We are delighted to announce the shortlist for our annual awards, to be presented by writer and actor Joanna Scanlan (The Thick of It, Getting On, Puppy Love), pictured left, on Monday 14 January 2019 at the Royal College of Physicians in central London, in a special ceremony to mark the union’s 60th anniversary.

This year’s shortlist sees the addition of a new category – Best Musical Theatre Bookwriting.

WGGB President Olivia Hetreed said:

“It feels wonderfully appropriate to kick off the Writers’ Guild’s 60th year with a celebration of today’s great writers and great writing. Our nomination list displays the originality, inventiveness and dedication of British writers, their willingness to tackle big issues and explore unusual viewpoints whilst offering great entertainment.”

The shortlist in 15 categories follows (in addition, a special award for outstanding contribution to writing is presented at the ceremony every year):

Best Long Form TV Drama
Killing Eve, Episode 5, ‘I Have a Thing About Bathrooms’ (Phoebe Waller-Bridge); The End of the F***ing World, Episode 3 (Charlie Covell); Trust, Episode 9, ‘White Car in a Snowstorm’ (Alice Nutter)

Best Short Form TV Drama
A Very English Scandal (Russell T Davies); Mother’s Day (Nick Leather); Ordeal by Innocence (Sarah Phelps)

Best Long Running TV Series
Casualty, Series 32, Episode 44 (Barbara Machin); Coronation Street, Episode 9451/2 (Jonathan Harvey); Hollyoaks, Episode 4889 (Roanne Bardsley)

Best TV Situation Comedy
Derry Girls (Lisa McGee); Inside No. 9, ‘Zanzibar’ (Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith); Detectorists (Mackenzie Crook)

Best Children’s TV Episode
Creeped Out, ‘Cat Food’ (Bede Blake and Robert Butler); Dennis and Gnasher: Unleashed, ‘Night of the Living Veg’ (Ciaran Murtagh and Andrew Barnett Jones); Free Rein, Episode 207, ‘Bob’ (Vicki Lutas and Anna McCleery)

Best Radio Drama
All of the Beauty In The World: The B Towns (Eve Steele); Idle Hands (Christine Entwisle); Stone (Alex Ganley, Martin Jameson, Vivienne Harvey, Cath Staincliffe,  Richard Monks)

Best Radio Comedy
Ability (Lee Ridley and Katherine Jakeways); Deadline (Jessica Hynes); Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy, Volume 2, Part 1, ‘Seventy-Three Seconds’ (Sarah Kendall)

Best Writing in a Video Game
FIFA 19 The Journey: Champions (Matt Turner, Tom Watt and Martin Korda); Reigns: Her Majesty (Leigh Alexander); The Spectrum Retreat (Giles Armstrong and Dan Smith)

Best Screenplay
American Animals (Bart Layton); The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin, Peter Fellows, Fabien Nury); The Little Stranger (Lucinda Coxon)

Best First Screenplay
Apostasy (Daniel Kokotajlo); I Am Not A Witch (Rungano Nyoni); The Happy Prince (Rupert Everett)

Best Play
Black Men Walking (Testament); Gut (Frances Poet); Jellyfish (Ben Weatherill)

Best Play for Young Audiences
Beginners (Tim Crouch); The Changing Room (Chris Bush); The Vultures’ Song (Mike Kenny)

Best Musical Theatre Bookwriting
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (Tom MacRae); Miss Littlewood (Sam Kenyon); Pieces of String (Gus Gowland)

Best First Novel
In Our Mad and Furious City (Guy Gunaratne); The Gods of Love (Nicola Mostyn); White Chrysanthemum (Mary Lynn Bracht)

Best Online Comedy
Spokke (Tim Grewcock and Shaun Lowthian); Three Cool Days (Arnab Chanda and Chris Hayward); Where Are You From? The Game (Hannah George and Tasha Dhanraj)

Sponsors
The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) is the lead sponsor of the Writers’ Guild Awards this year. Our other sponsors are BBC, ITV, Company Pictures, Nick Hern Books and Silver Reel.

Queries about the awards and ceremony should be emailed to awards@writersguild.org.uk

Photo of guests at last year’s award ceremony: Matt Writtle