We are delighted to announce the shortlist for this year’s Tinniswood Award, which is organised by WGGB and the Society of Authors to recognise the best audio drama script of the year.
A prize of £3,000 is generously sponsored by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society and will be presented at the BBC Audio Drama Awards on 1 March 2026.
The Tinniswood Award judges this year were Nell Leyshon, Christopher William Hill and Linda Marshall-Griffiths.
The shortlist is as follows:
Life And Time: Fourteen Years by James Fritz | Listen here
Directed by Tracey Neale | BBC Radio 4, 44 minutes
A heartbreaking exploration of the IPP prison scandal.
Two prisoners are on Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences. The first is a young man who has committed his first offence. The second a returning prisoner who is now in his late 70s and struggling to cope with life in prison. Both lives are caught up in a Kafkaesque nightmare from which there seems to be no escape.
For Martin time is spinning out of control. Time is just falling through his fingers and being lost day after day, year after year. Will life always be behind a prison wall?
James Fritz is a writer from South London.
Plays for stage include The Flea (The Yard), Lava (Fifth Word/Soho Theatre), The Fall (National Youth Theatre/Southwark Playhouse), Parliament Square (Royal Exchange/Bush Theatre), Start Swimming (Young Vic), Ross & Rachel (Assembly/BAC/59E59), Four Minutes Twelve Seconds (Hampstead Theatre/Trafalgar Studios) and LINES (Rosemary Branch Theatre).
Plays for audio include: Life and Time, The Test Batter Can’t Breathe, Dear Harry Kane, Eight Point Nine Nine, Death Of A Cosmonaut, Comment Is Free (all BBC Radio 4) and Skyscraper Lullaby (Audible Originals).
Mrs. Bibi by Waleed Akhtar | Listen here (subscription required)
Directed by Tessa Walker | Audible, 67 minutes
Yasmin’s career is finally taking off. After years of fighting for visibility in the theatre, the British-Pakistani actress lands the eponymous role of Mrs. Bibi – the ultimate aunty-ji – in a hit primetime sitcom. Her newfound success means a steady paycheck, the possibility of owning her own home, and a carefree fling with a charming young assistant director.
But when her estranged sister arrives with news of their mother, Yasmin’s hard-won stability is shaken to its core. Forced to reckon with her ambitions, her family’s needs, and her place in an industry that both elevates and exploits her identity, Yasmin’s world tilts in unexpected ways.
Waleed Akhtar is an award-winning writer and actor. He won an Olivier for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theater for his play The P Word, and Most Promising Playwright at The Off West End Awards for Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan. He is also a recipient of a MGC Futures bursary, the Peggy Ramsey Foundation/Film 4 Playwrights Scheme, and was selected for the BBC Spotlight initiative. He wrote episode 5 of The Road Trip for Paramount + and his short Lost Paradise was produced by the UK Film Council and played in festivals across Europe. He is currently in development on a number of TV projects and has commissions with the Unicorn, Almeida, and is on attachment at the Royal Court.
One Hundred and Fifty Days by Oliver Emanuel | Listen here
Directed by Kirsty Williams | BBC Audio Scotland, BBC Radio 4, 44 minutes
Oliver Emanuel was part way through writing an audio drama when he found he could no longer read. He had brain cancer.
He paused writing his play about a man and a woman caught in a rip tide, imagining the life they might have had together. And began a creative response to his illness. He wanted it broadcast. He also wanted his unfinished play broadcast.
In order to fulfil his wishes, Kirsty Williams (his collaborator and producer) and Victoria Beesley (his life partner) abridged his writing on brain cancer and wove it through the unfinished play. The two pieces started to talk to one another as if Olly’s characters were sitting in his imagination – at times supporting him, sometimes distracting him.
The result is a unique view into the experience of cancer and of the slow disintegration of language that brain cancer can have. A meditation on life and love.
Oliver Emanuel was a playwright for radio and stage based in Scotland. He wrote over 25 dramas for radio, winning a host of prestigious awards, including a Tinniswood Award for When the Pips Stop. He died in December 2024.
Star by Sarah Wooley
Directed by Abigail le Fleming | BBC Radio 3, 89 minutes | Listen here
Judy Garland is determined to make a comeback. She and husband Sid Luft get the rights to remake classic 30s film A Star Is Born as a musical. This time, they will be in control. Who better to write the music than Judy’s lifelong friend Harold Arlen, the composer of her biggest hit Over the Rainbow? Arlen was responsible for some of the most famous songs in the world: It’s Only a Paper Moon, Stormy Weather, That Old Black Magic – he sound-tracked the first half of the 20th century. He recruits Ira Gershwin to write the lyrics, and everyone gets to work. But Judy’s demons are never far away, and everyone has underestimated the power of the Hollywood machine… This is a story about love, friendship and struggle, set against the backdrop of McCarthy’s America, where loyalty has become a complicated thing and compassion is in short supply.
Sarah Wooley is an award-winning writer and director working across radio, TV and theatre.
She has written many plays and series for radio including the critically acclaimed The National (Radio 4) Victim (Radio 3) 1977 (Radio 4) and Moving Music (Radio 4). In 2020 she won best adaptation at the BBC Audio Drama Awards for her adaptation of Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates.
Her theatre work includes the sell-out hit Old Money which opened at the Hampstead Theatre main stage in 2012, starring Maureen Lipman and Tracy-Ann Oberman.
Her work for TV includes Under the Concrete, Waiting which was written as part of the Coming Up Scheme with Channel 4 and the series Making It which is currently in development. She is a graduate on the Channel 4 writers’ scheme and is currently developing a number of TV projects with independent production companies.
ABOUT THE TINNISWOOD AWARD
The Tinniswood Award was established by WGGB and the Society of Authors to perpetuate the memory of Peter Tinniswood as well as to celebrate and encourage high standards in radio drama.
Previous winners include Edson Burton, Shôn Dale-Jones, Anita Sullivan, Sonya Hale, Christopher Douglas, Ian Martin, Sarah Woods, Oliver Emanuel, Morwenna Banks, Mike Bartlett, and Colin Teevan.
We are very grateful to the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society for its generous sponsorship, including the £3,000 prize. The 2026 award is for a drama broadcast or made available online in the UK between 1 October 2024 and 31 October 2025.
Photo of Waleed Akhtar by Dan Pick, photo of Oliver Emanuel by Steve Beesley, photo of Peter Tinniswood by Jeremy Young