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 in March 2022. Previous hosts of the Audio Drama Awards have included Meera Syal (pictured above), Tracy-Ann Oberman and Lenny Henry.
The shortlisted plays this year were:
Life is a Radio in the Dark by Will Eno
Produced by Sally Avens, BBC Audio Drama London, 89’, BBC Radio 3
When Davey Maskelyne embarks upon sonic therapy to restore his memory so he can help solve a crime the treatment leads to a reckoning with a past he never believed he could recover.
Will Eno is one of America’s most exciting playwrights. Eno first burst on to the scene in Britain with his play Thom Pain (based on nothing) which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
In 2014 his play The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway where it received a Drama Desk Special Award and was named Best Play on Broadway by USA Today and Best American Play of 2014 by The Guardian. His play The Open House was presented Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2014 and won the Obie Award for Playwriting as well as other awards, and was on both TIME Magazine and Time Out New York’s Top Ten Plays of 2014.
Blis-ta by Sonya Hale
Produced by Mimi Findlay, Clean Break, 56’37’’, Spotify
Kat and Cherry meet on the streets. Kat is wily, funny, and fierce; Cherry is a lost dreamer. Blis-ta is the story of their adventures to survive as homeless girls and the transformative power of friendship.
Sonya Hale was a playwright. Sonya first came to Clean Break as a member of its theatre education programme and wrote her first short play for Clean Break in 2013, Hours Til Midnight. She has also worked extensively with Synergy Theatre Project and The Outside Edge Theatre Company, where she ran writers workshops. She has had plays performed at The Southbank Centre, Latitude Festival, E15 University and in prisons and treatment centres. A rehearsed reading of her first play Glory Whispers was performed at Theatre 503 after winning Synergy Theatre Project’s national prison scriptwriting competition. Her play Dean McBride won the Heretic Voices competition in January 2018 and was performed at The Arcola Theatre. Her most recent play was a collaborative venture with The Big House Theatre Company. Called Bullet Tongue, it received five-star reviews in Time Out and The Stage. Sonya died in November 2020 after living with cancer for many years.
The Piper by Vickie Donoghue and Natalie Mitchell
Produced by Kate Rowland and Russell Finch, Somethin’ Else, 24’-27’, BBC Sounds
When strange music makes her niece Ruth vanish, Detective Ali Brake is in a race against time to find her. Unknown to her, daughter Ivy and best friend Eric are one step ahead in uncovering that a terrifying supernatural force is at play.
Vickie Donoghue primarily writes for theatre and radio. her debut play, Mudlarks, was produced by The Bush, following its premiere at the High Tide Festival. Other plays include Tender Loving Care (New Theatre Royal Portsmouth,) and Game Over (The Garage, Norwich; The Cut, Halesworth). Her adaptation of The Witchfinder’s Sister is about to open at the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch. Vickie is currently under commission to Paines Plough and is their playwright Fellow 20/21.
Vickie’s first radio play The Gift was broadcast on Radio 4 in September 2018. Her nine-part podcast drama The Piper co-written with Natalie Mitchell and produced by Somethin’ Else for BBC Sounds was broadcast in November 2020 and was named Drama of the Week for Radio 4.
Vickie was longlisted for the Evening Standard Theatre Awards as Most Promising New Playwright 2012 and in 2013 was shortlisted for the Royal National Theatre Foundation Playwright Award.
Natalie Mitchell writes for television, theatre and radio. Her nine-part podcast drama for BBC Sounds, The Piper, co-written with Vickie Donoghue, is currently available and was named Drama of the Week on Radio 4. She has series in development with Red Planet, Lime Pictures and Bryncoed and is under commission to Warts and All Theatre Company. She was named on the Edinburgh TV Festival’s Ones To Watch Scheme 2019 and the BBC Talent Hot list 2017.
TV credits include episodes of Ackley Bridge, Holby City and Doctors and several years as a core writer on EastEnders. Theatre work includes Can’t Stand Me Now as part of the Royal Court Young Writers’ Festival; Crawling in the Dark at the Almeida; When They Go Low for the National Theatre Connections Programme; To My Younger Self for Synergy Theatre and Germ Free Adolescent at the Bunker Theatre.
ABOUT THE TINNISWOOD AWARD
The award was established by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and Society of Authors to perpetuate the memory of Peter Tinniswood (pictured left) as well as to celebrate and encourage high standards in radio drama. Previous winners include 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 (ALCS) for their generous sponsorship, including the £3,000 prize.
This year’s award is for a drama broadcast or made available online in the United Kingdom between 1 October 2020 and 31 October 2021.
Photo of Meera Syal presenting the 2020 BBC Audio Drama Awards: BBC; photo of Peter Tinniswood: Jeremy Young; photo of Sonya Hale: Clean Break; photo of Will Eno: Maria Dizzia; photo of Vickie Donoghue: Mike Fordham
