From The Stage:
The Scottish Government has announced a £600,000 package of funding available for arts projects that create social inclusion for young people.
Alex Norton as DCI Matt Burke in Taggart on ITV
The so called ‘CashBack’ funding will use money seized from convicted criminals and require matched business funding from the private sector - in cash or kind - to release £1.2 million over the next two years.
The Writers' Guild has written to Nigel Chapman, Director of BBC World Service, to complain about the recent decline in drama output.
In her letter, Guild Deputy General Secretary, Anne Hogben, says that "the decline in World Service Drama since 2005 represents a loss of over 100 hours of commissions for writers and over 600 days of work for actors."
Before 2005, she continues, "a play and two episodes of the popular ongoing series, Westway, were broadcast each week. Now it would appear that just eight plays will be made in-house and only fourteen plays in total will be broadcast per year. We are, of course, relieved that the drama slot still remains, but it is just not enough."
Urging Chapman to reverse the decline in drama and commit to producing at least 26 new plays per year, Hogben concludes that: "If you are unable to do so, we will urge Mark Thompson, the BBC Trust, the Foreign Office and Parliament to assist us."
Blu-ray might have beaten HD DVD in the format war but, ask Tom Lowry and Ronald Grover in Business Week, with sales sluggish and other formats emerging, will the victory prove short-lived?
The Blu-ray camp plans a mid-year marketing blitz. And the studios are pinning their hopes on a new version of the Blu-ray technology called Profile 2.0. It will allow consumers to use their players to connect to the Web and partake of movie-related bonus features. Fox is preparing to deploy a video game that viewers can play along with its Alien vs. Predator flick. Industry insiders say Disney plans a range of interactive bells and whistles tied to its animated films that may include games and social networking.
On The Guardian Books Blog, Jean Hannah Edelstein considers Harper Collins' new submissions site, Authonomy (which is still in private beta).
Being realistic, I think Authonomy may end up being a nice polite way for the publishers to say that they're not accepting unsolicited submissions anymore. If the launch goes well, I'd wager that anyone asking about submissions will be directed to hit the site, keeping editors' (and editorial assistants') desks clear for them to get on with the books agents have sent them, the ones they are genuinely interested in.Though the main site isn't open to the public yet, you can read more on the Authonomy blog.
In The Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish talks to playwright Richard Bean.
His new play, The English Game, concerns an amateur London cricket team and certain ideological fault-lines that open up during one hot Sunday afternoon match. A former part-time stand-up comedian, Bean has threaded - as ever - plenty of jokes into the all-male badinage. It's bound to knock audiences for six. But will it have a further life after Leeds and Salford - the places that pioneering theatre company Headlong is taking it to? Unlikely.
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"I've learnt not to raise my hopes," says Bean. "One review of Under the Whaleback [his Royal Court play about Hull trawler-men] said: 'This play will run forever in the West End.' Being naive, I thought, 'Excellent!', but there was nothing, not a phone call.
"These days, I suppose producers think audiences expect a West End play to mean witty lines delivered by Ralph Fiennes - they don't want five tattooed Hull trawler-men dying."
On the BBC Writersroom blog, Micheál Jacob announces that writers shortlisted for interview for the BBC's new Comedy College mentoring programme have been contacted, and addresses some of the myths that have grown up around the scheme.
One, which hasn't yet surfaced but is bound to at some point, is that we are so bereft of projects that we steal ideas from new writers and give them to some mythical group of favourites who exist in a basement of Television Centre waiting to be fed. There is never a shortage of scripts of ideas. There is always a shortage of good scripts and ideas. Indeed, when I ran an online team-writing project called Cleaners, someone claimed I had stolen it which, since it was based on a format I devised at Alomo, was demonstrably untrue. It's a fact of writing life that several people will have a similar idea at much the same time. Although I have only once seen a project set in a public lavatory.
As Polly Stenham's debut play, That Face (starring Lindsay Duncan, above), opens in the West End, Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com explains how she and other young writers are coming up through the Royal Court's Young Writers Programme (YWP).
