Coming Up

11:05pm Monday, August 6 on C4

Channel 4′s annual talent initiative, which gives up-and-coming writers and directors the opportunity to showcase their work, is now in its 11th year. In the fifth drama; when Jed (Con O’Neill) learns that he is unable to access the treatment he needs for his terminal cancer, he decides to take matters into his own hands with surprising results.

11:05pm Monday, July 16 on C4

Channel 4′s annual talent initiative, which gives up-and-coming writers and directors the opportunity to showcase their work, is now in its 11th year. In this episode Annette (Sherlock’s Lara Pulver) teaches patients how to camouflage their scars with make-up. But when Riza (Top Boy’s Ashley Walters) walks into her consulting room, she finds herself covering up more than just the scars from his past in Sierra Leone.

11:05pm Monday, July 9 on C4

Channel 4′s annual talent initiative, which gives up-and-coming writers and directors the opportunity to showcase their work, is now in its 11th year. In this episode Ben (Lewis Reeves) returns home for Christmas after his first term at university. Meanwhile best friend Lump (This Is England’s Thomas Turgoose) can’t find a job and now his dad insists he joins the army. The holiday season forces the friends to acknowledge the different directions their lives have taken.

11:30pm Monday, July 2 on C4

Channel 4′s annual talent initiative, which gives up-and-coming writers and directors the opportunity to showcase their work, is now in its 11th year. The new series kicks off with a story of forbidden love that unfolds when 27-year-old Carl (Russell Tovey) meets the girl of his dreams. Their relationship explores thwarted ambition, restlessness and the desire to follow your own path.

Russell Tovey, Ashley Walters, Lara Pulver, MyAnna Buring, Thomas Turgoose and Yasmin Paige are amongst the actors confirmed to star in Channel 4′s Coming Up – the annual talent initiative which offers up-and-coming writers and directors the unique opportunity to showcase their work on national TV.

Coming Up 2012 will see emerging off-screen talent working with established on-screen talent to create seven brand new original dramas to be shown on Channel 4.

Now in its eleventh year, the scheme has launched the careers of some of the most exciting writers and directors in British TV – and is the only UK initiative offering aspiring talent the opportunity to make an authored drama with a guaranteed network broadcast.

This year’s Coming Up directors include Prasanna Puwanarajah, who was recently selected to direct a short film for the Olympic opening ceremony; and MJ Delaney who came to prominence with Newport State of Mind, one of the most talked about virals of 2010.

Writers include Tom Wells who was this year awarded the Critics Circle New Playwright Award for his acclaimed play The Kitchen Sink, and Vivienne Franzmann who was a teacher for 12 years before writing her first play, Mogadishu, for which she was nominated for the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award.

Ben Stoll, Drama Commissioning Editor, Channel 4 says: “Coming Up epitomises Channel 4′s passion for discovering and supporting new talent. It’s a fantastic opportunity for emerging writers and directors to see their distinctive ideas realised on screen, whilst allowing audiences to get the first glimpse of the storytellers of the future. Add to the mix some of the most exciting current acting talent, and I think we can expect some thrilling pieces of work.”

Coming Up boasts an increasingly impressive list of alumni, with participating filmmakers achieving a broad range of success over the years:

Tom Bidwell (Would Like To Meet, Coming Up 2011) was Oscar-nominated for his short film Wish 143 and is currently writing a new Channel 4 series.

Director duo Wayne Yip and Alex Garcia (Would Like To Meet, Coming Up 2011) directed the third series of BAFTA-winning Misfits on E4…

Nicole Taylor (Emo, Coming Up 2008) has written for Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Ashes to Ashes, and Scott and Bailey…

Jack Thorne (The Spastic King, Coming Up 2007) went on to write for Skins, Shameless, co-created Cast Offs, and shares writing credits with Shane Meadows for the award-winning This is England ’86 and This is England ’88 for Channel 4, for which he won a Royal Television Society Award for Best Writer (Drama) in 2011 (with Meadows). Thorne also won Best British Newcomer at the 2009 London International Film Festival for The Scouting Book for Boys and created and wrote The Fades…

Tom Harper (Spoil, Coming Up 2007) directed The Scouting Book for Boys, Misfits and This is England ’86, and most recently BBC One’s adaptation of The Borrowers starring Christopher Eccleston and Sharon Horgan…

Yann Demange (A Man in a Box, Coming Up 2007) has gone on to direct last year’s critically acclaimed Top Boy for Channel 4, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Dead Set and Criminal Justice 2…

Tony Saint (Service, Coming Up 2006) has written Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley, Micromen and On Expenses…

The seven dramas will be produced by Touchpaper Television, a Zodiak Media company, which has partnered Coming Up for the last four years.

