Awarding £3,000 for the best original script by a writer new to radio, this year’s Imison Award shortlistees are Tether by Isley Lynn, The Mini-Break by Chloë Myerson, Tribe of Two By Malaika Kegode and Under Milk Woods Tywyn by Manon-Steffan-Ros The award was judged by members of the Society of Authors’ Scriptwriters Group: Ian Billings, Imogen Church, James Clarke and Sean Grundy, Robin Mukherjee and Rhiannon Tise.
Edson Burton, Satinder Chohan, Robert Forrest and Dan Rebellato are the shortlisted writers for this year’s Tinniswood Award, which is organised by the Society of Authors and Writers Guild of Great Britain to recognise the best audio drama script of the year. The Tinniswood Award judges this year were Nicola Baldwin and Lucy Gough (co-chairs of the WGGB Audio Committee), 2021 Tinniswood Award winner Christopher Douglas and Writers’ Guild Best Radio Drama 2018 winner Ming Ho.
The Imison and Tinniswood Awards are presented each year as part of the BBC Audio Drama Awards. The 2025 awards are for a drama broadcast or made available online in the UK between 1 October 2023 and 31 October 2024.
Both awards will be presented as part of the BBC Audio Drama Awards on Sunday 30 March in the Radio Theatre. See the full list of BBC Audio Drama Awards finalists here.
The 2025 Imison Award shortlist
Tether by Isley Lynn | Listen here
Producer/Director Fay Lomas | A BBC Audio Wales production for Radio 4, 44 mins
It’s 2010. Becky’s a blind marathon runner after a new guide. Mark’s a former ‘Olympic Hopeful’, after a fresh chance at a medal. Together, they start training for the Paralympics. Tether spans the years and miles of their relationship. The drama starred BAFTA-Cymru winner Mared Jarman (creator of BBC 2’s How This Blind Girl…) and Tommy Sim’aan.
The judges said: ’It was a confident piece of writing and brilliant setting for an audio drama. It was also a wonderful way to play with the act of listening and how we form images in our minds. It had excellent, sharp dialogue and we enjoyed the slow unfurling of two beautifully defensive, spiky characters. There was a lovely blend of humour and awkwardness and the interruptions in the dialogue, which added to the sense of movement and direction. It was a great use of the medium and the short sentences added to the rhythm of the piece, the way it was structured and the way it moved. Overall, it was a lovely piece of radio and a confident piece of writing.’
Isley Lynn (she/they) is a writer and poet. Their latest play is Jobsworth, co-written with Libby Rodliffe (Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe). It’s in development for television with Brock Media. Isley won a Most Promising Playwright Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2023 for THE SWELL (Orange Tree), which received a 2024 Olivier Awards nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre, and was nominated for Best New Play, Best Director and Best Production at the 2023 Offies. They are a graduate of Royal Court Young Writers Programme, the Royal Court Invitation Studio Group and Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writer’s Group.
The Mini-Break by Chloë Myerson | Listen here
Producer/Director Anne Isger | BBC Radio 4, 44 mins
Esme’s meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time on a weekend break to Copenhagen. But when she discovers a dark family secret, making a good impression becomes the least of her worries. A modern-day folk-horror story about family, fate, and meeting-the-parents, inspired by the writing of Hans Christian Andersen.
The judges said: ‘It is a snappy, buoyant and a thoroughly engaging story with intriguing moments wrong-footing the listener throughout. There’s a vibrant sense of magical realism and a strong spine of tension running through it. The writer understands the economies of radio without allowing this to constrain them. It was also haunting and bewitching and we loved the use of sound. It begins like a romcom but then there’s this creeping undertone of horror and impending doom. The juxtaposition of this folklore and magical world worked well’.
