Channel 4 has locked its latest 4Screenwriting cohort, selecting twelve emerging writers from a record pool of over 2,000 submissions as it marks the fifteenth year of its flagship development program.
The initiative remains one of the UK industry’s most active pipelines for new scripted talent, pairing each selected writer with a veteran script editor to develop a pilot script over five months. This year’s editorial team includes Jaleh Brazell, Inez Gordon, Megan Heverin, and Philip Shelley—the latter also continues to serve as the course’s long-time architect and curator.
The 2025 class features: Christopher Adams, Amy Arnold, Saskia Ashdown, Rhys Bevan, Ella Godfrey, Sarah Grochala, Mpona Lebajoa, En-Yu Li, Mads McRae, Liberty Mosse, Rory Platt, and Tamsin Rees.
In parallel, a further nine writers have been selected for one-to-one mentorship with industry execs. These include Shola Asante (mentored by Jon Champion), Vito Bruno (Josephine Frankel), Nicole Darvill-Batten (Emily Grimshaw), Medeni Griffiths (Matthew Hirons), Indigo Hinton (Sam Cormor), Malaika Kegode (Victoria Asare-Archer), Neevon Khayati-Daryan (Roxy Cook), Antonia Tam (Maya Yousif), and Tom Ward-Thomas (Sam Tomlinson).
Also in the mix: four script editors-in-training—Sophie Ivatts, Matt McNally, Jonathan Neil, and Alice Salvage.
Alumni from the program continue to feed into Channel 4’s drama slate, with writing credits on Hollyoaks, Ackley Bridge, Screw, Truelove, and Queenie. The talent pool has also expanded into showrunning territory: recent grads like William Mager (Reunion), Catherine Moulton (Code of Silence), Grace Ofori-Attah (Malpractice, Playing Nice), Charlie Covell (Kaos), Anna Symon (Joan), and Chandni Lakhani (Department Q) are now leading projects for both terrestrial and streaming.
Industry voices from across the scripted ecosystem joined this year’s sessions—including Charlie Covell, Imogen Greenberg (AC Chapter One), Sarah Linton (Instinct Productions), Nichola Shindler (Quay Street Productions), Kate Leys, Hilary Norrish, and Julia Tyrrell, among others. Louise Donald, Channel 4’s drama commissioning exec, reiterated the program’s importance as a talent engine and launchpad for diverse voices across the UK scripted sector.
Applications for the 2026 intake are scheduled to open in September.
