounts of writers who sit down at their desks at precisely 9.15 every morning, sharpen a brand new HB pencil, and rise at precisely 12.45 with precisely 1500 new words written. I’ve never had the self-discipline to approach writing that way, and suspect that if I tried

Balance: Stephen Potts tt on Bamburgh beach

WORK WORK

E C N A L A B I’d be left with pages which were either blank or ripped to shreds — not to mention whole fistfuls of gnawed and broken HB pencils. It’s always taken me ages to get down to the actual business of writing.

The demands of the day job and family life have forced a measure of change. On Wednesdays, I have exactly six hours before picking up my daughter from school. If I don’t use that time no one will care but me (and perhaps my agent): I force myself to sit down, log out from Facebook, and get down to business, while ignoring the non-urgent hospital calls and redirecting the urgent ones. In this respect at least the day job has changed my writing life for the better, though I suspect if I quit or retire my new-found discipline will soon be lost.

For a day job worth doing for reasons other than money alone, it is important to be able to draw down the shutters between the respective parts of your working mind. If you’re in the midst of a tricky clinical problem or, a difficult meeting, you can’t be thinking about the character of your antagonist: and if you’re at your desk, rewriting that character, you can’t afford to wonder how your patients are doing today, or to anticipate the consequences of yesterday’s health board meeting.

There’s a further issue if the day job is in any

I’ll heed that dismissive old sneer — don’t give up the day job — but, as ever, I’ll concentrate on the first three words

■■ www. stephenpotts.net

way clinical: it is simply wrong to be listening to a patient’s story and be thinking ‘This is great material’ — and any patient who suspects you are doing it would rightly be furious. That’s not to say the cumulative seam of patient stories, laid down over eons, can’t be mined for the purposes of a novel or a screenplay. You can burn the coal: but not individual trees. It’s only recently that this question has arisen for me. My two careers, medicine and writing, began independently and developed with almost no overlap for a long time. So far I have resisted writing much about the world of my day job, but it’s inevitable the parallel tracks would cross some day.

I’ve done a few short plays for stage and radio on medical themes, and I am currently writing, entirely on spec, a medical TV drama series that draws heavily on the experience I have gained in my day job over many years.

I’m now actively looking to semi-retire by cutting out the sessions in A&E, and concentrating solely on the transplant work. If that happens I expect to be combining the day job and the writing for a few years yet. If the writing gigs then dry up, I’ll heed that dismissive old sneer — don’t give up the day job — but, as ever, I’ll concentrate on the first three words.

Summer 2013 UK Writer 29

C A M

The life and work of Malcolm Hulke

Dr Who writer, Communist and first editor of Guild News – John Williams on the life and work of Malcolm Hulke

IN 1955 the UK broadcasting landscape changed with the advent of Independent Television. The new companies such as ATV, Granada and ABC recognised that audiences wanted something different from the rather starchy fare on offer from the BBC, and as part of their strategy commissioned a huge quantity of drama in the form of series, serials and the more prestigious single plays. This opened up the market to a number of aspiring writers including Malcolm ‘Mac’ Hulke who is the subject of my forthcoming book.

Hulke and his first writing partner Eric Paice were involved in the radical organisation Unity Theatre before they decided to seize the moment and submit a television play to ABC. After initial

Dr Who (Jon Pertwee) 99

rejection they found success with the BBC before going on to work together on such famous series as Armchair Theatre and Pathfinders In Space before amicably going their separate ways. After the initial euphoria of starting a writing career in the late 1950s, Hulke (despite working on high-profile series like The Avengers) began to find the industry less forgiving and commissions harder to come across.

For a freelance like Hulke, life was a series of calls to your agent, hopeful pitches to commissioning editors and an increasingly urgent need to find regular work on an ongoing series such as a soap opera.

