Penny Woolcock is renowned for writing and directing some of the most refreshingly provocative and audacious work in Britain today. She is a director who you can genuinely describe as innovative, uncompromising, and with buckets of integrity to boot. ‘1 Day’ is her latest – a GRIME or HIP HOP MUSICAL (!), shot on the streets around Handsworth, Birmingham with an entire cast of actors from its local streets. Punctuated with exhilarating rap set-pieces, the film follows the violent, troubled…

I’m not sure if I caught it in the autumnal draft of Cheltenham or earlier during a weekend crawling around London but the source is immaterial – I’m ill. Properly head spinning, bone aching, sleep all day, fry-an-egg-on-my-forehead ill. Or least I was yesterday. I’m feeling slightly more compos mentis after clocking up an impressive fifteen or sixteen hours sleep. I’m still exhausted but at least I’m now slipping into the enjoyable part of flu where the discomfort is offset…

I’m now back in the warm and ready to catch up on my sleep but I just wanted to round off my thoughts on the Cheltenham Screenwriter’s Festival with a heart felt thank you to everyone who admitted they enjoyed reading this blog. It’s an honour and a pleasure to bring some pleasant distraction into your lives. Now get back to work. x

As you may have gathered from my previous two posts, I went to the Cheltenham Screenwriter’s Festival expecting to find encouragement and people bursting to champion the craft and skill of the screenplay. I was disappointed since time after time the message was more that none of us were trying hard enough. I found self flagellation and tighter belts and writers almost apologising for their ideas before they pitched them. This is a personal opinion. It was not physically possible…

One of the things that drew me and Chris down to the Cheltenham Screenwriter’s Festival was the prospect of the “speed dating” sessions which sought to borrow the lonely-hearts format to bring together writers with agents and producers. It’s a good idea, especially in England where most people still feel the need for some sort of ice breaker before they can just march up to a total stranger and start trying to engage them conversation, even if that conversation could…

On the way from the hotel where I’m staying to the Cheltenham Ladies College which is hosting this year’s Cheltenham’s Screenwriter’s Festival, there is a large and beguiling brass statue of a hare and a minotaur. They sit side by side on a brass bench, about two or three times the size of people. The minotaur has his arm around the hare and though the hare’s gender is left to the imagination of the viewer, the minotaur has an unmissable…

This: can be found here.

Apparently in order to get to Cheltenham for the Screenwriter’s Festival tomorrow I have to wake up at half past five in the morning. This seems like bad plotting.

I’m not just posting other people’s letters because I’m too lazy to write my own stuff. Honest. These letters are just so damn great!