Dancing Ledge Names Mentors of 2023 Writers Program

Dancing Ledge Productions (The Responder, Wedding Season) and ScreenSkills’ High-end Television (HETV) Skills Fund have named the writers who have signed on as mentors for the HETV Skills Fund New Writers Program 2023.

The mentors are Namsi Khan (True Detective, His Dark Materials), Emilia di Girolamo (Deceit, Three Pines), Camilla Blackett (New Girl, Fresh Off the Boat), Julie Gearey (Intergalactic, Prisoners’ Wives), Nathaniel Price (Tin Star, The Outlaws), Oliver Lyttleton (Wedding Season, Cheaters) and the duo Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley (Humans, Better).

Khan will mentor Lucy Burke, di Girolamo will advise Bindu de Stoppani, Blackett will guide Shani Akilah, and Gearey will counsel Florence Espeut-Nickless. Nathan Queely-Dennis is the mentee of Price, while Izzy Radford is the mentee of Lyttleton. Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley will take on two mentees: William Gilles and Alannah Olivia.

The program was first commissioned in 2017 by the HETV Skills Fund and is developed and delivered by Fremantle-backed Dancing Ledge Productions. Each mentor chooses a new writer who they have been impressed by, and the new writer is given a non-refundable bursary to write a pilot episode for their own original TV series. The mentor will provide feedback throughout the writing process.

Two shows have come from the program: The Responder, from Tony Schumacher under the mentorship of Jimmy McGovern, and Trigger Point, from Daniel Brierly under the mentorship of Jed Mercurio.

“The Fund is very proud to support this program for a third year running,” said Kaye Elliott, director of the HETV Skills Fund. “The program has previously helped writers, including The Responder’s Tony Schumacher and Trigger Point’s Daniel Brierley, and we believe it is really important to give new and upcoming writers the encouragement and support they need to develop their unique voices and progress their careers.”

Laurence Bowen, CEO of Dancing Ledge Productions, added, “As a company, we are immensely proud of how this scheme, with the support of the HETV Skills Fund, has grown and flourished since it began. It’s a real celebration of everything we believe in at Dancing Ledge. With the help of its stellar mentors, it has helped launch the careers of an extraordinary new generation of screenwriters. Tony Schumacher’s multi-BAFTA-nominated The Responder and Daniel Brierley’s Trigger Point directly came out of the scheme, with the help of Jimmy McGovern and Jed Mercurio, and Nicole Lecky, mentored by Levi David Addai, went on to write and star in the multi-award-winning Mood. Other mentees have gone on to work on Sex Education, Noughts and Crosses, Wedding Season and A Town Called Malice. So, it’s exciting to be back for the third round of bursaries and funding with a wonderful new group of mentors and mentees.”