Chloë Myerson is a writer for TV, theatre and film. Her original drama pilot Let Go of Me is in development with Fremantle US and she has developed original series with Caryn Mandabach Productions, RoughcutTV and Warner Bros. Her theatre work has been produced at Vault Festival, the Bunker Theatre, Young Vic (Freshworks) and Theatre N16, and her play The Mini-Break for BBC Radio 4 was named Drama of the Week. Chloe has trained on the BBC Studios Writers Academy and Channel 4 Screenwriting Course. She recently won a place on Jeremy O. Harris’ Gucci x Substratum Writers’ Residency after her play Class was one of five plays shortlisted from 1,700 entries for the Yale Drama Series Award.
Tribe of Two by Malaika Kegode | Listen here
Executive Producer, Nicolas Jackson | BBC Radio 4, 44 mins
Director/Producer, Jesse Fox
Growing up in Devon’s sleepiest market-town, Mari has never felt she belongs. There’s the day-to-day trials of being a mixed-race kid in noughties rural England. And then there’s Baba, her larger-than-life Zimbabwean father – a local celebrity on the world-music festival circuit. Baba is desperate for Mari to follow in his footsteps, and Mari plays along. Literally. But she feels little connection to a country and a culture that Baba has always been strangely reluctant to talk about. All that changes one blissful, teenage summer, when a daring distant cousin comes to visit from Zim. A fuse is lit in Mari that will blow the certainties of her old life apart. When she swaps Baba’s world of festivals for university in Plymouth, the town’s straight-talking, rough-edged gay scene offers a fresh sense of identity. But will Mari’s new-found strength be enough to confront the dark family secret her cousin will reveal?
The judges said: ’It was a joy to see music so closely woven with character and story, making full use of the power of audio drama. At the same time, the characters were completely compelling, as the story navigated the hazards of growing up, displacement and identity. The sense of place was beautifully rendered, in all its variety. The voice over gave us a powerful insight into the troubles of the central character, and her struggle to understand and accept both the world and herself. This was a wonderful read which lingered long after the last page’.
Malaika Kegode is an award-winning writer, performer, theatre-maker and Associate Director for Theatre Royal Plymouth. Her work focuses on uplifting and celebrating the overlooked, misunderstood and underrepresented. Her gig-theatre show Outlier – an autobiographical piece about addiction and isolation in rural England, performed with prog-rock band Jakabol – first appeared on Bristol Old Vic’s main stage in 2021. Malaika received the Apples and Snakes Jerwood Arts Poetry in Performance Award (2021) and the Kevin Elyot Award (2022). She has published three poetry collections (Requite, Thalassic and Body Buffet) and performed around the UK at a number of celebrated venues, festivals and literary events, including the 100 Club, WOMAD and Hay Festival. Malaika has also been included in the BME Power List, celebrating Bristol’s most influential Black and minority ethnic people.
Under Milk Woods Tywyn by Manon Steffan Ros | Listen here
Production Co-ordinators Eleri Sydney McAuliffe and Lindsay Rees | BBC Radio 3, 14 mins
Directed by Emma Harding
For the 70th anniversary of the first radio broadcast of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood (25 January 1954), BBC Radio 3 commissioned five short dramatic portraits from different areas of Wales in 2024, inspired by Thomas’s original idea of an omniscient narrator, who invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of a fictional small Welsh fishing town. Each piece focused on a different part of the day. This is the second of those – Tywyn, North Wales by Manon Steffan Ros – ‘Empty Coronation Street that is rising and raising its blinds…’
The judges said ’This may be rooted in a homage to Dylan Thomas but it stands as a work of beauty in its own right. The language is delightfully expressive, tonally resonant and a joy on the ears. The evocation of place, and its people, is tender and moving. Obliquely rendered characters take shape in a swirl of words to become substantial and affecting. There is an air of melancholy about the piece shot through with humour. A real delight’.
Manon Steffan Ros is a novelist and dramatist from North Wales, who lives in Tywyn. She has won multiple awards for her work, including the National Eisteddfod Prose Medal; Book of the Year; Gwobr Tir na Og and the Yoto Carnegie Medal – an international recognition for her own translation of her YA novel Llyfr Glas Nebo: The Blue Book of Nebo.
