Mentors and mentees taking part in ScreenSkills New Writers Programme 2022 are announced today. The initiative, funded by the HETV Skills Fund and delivered by Dancing Ledge Productions, pairs established writers with rising star mentees to nurture a new generation of television writers.
The mentors and mentees announced so far are:
Chris Lang (Unforgotten, The Thief, his Wife and the Canoe)
Camilla Blackett (New Girl, Fresh off the Boat)
Sarah Williams (The Long Song, Flesh and Blood)
Joe Barton (Giri /Haji, Encounter)
Larissa Hope, from South Gloucestershire, who will be mentored by Camilla Blackett, was cast in popular series Skins when she was 17. She later studied psychology and creative writing at university which has shaped her work as a filmmaker, where her love for science and social realism combine to create art that provokes questions.
Abigail Rolling, who will be mentored by Chris Lang, is a comedy writer from Yorkshire whose stand-up and screenwriting is about the “law and other aspects of life’s roulette”. She has been a criminal defence solicitor working in local magistrates courts for more than 25 years.
Jess Jackson, who will be mentored by Sarah Williams, is an award-winning screenwriter based in Bristol. She has TV projects in development and a feature project nearing production with Shoebox Films/Curzon. Her TV pilot The Drip was on the 2019 Brit List of best unmade scripts and she has worked in several writers’ rooms within animation.
The new iteration of the programme will match a total of five mentoring pairs when full strength.
The programme was first commissioned in 2017 and provides mentees with a career changing opportunity and direct links to helping get their scripts made.
The announcement arrives in the same week that the first two shows born out of the New Writers Programme launch on television; BBC’s The Responder, written by Tony Schumacher whose mentor was Jimmy McGovern, and ITV’s Trigger Point written by Daniel Brierley with mentoring by Jed Mercurio.
Kaye Elliott, ScreenSkills Director of High-end Television, said: “We are really proud that the original investment of the High-end TV Skills Fund – entirely supported by industry contributions – into talents such as Tony Schumacher and Daniel Brierley has proved so successful and we are really excited to see what great shows emerge from the new round of mentoring partnerships.”
Laurence Bowen, CEO Dancing Ledge Productions said: “Nurturing emerging talent is absolutely at the core of what we do at Dancing Ledge and it so exciting to see the real impact this scheme is having with the support of ITV and ScreenSkills. Of the eight mentees in year one of the scheme three of them have had series greenlit; Tony Schumacher - The Responder (mentor Jimmy McGovern), Daniel Brierley - Trigger Point (mentor Jed Mercurio), Nicole Lecky - Superhoe (mentor Levi David Addai), and many others are now working as full-time screenwriters.”
Temi Wilkey (mentor Lucy Prebble) went onto write on Sex Education and Wedding Season, Yero Timi-Biu (mentor Paul Abbott) wrote on Wolfe and Sharma Walfall (mentor Jack Thorne) went onto write on Noughts and Crosses, A Town Called Malice and untitled projects for Disney+ and Netflix. “That's an extraordinary statistic and a real testament to how the scheme raises all the profiles of the new writers it celebrates,” Laurence said.
The programme invites mentors to choose a new writer whose work they have been impressed by who will then be given a bursary to write a pilot episode of their own original TV series. The mentor will give feedback through the writing process, provide the benefit of their expertise, offer encouragement, and also help place the project with a production company and/or broadcaster.
The new writers were selected for the promise their writing skills offer and range in levels of experience.
Beth Warin, Development Executive at Dancing Ledge Productions who will manage the programme, says, “It’s a great privilege and pleasure to see the personal and professional growth in the mentees over the course of our scheme. Their confidence within themselves and their abilities has truly blossomed, knowing that such established screenwriters believe in them and their talent. Often your early years as a budding screenwriter are spent in relative isolation from the rest of the industry – the door only opening after many years spent beavering away in cafes and bedrooms. With this scheme we’re able to open that door far earlier, and the results have been astonishing to behold.”
This year’s mentors will join a long list of previous screenwriters who have taken part in the programme:
Kay Mellor (The Syndicate, Fat Friends, Playing the Field, Band of Gold), Amanda Coe (Black Narcissus, The Trail of Christine Keeler, Shameless), Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax, Gentleman Jack), Abby Ajayi (Four Wedding and a Funeral, How to get Away with Murder), Jesse Armstrong (Succession, Peep Show, Fresh Meat, The Thick of It), Chris Chibnall (Broadchurch, Doctor Who, Life on Mars), Charlie Covell (The End of the F***ing World, Burn Baby Burn), Lisa McGee (Derry Girls, Being Human, Indian Summers), Paula Milne (Him, The Politician’s Husband, Small Island), and Sarah Phelps (A Very British Scandal, Dublin Murders, The Witness for the Prosecution).