Drama academic to host free writing workshops this month

Dr Stephen M Hornby, Academic Fellow in Drama and Theatre Practice at the University of Salford is organising the pair of workshops at Manchester’s The Proud Place on Saturday 16 August. Attendees will get access to records of lost broadcasts to create short pieces of writing that could be used in future performances.

The workshops will be run by Stephen, Tessa Buddle, executive director of arts charity Collective Encounters, Miranda and Not Going Out writer Paul Kerensa and Marcus Collins, Professor of British History at Loughborough University.

The first will focus on scriptwriting for stage and audio and last from 11am to 1.30pm. Following a period of networking, the second workshop will then outline how to create live performances based on the archive of lost broadcasts from 2.30pm to 5pm.

Stephen will draw upon his extensive experience of writing from archives including his acclaimed play The BBC’s First Homosexual, that was first commissioned as part of the BBC 100 celebrations in 2022, and is set for a national tour in February 2026 as part of LGBTQ+ History Month celebrations.

He said: “I’ve mixed up fragments from the BBC archive with the fictional story of a young man exploring his sexuality in the 1950s. I’ll be sharing how and why I did that and passing on tips for writing from archive more generally: how to turn the record of events into compelling stories and find great characters in archives.”

Marcus partnered with Stephen on The BBC’s First Homosexual, conducting the research on which the play is based and will share his experiences of discovering lost broadcasts and his sense of how history can make for great stories.

He said: “Lost broadcasts remind us that most programmes disappear immediately upon transmission, never to be repeated or lovingly compiled into boxed sets. Finding them again is to be exposed to forgotten voices and bygone attitudes.  For the dramatists I’ve worked with, they have become a way of understanding the present through the past. I’m delighted some of them will now be sharing their experiences and techniques in these two exciting workshops.”

Tessa also has experience of writing for the BBC 100 celebrations, as she was part of the team that developed ‘Auntie’, an interactive multi-media show that took the viewer through lost BBC archives to reflect on the progress of women’s rights from the 1960s to the present using documentary footage, satirical dramatisations of archive material and reflections from a variety of women. Paul, an experienced television writer, will offer his insights into how he develops story, characterisation and evokes a sense of period for audio dramatisations. His research into the first radio play has resulted in a forthcoming BBC Radio 4 commission.

The workshops are funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of a wider project called ‘Re-viewing LGBTQ+ lives through broadcasting in Twentieth-century Britain’ that invites a variety of audiences to reassess past and present depictions of LGBTQ+ people in broadcasting through plays, workshops, roundtables, websites and resources for secondary schools.

Book your spot on the workshops.