We’re starting an exciting six-week season next Tuesday, 21 April. It’s all happening as usual in the function room upstairs at the Famous Royal Naval Volunteer pub, 17-18 King Street, BS1 4EE. Ask at the bar when buying a drink if you need directions to the meeting.
You can find a list of the times, dates and locations of all our meetings until July on the Diary page of our website.
Tuesday, 21 April at 7.30pm: Land of the Prince-Bishops by Michelle Preston
A reading of Michelle’s TV drama about a family torn. Charlotte Prince returns to her home in County Durham to manage its biggest supermarket and is forced to manage her wayward family too. Charlotte’s vivacious mum, Vivien Prince-Bishop, is eager for her successful daughter to pick up the bills her father left behind as well as picking her sister, Flick Bishop, out of the gutter. When her ex, Rex, comes from London to save Charlotte from the dreary North, the whole family becomes indebted to Tom, her childhood sweetheart. But at what cost..? [A moment from this meeting is pictured above.]
Tuesday, 28 April at 7.30pm: Meet Andrew Smaje
Andrew Smaje, Associate Director of Theatre Royal, Bath, and Artistic Director of the Ustinov, will outline his artistic policy and talk about his commitment to developing new writing.
Tuesday, 5 May at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Featuring a 30-minute sitcom by Virginia Bergin.
Tuesday, 12 May at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 19 May at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 26 May at 7.30pm: Meet Nell Leyshon
Award-winning playwright Nell Leyshon will talk about her work for radio and the stage and how life in the West of England has influenced her work.
Bristol Old Vic public meeting
Bristol Old Vic will report on its progress a year on from the renewal of its Arts Council England South West and Bristol City Council funding at a public meeting in the Theatre Royal, King Street, at 6pm this Thursday, 16 April.
The meeting will feature a review of the past year from Dick Penny, BOV’s Executive Chair, and introduce Tom Morris and Emma Stenning, who take up the posts of Artistic Director and Executive Director at the theatre in September. There will also be a Q&A session at which you can put your questions about BOV’s plans to Dick, Tom and Emma.
BOV will be relaying the meeting to all public areas of the theatre complex in case the Theatre Royal is full.
Script Space II success
Many congratulations to Southwest Scriptwriters committee member Gill Kirk whose play Water’s Not So Thick was one of four scripts chosen from 220 submissions for Script Space II, a series of script-in-hand performances on Sunday afternoons at the Tobacco Factory Theatre during May and June.
Gill’s nuptial comedy is second in a line-up centring on the theme of Adversaries, which also features This Thing of Darkness by Emma Spurgin Hussey, Doggerland by Debbie Kent and The American Hotel by Jacqueline McCarrick.
Script Space II is an initiative intended to demonstrate the Tobacco Factory Theatre’s support for creative ambition by showcasing some of the best in contemporary theatre writing. It takes place at 1.30pm on Sundays, 17 and 24 May, and 21 and 28 June, with Gill’s script-in-hand performance on 24 May.
You can also catch Gill on stage in Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy at Bath’s Mission Theatre and the off-West End Jerwood Street Theatre in London during May.
The three-play cycle is being produced by Next Stage Theatre Company, which won Venue magazine’s Top Banana Award for the best theatre show of 2008 for its production of David Eldridge’s Festen (in which Gill also appeared) last spring.
Exeter Northcott Theatre: The Big Read
As part of its commitment to staging new work created in the South West, Exeter Northcott Theatre is inviting playwrights who live, work or study in the region to submit scripts for part-performance in rehearsed readings at the theatre on Monday, 8 and Tuesday, 9 June.
The Northcott’s Big Read team will read and discuss all the entries early next month and send feedback on every writer’s script. Highlights of the plays the team finds most exciting will then be given rehearsed readings on the June dates.
BBC Drama Writers Academy
The BBC is currently accepting applications for its Drama Writers Academy, which has an annual intake of eight students who are trained to contribute to a pool of writing talent for the Corporation’s continuing drama series, principally Doctors, Casualty, Holby City and EastEnders.
Led by John Yorke, the BBC’s Controller of In-House Drama, the course starts in September with three months training in continuing drama consisting of workshops and lectures with intensive writing exercises and analysis. During this period students will be commissioned to write a broadcast episode of Doctors.
After the initial training, writers are assessed to see if their work is of a high enough standard to progress to the next phase of the course in which they are commissioned to write for Casualty, Holby City and EastEnders.
To be eligible for the course you need to have already had at least one professional drama commission in film or television, or a radio drama script produced, or one theatre piece performed professionally.
Bristol Old Vic Writers Room: The Writers’ Lounge
Bristol Old Vic’s Writers Room is launching a new social and networking initiative for writers in the region, the Writers’ Lounge, at the theatre on 14 May.
The Writers’ Lounge is an opportunity for writers to hear about new projects and initiatives at the theatre and to socialise with other writers from the region. It’s planned to hold the event twice a year, in the spring and autumn.
The first Writers’ Lounge on 14 May will take place from 7.30pm until late in BOV’s Circle Bar, featuring music from the Ten Pound Suit Band.