Edson Burton, Satinder Chohan, Robert Forrest and Dan Rebellato are the shortlisted writers 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 30 March 2025.
The Tinniswood Award judges this year were Nicola Baldwin and Lucy Gough (co-chairs of the WGGB Audio Committee), 2021 Tinniswood Award winner Christopher Douglas and Writers’ Guild Best Radio Drama 2018 winner Ming Ho.
We are delighted to announce the following shortlisted plays:
Man Friday by Edson Burton (pictured left)
Directed by Mary Ward-Lowery
BBC Audio Wales and West, 57’15”, BBC Radio 4
This is a comedy of not fitting in, a witty and original re-imagining of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, from Man Friday’s point of view. Colonialism, economics, race relations, religion: all are considered here through the prism of the developing relationship between Man Friday – or Kofi – and the shipwrecked Crusoe.
The judges said: “A hugely entertaining take on the Robinson Crusoe story. Friday is an upper-class castaway outraged by Crusoe’s entitled behaviour. But we suspect there’s more to Friday than the arrogant posho we first encounter – and sure enough there is. A slow burn brilliantly achieved, this play skilfully uses the inspiration of a classic tale to reframe assumptions about race and class in a witty and engaging way. Long narrations are often the radio writer’s lazy option, but Edson Burton’s are exquisite. This is a terrific writer with a deep love of language and a thorough understanding of structure.”
Dr Edson Burton is a poet, drama writer, curator and historian. He has been writing radio drama since 2007. His work encompasses urban realism, period drama, horror and the supernatural. His many credits for BBC Radio 4 include the Deacon trilogy, starring Don Warrington, now available on Audible.
In-theatre and site-specific work includes: The Ithaca Axis (2013), Curry Goat & Fish Fingers (2016), the Frederick Douglass dramatisation An Abolitionist Returns (2018), The Edge (2018), and Anansi and the Grand Prize (2019).
Edson has had work commissioned by Situations, Welsh National Opera, We Are From Dust and Pegasus Opera Company, among many others, and has featured in his capacity as a historian on many national and regional TV shows. He is the author of the poetry collection Seasoned (2007).
In addition to performing his own work, Edson has curated nights of outstanding performance, including Lyrikal Warriors, as part of St Paul’s Carnival.
Listen to Man Friday here
Photo of Edson Burton by Jack Pitts
Southall Uprising by Satinder Chohan (pictured left)
Directed by Nadia Molinari
BBC Studios Audio, 57’, BBC Radio 4
2024 marked the 45th anniversary of the Southall Uprising, a turning point in the birth of an Asian/Black Britain. St George’s Day 1979 is remembered for when this small, hard-working immigrant community fought back against the far right and its calls for immigrant repatriation, forced to collectively defend and assert its right to live, work and exist in a new, emerging multicultural Britain. Satinder Chohan’s drama is based on the true events and testimonies of people who attended the protest in 1979 and was recorded on location in Southall.
The judges said: “A vivid snapshot in time which effortlessly balances the technical difficulties of immersing the listener in fast-moving events across multiple locations while engaging us in the individual characters’ stories. Memorable moments and glimpses of family life make the unfolding historical narrative immediately accessible. The energetic dialogue, often broken and not always in English, creates an intriguing soundscape and conveys the urgency of community action and a sense of collective loss and emotion at the specific friends lost to racist violence. A compelling piece of realism set on that tragic weekend in Southall in 1979.”
Satinder Chohan is a journalist turned award-winning playwright from Southall who graduated with an MA in English from Yale University. Her plays include: Zameen (Kali Theatre), Kabaddi-Kabaddi-Kabaddi (Pursued By A Bear), Half of Me and Made in India (Tamasha and Belgrade Theatre in association with Pilot Theatre – Best Production Award at the Eastern Eye Awards) and Lotus Beauty (Hampstead Theatre and Tamasha Theatre). She co-adapted Gulliver’s Travels with Mike Kenny (Bolton Octagon) and adapted the novel Girl of Ink and Stars (The Spark Arts). Her National Theatre Connections play Mia and the Fish features in their 30th anniversary year and she is also on a National Theatre attachment for her epic play The Koh-i-Noor Trilogy. Her audio drama includes Garlands and an adaptation of Pam Gems’ Camille for BBC Radio 3. An Associate Artist at Sphinx Theatre, Satinder is also a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of West London.