Northern Ireland Screen has supported Belfast-set drama Spoof or Die.

The fourteen writers / directors taking part in Coming Up 2012 are:

BEN AND LUMP 

Writer: Tom Wells

Director: MJ Delaney 

Starring Lewis Reeves, Thomas Turgoose (This is England)

CAMOUFLAGE 

Writer: Lydia Adetunji 

Director: Robert McKillop 

Starring Lara Pulver (Sherlock), Ashley Walters (Top Boy)

COLOUR 

Writer: Vivienne Franzmann 

Director: Lynsey Miller 

Starring Leah Nathan, Michael Ajao (Attack the Block), and MyAnna Buring (White Heat)

NEW CROSS 

Writer: Laura Neal 

Director: David Stoddart 

Starring Russell Tovey (Being Human) and Alice Saunders

IF WE DEAD AWAKEN 

Writer: James Phillips

Director: Luke McManus

Starring Branko Djuric (In the Land of Blood and Honey, No Man’s Land), Ingaborga Dapkunaite (Burnt by the Sun), Phoebe Fox (Black Mirror) and Stanley Townsend (The Shadow Line)

POSTCODE LOTTERY 

Writer: Laurence Wilson 

Director: Tom Marshall 

Starring Con O’Neill (Criminal Justice), Jo Hartley (This is England), Debra Stephenson (The Impressions Show)

SPOOF OR DIE 

Writer: Stacey Gregg

Director: Prasanna Puwanarajah

Starring Ryan McParland, Yasmin Paige (Submarine), Michael Smiley (Kill List), Monica Dolan (Appropriate Adult)

11:10pm Thursday, August 26 on C4

Coming Up, the strand which showcases dramas from the UK’s most exciting emerging film makers, continues with two films. In Dip , fate throws pickpocket Jason and Somalian immigrant Asad together on a London night bus. As events unfold, an unlikely friendship develops between the two men who are both battling with their own inner demons. In Eclipse Ben is captivated by his flighty neighbour Chloe, who toys endlessly with his affections, until a chance encounter with her doppelganger, Jennifer, changes the dynamic of their relationship forever.

Tuesday, August 25 on 4

Coming Up is a season of seven original half-hour dramas made for Channel 4 by the UK’s most exciting emerging film makers. This year’s season kicks off with Adha Cup , a stylish black and white comedy in Urdu about Ash and Shahid: two lazy and bored social workers who reluctantly agree to reunite the cast of a legendary amateur Bollywood musical , Pappa Kehta Hain to be restaged at the Pakistan Centre where they work. In their search for the old cast members, they reconnect with their enthusiasm for life, love and family.

Monday 25 August 2008

The new series of Coming Up , part of the Generation Next season, continues to showcase original drama from emerging film makers. Tonight, Sirjad, a deeply traumatised man, draws a circle around a derelict, deserted petrol station and decrees that within this boundary he cannot be touched. When a half-dead woman collapses on the edge of his circle, he takes her in to discover they are both running from the same thing: a terrible massacre. Coming Up continues on Wednesday with Thinspiration , a story about anorexia set in the 17th century.

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Generation Next continues with a new original drama from emerging film maker Sean Conway. Kings of London follows the fortunes of two teenage black brothers, both named Aristotle. The elder, known as Totes, is struggling to get his life on track, whereas younger Little Aristotle has found his path to success. He is the undisputed champion of the Ghetto Riders, a group of young black men from London’s rough estates who have transformed themselves into urban cowboys. When Totes gets into trouble with an adolescent mobster, he asks Little Aristotle to help him by throwing a race.

Monday 11 August 2008

The new series of Coming Up , part of the Generation Next season, continues to showcase original drama from emerging film makers throughout the week. A fast-paced farce, Lickle Bill Um deals with a mother and daughter relationship that has taken a distinctly sinister turn. Set in an army training camp, And Kill Them (Wednesday) follows a platoon of new recruits through their first few weeks, with a guardian angel appearing to help a struggling young man. On Friday, Emo follows Vincent, a gifted student trying to start afresh after a nervous breakdown.