The Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing 2022

We have great pleasure in announcing the WINNER of the 2022 Awards is:

Valerie O‘Connor with her play ‘Black Forest’.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Euan Mumford graduated from Queen Mary University of London with a First Class Honours Degree in English in 2006. He has created online comics, short films, and even computer games in his spare time but has never written fiction professionally. During the past year, he was pleased that his short film script, ‘The Price of Dust’, was shortlisted from over 1000 scripts for the Screen and Story Film Festival 2021.”

A commercial photographer from necessity, but a writer at heart, Mike’s plays have been performed in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Gibraltar and Singapore. There have been many performances in the UK including at The Union Theatre in Southwark where The Gatekeeper's True Religion was described by Time Out magazine as ‘…a unique gem’. The short play Walkway was shortlisted in the 2020 Kenneth Branagh Drama Awards and NATFIS was on the 2021 shortlist.

He is very proud to have been involved in all five of the Burnham Drama shows (number six is in production) raising over five thousand pounds to help retain a community library in Burnham.

Mike’s short stories have won awards in various festivals and competitions including the Berkshire Arts Festival and the Woman’s Own short story competition. He has been Slough Writers Writer of the year on five occasions and been included in the top three of 31 Slough Writers competitions.

There have been extensive writing projects for Slough Museum and Slough Library including a podcast for Slough 202020. He has delivered a variety of writing workshops.

Current projects include promoting his full-length play Gates of Chernobyl and refining his full length play The Girl from the Fiction Department. He is a member of the Writers Guild and Actors and Writers London.

Valerie O’Connor believes cake heals all ill, or does it? This monologue is the first play she has written since childhood. Following a long career in food journalism, she undertook an MA in Creative Writing and is now developing a TV comedy script as well as finishing her first novel. Now that her two adult sons are reared, this is the best time to write.

Amanda is an award-winning director, choreographer and coach, and has worked extensively in film, TV & theatre, both as a performer and as a producer, director and choreographer.

Recently Amanda worked as Associate Director and choreographer on a workshop of a new American show, “Chasing Rainbows” and was also a performance coach on America’s Got Talent and Penn & Teller Fool Us.

Earlier this year, Amanda produced, directed and choreographed a sell-out production of “Stepping Out” at The Studio Theatre in N12.

Before Covid, Amanda Produced, directed and choreographed “Working A Musical” at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, which received rave reviews and a seal of approval from Stephen Schwartz himself.

Other director/choreographer credits include: Sister Act, Made in Dagenham, The Full Monty, Sweet Charity, The Producers, Annie, Hot Mikado, Seussical, Fame, Oliver, Fiddler on the Roof, The Wiz and Summer Holiday.

Amanda has also directed numerous training films and corporate videos. She has been a guest director /choreographer at many drama schools up and down the country and has led many teaching training sessions for drama teachers.

Theatre credits are too numerous to mention but Amanda has played in many, MANY musicals and plays in the West End, on tour and in rep theatres all over the UK.

Amanda is a regular director at The Kenneth Branagh new writing festival in Windsor and is very excited to be back this year.

Anna will soon be graduating at Royal Holloway University and has already built an enviable record in performance, choreography, directing and dramaturgy. 

Her experience has included:

Directed a new version of Sondheim’s classic ‘Company’, recontextualized into the aftermath of Covid lockdowns to explore how our relationships to each other and ourselves have changed as a result.

Assistant Director in a cabaret show focused on the evolution of recent musical theatre from West Side Story to the present day. Numbers directed and choreographed included songs from Evita, Hadestown, Falsettos and Wicked.

Appearing as Feste in ‘Twelfth Night’ in an autistic recontextualization of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ directed by Connor McClenan.

Assistant director in a recontexualised version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Patience’ set in a university in the 1970’s. 

President of ‘The Holloway Players’.

Theatre Direction includes The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Upstairs at the Gatehouse Theatre and currently touring), Power Luncheon (The Hope Theatre) The Good Dad: a Love Story (Golden Goose Theatre, The Hope Theatre and Old Red Lion Theatre).

Nominated at The Hope Theatre for best director OFFIE award. A Boy Called Porro {Pleasance Theatre), Edred The Vampyre (Old Red Lion Theatre), An Absence Of (Old Court, Windsor) winner of the Kenneth Branagh new writers award), It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (0ld Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham) Death of a Hunter (Finborough Theatre), The Gin Chronicles series (ArtsSpace Edinburgh), Orbits (Drayton ArmsTheatre), RealLife TV (Barons Court Theatre) and Saffron Hill ( Pleasance Theatre), LANZA (Kings Head Theatre) The Seagull (Tabard Theatre),  Zena Edwards's Security (Battersea Arts Centre) the first UK production selected for Tadashe Suzuki's Shizuoka Festival, Japan, and Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart, adapted into a series for BBC Radio 4.

