News: Inside No. 9 Wins Writers' Guild Award

Inside No. 9 creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton were winners at the Writers' Guild Awards tonight. They picked up the prize for Best TV Situation Comedy – in particular for their episode The Bill, which was the first episode of series three (pictured). Their fourth series is currently running on BBC2 on Tuesday nights.

Comedian Sarah Kendall won Best Radio Comedy for Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy ‘A Day In October’, while Marek Larwood won Best Online Comedy award for Showreel for One Word or Less Parts

Elsewhere British playwright Caryl Churchill was presented with the coveted Outstanding Contribution to Writing Award. Churchill was presented by playwright (and fellow Writers’ Guild Award winner) Lucy Kirkwood in honour of her illustrious body of work and career which has spanned over six decades since penning and staging her first play,Downstairs, in 1958. 

It was a big night for celebrating female writers, who were represented in 9 of the 15 awards across theatre, TV, radio, comedy, books and videogames categories; Best Short Form TV Drama winner Sarah Phelps for the critically acclaimed The Witness for the ProsecutionBest Radio Drama went to Ming Ho for The Things We Never Said; as mentioned above Sarah Kendall took home the award for Best Radio Comedy for Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy ‘A Day In October’; Sheena Kalayil picked up the Best First Novel award for her debut The Bureau of Second Chances; and the winner of the Best Play went to Lucy Kirkwood for The Children, and Sarah McDonald-Hughes scooped the award for Best Play for Young Audiences with How to Be a Kid.

Best Writing in a Video Game was won by Elizabeth Ashman-Rowe together with Tameem Antoniades for dark fantasy action-adventure game Hellblade:  Senua's Sacrifice; and writer Emily Ballou formed part of the writing team alongside Chips Hardy, Steven Knight, Ben Hervey, who picked up the award for Best Long Form Drama for the highly applauded drama Taboo.

Best Screenplay was awarded to Miss Sloane by  Jonathan Perera;  Best Long Running TV Series award went to BBC drama Holby City, Series 19, Episode 2 ‘Rocket Man’ written by Peter Mattessi; picking up the award for Best Children’s TV Episode was Tim Bain forCounterfeit Cat: Room of Panic; Babak Anvari was awarded Best First Screenplay for Under the Shadow.

Paul Merton and WGGB Chair Gail Renard paid tribute toSteptoe and Son scriptwriter Alan Simpson OBE and Dramatist and Novelist Rosemary Anne Sisson, plus other WGGB members who passed away in the last year.

Host Vicki Pepperdine said of the event; "As a previous Writers’ Guild Award winner I know how much it means to receive one. The knowledge that your peers have considered your work to be the very best in its class is a great accolade, which writers working in any of the broad range of media recognised by the Guild, would be proud to receive. It has been a great privilege to be invited to host the Writers’ Guild Awards ceremony this year, when once again we honour some truly inspirational writing talent.”

Presenters included Daisy Goodwin, April De Angelis, Helen Lederer, Mata Haggis, Howard Read, Charlie Hardwick, Tony Grisoni, Lisa Evans, Natalie Cutler, Jack Docherty, Brenda Gilhooly and Stefan Booth. 

The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) is the lead sponsor of the 2018 Writers’ Guild Awards. Other sponsors are  BBC Studios and BBC Worldwide, ITV, Company Pictures, Nick Hern Books, Silver Reel and Lionsgate. 

Click here for a full list of the winners. 

Picture: BBC/Sophie Mutevelian

Tags: 

Articles on beyond the joke contain affiliate ticket links that earn us revenue. BTJ needs your continued support to continue - if you would like to help to keep the site going, please consider donating.

Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by WeebPal.