...and Deborah Francis White in Writers' Guild awards

Veep has scooped the Writers’ Guild award for best TV comedy – with Deborah Francis-White taking the radio category.

The full team of writers of the fourth season of the HBO political series were honoured at a ceremony last night.

Led by Armando Iannucci, who stepped down as show runner once the run ended, the rest of the Brit-heavy writing team are Tony Roche, Simon Blackwell, Jon Brown, Kevin Cecil, Sean Gray, Ian Martin, Roger Drew, Peter Fellows, Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, Callie Hersheway, Sean Love, Georgia Pritchett, David Quantick, Andy Riley, Will Smith.

The accolade – ahead of fellow nominees W1A and Catastrophe – comes days after comedian Chris Addison was nominated for a  Directors Guild of America award for helming the final episode of the series.

Earlier tonight, Deborah Francis-White Rolls The Dice was named best radio comedy at the Writers’ Guild Of Great Britain bash.

The four-part series, which aired last spring, told the true stories of the comedian’s hunt for her birth parents, her struggles to get a visa, and her time as a Jehovah’s Witness.

She wrote the scripts based on her live shows, and performed them with the aid of Thom Tuck, Alex Lowe, Celia Pacquola and Cariad Lloyd.

Also shortlisted in this category were Ed Reardon’s Week, penned by Andrew Nickolds and Christopher Douglas, and Boswell’s Lives,  which starred  Miles Jupp as Dr Johnson’s time-travelling biographer and was written by Jon Cantor.

Paul King, who previously directed Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and  The Mighty Boosh, won the best screenplay for Paddington 

The awards were handed out at ceremony in London hosted by Susan Calman, who told the assembled writers: ‘You’re all winners because you get to work in your pyjamas.’

During the event, author Jonathan Coe paid tribute to Reginald Perrin creator David Nobbs who died last year, and who was a former chairman and president of the Writers’ Guild Of Great Britain.

Published: 18 Jan 2016