We've always been impressed here at IRDP by the quality of James Payne's
writing. James has won the Woolwich
Young Radio Playwrights' Competition twice. His powerful depiction of life
in London - Shiver Breathing - was a winner in 1994 and was not only
broadcast on LBC radio, but was also adapted for the stage and played to a full
house in the Cottesloe Theatre at the Royal National, South Bank, London. Shiver
Breathing starred Tony Booth
and
Simon Fenton.
Shiver Breathing was
our Internet Play of the Month during May 1998. James won the Woolwich
competition again with his play Coffee and Cigars which will be
broadcast on LBC (please see our
broadcast schedule page for
details of transmission times). He also won the London Radio Playwrights'
Festival in 1993 with Bliss and Tumble which was co-written with Chris
Fitch.
The picture shows James receiving his award in the Woolwich
Young Radio Playwrights' Competition from Competition Patron Melvyn Bragg
James is a graduate of Brighton University where he studied Visual and
Performing Arts. His writing credits are already numerous and include: Two
episodes of Ant and Dec Unzipped which were screened on Channel 4 in
March and April 1997 - ten 1 minute strands, three studio based sketches and
three opening songs (the show was nominated for a British Comedy Award in
December 1997); Six of One for Channel 4, an 11 minute animation which
he rewrote with Gary Howe and Richard Preddy; regular contributions to The
Jack Docherty Show on Channel 5; Agony, a series of short
dramatisations of real life problems for Live TV; The Gannons, a
situation comedy for which he was commissioned to write a pilot episode in
December 1995; regular contributions for Sky Television's children's department
- Drama in the Deep, Fishy Bubble Fortune, Ghoul-lashed, Boiled Egg and
Soldiers, Big Food Fights and many others; Diaries of a Dependent
for BBC Radio 1; Pirates, a serial of five 4 minute shorts which was a
winner in the Radio 1 category of the BBC First Bite Festival in 1995. James is
currently working on Estate of the Nation, a youth comedy drama in
development at Zenith.