Online direction includes: Lear Alone winner of the overall ONCOMM award 2022 and Scenesaver Best Director Award 2022. Since 2020: Love Screens (OnComm Award winner) and Death of a Hunter (OnComm Award winner), He has directed two short cross disciplinary promotional films of Shakespeare works Macbeth with Terry Deary, author of the Horrible Histories and Romeo and Juliet with Tate Modern.  He was formerly Artistic Director of OPEN Ealing Arts Centre and the Drayton Court Theatre, where productions included The Bullet, Landscape, The Lover and Mojo.  

He has published on directing Vsevolod Meyerhold’s acting technique, Harold Pinter’s Mountain Language, Samuel Beckett’s Rockaby and the theatre of Jacques Lecoq.  He is a member of Equity, The Chelsea Arts Club and Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts.

Jackie's previous theatre credits include Elegies for Angels, Punks & Raging Queens (Kings Head and Union Theatre) Catfish The Musical (Turbine on the Jetty) Grimaldi (Kenneth Moore Theatre) and Love & Money (Soho Theatre), as well as roles for short film, commercial & corporate projects. Jackie can also be heard on the concept album for Catfish The Musical.

West End: Kiss Me Kate Olivier Award Nomination Best Actor in a Musical, Javert in Les Miserables, Judas in Godspell, Songbook, Anthony in Sweeney Todd, Curley in Oklahoma, Nigel in Pass the Butler, the original Eddie in Blood Brothers, Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, Lt Joe Cable in South Pacific, Spencer Wylie in Betrayal of Nora Blake, Alderman Fitzwarren in Dick Whittington, Zipp, Georges in Marguerite and The Go Between. 

National Theatre: Andrew in Coming in to Land, Tony Lumpkin in She Stoops to Conquer, Julien in Martine, Adam Adam in Rough Crossing, Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls and Dolabella in Anthony and Cleopatra. For Music Theatre London: The Don in Don Giovanni, Papageno in Magic Flute, The Count in Figaro, Germont Pere in La Traviata and Alidoro in La Cenerentola. 

Other theatre: Captain Hook in Lost Boy at Charing Cross Theatre, Juan Peron Evita national tour, Dick Barton Special Agent. one man play Nymphs and Shepherds (Etcetera), Twelfth Night (Edinburgh), Right Royal Farce (Kings Head), Lady and the Tiger (Orange Tree Richmond). Radio Times (Watermill Newbury) 

TV: Victorian Scandals (Granada), Peak Practice (Carlton), Wings (BBC) Radio: The Lorenzaccio Story and the award winning Killing Maestros. 

As director: Aladdin Milton Keynes Theatre , A Bowl Of Cherries Charing Cross Theatre. Nativity in Creakebottom Slingshot Theatre, A Comedy of Arias Jermyn Street and Kings Head, Assassins, Sauce for the Goose, Threepenny Opera, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Sweeney Todd, Man of La Mancha, This Thing Called Love, Billy, four short films ‘Stories of 2016’ and BOO. Resident Director Zipp (Duchess) and Dick Barton (National Tour). 

Andrew created and directed a short film Home about homelessness in London which had its first screening at The Tricycle Theatre and was shown at the Houses of Parliament in April 2016.

Joan is known for having developed the film ‘The King’s Speech’, directed by Tom Hooper, starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter - having been sent the stage play by writer David Seidler. Following the introduction to several of Joan’s colleagues, David was persuaded to adapt the stage play to the iconic film it has become.

She trained as a Speech and Language Therapist, with a background as a music scholar. She has also worked as a vocal consultant. Her varied work in music, film and television exposed Joan to scripts and screenplays. With a background of language, Joan began to work with writers and to edit scripts and screenplays. She now spends most of her working hours doing just that. Currently, a couple of TV series on which she has worked with first-time writers are under consideration and three films are expected to go into production in 2023. The coronavirus pandemic caused disruption in the film industry, as in all other areas of life and caused a couple of her film projects and a stage play, to come to a temporary halt.

Her company, Wild Thyme Productions, has toured six innovative productions of Shakespeare’s plays in the UK and Germany and mounted world premiere showcases and readings of new plays and musicals in London.

Primarily engaged as a Consultant by the BBC, Joan’s skills were used for the recording, filming and Royal Opera House performance of ‘The Little Prince’. She was a director for BBC Radio Two and BBC Television’s New Talent UK-wide search for the ‘Voice of Musical Theatre’, involved with background music for the film 2‘The Actors’, coordinated the participation of singing Angels for Stephen Fry’s directorial film debut ‘Bright Young Things’ and worked on the BBC’s Promenade Concert/Opera ‘The Water Diviner’s Tale’. She recently co-wrote the screenplay of a new film which goes into production in October of this year, shooting in Mongolia, Hungary and the UK.

As well as touring with her own company, Joan has worked on several plays at the National Theatre and toured plays with ATG, PW Productions and the Pleasance Theatre. She recommends scripts to Russian translator colleagues and two plays were produced in Russia until recently, one at the renowned Art Theatre in Moscow.

She is a regular Lecturer/Mentor on the renowned Rocaberti Castle Writers’ Retreats alongside some of the top people in screenwriting. (https://rocabertiwriters.com/retreats).