In Hulke’s case, after a false start at the BBC with United!, a soap about a football club, he eventually found steady work as a member of the writing team on the wildly popular Crossroads. At around the same time in 1969 he finally established himself as a regular scriptwriter on Doctor Who which was going through a renaissance thanks in part to the introduction of colour television and the immense popularity of Jon Pertwee in the title role. Through his contributions to the series, Hulke achieved what

meets one of Mac Hulke’s terrifying Sea Devils

30 UK Writer Summer 2013

most writers secretly desire — a small measure of immortality. Hulke died relatively young in 1979 but the ongoing cult of Doctor Who has only been strengthened by the success of the BBC’s 2005 relaunch, and some of Hulke’s creations have reappeared and captivated a new generation of fans.

It was the Doctor Who connection that first piqued my interest in Hulke. As a small child I loved the programme and like many others cowered in fear when confronted by Hulke’s scariest monsters, the terrifying Sea Devils. Later, I read and re-read his novelisations of the television stories, which alongside those of his friend and occasional writing partner Terrance Dicks, were a crucial part of my childhood. As I and my contemporaries have grown into our forties, there is still a desire from some of us to discover more about those people responsible for creating the series we love and (occasionally) love to hate, and so I was very happy when Miwk Publishing commissioned me to write a biography of the enigmatic man.

What strikes me as most interesting about Hulke is not just his Doctor Who work but how he reflects and in some way epitomises the writers that were just as much a part of the television landscape in the ‘golden age’ as recognised greats such as Dennis Potter, Alan Plater and John Hopkins. In his early years, Hulke was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and despite working in such a solitary profession his sense of collective responsibility naturally led to his heavy involvement in the founding of the Writers’ Guild.

He edited the first few issues of Guild News in 1960, and later went on to compile the two highly successful and influential volumes of the Writers’ Guide in 1968 and 1970. Hulke took a real pride in his work for the Guild, recognising that, particularly in the 1950s, market expansion could easily lead to exploitation unless writers stuck together.

While researching this biography I have spoken to Hulke’s surviving family, scoured the BBC Written Archive, read the existing correspondence and interviewed his contemporaries. Gradually a picture has emerged of an intensely private, somewhat wounded man, with a generous spirit towards his fellow writers and a professional and unpretentious approach to his craft. I am finding further lines of enquiry all the time and I’m sure there is more information about Hulke out there still waiting to be discovered. If anyone reading this article knew Malcolm Hulke, and have any memories that they would like to share, then I would love to hear from you. I can be contacted at pjwill@gmail.com.

agreements

A guide to Writers’ Guild agreements SECURING minimum terms agreements, setting out the rights of writers and the (minimum) they can be paid, is one of the most important roles of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. Staff and volunteer members put in huge amounts of time and expertise to ensure that the role of writers is recognised appropriately. The agreements outlined below benefit all writers, but Guild members are the ones the others have to thank. The more writers who join the Guild, the stronger we are in negotiations.

All the agreements can be found on the Writers’ Guild website. If you have any questions about any of them, please contact the Guild office.

TELEVISION

BBC TV Agreements There are three new BBC TV agreements that came into force in 2012.

Television Script Agreement This is the successor to many previous agreements between the Guild and the BBC over the decades and sets out the minimum terms for most mainstream drama and sitcom contracts — not only minimum fees, but also advances, repeat fees, credits, pension rights and much more.

General Script Agreement

Writers’ Guild agreements cover all the main British television channels. Sky has yet to sign up formally to an agreement but, in practice, they tend to follow the PACT agreement. Agreements

BBC TV MINIMUM RATES FOR WRITERS (2013) Per min. £

Per 60 min. £

Teleplays

180

10,800

Series/serials

164

9,840

Dramatisations

118

7,080

72

4,320

110

6,600

Adaptations Educational drama Attendance fees Shorter scripts and children’s drama and comedy

£96 180

Online commissions a) Teleplays

90

b) Series/serials

82

Educational drama

110

Scripts for Children’s programming excluding drama and comedy

110

Attendance fees

£96

The following rates therefore apply to the sketch agreement: Television Sketch material

for television also include pension contributions for those who are members of the Writers’ Guild pension scheme.

101

Children’s television sketch material

81

Online commissions

51

A new agreement closely modelled on the Television Script Agreement that extends Guild terms to broadcast scripts under 15 minutes, material commissioned primarily for online use, drama within documentaries, some animation, and other areas.

