The David Nobbs Memorial Trust, established after the death of the beloved Reggie Perrin author, has launched its fourth annual sketch comedy writing competition, encouraging new talent with financial aid in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The competition offers cash prizes to up-and-coming comedy writers, helping them ‘buy time’ for writing.
With the comedy and arts sectors widely affected by lockdown restrictions, this year’s competition will increase the cash prize for the overall winner to £750. Any runner-up winners will receive £250. Also, for the first time, the winners will get a precious one-on-one consultation with an established comedy producer on the Trust board.
Prizes will be awarded after 18 judges from across the industry turn their expert eye on entries, which can be submitted from 26th January 2021 until 23:59 on 12th March 2021.
Lucy Lumsden, owner of Yellow Door Productions and formerly head of comedy commissioning at both Sky and the BBC, Roisin Conaty, comedian and creator of the Channel 4 sitcom, Gameface and Hunderby actor Daniel Lawrence Taylor will judge the scripts that make it to the final.
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 must be able to provide a broadcast credit for their written material and accompany their entry with a 500-word Statement of Intent, describing their writing career goals.
The winner will be announced in July 2021.
Find out full details and how to enter on the David Nobbs Memorial Trust website
Deadline: 23:59 on 12 March 2021
Source: BBC Writersroom