Polly Stenham sums up the YWP experience at the Royal Court as one of empowerment. “You never feel patronised and I’ve always been treated with such respect and such grace. The level of care is considerable. They keep pulling you back for workshops and meetings. Once they’ve decided you’re one of them, you really are one of them. I feel very attached to the theatre. I think we’ve all been incredibly lucky.”
In The Guardian, Neil LaBute considers the tricky task of giving a work a title.
Some titles become not just touchstones in the zeitgeist, but go on to become brand names or get a trademark: by this method a Star Wars is born. This is rare: more often, an author pores over a variety of ideas, old notebooks, song titles, quotations, searching for something that captures the imagination while giving the educated uninformed (that's you, dear reader) some sense of the work. In my short career, I've used everything from song titles (Aimee Mann provided This Is How It Goes, while Elvis Costello was the inspiration for Seconds of Pleasure) to pure imagination to name a short story or a play or screenplay. Just because Edward Bond and David Mamet had both already used In the Company of Men (in a play and an essay, respectively), I saw no reason not to call my first film by the same name. It was a bit of a tribute to the writing of two men whose work I admired. It also seemed to capture the spirit of what I was doing better than anything else. For a moment I thought about going with just The Company of Men, but it was so much stronger with that little extra "in" at the start.
In The Times, Chris Ayres talks to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais about why they're bringing their 40-year-old sitcom, The Likely Lads, to the stage.
The plot follows that of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?: acts I and II are condensed versions of each season. Terry has come back from seven years in the army to find Newcastle changed beyond recognition. Bob is becoming ever more middle-class, while Terry tries to cling on to his youth through beer, birds and football. La Frenais says that the play remains set in the Seventies (“there won't be any mobile phones or Blackberries, none of that bollocks”) and has endured because “Bob and Terry are now considered part of the North East's culture”.The Likely Lads runs at The Gala Theatre, Durham, from 11 June.
Guild member Steven Moffat won Best Writer at the BAFTA Craft Awards last night for Blink (above), his episode of Doctor Who.
The other nominees were:
For the Writers Guild of America West, Matt Hoey talks to Jeff Nathanson about writing the new Indiana Jones movie.
Working on an Indiana Jones movie might be a daunting prospect for any writer. But only to a certain degree, says Nathanson. At least for him. “Luckily, just being a screenwriter, in general, you're used to being slightly uneasy and uncomfortable and nervous and petrified,” he says. “So I was no more uncomfortable writing this than I am writing any other movie. At some point it could be any movie you're working on.”
You are invited to a private view of the Romance exhibition at the Kowalsky Gallery, London EC1, hosted by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS).
Thursday 15th May, from 6.30 – 9pm
Readings will begin at 6.45pm
Tickets: £5 in advance or on the door. Book a place in advance by emailing naomi@writersguild.org.uk
Celebrating the season of spring in leap year, the Romance exhibition brings together sculptures, ceramics, paintings, prints and photography by over 30 artists including Sir Peter Blake, Rose Hilton, Tom Phillips RA, Shani Rhys James, Stuart Semple and many more.
At the private view, there will also be chance to hear readings by six selected writers on the theme of Romance:
Gabriel Bisset-Smith is one of the core writers at the Soho theatre. He is a member of the BBC writers' room and the SPARKS radio scheme. He has been on attachment at the Royal Court and had plays produced at the Hampstead Theatre. He took part in this years 24 hour plays and he is currently writing new projects for Teatro Vivo.
