Winners of BAFTA TV comedy writing competition announced

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have announced the winners of a nationwide competition to find the UK's most promising comedy TV writers.

Sarah Courtauld, Nicolas Small, and writing partners Kayleigh Llewellyn & Matthew Barry will, as their prize, fly to New York next week where they will witness their work performed live in front of high profile NYTVF industry attendees at a special BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum on 25th October.

This international initiative is an incarnation of the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum, the Academy's writing programme which has been running in the UK, in partnership with Rocliffe, for twelve years now. It is the second year the competition has run.

The judging process involved four rounds of voting and the best scripts were read by two juries headed up by Andrew Newman, Chair of BAFTA's Television Committee and Chief Executive of Objective Productions, and Terence Gray, Director of the New York Television Festival. The juries included BAFTA members from London and New York representing writers, producers and acting talent from BAFTA-winning and nominated shows, including Jennifer Saunders, Chris Addison, Damon Beesley (co-writer of The Inbetweeners), John Morton (Twenty Twelve creator) and representatives from all major UK broadcasters.

Andrew Newman says: "BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum at the NYTVF has yet again unearthed some really exciting new scriptwriters. With the winners getting a trip to New York to attend the festival and network with the cream of the US TV industry, we are pleased to promote their work on an international stage, and have high hopes that we will be hearing more from them in the future."

Chris Addison adds: "However good someone's writing, it's never been a walk in the park for new people to get their scripts away so it's good to have schemes like the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum to allow new writers with fresh ideas to be read, heard and seen. It was exciting and encouraging to see the sheer variety of styles and ideas in the scripts we read; there was no sense that people were trying to copy something that they've seen be successful elsewhere, rather that they were interested in creating their own thing, which is exactly what's needed for good comedy."

The writers will be blogging about their experiences for BAFTA. For more details, visit www.bafta.org. It is expected the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum will run the competition again in 2013 - keep an eye on British Comedy Guide's 'Make It' area next year for details on how to enter.

Winner Profiles

Sarah Courtauld (aged 31) is a writer, performer and award-winning author of children's books. She studied English at Trinity College Dublin, and is a graduate of the Royal Court Young Writers programme. Sarah's winning submission, The Slush Pile, is loosely based on her experiences in publishing, and is set in the fictional Kodiak Books where hapless editor Annie struggles with an eccentric boss, a bewildering assistant, and a series of unhelpful authors.

Nicolas Small (aged 32) began his career working in development for Tribeca Productions in New York, before becoming a Talent Manager for One Entertainment. He later began writing himself and is currently writing a feature film for Revolver/Gunslinger and developing television ideas for Warp and Big Talk Productions. His winning submission, Happy as Larry, is about a suicidal self-help guru who begins to invert his own advice in an attempt to change his life.

Writing partners Kayleigh Llewellyn and Matthew Barry (both aged 26) grew up near Cardiff and met at school aged 11. Kayleigh trained as an actress at Drama Studio London, and splits her time between performing and writing. Matthew trained and worked as an actor before moving into writing. He regularly writes for EastEnders, Holby City and Casualty, and his original mini-series, Perfect Summer, was nominated for a BAFTA Cymru Award in 2010. The pair's winning submission, Grey, features a gang of best friends who, nearing the winter of their lives, decide to start living.