Part of the BBC Audio Drama Awards.
Awarding £3,000 for the best original script by a writer new to radio, this year’s Imison Award shortlistees are The Chronicles of Wild Hollow by Harvey Badger, Angus Maxwell, and Christian Powlesland; The Lemonade Lads by Faebian Averies; Welcome to Medpatch by Kev Core; and Yellow Lips by Katie Redford. The Award was judged by members of the SoA’s Scriptwriters Group: Ian Billings, Ben Carpenter, Imogen Church, Trish Cooke, Jamila Gavin, Sean Grundy David Morley, Barney Norris, Robin Mukherjee and Rhiannon Tise.
This year’s Tinniswood Award shortlistees, for the best audio drama script of the year, for £3,000, are Life is a Radio in the Dark by Will Eno; Blis-ta by Sonya Hale; and The Piper by Vickie Donoghue & Natalie Mitchell. The judges this year were Nell Leyshon, Christopher William Hill and Oliver Emanuel.
The Imison and Tinniswood Awards are presented each year as part of the BBC Audio Drama Awards and are administered by the Society of Authors and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.
Both awards will be presented as part of the BBC Audio Drama Awards on Friday 25 March in the Radio Theatre.
The awards are sponsored by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society and the Imison Award is also sponsored by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation.
ABOUT THE IMISON AWARD
The Imison Award is administered by the Society of Authors and was founded in memory of BBC script editor and producer Richard Imison. Previous winners include Fraser Ayres, Vicky Foster, Lulu Raczka, Adam Usden, Mike Bartlett, Gabriel Gbadamosi, Lee Hall and Nell Leyshon. We would like to thank all producers, writers and agents who have entered the awards, and the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) for their support.
For images, interview requests or further information, please email Sophia A Jackson at the Society of Authors on sjackson@societyofauthors.org.
ABOUT THE TINNISWOOD AWARD
The Tinniswood Award was established by Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and the Society of Authors to perpetuate the memory of Peter Tinniswood as well as to celebrate and encourage high standards in radio drama. The 2022 award is for a drama broadcast or made available online in the UK between 1 October 2020 and 31 October 2021. Previous winners include Christopher Douglas, Ian Martin, Sarah Woods, Oliver Emanuel, Morwenna Banks, Mike Bartlett, and Colin Teevan. We are grateful to the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) for its generous sponsorship, including the £3,000 prize.
For further information, including photos of shortlisted writers and the late Peter Tinniswood, please contact Theo Jones at the Society of Authors by e-mail at tjones@societyofauthors.org.
The 2022 Imison Award shortlist
The Chronicles of Wild Hollow by Harvey Badger, Angus Maxwell and Christian Powlesland
Produced by Shouting is Funny, Spotify | Listen here
The judges said:
The Chronicles of Wild Hollow is full of bright, comic insights and ideas coupled with some great imagery. We thought this play strongly evoked its fantastical world with some strong laugh out loud moments. There is nice use of sound and a cinematic texture embellished by buoyant and joyful word play. Excellent, fun stuff.
Shouting Is Funny are an independent audio production company. We write our own stories, music and songs, combining them into an exciting and original audio-drama format. We (Angus, Christian and Harvey) graduated together from the Actor-Musicianship BA at Rose Bruford College in 2020, during the pandemic. We formed Shouting Is Funny as a way of creating new work whilst separated, and it’s since grown into a project we are all heavily invested in. As actors and musicians, we have a shared interest in the effect music and songs have on storytelling, so this is an important element of our work. Alongside this, we blend action, adventure and oddball comedy into our writing. As a brand new company, we’re excited to share our content with new listeners, and hope they enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed creating it!
The Lemonade Lads by Faebian Averies
Produced by James Robinson, BBC Cymru Wales for BBC Radio | Listen here
The judges said:
The Lemonade Lads is contemporary and wryly humorous. There is a nice use of form switching artfully and often comedically from voiceover to live action. Averies has a playfulness that is refreshing against a serious topic of mental health. This is a heart-warming tale.
Faebian Averies is an actor/writer and a former Writer in Residence for BBC Wales and National Theatre Wales. Prior to winning the residency, Faebian spent a year in BBC Writersroom being tutored by writers such as Russell T Davies, Nicole Taylor and John Yorke. In autumn 2021 Faebian will perform her play Two Flats on Clifton Street, which won the West End rehearsed reading at Theatre Royal Haymarket for Masterclass, Pitch your Play 2020. During lockdown Faebian was shortlisted for BBC Comedy room, Stockroom with Out of Joint and the Theatre 503 International Playwrighting Award. She also completed a development scheme with Kiln Theatre for North London based artists.
Welcome to Medpatch by Kev Core
Produced by Gary Brown, BBC Radio 4 | Listen here
The judges said:
Welcome to Medpatch immediately feels like an audio experience. We liked the snappy dialogue and the world the writer has created.
