The creator of TV series Secret Life Of A Call Girl has won a coveted £30,000 writing fellowship.
Lucy Prebble said she was “thrilled” to be awarded the 2019 Wellcome Screenwriting Fellowship, which is given out in partnership with the BFI and Film4.
Now in its seventh year, the fellowship awards a talented screenwriter £30,000 to explore the intersection between screenwriting, health and science.
Prebble, 38, said: “I am so thrilled to be awarded the Wellcome Screenwriting Fellowship. It has been given to some brilliant artists and I am honoured to be in their company.
“I have always been a research-hungry writer and I am delighted to be offered such a generous opportunity to feed that.
“The Wellcome Collection is exactly the sort of place and resource I would go to for beguiling procrastination. Now I can legitimately go there!”
Prebble went on: “I am hoping to explore issues of biology and transformation for a horror film I am planning to write, as well as look into the amazing collection of curious and information on the golden age of magic that their recent exhibition has housed, for a long-term project.
“Wellcome is such an unqualifiedly positive thing: curiosity, good faith and a sense of cultural community. I am genuinely touched to be part of their vision.”
Kate Leys, chairwoman of the panel, called Prebble “brilliant, maverick, thoughtful, funny and razor sharp” and said the writer’s talent was “impossibly huge”.
During the ceremony in London, a new body supporting collaboration between the research sector and entertainment industries was unveiled.
The organisation is called OKRE: Opening Knowledge across Research and Entertainment.
As well as creating Secret Diary Of A Call Girl starring Billie Piper, Prebble is executive producer and writer for the Bafta-winning drama Succession.
Her plays include A Very Expensive Poison, The Effect, Enron and The Sugar Syndrome, which won the George Devine Award.