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 Andrew McCaldon, Connor Allen, Faebian Averies, Fraser Ayres, Vicky Foster, Lulu Raczka, Adam Usden, Mike Bartlett, Gabriel Gbadamosi, and Nell Leyshon. We would like to thank all producers, writers and agents who have entered the awards, and the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and Hawthornden Foundation for supporting.
The 2025 Tinniswood Award shortlist
Man Friday by Edson Burton | Listen here
Directed by Mary Ward-Lowery | BBC Audio Wales and West, BBC Radio 4, 57 minutes
This is a comedy of not fitting in, a witty and original re-imagining of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, from Man Friday’s point of view. Colonialism, economics, race relations, religion: all are considered here through the prism of the developing relationship between Man Friday – or Kofi – and the shipwrecked Crusoe.
The judges said: ’A hugely entertaining take on the Robinson Crusoe story. Friday is an upper-class castaway outraged by Crusoe’s entitled behaviour. But we suspect there’s more to Friday than the arrogant posho we first encounter – and sure enough there is. A slow burn brilliantly achieved, this play skilfully uses the inspiration of a classic tale to reframe assumptions about race and class in a witty and engaging way. Long narrations are often the radio writer’s lazy option, but Edson Burton’s are exquisite. This is a terrific writer with a deep love of language and a thorough understanding of structure.’
Dr Edson Burton is a poet, drama writer, curator and historian. He has been writing radio drama since 2007. His work encompasses urban realism, period drama, horror and the supernatural. His many credits for BBC Radio 4 include the Deacon trilogy,starring Don Warrington, now available on Audible.
Southall Uprising by Satinder Chohan | Listen here
Directed by Nadia Molinari | BBC Studios Audio, BBC Radio 4, 57 minutes
The year 2024 marked the 45th anniversary of the Southall Uprising, a turning point in the birth of an Asian/Black Britain. St George’s Day 1979 is remembered for when this small, hard-working immigrant community fought back against the far right and its calls for immigrant repatriation, forced to collectively defend and assert its right to live, work and exist in a new, emerging multicultural Britain. Satinder Chohan’s drama is based on the true events and testimonies of people who attended the protest in 1979 and was recorded on location in Southall.
The judges said: ’A vivid snapshot in time which effortlessly balances the technical difficulties of immersing the listener in fast-moving events across multiple locations while engaging us in the individual characters’ stories. Memorable moments and glimpses of family life make the unfolding historical narrative immediately accessible. The energetic dialogue, often broken and not always in English, creates an intriguing soundscape and conveys the urgency of community action and a sense of collective loss and emotion at the specific friends lost to racist violence. A compelling piece of realism set on that tragic weekend in Southall in 1979.’
Satinder Chohan is a journalist turned award-winning playwright from Southall who graduated with an MA in English from Yale University. Her plays include: Zameen (Kali Theatre), Kabaddi-Kabaddi-Kabaddi (Pursued By A Bear), Half of Me and Made in India (Tamasha and Belgrade Theatre in association with Pilot Theatre – Best Production Award at the Eastern Eye Awards) and Lotus Beauty (Hampstead Theatre and Tamasha Theatre). She co-adapted Gulliver’s Travels with Mike Kenny (Bolton Octagon) and adapted the novel Girl of Ink and Stars (The Spark Arts). Her National Theatre Connections play Mia and the Fish features in their 30th anniversary year and she is also on a National Theatre attachment for her epic play The Koh-i-Noor Trilogy. Her audio drama includes Garlands and an adaptation of Pam Gems’ Camille for BBC Radio 3. An Associate Artist at Sphinx Theatre, Satinder is also a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of West London.
