The David Nobbs Memorial Trust, founded in 2017 after the death of the Reggie Perrin author, opens its annual new comedy writing competition today. Since its launch eight years ago, the competition has striven to encourage and champion emerging talent with financial aid.
The competition offers cash prizes to up-and-coming UK comedy writers, helping them ‘buy time’ for writing. The 2025 overall winner will be awarded £1000. The winner will also be offered a one-to-one consultation with an established comedy producer or commissioner from the Trust board. Each runner-up entry will receive £250.
Prizes will be awarded after judges from across the UK comedy industry cast their expert eye across qualifying entries, which can be submitted until 23:59 on 3rd March 2025.
This year, owner of Yellow Door Productions and formerly head of comedy commissioning at both Sky and the BBC Lucy Lumsden returns to judge the entries alongside BBC Inside Number 9 and Channel 4 Catastrophe producer Adam Tandy and BAFTA-winning producer Gill Isles.
Lumsden said “Delighted to be judging these awards again for 2025, they provide such a fantastic badge of honour for new writers. Can’t wait to see this year’s scripts!”
Tandy said: “It’s a huge pleasure to be asked to judge such an important and prestigious competition. I can’t wait.”
Isles said: “I had the honour of briefly working with David Nobbs, and so I’m thrilled to be involved as a judge in the competition this year. I think it’s important that new comedy writers get the chance to have their work read by people in the industry and this is one of the few opportunities on offer. Plus there’s cold hard cash for the winner and runners up to either help on their writing journey, or spend on really, really good red wine - I’m sure David would approve of both.”
The contest is aimed at those early in their writing career, but it is not totally ‘open door’. Entrants are required to provide a broadcast credit for their written material and must accompany their entry with a 500-word Statement of Intent describing their writing career goals. Full entry criteria can be found on the website. The winner will be announced in July 2025.
The David Nobbs Memorial Trust was established by comedy producers, performers and people who knew and loved David, with the blessing of his family, to honour his memory by supporting new comedy writing in the UK. Sadly, in 2024, David's beloved wife Susan passed away. This year's competition is dedicated to Susan and the whole family.
Trust chair, journalist and author Mary O’Hara said: “All of us at the DNMT are thrilled to anticipate another batch of up-and-coming writers getting the chance to enter our competition. Over the eight years the contest has been running we’ve seen extraordinary talent enter, win and go on to great things. 2025 won’t feel quite the same due the death of David’s wife, Susan, but we will take the opportunity to honour her and the incredible support she gave us from the get-go.”
2024 winner, Alice Etches said: “More than anything, winning the David Nobbs award gave me a big boost to my confidence, at a time when I really needed it. The award opened doors to production companies I wasn’t speaking with before. It’s a good accolade to mention when sending scripts out as well! Worth noting nobody’s commissioned my winning script ‘The Waywards’ yet, so if anyone’s interested in reading an erratic comedy about family, lies and cancer - holler.
This industry is hard, and award schemes like the David Nobbs Memorial Trust are a real boost. Even if you don't win, you can feel proud of getting together 10 polished pages of script to enter with. That's an achievement in itself, if you ask me.”
The Trust is supported by three patrons: comedy legend and friend of David Michael Palin and the writer Jonathan Coe, and playwright and award-winning writer and producer of HBO’s Succession, Lucy Prebble.
Coe said: “I’ve never met anyone with such a sharp, instinctive sense of comedy as David Nobbs. Comedy was in his blood and it was his way of coping with life’s manifold absurdities. Encouraging younger writers – such as myself – was an integral part of his mission to spread more laughter throughout the world, and I’m proud to have a role in that now, as a Patron of David’s Memorial Trust.”
Full details of the competition can be found at the Trust website: www.DavidNobbsMemorialTrust.org.uk