Paul Boakye is an experienced professional writer, broadcaster, and creative project manager. He is the recipient of myriad business and writing awards and prestigious accolades including advising the Power Inquiry and a recent invitation to meet The Queen. While currently writing his first novel, Paul will also start a Creative Writing MA at Goldsmiths College in September, and is on the lookout for a new agent to help him market his work. See the author’s blog at www.paulboakye.net
Guy Ducker worked as assistant editor on hit movies like Calendar Girls, BAFTA winners like The Warrior and many more. Between these jobs Guy started writing feature film scripts and making short films. So far he has written five full-length scripts, one of which is in development and another of which recently earned him a place on the prestigious TAPS course. Guy’s short film Telling Mark has played international film festivals and has been shown by the BBC, HBO and Sky. He has directed a section of a film called “Nineliveslondon” – a multiple director feature about the July 7th bombings.
Lauren Kemp is an editor at KnockBack magazine and a leading mouthpiece of British feminism. She has featured in the Guardian and Observer magazines and also runs a very successful sideline editing texts, emails and wall posts for hapless friends in romantic quandries.
Claire Wilson currently has a Teen Thriller called Back To Jack under option with Element Films, a drama short called Birthday Girl in development with Orange Wasp Productions and a dark comedy series under option with the BBC. Her family drama script Re-Posession was awarded Runner-Up 2008 for the Tony Doyle Scholarship and she was also short-listed for the UK Film Council's 25 Words or Less competition.
Jake Yapp has written for Never Mind the Buzzcocks on BBC2, and his series Pleased To Meet You on BBC7 last year was nominated for the Sony Award for Best Comedy. He's currently preparing a one-man show for Edinburgh. You can watch him mucking about at www.youtube.com/jakeyapp
More information about the Kowalsky Gallery and the current exhibition can be found at: www.kowalskygallery.co.uk
In The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wonders whether women will ever get the chance to take the lead in Hollywood movies.
Nobody likes to admit the worst, even when it’s right up there on the screen, particularly women in the industry who clutch at every pitiful short straw, insisting that there are, for instance, more female executives in Hollywood than ever before. As if it’s done the rest of us any good. All you have to do is look at the movies themselves — at the decorative blondes and brunettes smiling and simpering at the edge of the frame — to see just how irrelevant we have become. That’s as true for the dumbest and smartest of comedies as for the most critically revered dramas, from “No Country for Old Men” (but especially for women) to “There Will Be Blood” (but no women). Welcome to the new, post-female American cinema.Elsewhere in the NYT, A.O. Scott asks why men in Hollywood must always be boys.
The attachment to the emotional world of childhood and adolescence — along with the fetishistic, fake-ironic clinging to tokens of that world — is so widespread that it almost escapes notice. Impulsive, self-centered, loyal to our pals, anxious about women, physically restless, slow-witted and geeky: that’s just what we’re like, isn’t it? John Updike once remarked that in America “a man is a failed boy,” but it increasingly seems that a man is, at last, a triumphant boy, with access to money, sex and freedom but without the sad grown-up ballast of duty and compromise.
Channel 4 series Skins (created by Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain) has won Best Drama at the Rose d'Or TV Festival in Switzerland, reports BBC News.
The IT Crowd, written by Graham Linehan and also shown on Channel 4, was named Best Sitcom.
A self-published collection is on the longlist for the €35,000 Frank O'Connor international short story prize, it was announced yesterday.
Gilded Shadows by Mary Rochford joins works by authors including Anne Enright, Roddy Doyle and Jhumpa Lahiri.
An invitation from the Writers' Guild to an event in Birmingham on 18 June.
The Writers' Guild of Great Britain invites you to a meeting on 18 June to discuss the future of new writing in the West Midlands following the Arts Council’s decision to cut funding to Script, the agency for developing writers in the region.
The meeting will be opened by a panel discussion between Nicholas McInerny, chair of Script, Caroline Jester, Literary Manager of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Jonathan Davidson, Director of Midland Creative Projects Ltd and the Birmingham Book Festival, chaired by David Edgar, president of the Writers’ Guild.
Representatives of West Midlands theatres, television, radio and film producers and arts agencies will be at the meeting. All writers are welcome to this FREE event.
