Welcome to our first season of 2002. We hope you’ll find plenty to interest you in the following programme. The Bristol Old Vic needs to tighten security, so is requiring everyone to sign in at the box office and then be taken to the Cooper’s Loft as a group. If you arrive late, I guess you just sign in and find your own way up. We’ll have to see how the new system works out. Everyone attending pays £1.

Tuesday, 22 January at 7.30pm: Open Workshop

Tuesday, 29 January at 7.30pm: An attempt at Cold Feet by John Colborn
Written at a time when there were no plans for a fifth series of Cold Feet, this episode was an attempt to see how the fourth series could be developed.

Tuesday, 5 February at 7.30pm: Open Workshop

Tuesday, 12 February at 7.30pm: Open Workshop

Tuesday, 19 February at 7.30pm: Meet Paul Dodgson
Paul Dodgson is a local writer who has written a couple of episodes of EastEnders and who is currently working on some drama-documentaries for the BBC’s Natural History Unit. Paul will talk to us about his career and answer any questions you may have about developing yours.

 

2001/2002 Competition Update
The good news is that we have successfully achieved £5,000 of lottery funding from Awards for All to put on a production of the winning script and rehearsed readings of the runners-up next Spring. The not-so-good news is that we haven’t yet secured a venue for the event, although we’re optimistic that we will soon. Meanwhile, Andy Graham reports good progress on the judging process, although due to a significantly higher number of entries this year than last, the results may not be known until some time in February (instead of the end of January as had initially been hoped). So if you haven’t yet managed to bite your nails down to the bone, you may have a couple of extra weeks in which to do so…

 

Mother Me Daughter is TAPS runner-up
Congratulations to Anne-Marie McCormack whose screenplay for Mother Me Daughter won her the runner-up award at the TAPS Writer of the Year ceremony in the Completed Short Film category. The awards were presented at the BAFTA HQ in London.

 

Mike on Writing for Film and TV at Bristol University
Mike Bullen, our President — and writer of Cold Feet — is giving a three-day practical course on Writing for Film and Television, organised by the University of Bristol, on 9, 10 and 16 March. The fee for the three days will probably be £250, although Mike is hoping to negotiate a 10% discount for members of Southwest Scriptwriters.

 

Royal Court seeks scripts for Young Writers’ Festival
The Royal Court in London is offering a great opportunity to all writers under the age of 26. If you’re young enough and you have a script for a stage play, submit it to their Young Writers’ Festival 2002, where they say passion is more important than experience.

 

Farewell to Ginny and Michael
A fond farewell to Ginny and Michael Balfour who are having to move to Winchester because that’s where the work is. Michael edited the recently published book Theatre and War 1933-1945: Performance in Extremis, which contains a number of fascinating essays on how theatre flourished against all the odds in those years, including one by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.