Kev Core comes from Birkenhead and has written for BBC Radio 4’s topical comedy programmes The News Quiz and The Now Show. He has also been an in-house comedy writer for CBBC’s Hacker and Dodge. An award-winning crime reporter and journalist, he’s covered incredible developments in artificial intelligence and health, believing science fiction is the perfect medium to tell the human story of a technology which promises almost unimaginable change.
Yellow Lips by Katie Redford
Produced by Tracey Neale, BBC Radio 4 | Listen here
The judges said:
Yellow Lips is moving, beautiful, painful and completely believable. Redford brilliantly captures childhood innocence through terrific writing and great use of the medium. We can see the world through the child but also from an adult’s perspective.
Katie Redford is a writer and actor from Nottingham. She is a BAFTA Rocliffe TV Comedy winner and was also part of the BBC Comedy Writersroom. Her short film ‘Ghosted’ starring Alison Steadman, which she wrote and produced, received the BFI Network award in association with Film Hub Midlands. She has various scripts in commissioned development for TV and is currently listed on the BBC New Talent Hot List. Yellow Lips is her debut drama for Radio 4.
The 2022 Tinniswood Award shortlist
Life is a Radio in the Dark by Will Eno
Produced by Sally Avens, BBC Audio Drama London, 89’, BBC Radio 3
When Davey Maskelyne embarks upon sonic therapy to restore his memory, so he can help solve a crime, the treatment leads to a reckoning with a past he never believed he could recover.
Will Eno is one of America’s most exciting playwrights. Eno first burst on to the scene in Britain with his play Thom Pain (based on nothing) which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
In 2014 his play The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway, where it received a Drama Desk Special Award and was named Best Play on Broadway by USA Today and Best American Play of 2014 by The Guardian. His play The Open House was presented Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2014 and won the Obie Award for Playwriting as well as other awards, and was on both TIME Magazine and Time Out New York’s Top Ten Plays of 2014.
Blis-ta by Sonya Hale
Produced by Mimi Findlay, Clean Break, 56’37’’, Spotify
Kat and Cherry meet on the streets. Kat is wily, funny, and fierce; Cherry is a lost dreamer. Blis-ta is the story of their adventures to survive as homeless girls and the transformative power of friendship.
Sonya Hale was a playwright. Sonya first came to Clean Break as a Member of its theatre education programme and wrote her first short play for Clean Break in 2013, Hours ‘Til Midnight. She has also worked extensively with Synergy Theatre Project and The Outside Edge Theatre Company, where she ran writers’ workshops. She has had plays performed at The Southbank Centre, Latitude Festival, E15 University and in prisons and treatment centres. A rehearsed reading of her first play Glory Whispers was performed at Theatre 503 after winning Synergy Theatre Project’s national prison scriptwriting competition. Her play Dean McBride won the Heretic Voices competition in January 2018 and was performed at The Arcola Theatre. Her most recent play, a collaborative venture with The Big House Theatre Company, called Bullet Tongue, received 5 star reviews in Time Out and The Stage. Sonya died in November 2020 after living with cancer for many years.
The Piper by Vickie Donoghue & Natalie Mitchell
Produced by Kate Rowland and Russell Finch, Somethin’ Else, 24’-27’, BBC Sounds
When strange music makes her niece Ruth vanish, Detective Ali Brake is in a race against time to find her. Unknown to her, daughter Ivy and best friend Eric are one step ahead in uncovering that a terrifying supernatural force is at play.
Vickie Donoghue primarily writes for theatre and radio. Her debut play, Mudlarks, was produced by The Bush, following its premiere at the High Tide Festival. Other plays include Tender Loving Care (New Theatre Royal Portsmouth) and Game Over (The Garage, Norwich; The Cut, Halesworth). Her adaptation of The Witchfinder’s Sister is about to open at the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch. Vickie is currently under commission to Paines Plough and is their playwright Fellow 20/21.
Vickie’s first radio play The Gift was broadcast on Radio 4 in September 2018. Her 9-part Podcast drama The Piper, co-written with Natalie Mitchell and produced by Somethin’ Else for BBC Sounds, was broadcast in November 2020 and was named Drama of the week for Radio 4.
Vickie was longlisted for the Evening Standard Theatre Awards as Most Promising New Playwright 2012 and in 2013 was shortlisted for the Royal National Theatre Foundation Playwright Award.
Natalie Mitchell writes for television, theatre and radio. Her nine-part podcast drama for BBC Sounds, The Piper, co-written with Vickie Donoghue, is currently available and was named drama of the week on Radio 4. She has series’ in development with Red Planet, Lime Pictures and Bryncoed and is under commission to Warts and All Theatre Company. She was named on the Edinburgh TV Festival’s Ones To Watch Scheme 2019 and the BBC Talent Hot list 2017.
TV credits include episodes of Ackley Bridge, Holby City and Doctors, and several years as a core writer on EastEnders. Theatre work includes Can’t Stand Me Now as part of the Royal Court Young Writers’ Festival; Crawling in the Dark at the Almeida; When They Go Low for the National Theatre Connections Programme; To My Younger Self for Synergy Theatre and Germ Free Adolescent at the Bunker Theatre.