A Tale of Ossian by Robert Forrest | Listen here
Directed by Kirsty Williams, BBC Audio Scotland, BBC Radio 4, 43 minutes
An old man turns up in hospital with his head full of stories and his pockets full of leaves. No one knows who he is. But when he finally begins to talk, the woman who sits across from him finds herself pulled into his world and captivated by his stories. As we cut between the woman’s domestic life – caring for her mother, grieving the humiliation of a lost marriage – the hospital and a Celtic past, what’s real and what’s imagined becomes an impossible blur. Is this old man Ossian – the mythical figure from Scotland’s past, destined to wonder the earth telling tales of his father – or is he a demented old man?
The judges said: ’A subtle mix of Scottish mythology and the contemporary life of a women coping with her mother’s dementia, this play treads a delicate line successfully with bold and inventive story-telling. Weaving old-fashioned biblical language and mythology with more down-to-earth contemporary speech, it dances between reality and non-reality which adds to our understanding of dementia. Wonderfully descriptive, it conjures rich imagery in the way only audio drama can. An intriguing, mythical exploration of memory, storytelling, and belief. Sophisticated and emotionally absorbing, it poses profound questions, without feeling the need to proffer answers – just like life.’
Robert Forrest is a working-class writer, born and bred in the west coast of Scotland. He has been writing audio drama for over four decades. His radio work includes 11 series of The Pillow Book, inspired by the writings of Sei Shōnagon from 10th-century Japan. He was lead writer for The Complete Smiley series and has dramatised work by an array of novelists, including RL Stevenson, Nabokov, Tolstoy and F Scott Fitzgerald.
Orwell v Kafka: Restless Dreams by Dan Rebellato
Directed by Polly Thomas, Naked Productions, BBC Radio 4, 57 minutes
Restless Dreams was broadcast to mark the centenary of Kafka’s death. Set entirely on a “very strange train”, it is both a mystifying journey and a reflection on the legacy of great literature – the battle between membership of a nation, citizenship of the world, and the dark heart of Europe. It takes place during Max Brod’s urgent train journey in 1939 from Prague, fleeing the Nazis, as the world stood on the brink of WWII. In his suitcase are manuscripts, the unpublished works by Franz Kafka – inestimable treasures for the future. This is a wartime thriller, the tense story of one man smuggling a jewel of world literature to safety, but also a Kafkaesque nightmare, teetering between reality and hallucination, wakefulness and dreaming, echoing Kafka’s writing.
The judges said: ’In Restless Dreams we enter a Kafkaesque dreamworld, with overtones of ‘The Lady Vanishes’. Inventive, pacy, intelligent and vivaciously entertaining, this play consummately matches form and content, making creative use of the audio medium. While remarkably economical, the propulsive script interweaves history, psychology and surrealism as it gathers pace inexorably onwards. Throughout, the tone balances knockabout comedy with tragic events, building towards a closing sequence of breath-taking intensity with the final carriage, which lingers in the mind long after the play has ended.’
Dan Rebellato is a leading dramatist and professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway University. He has written more than 30 individual radio dramas for the BBC and 21 stage plays. He has been shortlisted multiple times for Sony, BBC Audio and WGGB Awards, including winning Silver at the ARIAS 2022 for his BBC Radio 4 drama You & Me. Dan was the lead writer who masterminded the epic 20-hour Emile Zola epic on BBC Radio 4 in 2015-16. He has had stage commissions with Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Plymouth Drum, Suspect Culture and Graeae, Soho Theatre and National Theatre.
ABOUT THE TINNISWOOD AWARD
The Tinniswood Award was established by the 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. Previous winners include Shôn Dale-Jones, Anita Sullivan, Sonya Hale, Christopher Douglas, Ian Martin, Sarah Woods, Oliver Emanuel, Morwenna Banks, Mike Bartlett, and Colin Teevan. Find out more. We are very grateful to the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society for its generous sponsorship, including the £3,000 prize. The 2025 award is for a drama broadcast or made available online in the UK between 1 October 2023 and 31 October 2024.
For further information, including photos of shortlisted writers and the late Peter Tinniswood, please email Sarah Woodley at the WGGB on sarah@writersguild.org.uk.