Red Planet Prize

The Stage reports that screenwriter Tony Jordan (Hustle, Holby Blue, and Life on Mars) has launched a competition in which the winner will be given £5,000 and a commission to write a script for Jordan's production company, Red Planet Pictures.

Called The Red Planet Prize, aspiring screenwriters are now being called on to submit the first ten pages of a script, which will be read by a panel of judges made up of Stephen Fry, The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, BBC head of drama Wales and drama commissioning Julie Gardner and Jordan himself.

Those who impress the panel will be asked to provide a full script, with six writers chosen to spend the day with Jordan, co-creator of Life on Mars and EastEnders' former chief storyliner, as he whittles the competition down to one.

Jordan said: "I know what it is like for new writers. They send these scripts out and they get stacked up against a wall somewhere and never read.

"All most writers want is for someone to read their work properly. It is really heartbreaking and soul destroying to not get a response when you send your work out."

Entries - one per person - should be sent to redplanetprize@redplanetpictures.co.uk by September 1, 2007. Full scripts will be requested by October, with finalists contacted in December.