Tom Bidwell

Tom Bidwell is one of a select group of writers who can handle subjects such as death and loss without tipping over into mawkish sentimentality. Perhaps that steely approach comes from his own experience as a teenage cancer patient - it certainly gives his writing a painful authenticity. His 2009 short, Wish 143, about a terminally ill adolescent, tugs at the heartstrings but is shot through with a no-nonsense stoicism. Would Like To Meet, about a dying woman trying to find a girlfriend for her husband, is funny and poignant. Still in his early 20s, Leeds-based Bidwell is honing his craft on several BBC soaps while writing three longer-form dramas: Ten Years Later about a 39-year-old actor who a decade earlier bet he would be married by 40; The Late Great about a man who reads his obituary, discovers everyone hates him and resolves to make amends before he dies; and children’s drama Million Little Gods.