A megahit among critics and the public, spy thriller “Killing Eve” also resonated with the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB). The 2019 Writers Guild Awards were held last night in London, and the creator of the Sandra Oh-starrer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, snagged the honor for Best Long Form TV Drama for Episode 5 of the BBC America series, “I Have A Thing About Bathrooms.”
Writer and actress Joanna Scanlan (“Getting On”) hosted the event, which recognizes British writing talent. “Call the Midwife” creator Heidi Thomas was honored with the Outstanding Contribution to Writing Award. She was recognized for her body of work and career, which includes her recent adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” for BBC.
“It was a big night for celebrating female writers, who won in nine of the 16 awards across theater, TV, radio, comedy, books, and videogames categories,” a press release detailed. “This is particularly significant given the findings of WGGB’s 2018 Equality Writes research. The shocking figures revealed that only 16 percent of all working screenwriters in film in the UK are female and the percentage of UK TV episodes that were predominantly female-written stood at just 28 percent. This dips to only 14 percent for women writing for prime-time TV, and just 11 percent in comedy. It also reinforces the finding that women’s writing is more commercially and critically successful than average, so the inequalities are not market-driven.”
Other women to take home awards include Frances Poet, who won Best Play for “Gut,” a psychological thriller about a mother who suspects her son has been abused, and Mary Lynn Bracht, winner of Best First Novel for “White Chrysanthemum,” a story about two sisters separated by WWII.
“Sixty years on from the founding of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain it is thrilling to see that British writing and British writers are in such great shape, with a fantastic array of winners across all disciplines. And in the year of our Equality Writes campaign, highlighting the long term failure to give women writers equal access to film and TV work, it’s impressive to see so many female winners in all categories as well as to celebrate the success of ‘Call the Midwife’ creator Heidi Thomas for her Outstanding Contribution to Writing,” said WGGB President Olivia Hetreed.
