2023 marked the centenary year for audio/radio drama at the BBC. For 100 years of this unique genre, audio drama and comedy have provided enjoyment, diversion, illumination, insight and escape for listeners, evolving in approach and style as audio practitioners have responded to new ideas and technology with ingenuity, imagination and inspiration.
These awards celebrate the creativity of actors, writers, directors, producers, musicians, sound designers and all who work in this vibrant art-form.
The winners were announced on Sunday 24 March 2024 at a ceremony in the Radio Theatre at BBC Broadcasting House, London. The winners of the Imison and Tinniswood Awards (judged and administered by the Society of Authors and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain) were also announced at this ceremony.
Best Original Single Drama
WINNER: Dear Harry Kane by James Fritz, producer Sally Avens, BBC Audio Drama London
Benny and Hitch by Andrew McCaldon, producers Neil Varley and Tracey Neale, BBC Audio Drama London
Eat and Run by Paolo Chianta, producer Lorna Newman, BBC Audio Drama North
WINNER: Bess Loves Porgy by Edwin DuBose Heyward, adapted by Roy Williams, producer Gill Parry, feral inc
COMMENDATION: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, adapted by Tim Crouch and Toby Jones, producer Nadia Molinari, BBC Audio Drama North
COMMENDATION: Beowulf Retold based on the version by Seamus Heaney, producer Pauline Harris, BBC Audio Drama London
WINNER: Trust by Jonathan Hall, producer Gary Brown, BBC Audio Drama North
COMMENDATION: There’s Something I Need to Tell You by John Scott Dryden and Misha Kawnel, producer Emma Hearn, Goldhawk Productions
Flirties, written and produced by Jess Hamilton, Audiocraft
WINNER: Hiran Abeysekera, Dear Harry Kane, director Sally Avens, BBC Audio Drama London
COMMENDATION: Lorn Macdonald, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, director Kirsty Williams, BBC Scotland
Tim McInnerny, Benny & Hitch, director Tracey Neale, BBC Audio Drama London
WINNER: Rosamund Pike, People Who Knew Me, director Daniella Isaacs, Merman
Gabrielle Brooks, Bess Loves Porgy, director Michael Buffong, feral inc
Maxine Peake, The Women of Troy, director Nadia Molinari, BBC Audio Drama North
WINNER: Mark Heap, Kafka’s Dick, directors Polly Thomas and Dermot Daly, Naked Productions
Sacha Dhawan, Anna Karenina, director Nadia Molinari, BBC Audio Drama North
WINNER: Rosalind Eleazar, Hindsight, director Gaynor Macfarlane, BBC Scotland
COMMENDATION: Jadie Rose Hobson, Exposure, director Anne Isger, BBC Audio Drama London
COMMENDATION: Dan Parr, The Test Batter Can’t Breathe, director Tracey Neale, BBC Audio Drama London
WINNER: Where to, Mate? devised by Jo Enright, Peter Slater, Abdullah Afzal, Nina Gilligan, Andy Salthouse, Keith Carter, Jason Wingard, producer Carl Cooper, BBC Studios Audio
Call Jonathan Pie by Tom Walker, producer Alison Vernon-Smith, Yada-Yada Audio
She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, adapted by Barunka O’Shaughnessy, producer Emma Harding, BBC Cymru Wales
WINNER: Sarah Keyworth: Are You a Boy or a Girl by by Sarah Keyworth, additional material Ruby Clyde, producer Georgia Keating, BBC Studios Audio
COMMENDATION: Janey Godley: the C Bomb by Janey Godley, producers Julia Sutherland and Richard Melvin, Dabster Productions
Olga Koch: OK Computer by Olga Koch and Charlie Dinkin, producer Benjamin Sutton, BBC Studios Audio
WINNER: Hamlet Noir, sound by David Chilton, Lucinda Mason Brown, Weronika Andersen, producers Charlotte Melén, Carl Prekopp and Saskia Black, Almost Tangible
The Dark is Rising, sound by Gareth Fry, producers Catherine Bailey and Tim Bell, Catherine Bailey Productions and Complicité
The Women of Troy, sound by Sharon Hughes, producer Nadia Molinari, BBC Audio Drama North
WINNER: Badger and the Blitz by Richard Turley and Darren Francis, producer Richard Turley, ROXO
The Salvation by Justin Lockey, Jeffrey Aidoo, and AK Benedict, producers John Hamm and Boz Temple-Morris, Holy Mountain and Free Turn
Tagged by Brett Neichin and John Scott Dryden, producer Emma Hearn, Sony Music Entertainment and Goldhawk Productions
WINNER: This Word by Marta Rebzda, producer Waldemar Modestowicz, Polish Radio Theatre
Faust (I Never Read It) by Noam Brusilovsky, producer Andrea Oetzmann, SWR Südwestrundfunk with Deutschlandfunk
The Supervisor by Nis-Momme Stockmann, producer Michael Becker, NDR Norddeutscher Rundfunk
WINNER: Benny and Hitch by Andrew McCaldon, producers Neil Varley and Tracey Neale, BBC Audio Drama London
COMMENDATION: In Moderation by Katie Bonna, producer Sally Avens, BBC Audio Drama London
Happy Hour by Liv Fowler, producer Jelena Budimir, Naked Productions
WINNER: Cracking by Shôn Dale-Jones, producer John Norton, BBC Cymru Wales
About a Dog by Huw Brentnall, producer Fiona McAlpine, Allegra Productions
Ghosted by Lindsay Sharman, directed by the author for Long Cat Media
Scooters, Shooters and Shottas by John R Gordon, director Rikki Beadle-Blair, Urban Wolf for Team Angelica/The Art Machine
Oliver Emanuel, presented by Dan Rebellato.
Graeme Garden, presented by Charlotte Moore.