Sketch Agreement This is a completely re-drafted agreement, replacing an obsolete contract after many years trying to bring rewards for sketch writing in line with the modern TV and entertainment industry.

The new system agreed with the BBC will bring writers extra payments when their work proves popular on the BBC iPlayer, thanks to a new service — Writers Digital Payments (WDP) — set up jointly by the Guild and the agents’ trade body, the Personal Managers’ Association. When TV programmes are accessed online, the writer will be paid in proportion to the number of viewers who decide to watch them. This form of TV watching is expected to grow massively now that the latest Smart TVs and YouView boxes will enable millions of viewers to access online programmes directly on their living-room TV sets.

The key points of the new agreements are: ■■ The 15% surcharge on upfront fees that all TV writers have received since 2002 will disappear — to be redistributed both by WDP and by far higher repeat payments for the ‘secondary’ channels such as BBC3, BBC4, CBBC and Cbeebies.

Summer 2013 UK Writer 31

■■ The Guild’s collective agreements with the BBC are expanded to cover — for the first time — programmes shorter than 15 minutes, drama segments within documentaries, adult-oriented animations, shows written solely for online use, exploitation of programme formats and characters in a wide range of live performances, merchandising, etc.

■■ Repeat fees on the ‘network’ channels BBC1 and BBC2 are cut to a 50% residual in peaktime and 20% offpeak, in a move designed to bring homegrown archive material into the increased number of repeat slots, especially on daytime TV. It is expected that the same amount of money will be spread among a much larger range of TV writers past and present.

■■ There will be further negotiations to safeguard payments to children’s TV writers when kids’ programmes disappear from BBC1 and BBC2 early next year.

■■ Special arrangements have been put in place to ensure that existing writers on EastEnders, Casualty, Holby and Doctors do not lose out.

ITV Script Agreement

The Writers’ Guild signed a milestone agreement with ITV in 2010 to bring minimum fees more into line with current standards and introduce 100% advances on many shows for the first time.

The key points are: ■■ 7.5 % pension contribution for paid-up Guild members ■■ A 100% ‘subsequent use advance’ — although this does not apply to long-running series, regional, digital-only or daytime commissions.

This brings ITV into line with the Guild’s BBC and PACT TV agreements ■■ Lower repeat fees — a residual payment of 50 per cent for peak time, 25 per cent for daytime and shoulder peak, and 15 per cent for night-time, with a 25 per cent discount for any repeat within seven days of the first transmission. The Guild agreed this concession because it believes it will keep UK material on screens in preference to cheap imported shows — particularly in daytime slots — and therefore maximise the payments flowing to our members ■■ Establishment of a Forum which will meet quarterly to keep the terms and conditions under review, agree terms for new services, and deal with any problems or complaints relating to the agreement or experienced by writers commissioned under the agreement.

Current minimum rates (2013) Original Teleplay: £12,650 per hour slot length (pro rata) Series and Serials: £9,900 per hour slot length (pro rata) Long Running Series: £3,300 per half-hour slot length (pro rata) 32 UK Writer Summer 2013

As well as agreements with the BBC and ITV, on the WGGB website you can also find agreements and rates for S4C and for PACT (the producers organisation) governing work with Channel 4.

Plus, there is a document published by the Guild: Working With Writers – A good practice guide for TV programme makers.

THEATRE The Guild has agreements covering almost all professional theatre in the UK. As with TV, they include mimimum rates and the rights of writers in areas such as rehearsal attendance and script changes.

TNC Agreement The first agreement to be negotiated between playwrights and managements was with the National Theatre, the RSC and the Royal Court, organised as the Theatres National Committee (TNC), and signed in 1979. The Theatres National Committee no longer exists as an entity, but the acronym TNC is used for convenience to describe this agreement.

The agreement was substantially revised twice, in 1993 and 2007.

