Wrecking Ball Press writer Vicky Foster has won The Imison Award at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2020.
Vicky won the award, which celebrates the best in new writing for the medium of audio drama, for her radio play Bathwater. Bathwater was produced by Susan Roberts and first aired on Radio 4 in 2019. The award is presented annually to an audio drama script by a writer new to the medium and which, in the opinion of the judges, is the best of those submitted.
The prize was established in 1994 in memory of Richard Imison, a BBC script editor and producer. Previous winners include Adam Usden, Mike Bartlett, Gabriel Gbadamosi, Murray Gold and Nell Leyshon.
The BBC Audio Drama Awards – presented by the BBC together with the Society of Authors and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain – celebrate the range, originality and cut-through quality of audio drama on air and online and give recognition to creatives working in this genre.
Vicky was announced as The Imison Award winner at a ceremony in the Radio Theatre at BBC Broadcasting House London, hosted by Meera Syal, on Sunday 2 February 2020.
The list of finalists for the various categories of the awards included Stephen Dillane, Rebecca Front and Alexei Sayle.
Vicky was shortlisted for The Imison Award alongside Testament (for The Beatboxer) and Colette Victor (for By God’s Mercy). Bathwater is Vicky’s first full-length play, and is performed by herself and Finlay McGuigan with a sound score by The Broken Orchestra.
Vicky was one of the BBC’s selected poets for Contains Strong Language in 2017 and 2018. She continued her involvement with the festival, co-directed by Wrecking Ball Press, in 2019, with Fair Winds & Following Seas, jointly commissioned by CSL and Freedom Festival, and featuring on Radio 3’s The Verb with musical collaborators The Broken Orchestra.
You can find out more about award-winning Vicky at https://vickyfoster.co.uk/
Bathwater is published by Wrecking Ball Press and can be purchased at https://wreckingballpress.com/product/bathwater/