Listen to Southall Uprising here
A Tale of Ossian by Robert Forrest (pictured left)
Directed by Kirsty Williams, BBC Audio Scotland, 43’50”, BBC Radio 4
An old man turns up in hospital with his head full of stories and his pockets full of leaves. No one knows who he is. But when he finally begins to talk, the woman who sits across from him finds herself pulled into his world and captivated by his stories. As we cut between the woman’s domestic life – caring for her mother, grieving the humiliation of a lost marriage – the hospital and a Celtic past, what’s real and what’s imagined becomes an impossible blur. Is this old man Ossian – the mythical figure from Scotland’s past, destined to wonder the earth telling tales of his father – or is he a demented old man?
The judges said: “A subtle mix of Scottish mythology and the contemporary life of a women coping with her mother’s dementia, this play treads a delicate line successfully with bold and inventive story-telling. Weaving old-fashioned biblical language and mythology with more down-to-earth contemporary speech, it dances between reality and non-reality which adds to our understanding of dementia. Wonderfully descriptive, it conjures rich imagery in the way only audio drama can. An intriguing, mythical exploration of memory, storytelling, and belief. Sophisticated and emotionally absorbing, it poses profound questions, without feeling the need to proffer answers – just like life.”
Robert Forrest is a working-class writer, born and bred in the west coast of Scotland. He has been writing audio drama for over four decades. His radio work includes 11 series of The Pillow Book, inspired by the writings of Sei Shōnagon from 10th-century Japan. He was lead writer for The Complete Smiley series and has dramatised work by an array of novelists, including RL Stevenson, Nabokov, Tolstoy and F Scott Fitzgerald.
Listen to A Tale of Ossian here.
Orwell v Kafka: Restless Dreams by Dan Rebellato (pictured left)
Directed by Polly Thomas, Naked Productions, 57’, BBC Radio 4
Restless Dreams was broadcast to mark the centenary of Kafka’s death. Set entirely on a “very strange train”, it is both a mystifying journey and a reflection on the legacy of great literature – the battle between membership of a nation, citizenship of the world, and the dark heart of Europe. It takes place during Max Brod’s urgent train journey in 1939 from Prague, fleeing the Nazis, as the world stood on the brink of WWII. In his suitcase are manuscripts, the unpublished works by Franz Kafka – inestimable treasures for the future. This is a wartime thriller, the tense story of one man smuggling a jewel of world literature to safety, but also a Kafkaesque nightmare, teetering between reality and hallucination, wakefulness and dreaming, echoing Kafka’s writing.
The judges said: “In Restless Dreams we enter a Kafkaesque dreamworld, with overtones of The Lady Vanishes. Inventive, pacy, intelligent and vivaciously entertaining, this play consummately matches form and content, making creative use of the audio medium. While remarkably economical, the propulsive script interweaves history, psychology and surrealism as it gathers pace inexorably onwards. Throughout, the tone balances knockabout comedy with tragic events, building towards a closing sequence of breath-taking intensity with the final carriage, which lingers in the mind long after the play has ended.”
Dan Rebellato is a leading dramatist and professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway University. He has written more than 30 individual radio dramas for the BBC and 21 stage plays. He has been shortlisted multiple times for Sony, BBC Audio and WGGB Awards, including winning Silver at the ARIAS 2022 for his BBC Radio 4 drama You & Me. Dan was the lead writer who masterminded the epic 20-hour Emile Zola epic on BBC Radio 4 in 2015-16. He has had stage commissions with Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Plymouth Drum, Suspect Culture and Graeae, Soho Theatre and National Theatre.
Find out more about Orwell v Kafka: Restless Dreams
ABOUT THE TINNISWOOD AWARD
THE TINNISWOOD AWARD was established by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain 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 Shôn Dale-Jones, Anita Sullivan, Sonya Hale, Christopher Douglas, Ian Martin, Sarah Woods, Oliver Emanuel, Morwenna Banks, Mike Bartlett, and Colin Teevan. Find out more.
We are very grateful to the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society for its generous sponsorship, including the £3,000 prize.
The 2025 award is for a drama broadcast or made available online in the UK between 1 October 2023 and 31 October 2024.