Donna Franceschild
Originally a theatre writer, Donna first came to national attention with TAKIN' OVER THE ASYLUM in 1994, a six-part drama serial set in a dilapidated hospital radio station in a mental hospital. It yielded a string of awards including two BAFTA's (for Best Drama Serial and Best Editing), a Royal Television Society award (for Best Writer), two BAFTA Scotland awards (for Best Drama Series and Best Writer) and a Mental Health Media Award for Best Non-Factual Television.
In 1996 her much-acclaimed A MUG’S GAME earned both a BAFTA Scotland nomination for Best Drama Series or Serial and a Writer’s Guild Award nomination for Best Original Drama Serial.
She went on to adapt the Robert McLiam Wilson’s Belfast “anti-war” novel EUREKA STREETfor BBC Northern Ireland, which won the Irish Academy of Film and Television award in 2000. And the following year her BBC film DONOVAN QUICK, starring Colin Firth, was selected for screening at the Chicago, Cairo and Cork Film Festivals, won Best Original Story at the AngelCiti Film Festival in Los Angeles, won the Mental Health Media Award for best television drama and was nominat
ed for both the BAFTA and Royal Television Society awards for Best Single Drama. Since then she has written the epic BBC historical drama THE KEY, and has written for stage, radio and, more recently, the print media, including the Guardian and Mental Health Today.
She has continuously supported the cause of raising awareness and understanding of mental health issues, and has served on the jury of the Mental Health Media awards since 1996. Her most recent radio play, Lost in Plain Sight, dealt charted one young man’s recovery from a suicide attempt.
She is currently writing two new plays for Radio Four, and has recently been commissioned to write a single television drama for Channel Four.