Ontelly

The Verb - BBC writersroom - Neil LaBute

Logo for The Verb - BBC writersroom - Neil LaBute

Ian McMillan is joined by celebrated, and often controversial, American dramatist Neil LaBute, writer-director of In The Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbours and The Shape of Things. Neil reads a new monologue, I Love This Game, about an obsessed baseball fan whose passion for his favourite sport brings unexpected - and unpleasant - consequences for him and his family. Plus writer, performer and verbal virtuoso Inua Ellams, who presents extracts from The 14th Tale, his one-man show about a mischievous boy growing up in Nigeria, Dublin and London. Ian also introduces the last in a series of three new short drama commissions, created by writers attending a workshop at the BBC writersroom, a scheme that seeks out and encourages new British writing talent in film, television and radio. The project is part of the writersroom's Sparks programme, where writers attend a workshop and collaborate in small groups in creating short dramas especially for radio. The three best entries are then chosen to feature on The Verb.