Category : Radio
3
Date : 09.04.2004
Printable version
New writers
in residence series announced
The Wire – An exciting new line-up
Launch of national competiton for original music drama
New writing commissions for Drama On 3
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91Èȱ¬ Radio 3 is to create an exciting new series of writers'
residencies.
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Starting this Autumn, poet Mario Petrucci takes
on the first of these roles, working with the network on air, online
and at public events to create new works inspired by Radio 3's live
music performances and the network's wide cultural agenda.
New writing is at the heart of 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3's drama output.
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The Wire, the network's monthly series of original
new dramas, launches its fifth season with an exciting line-up of writers
including Lucy Gannon, Patrick Marber, Dennis Kelly,
Lin Coghlan, Linda Brogan and Sean Buckley.
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The Wire gives new talent, as well as established figures
such as former Wire writers Mark Ravenhill, Jeanette Winterson
and Enda Walsh, the opportunity to write bold and innovative
plays for radio.
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This year, development of new writers through the 91Èȱ¬
writersroom Sparks scheme will result in four of the new season's plays
being written by first-time radio dramatists.
This summer Radio 3 will also launch Broken And Blue - a national
competition inviting writers to create an original music drama for radio.
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The competition will be opened in June through the writersroom
and the winning drama will be developed and broadcast on Radio 3 within
a year.
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And from September, Radio 3 and the writersroom will
be inviting applicants for another writers' residency, working with
the network during a year-long season of programmes and events celebrating
the cultures of the countries of the African continent.
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Africa 2005 on Radio 3 will also see the start
of a major new broadcast project to showcase literary and spoken word
traditions from across the continent, including a substantial number
of new commissions and translations.
Kate Rowland, 91Èȱ¬ Creative Director, New Writing says: "Radio 3
is the station where exciting and innovative work can be heard on the
airwaves.
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"The 91Èȱ¬ writersroom works in collaboration with
the network to encourage new writing from as wide a sphere as possible.
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"Radio 3 wants not only to offer major writers
unique broadcast opportunities, but also to encourage and develop the
writers of tomorrow."
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The Verb, Radio 3's language and literature
show, also champions new writing.
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Recent commissions have included new work from Paul
Abbott, Haruki Murakami and Timberlake Wertenbaker.
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Radio 3 is unique in its commitment to broadcasting
longer-form radio drama.
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This year Drama On 3 will see new plays from
Shelagh Stevenson, Georgia Fitch (91Èȱ¬ Radio Drama Writer
in Residence), Snoo Wilson, Colin Teevan and Adam Thorpe.
Notes to Editors
91Èȱ¬ writersroom
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The 91Èȱ¬ has the greatest commitment to new writing of
any organisation in the UK: writersroom is unique in the broadcasting
world.
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It runs scores of projects all over the country in
partnership with many other external partners: theatres, writers' organisations
and film agencies.
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Each year writersroom reads more than 10,000 unsolicited
scripts, runs public events attended by 5,000 writers and helps an average
of 3,500 aspiring writers.
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Each week it has 30,000 page impressions on its website.
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It discovers and develops new talent through bursaries
and placements across the 91Èȱ¬.
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It runs an extensive programme of writers' residencies
within 91Èȱ¬ departments and cities across the country as well as open
competitions that champion new talent and diversity.
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The writersroom works across all 91Èȱ¬ platforms and
departments leading to commissions across 91Èȱ¬ ONE, 91Èȱ¬ TWO, 91Èȱ¬ THREE,
91Èȱ¬ FOUR, Radio 3, Radio 4 and local radio.
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The project's special initiative in the North, 91Èȱ¬
Northern Exposure, works across five cities with six theatres and
is currently working with hundreds of talented new writers.
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Coming up on Drama On 3
11 April - The Art of Love and Resurrection - the last
two plays in Andrew Rissik's trilogy (the first play, Dionysos, was
broadcast on 4 April) are premiered as a double bill on Easter Sunday.
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In his series of plays Andrew Rissik presents three
stories of confrontations between the forces of change and the established
order. The casts include Diana Rigg, Anton Lesser and Robert Hardy.
18 April - Embers - Sandor Marai's best selling novel in a new
version for radio by Lou Stein with music by Deirdre Gribbin.