Following the success of our first meeting in March, the West Midlands branch of the Writers’ Guild will be officially launched, and celebrated with a glass of wine. Venue: The Birmingham Rep (St Paul’s suite), Wednesday 18 June, 7.30pm
Our last meeting was oversubscribed so please RSVP as soon as possible to WMWritersGuild@aol.com
Following the recent controversy about Amazon insisting that print-on-demand books must use its Book Surge system if they are to be listed, Lloyd Jassin for the New York Center for Independent Publishing argues that the situation should be a wake-up call for the industry.
It strikes me that from Amazon's large and powerful river might flow not just POD books, but e-books, books disaggregated and re-purposed for mobile hand held devices, audiobooks and other digital derivatives -- whether now known or hereinafter invented. Our hope is that in the swirl of that digital river, we will see new digital revenue streams emerge for smaller and independent presses.
If Amazon remains committed to the indie press segment, and acts as a bridge not just between publishers and traditional readers, but between publishers and digital readers, it becomes an enabler, and, perhaps, the best friend an indie publisher could have.
However, Amazon's favoritism to Book Surge is a slippery slope that could easily decrease diversity. Amazon is steering consumers to books that are produced by its owned-and-operated press.
For the Writers Guild Of America West, Shira Gotshalk talks to British screenwriter Michael Hirst about writing The Tudors.
Having written screenplays prior to this, are you enjoying writing episodic television?Series two of The Tudors will run on the BBC later this year.
It is the most enjoyable thing I have ever done. Of course, one of the reasons is totally selfish. In movies, the writer is, beyond a certain point, incidental and a bit of a nuisance. But in series TV, the writer is God. And given the choice, I prefer to be God. Although I did say to the production team the first year, considering I was God, they'd given me a pretty crappy car to drive around in.
And the other is because you have time to develop ideas and fall in love with your characters. I just find it's very pleasurable and a great creative joy to do that.
As BBC News reports, it was a good night for Hollyoaks at the British Soap Awards last week. The Channel Four drama took six awards, more than any other show. However, the title of Best Soap went to the BBC's EastEnders.
Winners were determined by a mixture of panel and viewer voting. The ceremony will be broadcast on ITV1 on Wednesday at 8pm.
On The Guardian's film blog, Spike Lee heralds a new online film portal, Babelgum.
We're talking about a new era in film-making here. Babelgum is an internet TV portal and most of these films were explicitly made to be viewed online. This provides the opportunity for young film-makers to put their work in front of a global audience and to get feedback. Feedback is a healthy thing, whether its positive or negative. I can testify to that.
On his blog, American screenwriter John August outlines his approach to writing a feature film scene.
In this case, it took six hours to get one scene written. And it wasn’t, on the surface, a particularly challenging scene: Two characters in a room, talking. A very clear in and out point, with the bookending scenes already written. But it was a beast to get on paper.
BBC Writersroom has announced a new competetion, Sharps.
This is an open call by BBC writersroom to find the next generation of writing talent. We want writers with the talent, ideas, insights, and imagination to captivate an audience. We are looking for a fresh, surprising, entertaining take on a universal theme.The deadline is 16 June. Full details and an online submission form are on the Writersroom website.
To apply, send us an original 30-minute TV script exploring 'the nation's health'. It doesn’t need to be a hospital precinct drama – you can explore 'health' in its broadest possible senses.
Twenty writers will be selected for a workshop, which will involve writing exercises as part of the selection process.
Eight final writers will be selected for a week-long residential, with an intensive focus on developing their work, craft, and writer’s 'toolbox', with input from BBC Drama Production and professional writers.
Each of the eight writers will also receive a £500 bursary, mentoring from in-house development teams at the BBC, and a showcase rehearsed reading with professional actors.
In The Times, Luke Leitch tells how Guild TV Committee Chair, Gail Renard, met John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Montreal in 1969.
