Script Lab 2025 has officially begun! This year’s participants have been shaping their stories and building on their short-form screenwriting skills during our first writing workshop.
Script Lab is our annual programme designed to nurture emerging screenwriters across the North of England. Over several months, we guide creatives through the journey of developing a short film, from the spark of an initial idea to a fully crafted script.
Our 2025 cohort brings a rich and diverse mix of creative backgrounds to the table, spanning theatre, audio drama, teaching, and beyond. We’re thrilled to introduce this talented bunch and look forward to seeing their projects evolve.
Sophie Broadgate
Sophie is a Cumbrian writer/director/filmmaker working across narrative, documentary and artist film. Since receiving a late diagnosis of autism Sophie has focused on making work around neurodivergent experiences.
Her work has shown in both film festival and exhibition contexts including Edinburgh Film Festival, The Lowry, The Barbican Centre, and Women X festival.
She is currently in post-production for Part Fish, a 20 minute documentary about autism, stimming and the Cumbrian landscape, as well as developing new narrative work.
Chanse Campbell
Chanse is an emerging screenwriter from Leeds. Both mixed-race and from working class origins, he is particularly drawn towards telling underdog stories, including themes that often centre around identity and belonging.
Chanse has spent the last two years studying a Screenwriting MA at the National Film & Television School as a BBC scholar, with a particular interest in writing scripts that feature strong regional characters whilst still maintaining a broader commercial appeal.
Femi Craigwell
Femi is an emerging screenwriter and Film and Media Studies graduate based in Cheshire. Her short film script Drone was shortlisted in Thirty Three Film’s Short Film Call Out competition, and her flash fiction piece was published in 81 Words, winning the Saboteur Award for Best Anthology.
In 2023, Femi was named a finalist at the UK Film Festival for her horror/thriller short script Teeth. She is currently developing new work and excited to take her writing and career to the next level.
Shehzida Iqbal
Shehzida is a Bradford-born British Pakistani writer/director and an experienced freelance assistant director in both film and commercial, having helped deliver projects for Film 4, BBC, Sky Studios and the BFI. Compelled by stories rooted in the exploration of culture and identity, she is currently in production of her first short film Nights Like These.
Shehzida is an alum of the 2022 cohort of Beyond Brontës: The Mayors Screen Diversity Programme, as well as the 2023 FHN X NFTS Directors Workshop, and has a masters in Visual Sociology from Goldsmiths University London.
Nana-Kofi Kufuor
Nana-Kofi is a British Ghanaian playwright, screenwriter, and TV writer with a Screenwriting MA from the University of Salford. Kofi writes about race, gender, politics, and classism, favouring female leads and a slightly comedic lens.
Kofi won the Channel 4 New Writing North Award 2024 and is working on the TV series Dana with Bonafide Films as a result. He was also commissioned to write original pilot Marie Choice by Sky Studios and Rope Ladder Fiction.
Sam Lawrence
Sam is a writer born and rooted in Yorkshire. Across audio, screen and prose, his work touches on the rapidly changing nature of culture, often via the experience of living in the post-industrial north.
He has developed work for screen through the Sky Writes Writing for Television programme (Sky Studios and New Writing North) and was subsequently supported by the Channel 4 Northern Talent Network. Sam has had several audio dramas broadcast: in 2023, his play Deep Harvest became the first feature-length radio drama to be selected for INK Festival, and the production gained coverage in The i newspaper and BBC News.
Chloe McLaughlin
Chloe is a working-class writer based in the North who writes for both stage and screen. Her work has been performed at theatres such as The Lowry Studio, Hope Mill Theatre and 53Two.
She took part in New Writing North’s Channel 4-funded Bradford Script Hub and ImagineIf Theatre’s Writer’s Toolbox programme. Alongside her writing, Chloe currently works on Emmerdale where she has been credited as a Storyliner on over 1000 episodes.
Ellie O’Brien
Ellie is a writer from Northumberland. She was a finalist in the 2024 Female Pilot Club Script Call, was longlisted for Film4 x New Writing North’s 2024 Genre Lab, and recently made the top 10.5% of applicants for this year’s BBC Writers scheme.
Ellie loves writing witty, character-driven, often female-led scripts with a speculative twist and is especially passionate about telling stories set within her home region of the North-East.
Tom Smith
Tom is a Sunderland-based scriptwriter with a passion for telling working-class and underrepresented stories rooted in the North East.
In recent years, Tom has been awarded the Northern Writers’ Award: Channel 4 Writing for Television, worked as a freelance storyliner for Hollyoaks, secured a place on the BBC Dumping Ground Shadow Scheme, and took part in BBC Voices, where he developed a treatment for an original comedy-drama series.
He has collaborated with independent production companies on a range of original projects and is eager to continue building relationships across the television and film industry.
Jilly Sumsion
Jilly is a Northern writer from a working-class background. She has moved between teaching, theatre making and writing for many years and is currently an Associate Artist at the Dukes Theatre.
Jilly has a Scriptwriting MA from Manchester Writing School and is a Channel 4 Screenwriting alumnae. She was a finalist for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award with radio drama Driving Lessons, and an excerpt of her play Debbie Townsend Is a Slag was staged at HOME in 2023.
Jilly has a range of television drama and comedy projects optioned with various production companies including Balloon, Lime Pictures, Pulse Films and New Pictures.
