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Dateline: 8th July, 2005
New Writing at the Tobacco Factory Southwest Scriptwriters, Bristol's leading group for writers of stage, screen, radio and television drama, will stage its eighth annual New Writing Festival at the Tobacco Factory in Southville from Tuesday, 19 until Saturday, 23 July. Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the Festival features script-in-hand performances of the winning entries from a competition held earlier this year. An independent panel of judges appointed by the London-based organisation writernet, which works to develop the careers of drama writers for all media throughout the UK, selected eight winning scripts from 22 entries. Peter Kesterton's stage play, Air Guitar, was the competition's overall winner, and receives its script-in-hand performance at the Tobacco Factory on Saturday, 23 July. Peter has been a member of Southwest Scriptwriters since shortly after the organisation was founded in 1994, and is a prolific contributor of scripts to the group's weekly workshop meetings at the Bristol Old Vic. His previous writing success includes a TV drama, Star Struck, produced by HTV, and a script-in-hand performance of his stage comedy, Cropwatch, at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham. Peter is currently studying for an MA in Screenwriting at the University of the West of England. In Air Guitar, Mike visits his eccentric brother Edward with the intention of healing the rift between them, only to discover that Ed is up to something decidedly sinister. The play was developed by Peter with Southwest Scriptwriters' help and its success shows how useful the group's input can be. "Having the piece workshopped and commented on by members of Southwest Scriptwriters was invaluable in helping me to get the play into shape," says Peter. "Naturally I'm thrilled that all the hard work has resulted in my winning the competition." Stage plays dominate this year's Festival with five of the seven finalists written for the theatre. Kevin Cattell bucks the trend, though, with his second-placed radio drama, Resting, which takes the stage at the Tobacco Factory on Friday, 22 July. Steve Lambert's full-length play, The Last Train, placed third in the competition, kicks off the Festival with an evening to itself on Tuesday, 19 July, while the fourth equal placed scripts, Living Doll by Lesley Bown and Ann Gawthorpe, and Coast by Richard Lambert, share the evening of Wednesday, 20 July. The sixth finalist, The Return by Didier J Desmedt, makes a double-bill with Resting on 22 July, and the line-up is completed by the seventh and eighth-placed entries, William House's monologue, The Elevator Man, and Gareth Manson's short screenplay, Fitting In, both scheduled for Thursday, 21 July. William House, Lesley Bown and Ann Gawthorpe are previous New Writing Festival winners, with work shown most recently at the Tobacco Factory season in July 2003. All six of the other writers featured this year, though, are making their Festival debuts. "It's great that there are so many first-timers in this year's Festival," Tim Massey, Southwest Scriptwriters' artistic director commented. "Several of them have only joined the group in the last year - there are new members joining all the time, and it's fantastic to be able to show some of the wealth of scriptwriting talent from Bristol and the surrounding area so quickly." All shows start at 8pm, and tickets, priced £6/£5, are available from the Tobacco Factory box office on 0117 902 0344. You can find full details of Southwest Scriptwriters' New Writing Festival 2005 at www.southwest-scriptwriters.co.uk/festival/2005. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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