July Wednesdays. Number 2: The Alfred Bradley awards ceremony

As I mentioned last week, where Wednesdays are concerned July is a pretty hectic month. I did have one free, but not for long. Anyway here we are at number 2, and off I set to BBC Broadcasting House as one of the long-listed playwrights graciously invited to sit in the audience and watch those who beat us receive their prizes.

The ceremony itself was held in Studio 7. I'd never been in a studio before. Never been one of those who apply for tickets to watch shows being recorded, laugh on cue, or participate in... participation... events. As far as I could tell the main reasons for using a studio in this case were because they didn't have a meeting room large enough to accommodate the expected audience (of between 50 and 100 people) and because we were to be treated to a "script in hand" performance of selected scenes from the bursary winners' plays.

We were handed a programme as we arrived. For some reason, and completely out of character for me as someone pathologically early to events of all kinds, I'd interpreted the billed start time of 5.30 as the *earliest* I should turn up. In truth I couldn't have made it much earlier anyway, having not picked Nikki up from work until 5. Even so it was quite a shock to walk in at 5.33 and find the tiered seating already two-thirds full. A few even-later-comers drifted in after me, and we finally got underway a few minutes later.

A brief glance down the programme, which contained short synopses and bios of the finalists and their writers, revealed a truth which in my naivete I had not grasped until that very moment. The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award is open to first-time writers for radio. Writers who have not had a play produced for radio. Not, as I had assumed, writers who have never had anything produced at all. Here was my second shock of the evening. Reading passages such as

"X studied screenwriting as a post-graduate at the Northern Film & TV School..."
"Y holds... a MA in TV & Video. His first writing commission was from BBC Scotland and his sitcom won..."
"Z studied English at Oxford and his first play was produced earlier this year..."

brought home to me that this is very definitely a competition for serious professionals. Which meant two things.
1: I did well to be long-listed as an untrained, unlearned writer at my first attempt.
2: I never had any chance of winning.

Sorry if #2 sounds like sour grapes. It's not intended to be. I'm just trying to be realistic. Would any judging panel allow a complete novice to win over entrants with degrees in related arts and established track records of success in other media? Well, maybe. I guess if the writing was stellar they could claim "an amazing find." But the cynic in me says (loudly) that writing is turning out to be just one more of those cliques where success depends on ticking the right boxes and hanging out in the right crowds, and that part of the judging process would involve a close examination of previous achievements.

Six prizes were awarded in the end, out of the nine finalists. Two "Commended"s, who got a six-month mentorship with a BBC Radio producer to help develop their scripts; a Highly Commended (twelve months' mentorship); two Runners-Up (£1,000 bursary and a mentorship); and the Winner (£3,000 bursary, a mentorship, and a guaranteed production).

And here comes the third shock of the night. Because I well remember the clear directions we were given in the Christmas workshop, about how Radio 4's afternoon audience were sensitive little flowers to whom one wasn't even allowed to say "shit" let alone any of the edgier four-letter words we're all familiar with. And I remember the struggle I had trying to force dialogue to be dramatic, and violent, and powerful, without using those words.

And here's the winner. A monologue about, among other things, wanking.

"And we don't do wanking on Radio 4," says the commissioning editor (one of the judging panel), "so we're trying to get it commissioned by Radio 3, for The Wire. They do a lot of wanking over there. If that fails we'll do our damnedest to get it on Radio 4."

So the winner is someone who wrote what he bloody well wanted, bugger the rules and the guidelines, and the panel ignored their own rules as well and selected him the winner! I think there's a lesson there for all of us.

The runners-up and the winner each had a brief performance (looking like all those clips you've ever seen of radio drama in the making, with actors standing in front of microphones, their scripts in hand or on stand) and then it was time to head off to the bar, where the "drinks reception" proved to be a selection of wine or bottled beers (two varieties) and some bowls of nuts and crisps. As many of the attendees appeared to already know each other (long-term Alfred Bradley contestants, perhaps? Or all members of the same writing group?) I grabbed a beer and headed for the back of the room to people watch. Eventually I struck up a conversation with one of the Commendeds. One of the least qualified of the finalists, even he's had a play on at the Edinburgh Fringe, but he seemed a very nice chap. Also one for ignoring rules, I discovered, as he had brought his wife along when the invite had clearly stated "due to limited seating... there is no opportunity to bring a guest."

See, there's a pattern here. I'm just too rigid.