HI Wireless Drama Writing Programme

We are delighted to be working with our co-funders Creative Scotland on this exciting writing development project.

Eleven writers with eleven radio dramas, they are all finished! Put your feet up and tune in to Border Control by Dave Smith, the first in the second series of HI Wireless.

In the Autumn of 2012 ScreenHI teamed up with HI Wireless to create a programme designed to encourage and develop aspiring drama writers through supported workshops and mentoring as they develop their stories from idea through the whole production process of storyboarding and scripting to recording, resulting in the online broadcast of the final radio dramas We advertised back in mid September for budding drama writers, whittling down the applicants to a final twelve The first workshop took take place on 17th November where the successful writers met their tutors and mentors to learn more about how the programme was to pan out over the subsequent 6 months And, of course, no time was wasted getting stuck straight into the business of drama writing Make yourself a cup of tea and take the time to read the monthly blogs from our writers, they are a good and sometimes hilarious read.

The tutors at the first workshop included Richard Melvin, Alan de Pellette and Chris Dolan who were all involved in delivering various elements of the programme and who are all hugely experienced in their fields. Radio nan Gaidheal are on board and Head of Radio at BBC Scotland, Jeff Zycinski has also shown his support for the project. We are still in discussion with BBC Scotland Radio Drama about how they can contribute to developing our writers in the final stages of the project. 

We were privileged to secure three mentors, each of whom have formidable and hugely successful careers in the business:

Chris Dolan
Chris writes for stage and screen (drama and documentary), as well as novels, poetry and articles. His work is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland as well as STV, Channel 4 and BBC Television. But radio in all its forms – drama, documentary, and presenting programmes – holds a special place in his heart. Find out more about him.

Colin MacDonald
Colin has written extensively for television (Sharpe’s Honour, Blue Murder, Casualty), film (Calum’s Road, Ivanhoe) and stage (The Bones Boys, The Gowk Storm). But radio drama remains a constant: he has written 17 dramas for Radio 4 and Radio Scotland as well as the series Dissolution and The Whole of The Moon. Visit his website.

Iain Findlay Macleod
Iain is from the Isle of Lewis, where he lives and works. He has written some 20 plays, which have been performed professionally, he has adapted other peoples work for radio, film and televsision and has worked as a script doctor and advisor on many productions. Find out more about him.

Our team of writers were each assigned a mentor to guide and support them throughout the process The writers had a one-to-one sessions with their dedicated mentor between drafts and received their continued support through re-drafts until crunch time and final copies were submitted in June 2013 The next and final step of production is to record the dramas!  Watch this space, we are in the process of finalising this.

Our team of HI Wireless writers are:

Alison MacDonald
Iain Hector Ross
Dave Till
Phil Baarda
Sophia Heckmann
Kerrie Ross
Sylvia Hehir
Mairead Martin
Jan Storie
Alan MacDiarmid
Dave Smith