The David Nobbs Memorial Trust, established in 2017 after the death of the beloved Reggie Perrin author, has opened the 2024 comedy script writing for entries. The competition aims to encourage and champion emerging talent with one-off financial aid for winners and events for long-listed entrants. Now in its seventh year, the competition is a regular fixture in the UK comedy calendar.
The competition offers cash prizes to up-and-coming comedy writers, helping them ‘buy time’ for writing. Prizes for the 2024 competition overall winner will take home £1000. Any runners-up will receive £250 per entry. The winner will also be offered a valuable one-to-one consultation with an established comedy producer or commissioner from the Trust board.
Prizes will be awarded after judges from across the UK comedy industry turn their expert eye on entries, which can be submitted from 16th February 2024 until 23:59 on 17th March 2024.
We are thrilled to announce that judging the finalist’s scripts this year will be Lucy Lumsden, owner of Yellow Door Productions and formerly head of comedy commissioning at both Sky and the BBC alongside award-winning comedian Desiree Burch and actor, writer, and comedian Katy Wix.
The David Nobbs Memorial Trust was established by comedy producers, performers and people who knew and loved David, with the blessing of his family, to honour his memory by supporting new comedy writing in the UK.
The contest is aimed at those early in their writing career, but it is not totally ‘open door’. Entrants are required to provide a broadcast credit for their written material and must accompany their entry with a 500-word Statement of Intent describing their writing career goals. Full entry criteria can be found on the website. The winner will be announced in August 2022.
Trust chair, journalist and author Mary O’Hara said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be bringing another year of the DNMT comedy writing competition to aspiring talent. Thanks to incredibly generous donors from the comedy fraternity and beyond as well as our dedicated judges, we are able to keep supporting new comedy talent, just like David Nobbs would have wanted. Over the seven years we’ve been running, the competition has attracted and supported brilliant and talented writers. We can’t wait to hear from the next generation.”
2023 winners, co-writers Rebecca Bain and Alex Garrick-Wright Said: “Winning the DMNT award has been amazing for opening doors for us. It's taught us the importance of the first 10 pages for a script and we are now working on the project as a 30 pager, currently in development to prepare for pitching. It definitely catches attention and has netted us a lot more interest, and has enabled us to reach out to several brilliant regional production companies to bring other pitches to the table.
“We are relishing the opportunity to follow up with this year's judges and having one-to-one work with industry leaders. We're still delighted to have our work recognised so highly, and be up there alongside such distinguished previous winners."
The Trust is supported by three patrons: comedy legend and friend of David’s; Michael Palin as well as the writer Jonathan Coe, another of David’s friends, and playwright and award-winning writer and producer of HBO’s Succession, Lucy Prebble.
Coe said: “I’ve never met anyone with such a sharp, instinctive sense of comedy as David Nobbs. Comedy was in his blood and it was his way of coping with life’s manifold absurdities. Encouraging younger writers – such as myself – was an integral part of his mission to spread more laughter throughout the world, and I’m proud to have a role in that now, as a Patron of David’s Memorial Trust.”
Nobbs’ widow and Honorary President of the Trust, Susan Nobbs, added “I know that awarding a bursary to new writers, as a support at the beginning of their chosen career would have definitely appealed to David.”
Full details of the competition can be found at the Trust website: www.DavidNobbsMemorialTrust.org.uk