When the security guards changed shift, Gail says: “We rushed and knocked on the door and Yoko answered. She was with her daughter, Kyoko, who must have been 5. I remember Yoko saying, ‘Come in' - and finding myself in a room with John Lennon. It was overwhelming. They had been travelling and he was very hungry, and for some reason they couldn't get room service. I had chocolate in my handbag, and I said, ‘Do you want the chocolate bar?' It sounds daft, but he was touched, and said, ‘Really?' We got to chatting.”Update: One other minor detail, Lennon gave Gail the handwritten lyrics of Give Peace A Chance...
Instead of turfing her out, Lennon asked Gail if she wanted to conduct a radio interview with him. The problem, he said, was that it wouldn't be until that evening: could she stick around? “I had to ring my mother. She ended up speaking to John. You wouldn't want to cross my mother - a tough little lady.” Permission granted, Gail joined the entourage and ended up staying for the week-long bed-in, going home only at night.
The Writers’ Guild has produced new guidelines to help members writing online drama and other content. While some online content falls within existing minimum terms agreements, much does not, and the guidelines will provide a benchmark for both writers and producers.
The introduction to the guidelines states that:
The Writers' Guild is aware that its members are increasingly being commissioned to write online drama and other literary content for ‘new’ or ‘non-traditional’ media, particularly as part of initiatives like the BBC’s ‘Multi-platform Commissioning’ drive.The full text can be downloaded from the WGGB website.
This content may be developed to compliment existing radio or television programming or as standalone new media content. It can be almost anything ranging from fixed diary entries, interactive blogs, daily character blogs, biographies, single voice ‘vox pops’, audio diaries, in-vision blogs, online games and a myriad of other types of short-form audio, audio-visual or literary content intended as existing programme support material or as standalone on-line only propositions.
We hope that these guidelines will give members some idea of how they might be approached, contracted and paid for this kind of work. As with all our rates, these are minimums and members may be able to negotiate upwards of these. As with any commission, the writer is at liberty to accept the fee and terms offered, or not. If you are a Guild member and you need further advice as to a particular commission or deal you are offered, please contact the Guild office.
In The Guardian, Gareth McLean asks if BBC drama's poor performance at this year's BAFTAs is indicative of a serious malaise.
"There are so many cooks involved in any new project now that any distinctiveness is being throttled," says another, Bafta-winning writer. "Such is the lack of courage of commissioners and the climate of fear in which they operate, the commissioning process is ossifying."McLean puts these concerns to BBC Ben Stephenson, head of drama commissioning.
The only opinion that these writers and producers say matters is that of Jane Tranter, the BBC's head of Fiction. One writer, who like the rest asked to remain anonymous, claims that trust between the BBC and writers and producers who deliver the goods has evaporated.
"They commission an episode, you write seven drafts, probably with input from four different BBC producers - all of whom contradict one another - and then, instead of making a decision, they commission a second episode and then often a third, even for a second series. They're so scared of getting it wrong, they'd rather play it safe. There is only one question in everyone's head, whether it be writer, independent producer or BBC exec - what would Jane think?"
"Ultimately the decision on what is made is made between me, Jane and the channel controller, but in terms of what's developed, there's a genuine diversity of voices which there wouldn't be if Jane and me developed things ourselves ...[Jane] isn't the taste-maker, she really isn't. My feeling is 'thank God we have a lot of commissioning editors' because that genuinely means that one person doesn't rule."
...but not in my household!
Apologies for the recent blog silence - a new arrival has been somewhat distracting, but in a very good way, obviously.
Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Moving from long running series to taking the next step - Thursday 24 April 2008, arrive at 6.45pm for a 7pm start
Following the success of the Guild event on long running BBC series last year, we’re delighted to announce a sequel from John Yorke: 'Moving from Long Running Series to Taking The Next Step'
John Yorke is Controller of Drama Production Studios for the BBC and over the last three years, has been committed to putting writers back at the heart of EastEnders, Holby City and Casualty. He has also been responsible for introducing and implementing the new BBC Code of Conduct, in response to our members’ complaints and suggestions about long running series.
