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Blog 01: Winners Announced

24 August 11

Anne-Marie & Charity: We first saw the call for submissions for the BAFTA Rocliffe Comedy Scriptwriting Competition a few days before the deadline so we quickly revisited our script ‘Pregnant Pause’, sent off our application and didn’t think any more about it. A couple of weeks later we got the news that we’d made down to the final 25. Fantastic! Then we got the call saying we were down to the final six. Even more fantastic!

Attacked by pigeonsAnne-Marie: Charity was in the middle of ‘moving house hell’, so I went to the interview in London on my own. As if I wasn’t nervous enough, there were riots happening all over the place; so in a bid to calm myself before the interview I decided to have a quiet lunch in sunny Russell Square – unfortunately it didn’t have the desired effect as I was terrorised by a gang of pigeons, attacked by a wasp and lunged at by a ravenous squirrel. (Where were the riot police when I needed them?)

But I managed to dodge the squirrel and despite being in a bit of a state when I arrived at the interview, Farah Abushwesha (Rocliffe), Alex Cook (BAFTA) and Kevin Cecil (writer, Hyperdrive) were so warm and welcoming that they instantly put me at ease. They gave us some great feedback on our script which was lovely to hear, and the interview really focused my mind on what a life-changing opportunity this could be for us if we won, and also how amazing it was that we’d already come this far.

Anne-Marie & Charity: It was incredible to get the call from Farah the next day telling us that we’d won! Over the last few years, we’ve worked really hard on ‘Pregnant Pause’, as well as on other scripts and ideas, and so for our work to have struck a chord with such prolific writers and creatives on such an esteemed judging panel was amazing.

Comedy bargeWe started out together by producing our own comedy nights (on a Barge of all places!) to try out sketch material; we developed it at other venues and then online. We gradually moved towards writing longer narrative comedy and developing scripts for TV. We now hope that winning this competition might lead to some fabulous opportunities (on bigger Barges!) but we know this will require more of the hard work, perseverance and commitment that we‘ve put in over the last few years.

And we also know that we shouldn’t eat prawn sandwiches in Russell Square. Ever.

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