The first agreement established the basic principles of all playwrights’ agreements: ■■ Writers are paid an upfront fee as well as a percentage royalty ■■ Writers of non-commissioned plays are paid the same as writers of commissioned plays ■■ Management participation in a writer’s future earnings is limited by a threshold ■■ Playwrights enjoy a ‘bill of rights’, including the right to be consulted about personnel, to maintain the play’s textual integrity, to attend rehearsals (and to be paid for so doing), and to be consulted over publicity.

The 2007 agreement made some substantial revisions. The main gains for writers were: ■■ The total up-front fee for a play was increased in all RSC, NT and RC spaces except for the Theatre Upstairs. Following cost of living increases, that total in 2012 is £11,500.

■■ Loopholes were removed in the rehearsal payment system, ensuring that playwrights are paid not just for attending rehearsals, but for attending workshops and readings, and undertaking other production-related tasks.

■■ For the first time, the reimbursement of writers’ hotel and accommodation expenses was guaranteed, both during rehearsals and during workshops, auditions and research.

■■ Writers were guaranteed control over the use of clips of their shows in publicity and on theatre websites.

TMA Agreement Closely based on the TNC agreement, the 1986 Theatrical Managers’ Association (TMA)agreement is the oldest of the three theatre contracts currently in use. Its main principles are: ■■ Writers are paid an upfront fee as well as a percentage royalty ■■ Writers of non-commissioned plays are paid the same as writers of commissioned plays ■■ Management participation in a writer’s future earnings is limited by a threshold ■■ Playwrights enjoy a ‘bill of rights’, including the right to be consulted about personnel, to maintain the play’s textual integrity, to attend rehearsals (and to be paid for so doing), and to be consulted over publicity.

The agreement was revised in 1993, and its financial terms are regularly updated.

Negotiations are under way to revise the agreement as a whole.

It covers the reps and other subsidised buildingbased theatres (from Live Theatre, Newcastle to Chichester), London building-based theatres (except for the NT, RSC, the Court and the West End, but including the Almeida, the Bush, Hampstead, the Lyric Hammersmith, the Orange Tree, the Soho and the Tricycle) and some of the large and medium-sized touring companies (including Cheek

by Jowl, Out of Joint, Propeller and Graeae). The agreement covers plays the companies present in their own buildings and on tour (except in the West End and at the National, RSC and the Royal Court), including plays for children but excluding theatre in education.

Payment schedules are somewhat complicated, but are set out in full in the agreement.

ITC Agreeement The Independent Theatre Council (ITC) Agreement was the final agreement to be negotiated. Because practices, forms of work and the role of the writer are much more varied in the small-scale sector, reaching the agreement was a lengthy process. The agreement was ratified in 1991, and substantially revised in 2002.

It takes the form of a collective agreement (defining terms and outlining procedures), a section defining the minimum terms and conditions, and a model contract.

The agreement’s financial terms are regularly updated. Negotiations are under way to revise the agreement as a whole.

The ITC is the management organisation for small-scale theatre. The ITC companies listed in 2002 (when the current agreement was signed) include Clean Break, DV8, Eastern Angles, Forest Forge, Hull Truck, Kali, Kneehigh, Pentabus, Red Shift, the Soho, Tamasha, Tara and Theatre Alibi. There are also several theatre-in-education companies.

Some of these companies are now part of the

TMA, for example, Hull Truck and the Soho.

There is an agreed single fee for various lengths of play that applies to all ITC companies, with a royalty on top. The total fee for a full-length play is currently £7,880.

Musical Theatre Guidelines for musical theatre productions have been agreed between the Writers’ Guild, the Personal Managers’ Association and Mercury Musical Developments.

The Guild, in partnership with The Antelopes group of playwrights, has produced two guidelines for theatre writers: Agreements and Contracts (explaining the various agreements) and Engaging With Theatres (setting out examples of good practice for playwrights and theatres to follow). Both sets of guidelines can be downloaded from the Guild website.

David Edgar introduces the guidelines below.

