SOPHIE Buckley has won the 2018 Script Factor All-Comers Final, held at a sold-out York Theatre Royal Studio.

Saturday’s enthusiastic audience listened attentively to five 15-minute plays on the topic of Back To The Walls on a night of celebration for the tenth anniversary of Script Yorkshire’s York branch, started in 2008 by Beryl Nairn and Ged Cooper and now co-ordinated by Andy Love. 

The Walls topic was chosen because the branch’s first script-writing event was entitled Round The Walls, directed by the late Helen Cadbury.

The format of Script Factor is simple and has not changed much in the past ten years. The audience members vote for their favourite play and the winner of each heat goes on to the final.

The reason the event was set up is simple too. As Nairn says: "Actors like to act and writers like to write and this gives opportunities for both."

The first play, Janet Dean's In These Walls, told the story of a couple planning to move house, together with her mother. What began straightforwardly, soon threw in a few surprises, not least the revelation that the couple had lost a daughter as a baby, followed by a second revelation that the same had happened to the mother.

The acting by Patricia Jones, Mick Liversidge and F. Mary Callan, together with a tight script, held the audience's full attention. There was humour too and a lightness of touch that the audience enjoyed.

Claire Morley's Marks On The Wall also focused on a family, two sisters, and remarkably also dealt with the loss of a baby girl, their youngest sister.

This was a very visual and poignant piece, in which the sisters rediscover the marks their parents had recorded on the walls of their family home as the girls grew.

York Press:

"To have my work brought to life so brilliantly in York Theatre Royal’s Studio was a real treat," says winner Sophie Buckley

In a touching sequence, the two sisters, beautifully played by Anna Rose James and Charlotte Wood, try to work out what height their sister would have been, had she lived.

Tim Hunter's The Great Wall Of Yorkshire focused on two politically incorrect Yorkshire builders, Alf and Bert, who had somehow been entrusted with building walls all over the world.

Fresh from building the wall in Mexico, (Donald Trump's pet project), they return to tackle walls in Scotland and plan a wall that would completely surround Yorkshire. James Tyler and Bill Blackwood played the hapless builders, supported by Jane Kendrick, who switched effortlessly between a variety of roles.

Sophie Buckley's Liberty was an intriguing twist on the Walls theme. It was inspired by the true, although largely unknown, story of the invention of bitcoins and the reason behind it, which was not to get rich quick, but to develop an alternative to the financial system.

In the play it was pioneered by a fictional young man called Charlie, who developed his system on the deep web. His mysterious relationship with a girlfriend, Penny, was the prism through which the story emerged. The audience was gripped by this play of ideas and its sad ending, superbly performed by Kate Hampson and Matthew Dangerfield.’

Neil Arnott's Mrs Shippey Burning intrigued too. It concerned social divisions in what had always been "a nice village" as Arnott exposed the hypocrisy of Mrs Shippey, played with clarity and confidence by Beryl Nairn, when forced to confront her prejudices after her husband (Mick Liversidge), came round from his coma and explained what really happened. Here was a two-hander that made its political points clearly.

Ged Cooper presented the Script Factor Winner's trophy to Sophie Buckley, a very popular winner, and second place was a tie between Dean's In These Walls and Arnott's Mrs Shippey Burning.

The victorious Buckley says: "I was really delighted to win the Script Factor final, particularly with such excellent competitors. The York branch of Script Yorkshire provides fantastic opportunities for local writers to see their work performed, and to have my work brought to life so brilliantly in York Theatre Royal’s Studio was a real treat."

Meanwhile, Script Yorkshire, York, has set the date for the first heat of the next season: September 3 at 7.30pm at The Basement. If you want to express an interest in writing a 15-minute play, please contact the organisers by email at syyorks@gmail.com. Tickets for the event cost £4 and will be on sale soon at City Screen, in person or on 0871 902 5747.

Report by Ged Cooper