A workshop on pitching for beginners at last November’s BSCW conference in Manchester paid off within a few weeks for Gill Saxon of Cambridge.

“I was about to give up on a sitcom script which I had been reworking over a couple of years,” says Gill. “The conference was it’s last chance! In the workshop we had to sell an idea to the audience in a very limited number of words. I pitched this script and the response was very encouraging. Afterwards other delegates read the script for me and told me which bits they found funniest.

 “ A few weeks later I heard about a competition for 15-min radio scripts on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. They were asking for a story in the first instance, in no more than 250 words, which could be turned into a script. My pitching practice really paid off here! I got short listed and because I’d already discussed the script at the conference I felt quite confident when I was called for interview.

“The radio station gave me a script mentor, from a local theatre company, and hired a team of actors. I went to a day of rehearsals and then to the recording. It took 5 hours to get 15 minutes of recording. Most of the time was taken up eliminating unwanted noise: lip-smacking, feet shuffling, script pages turning and so on. Seeing the entire process was a very useful learning experience.

 “So ‘Household Harmony’, about a married couple duped by an unscrupulous New Age therapist, was broadcast twice on March 30^th ’06 and the following week the producer asked me to take part in the station’s Readathon which was being broadcast from a local bookshop. I went along with a friend with whom I am writing a TV drama, expecting to read a couple of poems. Instead the presenter interviewed us for 20 minutes about our writing. Great publicity.”

If you want to hear ‘Household Harmony’ you can visit www.gillsaxon.com . You will need a username: play - and a password: hh.