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Patrick Stewart stars in a gripping battle of wills
as two men meet after a gap of 41 years to unlock the truth behind an
act of betrayal which shattered both their lives.
13 June - Through a Glass Darkly - a blackly comic drama by Shelagh
Stephenson set in 18th century Lincolnshire and 21st century London.
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In 1780, Sir John Collingwood is an eminent artist,
engraver, and substantial landowner, recently returned from the Indies
and America.
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In 2004, Martha Jardine is an obsessive collector of
his work, and renowned expert on his life.
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When she acquires his diaries at auction, she finds
a disconcerting blank where she'd hoped to find the key to the man.
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Why do the diaries reveal so little, apart from what
he had for luncheon? How does the dull quotidian round described in
the pages square with what she knows of Collingwood's life?
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Is there, as her husband Michael suggests, a big lie
at the heart of his story? And if there is, what was he trying to conceal?
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The play explores misinterpretations, hidden histories,
psychology of collecting and the elusive nature of truth.
11 July - How Many Miles to Basra - Colin Teevan's new play is
set against the backdrop of post-Saddam Iraq in 2003.
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Four soldiers, a journalist and their Iraqi translator
find themselves on an unauthorised journey deep into the Iraqi countryside
in a disastrous attempt to make amends for the deaths of some local
men at a vehicle checkpoint.
1 August - The Don - Cervantes' Don Quixote hurtles 400 years
into the future to crash land in the North of England - a new play by
Jeff Young with Bill Nighy as the Don and songs by Harvey Brough.
26 September - Hippomania - by Snoo Wilson. Ambitious young poet
John Betjeman finds himself cultural advisor to the British legation
in Dublin during the Second World War.
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He is given the task of organising the filming for Laurence
Olivier's Henry V. This patriotic task makes him a target for the IRA
but a gunman's love of poetry spares his life.
3 October - Romeo and Juliet in Southwark (working title) - in
collaboration with The Globe, Georgia Fitch (91Èȱ¬ Radio Drama Writer
in Residence) will develop a new play exploring some of the themes in
Romeo and Juliet as experienced by young people in Southwark.
24 October - The Rules of Perspective - a new play from Adam
Thorpe which follows the life and career of an SS art expert in Nazi
Germany.
The Wire
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The Wire is driven by original voices and is broadcast
the first Thursday of every month.
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5 May - Plague - by Lucy Gannon. The bitterness
of frustrated hopes and desires explode amid the plague ridden landscape
of 17th century Derbyshire.
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Writer Lucy Gannon has created and written for many
television dramas including Soldier, Soldier, Bramwell and Peak Practice.
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NB: This programme is broadcast on Wednesday 5 May in
order to allow for the RPS Awards to be broadcast on 6 May.
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3 June - The Colony - by Dennis Kelly. Six tenants
of a South London estate watch a baby crawling along a balcony, and
then falling.
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Caught up in their own obsessions each is unable to
act to help a child literally in peril. A story about urban loneliness
and responsibility from an exciting new writing talent.
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1 July - a new play by Patrick Marber.
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5 August - Ammo - by Lavinia Murray. An anonymous
Manchester co-ed high school is suddenly flung into national and international
notoriety when two of its least popular pupils fetch guns and start
shooting.
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2 September - My Arm - by Tim Crouch. The story
of a boy who puts his arm above his head and keeps it there into adulthood.
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7 October - The Gate - by Jeremy Howe.
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4 November - The Lamb's Show - by Lin Coghlan.
A road movie about two British teenagers who steal a car and escape
to France to lead a more exciting life.
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2 December - Mr Punch - by Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean.
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6 January 2005 - God Can See Down Entries - by
Linda Brogan. Josie, tart or saint. A dark, comedy in the unspoken world
of backstreet Manchester. Raw drama from a bold new talent.
The Verb
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Radio 3's vibrant new language and literature programme
The Verb is broadcast on Saturday evening and presented by performance
poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan.
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The Verb encompasses an eclectic mix of poetry, new
writing, performance, short stories, song, plays, foreign literatures,
language, discussions and audio-cartoons.
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New short stories forthcoming in The Verb:
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A series of contemporary takes on the Greek myths in
the run up to this Summer's Olympics including Panos Karnezi on the
Arachnia story and Lawrence Norfolk on Atlanta.
New writing can also be heard in the strands Between The Ears and
Twenty Minutes.
