AWARD WINNING WRITERS JOIN OUR GUEST SPEAKER LIST

Joining our guest speaker line up is Christopher Hampton, Oscar winning writer of 'Dangerous Liaisons' and the 2008 Oscar nominated 'Atonement', and Kay Mellor producer and BAFTA award winning writer of such well known series' such as 'Band of Gold', 'Playing the Field', 'Fat Friends' and 'The Chase'.

The programme for the 2008 Festival will be up on the website on Friday 14th March 2008.

ONE WEEK LEFT FOR PITCH COMPETITION ENTRIES

Final Reminder – A Pitch in Time ends next Friday so get those ideas to us as soon as possible. Any entries that come through after midnight on the night of Friday 29th February will not be counted.

Visit the 'A Pitch In Time' page»

GUEST SPEAKER PROFILES

This week's guest speaker profiles are Laura Mackie and the comedy team writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong.

SPEAKER PROFILE - #3 - Laura Mackie Laura is the Director of Drama ITV. Prior to this she was a Producer/Executive Producer at the BBC before becoming Deputy Controller of Drama at LWT overseeing such productions as ‘London’s Burning’, ‘Forgotten’ and ‘Othello’. She returned to the BBC as Head of Series and Serials and was responsible for a wide range of programmes including ‘Waking the Dead’, ‘Cutting It’, ‘Bleak House’, ‘Charles II’, ‘Blackpool’, ‘Canterbury Tales’, ‘Auf Wiedershen Pet’ and ‘North and South’. She joined ITV Commissioning in April 2006 and took over from Nick Elliott as Director of Drama in May 2007. Laura’s commissions include ‘Torn’, ‘The Whistleblowers’, ‘My Boy Jack’, ‘The Palace’ and ‘Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach’ plus the upcoming ‘He Kills Coppers’.

SPEAKER PROFILE #4 - Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong As a team writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong are mostly well known for their work with Martin Webb and David Mitchell on ‘That Mitchell and Webb Look’ and five seasons of the BAFTA Award Winning ‘Peep Show’, they have also written for sketch shows such as ‘Smack the Pony’, ‘2D’ and ‘The Catherine Tate Show’. Jesse, on his own, is one of the main writers on the BAFTA Award Winning satire ‘The Thick of It’. Recently the pair have written for the silver screen with Mitchell and Webb’s big screen debut ‘Magicians’ and are currently working on ‘Sleeper’ for the Weinstein Company and as consultants with Sacha Baron Cohen on his fashion industry send-up ‘Bruno’ for Universal.