What we do

Workshop at TBTL June 2025

 

On Saturday June 28th, North Cumbria Scriptwriters (NCS), in cooperation with David Ross and Theatre by the Lake, held one of their biannual script workshops. Four members of NCS had submitted extracts from longer works-in-progress for ‘exploration’. These were read, sight-unseen, by four professional actors under the guidance of Peter Maqueen, a highly respected local director and actor. Each writer had requested specific help on one or two facets of their work. 

   Advice and suggestions from the professionals and from the attentive audience came thick and fast. It was an entertaining and enlightening day.

   NCS warmly thanks David, Peter, Chris Casey, Toby Gaffney, Grace Kirby, Sally Lofthouse, and of course the staff of our Theatre by the Lake, lovely even in the rain! 

Hello and welcome to the North Cumbria Scriptwriters (NCS) blog!

We are a group of writers with a serious commitment to writing for performance on stage, screen and radio.

We are associated with the Theatre By The Lake (TBTL) in Keswick, Cumbria, UK.

Our members pay a small annual subscription and we meet on the last Thursday of the month (except December) usually at TBTL, but occasionally at other venues.

North Cumbria Scriptwriters is a writing group, first established in 1999, which meets on the last Thursday of each month (except December).  Typically, we convene at 7.30pm in the Lamont Robinson Room at TBTL.

Originally known as North Cumbria Playwrights, the name was changed in 2006 to encompass all aspects of writing for performance, theatre, radio and television so far, with film still a target.  

Our objectives are to: 

• Promote and support scriptwriting in Cumbria.
• Encourage our members to write, write, write!
• Gather information concerning competitions, organisations looking for writers, funding and courses, and disseminate it to our members.
• Run scriptwriting courses and workshops.
• Take an active interest in each other’s work. 

What do we do?

We run courses for group members. In the past we have run a variety of these courses. Leading professionals in various aspects of radio and TV have held both one-day workshops (usually on a Saturday) and longer running courses. One such was a six month Writing for Radio course where tutor sessions were held every six weeks.

We organise our own script in hand performances and also write for others.

Our Members are sometimes commissioned to write for local celebrations.

Meetings:

At the beginning of each meeting we cover group business (for example, progress reports on grants, participation in future events, any moneys owed, etc).

In the second part of the meeting, we read something one of us has written, followed by a round table session of constructive comment. So far, no violence has ensued!