2019 shortlists out

Derry Girls, Inside No 9 and Detectorists are all up for an award for the quality of their writing.

The creators of each show – Lisa McGee; Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith; and Mackenzie Crook – have been shortlisted for best TV sitcom in the annual Writers' Guild of Great Britain awards.

It is the Zanzibar episode of Inside No 9 that has been recognised: set in adjoining rooms in a London hotel and written in Shakespearean iambic pentameter.

Up for the radio comedy award are Lost Voice Guy Lee Ridley and his co-writer Katherine Jakeways for his Radio 4 show Ability; Jessica Hynes for her Radio 3 one-off Deadline, about a stressed writer that was inspired by Spike Milligan’s mental health problems; and Sarah Kendall for the Seventy-Three Seconds episode of her Radio 4 series Australian Trilogy, Volume 2.

And shortlisted for best online comedy are Tim Grewcock and Shaun Lowthian for their Scandi-noir spoof Spokke; Arnab Chanda and Chris Hayward for Three Cool Days and Hannah George and Tasha Dhanra for their BBC short about ethnic stereotyping: Where Are You From? The Game. All three are below. 

Armando Iannucci’s team on The Death of Stalin has been nominated for best screenplay alongside Bart Layton for American Animals and Lucinda Coxon and Sarah Waters The Little Strange.

Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been nominated in the TV drama category for Killing Eve, alongside Charlie Covell for The End of the F***ing World, and Alice Nutter for Trust.

The awards will be given out in London on January 14 at a ceremony hosted by The Thick Of It’s Joanna Scanlan.

The year is the 60th anniversary of the guild, a trade union for writers.

President Olivia Hetreed said: ‘Our nomination list displays the originality, inventiveness and dedication of British writers, their willingness to tackle big issues and explore unusual viewpoints whilst offering great entertainment.’

Published: 4 Dec 2018