Every year I enter the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Competition (Television Drama) which involves a blind judging process, where selected script extracts are performed by a professional cast to an audience of producers, development executives, directors, actors, and literary agents. The aim of the competition is to emerging writing talent, like me, a chance to showcase their work.

It’s not free to enter, but one of the major benefits for writers who don’t get shortlisted for reading is the feedback and advice from experienced industry members.

This year’s feedback was very encouraging…

OUT OF THE BLUE…The script has vivid settings and uses strong visual storytelling. Each character has a distinct voice and the dialogue and interplay are often spiky and fun. Scenes flow together and advance the story which touches on interesting themes of loyalty, corruption, and betrayal, with hints of dark comedy. Overall the idea has been thought through in detail and has the potential to be a compelling series full of power plays….

I also received some great suggestions for improvements that would enhance the script. Thankfully, I had already identified and addressed most of these notes in my re-edited script that was submitted for this year’s BBC Writers Room Open Call earlier this month. So keep your fingers crossed for me…