The Writers’ Guild annual Awards will be presented by award-winning writer and actor Vicki Pepperdine, on Monday 15 January 2018 at the Royal College of Physicians in central London.

The Awards have been celebrating the cream of British writing since they launched in 1961 and allow professional writers to honour their peers (read a history and view an archive of winners).

WGGB President Olivia Hetreed (pictured above, at last year’s Awards) said:

“I am enormously pleased and proud of this year’s Writers’ Guild Award shortlists. They represent the best of British writing by the best writers across the full range of dramatic and comic writing. And they are all selected by working writers in their own field. It is that judgement by your peers that makes these Awards unique and uniquely special to the winners.”

The shortlist in 14 categories follows (in addition, a special award for outstanding contribution to writing is presented at the ceremony every year):

Best Long Form TV Drama

Bang, Episode 1 (Roger Williams), Line of Duty, Series 4 (Jed Mercurio), Taboo (Chips Hardy, Steven Knight, Ben Hervey and Emily Ballou)

Best Short Form TV Drama

Three Girls (Nicole Taylor), Waiting for Andre (Neil Forsyth), The Witness for the Prosecution (Sarah Phelps)

Best Long Running TV Series

Coronation Street, Episode 9251 (Damon Alexis-Rochefort), Emmerdale, Episode 7699 “Inside the Mind of Dementia” (Maxine Alderton), Holby City, Series 19, Episode 2 “Rocket Man” (Peter Mattessi)

Best TV Situation Comedy

This Country (Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper), Back (Simon Blackwell), Inside No. 9 “The Bill” (Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith)

Best Children’s TV Episode

Counterfeit Cat “Room of Panic” (Tim Bain), Counterfeit Cat “Sardonians of the Galaxy” (Ciaran Murtagh and Andrew Jones), The Worst Witch “The Mists of Time” (Nick Leather)

Best Radio Drama

Romance Is Dead (Ben Lewis), The Things We Never Said (Ming Ho), Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola, Season 3, Money “Reap” (Lavinia Murray)

Best Radio Comedy

Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy “A Day In October” (Sarah Kendall), John Finnemore’s Double Acts, Series 2, Episode 4 “Penguin Diplomacy” (John Finnemore), Kevin Eldon Will See You Now, Series 3, Episode 1 “Tarquin and the Tiny Studio” (Kevin Eldon, Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris)

Best Writing in a Video Game

Battlefield 5 (Steven Hall, Zachary Betka, Mark Bristol, Matt Gibbs, Justin Villiers, Additional writing by Christofer Emgård, Adrian Vershinin, Mikael Säker, Eric Holmes, Viktor Israelsson, Justin Langley, Stefan Strandberg, Martin Kopparhed, Indy Neidell and Andrew Robertshaw)

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Tameem Antoniades and Elizabeth Ashman-Rowe), Subsurface Circular (Mike Bithell)

Best Screenplay

Miss Sloane (Jonathan Perera), Their Finest (Gaby Chiappe), The Olive Tree (Paul Laverty)

Best First Screenplay

God’s Own Country (Francis Lee), Jawbone (Johnny Harris), Under the Shadow (Babak Anvari)

Best Play

Barber Shop Chronicles (Inua Ellams), The Children (Lucy Kirkwood), The Ferryman (Jez Butterworth)

Best Play for Young Audiences

How To Be A Kid (Sarah McDonald-Hughes), The Host (Nessah Muthy), The Messenger (Mike Kenny)

Best First Novel

Towards Mellbreak (Marie-Elsa Bragg), Montpelier Parade (Karl Geary), The Bureau of Second Chances (Sheena Kalayil)

Best Online Comedy

Showreel for One Word or Less Parts (Marek Larwood), Meet the city boys secretly voting for Corbyn! (Gabriel Bisset-Smith), A Hard Brexit (Barney Fishwick and Will Hislop)

Sponsors

The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) is the lead sponsor of the Writers’ Guild Awards this year. Our other sponsors: BBC Worldwide, BBC Studios, ITV, Company Pictures, Nick Hern Books, Silver Reel and Lionsgate.

Photo of last year’s awards reception: Matt Writtle