We are pleased to announce that John will be accompanied by a cornucopia of BBC production talent. Members will be able to get advice from:
Hilary Salmon - Executive Producer, Drama Production. Hilary has Exec Produced some of BBC drama's most prestigious recent dramas including Criminal Justice, House Of Saddam, Five Days, Silent Witness, Soundproof, The Line Of Beauty, The Long Firm, Babyfather, Nature Boy, Gormenghast and Madame Bovary.
Claire Armspach - Producer, Waking The Dead. Claire also helped set up the writing team for BBC Scotland's River City. Produced for Holby City and assistant produced Rough Diamond for World.
Ellen Taylor - Development Executive, Drama Production. Ellen has produced and written for Casualty and Dream Team. Currently developing two new teen dramas for BBC3.
Ben Evans - Exec Producer with special responsibility for BBC 4. Ben Exec Produced the recent BBC4 Curse of Comedy season and also produced Frankie Howerd: Rather You Than me, Most Sincerely: Hughie Green. Also produced Fear of Fanny and Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! for BBC4.
Ceri Meyrick - Producer. Ceri runs the BBC Drama Writers Academy and other Training Academies for Directors, Scripts Editors, Producers and other writers' schemes.
This is a golden opportunity to speak to the powers-that-be of the TV industry. Please come along and join us. This can be just what your career needs.
The event will once again be chaired by Gail Renard, Chair of the WGGB TV Committee.
Tickets for this event will be £5 for Guild members and £7.50 for non-members. If you would like to book for this event, please email moe@writersguild.org.uk or call the Guild office on 0207 833 0777.
In The L.A. Times, South Park co-creator Matt Stone talks to the Web Scout blog about the show's ongoing relationship with the internet.
Among "South Park's" oft-cited strengths -- and no doubt a reason for its popularity online -- is the show's perpetual relevance. "The Internet and YouTube change the way you think about your characters interacting with the world," Stone explained. "If our characters don't live in that world, all of a sudden it's like, 'What are they, in the 90s? What is this show? Is this "Happy Days"?' "
Earlier this season, Stone and Parker took on another headlining topic with their episode about the writers strike, in which a misguided Canada fights an ultimately losing battle against the rest of the world, its main demand being "more money." The Internet made another cameo here, as the most ridiculous YouTube stars (Star Wars Kid, the Chocolate Rain Guy, the Sneezing Panda, etc.) were waiting in line at the Colorado Department of Internet Money, which pays in large denominations of "theoretical dollars."
Kenneth Ewing, a leading agent with Fraser & Dunlop (later Peters, Fraser & Dunlop), died on 14 April at the age of 81. There's an obituary in The Times.
By the mid-1960s many of his clients were providing the bedrock of ITV comedy and drama. Vince Powell and Harry Driver, Roy Bottomley and Tom Brennand were the men behind such huge (and in retrospect less than politically correct) situation comedy hits as Bless This House, Love Thy Neighbour and Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width, while other clients, Peter Eckersley and John Finch, were members of the powerful Group North writing team that provided Granada Television with some its most enduring drama series, including Finch’s A Family at War and Sam.
The torrent of situation comedy classics continued into the 1970s with another Ewing-nurtured team, Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke, whose many series for Thames Television included Man About the House, George and Mildred and Robin’s Nest — series that dominated the British ratings for a decade. And Ewing was instrumental in negotiations to make American versions of all three series — if not the first, certainly the biggest “format” deal of its kind and a coup that made a substantial contribution towards Thames Television’s Queen’s Award for Export.
Leading authors are complaining that the British Library's new admissions policy - far less stringent than in the past - means that it's increasingly difficult to find peace, quiet and place to sit down, reports Dalya Alberge in The Times.
Although there are 1,480 seats in the library, the author Christopher Hawtree was last week forced to perch on a windowsill while the historians Lady Antonia Fraser and Claire Tomalin have swapped horror stories of interminable queues. Library users complain that the line to enter the new building in St Pancras, central London, has recently been extending across its enormous courtyard.In The Guardian, however, Stuart Jeffries argues that things might not have been much better in the past.
