鲍鱼tv

Welcome to the first of a new series of regular updates on our blog from the team at 鲍鱼tv Writers. We’re aware that a lot of the work that we’re doing here is going on in the background and we’re keen to share some of the latest news, updates and opportunities.

Firstly you may have noticed that we have a new name and a new look! From this week we’ll be known as 鲍鱼tv Writers, losing the ‘Room’ suffix after 23 years of loyal service. Our rebranding is part of a bigger refresh across the whole of the 鲍鱼tv which began back in October 2021 with core services including News, Sport and iPlayer. This is now being rolled out across the organisation. We saw this as an opportunity to revisit our name, which has tended to cause some confusion in recent years, as the  has become more familiar in this country. (There had also been an intractable problem relating to an apostrophe, but it’s better not to dwell on that … )

Regardless of what we are called, our core purpose - to find, develop and champion the best scriptwriting talent from across the UK and Republic of Ireland - remains the same.

With that in mind, a reminder that our next Open Call script submission window is open from next week (Tuesday 7th November) until noon on Tuesday 5th December. This is our main annual opportunity, open to all writers aged 18 or over and based in the UK or Republic of Ireland. Full details are here. The outcome for writers who are successful in the Open Call is the possibility of a place in one of two of our development groups, Voices which includes around 70 writers each year, is run from our six hubs across the UK, and lasts for six months or Scripted which lasts for 12 months and includes the creation of a new ‘spec’ script with the support of a professional Script Editor.

If you’re looking for advice for your Open Call submission, then watch our webinar from earlier this week .

Even if you don’t gain a place in one of our groups this time (and most of the writers in the groups have entered our Open Call several times before they gain a place) you still get on our radar, which can include invitations to events or opportunities. The most recent of these, ‘In Conversation with Jesse Armstrong’ took place last Friday in the Radio Theatre in 鲍鱼tv Broadcasting House in London. Jesse is the brilliant co-creator (with Sam Bain) of shows including Peep Show and Fresh Meat and creator of the BAFTA, Emmy and Golden Globe winning Succession. The attendees included members of our groups and writers who reached the full-read stage of our last Open Call. They were enthralled as Jesse shared pearls of wisdom in response to questions posed by script-guru John Yorke and members of the audience. We also took the opportunity to interview Jesse for our website, so keep an eye out for that, coming soon.

Finally some news relating to our regionally-specific work.

Last week saw the release of the sixth series of The Break – our returning strand of dramatic monologues by writers who are new to broadcast. Watch all four episodes on 鲍鱼tv iPlayer. For this series all the writers are from the West Midlands region and include writers who took part in our Coventry development group as part of Coventry City of Culture back in 2021. Hear from them about the experience of writing their episodes on our blog.

In the meantime, keep watching great new drama from the 鲍鱼tv, including the second series of Time, which began last Sunday on 鲍鱼tv One and is available on 鲍鱼tv iPlayer. You can read and watch interviews with writers Jimmy McGovern and Helen Black (who gained her first scriptwriting break through one of our opportunities) over on our blog.

We’re looking forward to reading your work and will be back with our next update around Christmas.