Commissioning drama: The producer as co-creator - Seminar 2

The Producer In Development Of Broadcast Drama is the second seminar session in the ongoing series focusing on Commissioning Drama: The Producer As Co-creator.

To book your place for this seminar and for more information please register here.

This seminar series features leading commissioners and producers in the fields of British screen drama, broadcast drama, and theatre, in conversation with writer-academics. It will explore the role of the commissioner and producer in terms of relationships with audiences, and investigate the extent to which they can be regarded as co-creators. 

This seminar examines the role of the producer-commissioner in broadcast drama, and their role as intermediary between writer and audiences, where the development process acts as both a filter and as a conduit. The guest speaker is Heather Larmour, who works across all broadcast media for BBC Drama.


GUEST SPEAKER
Heather Larmour, BBC Drama
Heather is the BBC Commissioning Executive for Northern Ireland, working within the Drama Commissioning department on projects such as Blue Lights, The Woman in the Wall and Wreck 2. She is also part of the Writersroom team in Northern Ireland where she works across their local and pan-UK writer development programmes. She began her career in BBC Northern Ireland’s Drama Department where she was an Audio Drama Producer for a number of years before moving to work in TV at Kudos where she was a Development Executive and a Script Editor on several of the company’s productions, including Responsible Child, Grantchester and Steven Knight’s SAS Rogue Heroes.

CHAIR
Dr Dónall Mac Cathmhaoill, The Open University
Dónall Mac Cathmhaoill is a lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University. His research interests are in authorship, politics, and structures of production; theatre for social change in post-conflict societies; and identity politics in Irish theatre, film, and broadcast drama.  As a dramatist he has written for BBC Radio 4, BBC TV Drama, BBC Education and others. He was director with leading Irish theatre company Tinderbox, and a producer at Soho Theatre, London, where he ran the programmes for young and emerging professional playwrights. He was nominated for the Imison Award from the Society of Authors for his first radio play, Bull Epic, and for a Sony Award for his Radio 4 Classic Serial, Barry Lyndon. He was a winner of the BBC Double Exposure scheme, and of the Bill Miskelly Award from NI Screen.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY CONTEMPORARY CULTURES OF WRITING RESEARCH GROUP AND ABOUT THIS SEMINAR SERIES PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE:
https://www5.open.ac.uk/arts/research/contemporary-cultures-of-writing/events