Clive Judd Wins 14th Annual Papatango New Writing Prize

Papatango today announces that Clive Judd has won the 14th annual Papatango New Writing Prize for his debut full-length play, Here, from a record 1,553 entries. Also announced today were the other shortlisted writers: Georgia Bruce for Time, Like The Sea; Jennifer Lunn for Core; Esme Mahoney for Wishbone, and Dilan Raithatha for Little India.

The winning play Here will have its world première at The Large, Southwark Playhouse, London from 11 November - 3 December 2022, directed by Papatango's Artistic Director George Turvey. The four shortlisted plays will receive filmed readings, broadcast for a global network on The Playwright's Laboratory.

Judged anonymously, the Papatango New Writing Prize was the UK's first - and remains the only annual - opportunity guaranteeing a new writer a full production, publication by Nick Hern Books, a royalty of 8% of the box office, and a £7,000 commission with full developmental support. This year, the Prize has expanded to support the shortlisted writers with a £500 fee and a streamed reading to promote their play worldwide, with the aim of securing full productions and new opportunities.

In addition, every entrant receives feedback on their script - a commitment made by no other company, especially significant as the Prize averages more submissions on a yearly basis than any other playwriting award.

The last Prize production - Old Bridge by Igor Memic - won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. This year's Prize production will run on Papatango's biggest ever stage - The Large at Southwark Playhouse, offering main house billing for a debut playwright.

Clive Judd said today, "It is a huge honour to be named the 2022 Papatango Prize winner. Writing has always formed an integral part of my life; it is through the stories of other people that I have been able to pursue avenues of creativity and thought that may otherwise have remained closed to me. But it has taken me the best part of twenty years to build the courage to share my own. It means the world to me that my quiet play about ordinary, working folk from the West Midlands has received this recognition from one of my favourite new writing companies."

Artistic Director of Papatango, George Turvey, commented, "We are delighted to be championing another incredibly talented working-class debut playwright. In Here, Clive has written a beautiful, humane story from an often overlooked community. Read anonymously, the quality of his writing shone through in what was undoubtedly one of our most eclectic and exciting shortlists. That's why we're also thrilled to be partnering with The Playwright's Laboratory for the Prize's first international outing, allowing us to share the shortlisted playwrights' work with producers and programmers worldwide."

Clive Judd is a writer, director and bookseller originally from Dines Green in Worcester. He was educated at the University of Manchester and subsequently trained as a director on the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme, the inaugural Foundry Programme at the Birmingham Rep, and The National Theatre Studio Director's Course. Here is Judd's first play. His story There Has Been a Delay is currently being adapted for audio, and We Can Collect The Keys, a collaboration with the artist Patrick Wray, was published by Exit Press in 2022. As a director, his credits include The MP, Aunty Mandy and Me (Leicester Curve), Captain Amazing (Live Theatre), Rails (Theatre by the Lake), This Will End Badly and Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (Southwark Playhouse), and Dyl and Sparks (Old Red Lion Theatre).

Clive Judd is the sixteenth Papatango New Writing Prize winner, after the 2021 Prize supported three writers - Nkenna Akunna, Tom Powell and Tajinder Singh Hayer - with audio productions and a nationwide tour.

Igor Memic - the winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing Prize for Old Bridge - went on to win the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and the OffWestEnd Award for Most Promising Playwright. Other writers produced under the Prize include Dawn King, Dominic Mitchell, Iman Qureshi, Samuel Bailey, Tom Morton-Smith, Fiona Doyle, Matt Grinter, Luke Owen, Louise Monaghan, James Rushbrooke and Jaki McCarrick. Collectively, writers launched through the Prize have won Olivier, BAFTAs, Critics' Circle, The Times Breakthrough, OffWestEnd and RNT Foundation Awards, been nominated for the James Tait Black Drama Prize and twice nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, premièred in over thirty countries worldwide, and gone on to work with The National Theatre, RSC, Hampstead Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Theatre Royal Bath, Royal and Derngate, Bush Theatre, Headlong, English Touring Theatre and The Old Vic, as well as in the West End and for the BBC and HBO.

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