The Stage

Black Watch and The Thick of It win Writers’ Guild prizes

Published Monday 19 November 2007 at 16:30 by Matthew Hemley

Black Watch writer Gregory Burke has beaten Tom Stoppard and Peter Morgan to win the award for best theatre play at The Writers’ Guild Awards 2007.

Burke’s play, which was based on interviews with soldiers serving with the Scottish regiment in Iraq and was produced by the National Theatre of Scotland, beat Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll and Morgan’s Frost/Nixon at the guild’s ceremony, held at Bafta in London last night.

Talking to The Stage, Burke said the award was important because it came from his peers. He added: “I always seem to be up against Rock ‘n’ Roll and Frost/Nixon which are great plays by great writers - you never expect to win.”

Other winners of the evening included the writers of the BBC comedy The Thick of It - Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche - who won the award for best comedy or light entertainment show on television. They beat Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who were nominated for Extras, and James Corden and Ruth Jones, the team behind the BBC show Gavin and Stacey.

Meanwhile, the writers of the third series of Doctor Who, including Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and Helen Raynor, took the gong for best television soap or series. The show saw off competition from the writing team behind the fourth series of New Tricks and the writers of the second series of Life on Mars, including Tony Jordan and Matthew Graham.

The award for best original television drama went to Neil McKay for the ITV show See No Evil: The Moors Murders, starring Maxine Peake. McKay was nominated alongside Victoria Wood, for her drama Housewife, 49 and Peter Morgan, for the Channel 4 drama Longford.

McKay said: “It is great to win other awards but to get the recognition from my trade union is very nice.”

Steve Gooch won the award for best radio play for McNaughton and Alan Plater, writer of many television shows including The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, picked up the lifetime achievement award.