The Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing 2024

I began writing screenplays and short stage plays on an amateur basis after retiring from a career in sales and marketing. By continually entering playwriting competitions, I have had plays produced or given staged readings in theatres across the USA as well as in Canada, Mexico, India, Australia and New Zealand, Malaysia and the Philippines. I now focus exclusively on stage writing, but have had several screenplays produced and radio plays broadcast nationally, and I helped to write a feature-length film The Donor Conspiracy.  

Celeste Engel studied Theatre and Drama at Australia’s La Trobe University. After emigrating to the UK, she obtained a Masters in Writing for the Media at Bournemouth University, her play SHINE BRIGHT was shortlisted for the the Kenneth Branagh Writing Prize in 2015 as was a project for the DOT award in 2018 as part of the New Media Writing Prize. 

She teaches filmmaking at the Arts University Bournemouth, short courses. Her play Sweet Dreams was performed by Theatre West as a rehearsed online reading 2021 and extracts were later performed by Beyond Face Theatre Company at the Exeter Phoenix Theatre for scratch nights in 2022 & 2023, with Star Light in a Jar performed for a scratch night March 2024.

My name is Niall McCarthy, I'm a writer/Stand up comedian from Derry currently living in London. My first full length run in London has been greenlit at Theatre503 for my play ‘Derry Boys’ for three weeks in May 2025. My first full length play script ‘Forbidden Fruit’ was optioned in 2023 and will be performed in June 2025 at the Cheltenham Playhouse. I've had short plays titled 'Parakeet', 'The Parting Glass', 'Glass Villas', 'Make Love Not Greenpeace' and 'Star Fish' performed in theatres in London, Newcastle and Bedford. In 2021 I was inducted onto the ‘Live Theatre Newcastle New Playwrights course’ and in 2023 I attended the ‘INK Festival Script Writing Course’ hosted by Greg Mosse. In April 2024 my play ‘Fatherland’ was performed at the INK festival. In March 2024 my short audio play ‘God Complex’ was selected for the UK International Radio Drama Festival.