Kudos North

One of Jimmy Cricket’s daughters has won a prestigious award for her writing.

Katie Mulgrew (right), a writer and stand-up comedian from Rochdale, was one of three winners of the Northern Writers Award run by Kudos North, the Manchester-based production arm of Kudos.

The awards, run in conjunction with the BBC Writersroom, were launched in October 2017 to identify and nurture emerging northern voices. Judges were so overwhelmed by the standard of entries that three, rather than the previously stipulated two, winners were selected.

The trio each receive a £2,000 prize to get an idea developed with mentorship from acclaimed northern writers Danny Brocklehurst and Stephen Butchard.

Katie had her first full-length play, Omnibus, staged at the Liverpool Unity Theatre in 2017. She has written for BBC Radio 4’s Newsquiz and script-edited the award-winning short film Ctrl Z.

Proud dad Jimmy said on social media channel Twitter: “Congratulations to my daughter Katie who has won this prestigious award as a talented writer!”

The other two award winners were Niki Rooney, a writer from Glasgow who has written extensively for Hollyoaks (C4) and tween drama Ride (Nickelodeon), and Helen Black, an author from Pontefract in West Yorkshire who has six published books in her Lily Valentine series alongside a new fiction series called Taking Liberties.

Laura Conway, Development Producer at Kudos North, said: “I am thrilled to find three fabulous Northern voices who are new to both Kudos and the BBC Writersroom.

“The level of work was extremely high which made the decision near impossible but Katie, Helen and Niki all expressed clear, urgent visions for their pitches and created characters which stayed with me long after the judging day.

“Championing top talent is what this award is all about and to find three exceptional, female writers is genuinely exciting – I can’t wait to get cracking on development.”

From 300 scripts received, 23 were invited to submit a one-page pitch for a TV drama series idea. These were read by judges and whittled down to six, which were invited to BBC Media City in Manchester to pitch their idea to a panel including Ayela Butt, BBC Drama Co –Commissioner, Anne Edyvean, Head of the BBC Writersroom, Sarah Stack, Head of Development at Kudos and Laura Conway Development Producer at Kudos North.

The winners will now be given one-on-one support by Kudos North in developing their idea before presenting to BBC commissioner Mona Qureshi and co-commissioner Ayela Butt.