News

For the final installment of our Script Space blog, the baton is handed back to Sophie Lomax, the SS co-ordinator. As this goes live, Sophie and her team of readers are ensconced in the TF foyer, making their way through the 50+-strong long list, with the aim of whittling it down to the final few by the end of the afternoon. Keep this page bookmarked for all the latest short list / finalist news as it’s released. And thank you for reading…

‘Socks and cheese and lots of peas’: that’s what my son, misquoting with cavalier disregard for accuracy, recently told me that little boys are made of.

Equally impossible to define would be the list of ingredients combining to make a brilliant play but, here at Script Space, we’re on the brink of selecting a shortlist for our scriptwriting competition and attempting to pin down exactly what it is about our favourite scripts that makes them – slithery word, this – good.

How do we do this? How to forge ahead with unimpeachable objectivity intact? We all lug around the baggage of our own experiences and Script Space judges are no exception. Honestly, I think it’s this mix of brains as we gather to choose shortlisted candidates and then, finally, our winners, that makes both for stringent standards and the sort of eclectic mix in our final selection which often leads to fantastically varied theatre. Our judges at each stage of the contest are different people with different strengths. I confess right now, and horribly publically, that I always secretly harbour a fierce longing for funny scripts – I know, tickling ribs doesn’t necessarily make for life-changing scriptwriting (though, sometimes, it can) – but I never, I hope, put this character defect above sheer admiration for fantastic writing, no matter how despairing or tragic its message. Likewise, in previous years, there have been judges rightly sceptical of the ‘Bridget Jones’ school of plotting-by-numbers but who have nevertheless gracefully agreed that, sometimes, a script or two must be chosen simply for its skill and lightness of touch.

On the eve of what’s often an incredibly exciting long-list discussion, I’d like to thank you heartily for reading this blog. Thanks for coming to see the plays we’ve previously found. Thanks for sending in your own thanks afterwards and telling us you’ve had an excellent time at Script Space readings. Because nothing in theatre’s much cop without an audience (come to any early rehearsal, for any show, and you’ll see what I mean) and your involvement brings the whole project exuberantly to life.

We wish our writers luck, because being scrutinised and offering up a parcel of yourself to be mercilessly judged is a terrifying, vertigo-inducing experience.  For this reason, we always let writers know, individually, the outcome of their script submission, for which your patience is requested because it’s undeniably a major emailing enterprise.

And we’ll publish details of our winners, as soon as we have them, with one writer to be recognised at an awards ceremony, together with the Bristol Festival of Ideas, in May.