A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end...but not necessarily in that order. Jean-Luc Godard
Noise, a new radio play by London College of Communication (LCC) MA Screenwriting graduate Alex Bulmer, is to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 2.15pm on Tuesday 20th March.
The play is a psychological thriller about power trust and jealousy and it focuses on a woman who has suffered memory loss and the way her boyfriend uses audio technology to try to control her.
The popular BBC Wales documentary series, Coming Home, by London College of Communication (LCC) MA Screenwriting alumnus Michael Lewis, has just been re-commissioned for a seventh series. Since launching in 2005, the celebrity-led family history show has unearthed the Welsh heritage of around 25 A-listers, including Olivia Newton John, Susan Sarandon, Terry Jones, Donny Osmond and Michael Sheen.
Made by Lewis’s Cardiff-based production company, Yellow Duck Productions, the series already airs in Canada, New Zealand and Australia and has been nominated for three BAFTAs. Lewis’s production credits include the BBC lottery series, Challenge America with Erin Brochovich and Channel 4’s comedy game show Distraction with Jimmy Carr.
Catch up with series’ 1 – 6 on the BBC website, or watch extracts of the series below via YouTube.
The Last Ditch, the latest novel by London College of Communication MA Screenwriting alumnus Alex Stewart (pen name Sandy Mitchell), has just been released in hardback and e-book format by publishers, The Black Library.
The 320 page novel is number eight in the best selling Ciaphas Cain series, a collection of science fiction novels set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. They centre on the eponymous character, an Imperial Commissar of the Imperial Guard, and his varied and colourful career.
The seventh novel in the series, The Emperor’s Finest, is now out in paperback and Stewart is deeply immersed in writing number nine. He is to be one of the featured authors at The Black Library Weekender, a two-day science fiction and fantasy conference for Warhammer fans to be held in November 2012.
Read a review of The Last Ditch
Portrait of Jill Daniels
London College of Communication (LCC) MA Screenwriting alumna Jill Daniels’ new film, The Border Crossing, has just been released and is now available on DVD.
In this innovative 47 minute film set in the Basque country, award-winning filmmaker Daniels creates an evocative story of her own past through the wanderings of a young woman on both sides of the French/Spanish border while an unnamed man drives through the rain at night. Intrigued? Then watch the 5 minute clip below.
Get the DVD at www.jilldanielsfilms.com
A one-act stage play co-written by MA Screenwriting graduate Alix Mumford along with Lucy Shaljean is runner up in this year’s Trinity International Playwriting Competition.
The play, titled ‘The Lion and the Pussycat’, is an adaptation of a short film produced during Alix’s masters degree at LCC. Written for an audience of 12 – 16 year olds, it tells the story of a group of teenagers and their teachers on a school trip who are faced with dealing with a suspicious bag on their coach.
As runner up ‘The Lion and the Pussycat’ will be published in a book of plays from the competition.
Paul Ritter – Lead in ‘The Meaning of Love’
‘The Meaning of Love’, a play by MA Screenwriting student, Anna Symon, was broadcast last night on BBC Radio 4.
The play follows the main character, Ed, voiced by Paul Ritter, while he is on the search to rediscover the exact meaning of love. The play is the second one that Anna has written for BBC Radio 4.
’The Meaning of Love’ has received positive feedback from critics with The Observer saying that, “Anna Symon’s clever comedy shows what happens when the wiki-culture of researching everything online reaches the bedroom.”
Anna was formerly a producer and director of television documentary and has won several awards for her work including the Channel 4 Pitch Factor at Cheltenham Screenwriting Festival for her feature ‘Dirty Weekend’.
Words by Dominique Major
MA Screenwriting graduate, Sacha Baveystock, is executive producer on new BBC show ‘The Code’.
The three part series, which aired last night, looks at maths in the world around us. Professor Marcus du Sautoy presents the show and goes in search of a mysterious code: the numbers, shapes and patterns that govern the world around us.
As well as being a documentary the show provides an interactive element with each episode containing hidden clues. These clues can then be used as part of a treasure hunt to solve the mystery of the code and viewers can then be in with the chance of winning a valuable prize hidden somewhere in the UK.
Sacha graduated from the London College of Communication (LCC) in 2009 and works for BBC productions where she has previously been involved in productions such as Chemistry: A Volatile History and Death Detective.
‘The Code’ is aired Wednesday on BBC 2 at 21:00.
Words by Dominique Major
MA Screenwriting graduate Janet Wells has been working with the London Festival Fringe on a weekly internet radio show called The Fairthornes. The Fairthornes is a sitcom about the misadventures of a Soho basement radio news programme.
The show is recorded live at the Phoenix Artist Club in Soho, with a London Festival Fringe recording taking place on Friday 1 July, 7-8pm. Tickets costing £5 are available on the door or on the London Festival Fringe website.
Second year MA Screenwriting student Alex Bulmer’s play, ‘Maddy and the Invisible Band of Groovers’, will be shown at this years Polka Playhouse Festival.
The festival will take place this July in collaboration with York Theatre Royal, Dundee Rep and Theatre Royal Plymouth and will show plays created especially for year 5 and 6 classes and their teachers.
Alex Bulmer’s play will be performed by Merton Park Primary School at the Polka Theatre on Monday 4 July at 3pm.
Rahim Moledina, a current student on our MA Screenwriting course, has produced a film called ‘Paintbrush: The Epitaph’ which is going to be screened at the Werkstatt der Jungen Filmszene Film Festival in Germany this weekend. He co-wrote the film with Director Alex Barrett, after working with Alex on a number of short films.
Rahim, who won the London Recut competition last year with his film ‘Air’, has set up a website detailing his current and future projects. If you want to find out more you can also follow him on Twitter or read his blog.