In the old days, getting a play on wasn’t easy, but it was simple. You’d send a play off to a theatre, and, if they read it, they might decide to put it on. The production would be cast, designed and marketed largely without your input. If the director felt like it, you might attend the read-through and a late run, to check on what changes had been made in your play. After it opened you’d get some money, in the form of a percentage of the box office. In the 1970s and 1980s, all that changed. In collaboration with the Writers’ Guild, a new Theatre Writers’ Union negotiated binding, minimum terms agreements with, first, the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court. Then agreements were negotiated with the rest of the building based sector, and finally with independent, non-building based companies.

These agreements gave playwrights an up-front commission fee (or an option fee if the play wasn’t commissioned) as well as a royalty. It guaranteed the playwright the right to approve or prevent any changes in their play, to be consulted over the choice of directors and actors, as well as over casting and marketing, and to attend rehearsals.

Despite dire warnings by theatres, these changes didn’t lead to a drop in the number of new plays being presented, but, over time, the reverse.

Over the last couple of decades, things have become more complicated. Encouraged by the Arts Council, expanding literary departments came up with schemes to develop young playwrights in particular, including seed money schemes, attachments, mentoring, readings, workshops and scratch productions of various kinds. There is a growing number and variety of co-written plays, and playwrights are increasingly working outside theatres in the community and in schools.

None of these forms of development fitted within the existing agreements, and playwrights found some aspects of them irksome and even Summer 2013 UK Writer 33

exploitative. On the other hand, these schemes were designed in good faith and led to many more new plays being done, particularly over the past 10 years (during which the number of new plays presented in the building-based subsidised theatre has more than doubled).

In order that playwrights can get their plays on, but also get the best deal for their work, the Writers’ Guild has collaborated with the Antelopes playwrights’ group to produce two sets of guidelines: Agreements and Contracts outlines the current agreements the Guild has with theatres in (we hope) comprehensible language. Engaging with Theatres describes the various schemes to develop writers and their work which lie outside our current agreements, with examples of best (and worst) practice and guidelines for playwrights and theatres to follow.

The idea of these booklets is to inform and arm playwrights and their agents, and also to help theatres and companies to get the best out of playwrights. As we seek to preserve and improve our agreements, we hope that theatres will endorse and implement our recommended guidelines.

Please let us know of your experiences of the theatre-playwright relationship — where it goes right and where it goes wrong. We are also keen to hear how our agreements and guidelines work, and how they might be improved.

Since our first agreements were negotiated, the number of working playwrights has expanded hugely. Good agreements, contracts and guidelines are vital to keep new work at the core of the British theatre.

RADIO

Rights for BBC Radio drama writers and the rates they are paid are covered by the BBC Radio Drama Agreement (RDA). The Guild signed a revised version of this in 20011, covering commissions for Radios 3 and 4. Significant changes included: A new form of special abridgement combining elements of abridging and dramatisation. This is already in use for some Woman’s Hour dramatisations and could be used for other drama slots. The minimum commissioning rate is 55% of the main RDA rate.

A concession allowing the Woman’s Hour slot to be commissioned at per-minute rates for the actual length of each episode, currently 13 or 14 minutes, instead of the ‘slot-length’ commissioning that applies to all other drama and comedy slots.

The minimum for Woman’s Hour is 10 minutes per episode.

Plays on Radio 3 and 4 can now be made available as podcasts. A small additional fee of 1 per cent of the original fee will be paid to the writer.

The Radio Drama Agreement is jointly 34 UK Writer Summer 2013

negotiated by a Forum comprising the Writers’ Guild, Society of Authors, the agents’ trade body the Personal Managers’ Association, and the BBC. Repeats and commissions on BBC Radio 7, shortly to be relaunched as Radio 4 Extra, are covered by a different agreement.

RADIO RATES Bernie: do you have a list of the 2013 rates (I know they were increased by 1% in 2013 but I can’t find the numbers). Also, what governs rates for comedy?

FILM Bernie: not sure what to say about film. Is it just that a new agreement with PACT is being sought and writers should ask advice from the Guild about agreements? Plus there is the good practice guide.