Speaking to The Times yesterday, Lady Antonia said: “I had to queue for 20 minutes to get in, in freezing weather. Then I queued to leave my coat for 20 minutes [at the compulsory check-in]. Then half an hour to get my books and another 15 minutes to get my coat. I’m told it’s due to students having access now. Why can’t they go to their university libraries?”
Novelist AS Byatt recalls working at the library in the British Museum, which housed part of the collection until 1997. "In the afternoon, there was no oxygen. Everyone fell asleep. It was the haunt of mad old women. Angus Wilson [novelist and superintendent of the reading room] once told a woman that it was forbidden to eat oranges. 'Mr Wilson,' she replied, 'I'm not eating oranges. I'm squeezing them into the books.'"
The Times has compiled a list of the 50 greatest crime writers, with Patricia Highsmith coming in at number 1, followed by Georges Simenon, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and Elmore Leonard.
There are several articles published alongside the list, including Jeanette Winterson on why crime fiction needs a sense of morality.
Let's say there are only three endings to any story, discounting happy endings as too Hollywood: Revenge, Tragedy, and Forgiveness. Crime writing feeds our feelings for tragedy and revenge, and we can fool ourselves that there is also such a thing as justice - that the end is just or that justice has been done, or that justice has been avoided, but we know what it is.
The official writing award might have been shifted to the lower-profile BAFTA Craft Awards, but writers were, nonetheless, very much to the fore at the BAFTA TV Awards in London last night.
Writers Peter Kosminsky (Britz - Drama Serial), Tony Marchant (The Mark Of Cain - Single Drama) , James Cordon and Ruth Jones (Gavin & Stacey - Audience Award), Tony McHale (Holby City - Continuing Drama), Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong ( Peep Show - Sitcom) and Jimmy McGovern (The Street - Drama Series) all accepted awards.
Ruth Jones, co-writer (with James Cordon) of Gavin & Stacey
It was a good night for Channel 4, picking up awards in categories including Single Drama, Drama Serial and Sitcom.
The full list of nominees and winners is on the BAFTA website.
Lee Mason has joined Shed productions to head up its development slate, reports Leigh Holmwood for Media Guardian.
The Shed managing director, Brian Park, said: "We are looking to expand our development slate and there are new opportunities arising all the time.
"Lee will bring experience in children's and youth drama and will be involved across the board.
"We have developed a lot in-house but we are looking to develop new relationships with writers and that is where Lee will be taking a key role."
Mason added: "My job is to come in and build on what Shed already have and develop relationships with new and establish writers."
In The L.A. Times, Mary McNamara evaluates the state of pioneering cable channel, HBO.
David Milch's "John From Cincinnati" wasn't just irritating and bewildering, it was also seen as an inferior replacement for his cultishly adored "Deadwood" (and, for some, the even more abruptly discontinued "Carnivale"). Final seasons of "The Sopranos" and, on a smaller scale, "The Wire" naturally evoked doomsday predictions of a Downward Spiral. Never mind that "Big Love," though ruptured this season by the writers strike, is both a critical and ratings hit or that people still love "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Never mind that "John Adams" has done well, especially considering that it's a historical drama composed, mostly, of men in waistcoats talking politics. HBO is perceived as being in full-blown midlife crisis, with the recent decision to replace Carolyn Strauss with Sue Naegle as chief of entertainment as its attempt at marriage counseling (the inexplicably low numbers for "In Treatment" notwithstanding).
All the big deals and debates summaries in Publishing News.
At the end of a busy but rewarding Fair, Group Exhibition Director Alistair Burtenshaw told PN: “The last three days have been action-packed - from a hugely busy International Rights Centre to a sizzling Cookbook Corner to a fantastic seminar programme. As if that weren't enough, we were also delighted with the presence from our Arab friends celebrating our Market Focus on the Arab World this year.