VIDEOGAMES, ANIMATION AND ONLINE, COMIC BOOKS There are no minimum terms agreements covering videogames, animation, online or comic books but the Guild has produced important good practice guides for each of these three areas. Any writers working in these areas should consult the Guild if they have queries about contracts.

new guild members Full Members Oladipo Agboluaje Scott Andrews Amma Asante Antony Ballantyne Katie Baxendale Marco Biceci Peter Bowker Chris Boyle Chloe Bruce Melissa Bubnic Justin Butcher Sergio Casci Ross Clarke Martin Cloake Jeremi Cockram Michael Conley Matthew Cooke Tessa Davies Richard Dinnick John Dryden James Fitzgerald Paddy Fletcher Graham Goring James Graham John Graham Davies Tom Green Michael Grothaus Gareth Gwynn Vivienne Harvey Greg Hemphill Katie Hims Jules Horne Laurence Howarth Victoria Howell Helen Jacey Mike James Georgia Keighery Danny King Glen Laker David Lamb Richard Lumsden Paul Mari Bethan Marlow Sharon Marshall Debbie Martin David McDonald Donald McLeary Ayeesha Menon Richard Messenger Andrew Mettam

Katherine Mitchell Rachel Musk Julius Mtyambizi-Dewa Nuala O’Sullivan Nick Payne Jeff Povery Adriam Poynton Philip Ralph Gordon Ramsey Darrin Reay Kim Revill Aled Richards Phelim Rowland Paul Shottner Annie Siddons Sundeep Sidhu David Simmons Jan Smith Justin Smith Andrew Smith Malcolm Stone Kay Stonham Chris Sullivan Kirstie Swain Abigail Tarttelin Pater Tisma Jenifer Toksvig Johnny Tudor Ben Vanstone Alex Verner Graham Warrener Cynthia Wild Vivienne Young

Candidate Members Forename Surname Sasha Ackland Robert Aitchison David Alpin Catherine Arden Jen Bailey Josh Baker Graeme Benson Diane Benton Q-Ell Betton Nadeem Bhujwala Nicholas Boocock Susanna Booth Darren Brealey Christopher Breen Rosie Brown

Sophie Caramigeas Justin Carr Max Caskie Peter Cole Sarah Conrad Kenneth Corbett Sean Cresswell Andrew Curtis Matthew Davies Paul Davies Ellen Dean Paloma Del Rey Cressida Dickens-Haynes David Donovan Patricia Downey John Downs Alison Doyle William Drew Christian Ellingsen Jane Foster Elizabeth Fotheringham Lisa Gifford Sarah Goddard Kieran Gould-Dowen Cheryl Green Simon Grenville Paul Groom Leesa Harker Jack Hayward Brian Herring John Hickman Rick Hughes Gabriel Hunter Joe Hurst Safirah Irani Mujammil Irfan Neil Jagggers Evan Jones Shane Joshua Freyja Joyner Philippa Juul Ashley Keable Carole Kelly Shirley Kenyon Yasmin Khan Murgai Louise Lakey Lizzy Mace Rapinder Mann Barry McCann Peter McCleery Mark McDermott Catherine McDonald

Frank McEntaggart Craig Mercer Diane Messias Janine Meston David Montague Michael Morris Martin Mulgrew Patricia Murphy Lee Murwira Sarah Myles Debbie Nagioff Kenechi Okuefuna Lisa Orban Alex Orchard-Lisle Nicola Owen Benjamin Parent Kim Parker Jose Pecino Susan Peters Melissa Philips Nathan Picart Roy Poland-O’Wosu Malcolm Rodgers Rebecca Russell Mark Ryall Miranda Sem Sarah Shafi Jay Shawyer Mark Skinner Jane Skinner Joy Smith Leigh Smith Anthony Stevens Sarah Stuart Natasha Sutton-Williams Gregory Taylor Mark Turner Paul Turp Fatima Uygun Paul Wharton Yvonne Wheeler Samuel White Henry Whitfield Alan Whittaker Paul Wiggins Paul Wignall Tracy Wiloughby Kate Wiloughby Colin Wilson Mark Winter Gini Woodward James Wootton Summer 2013 UK Writer 35