Writing

Kenny Emson

WRITER

Agent

CURTIS BROWN

Awards

BAFTA NOMINATION

Kenny Emson is a multi-award winning writer for stage and screen. He co-created, co-wrote and was associate producer on the BBC’s ground breaking multi-platform murder mystery The Last Hours of Laura K which earned him a BAFTA nomination in Digital Creativity and a number of other prestigious television and VFX awards nominations. He adapted Agatha Christies The Coming of Mr Quin for digital media which was BAFTA CYMRU nominated for Best Game. With a career spanning theatre, film, television, radio, and digital storytelling, I have established myself as a writer whose work moves across genres, forms, and audiences. My writing has been recognised internationally, with awards and nominations from BAFTA, the Off-West End Awards, C21 Media, the Lovies, and major playwriting prizes including Papatango, Bruntwood, and the Mercury/Weinberger Award.

Multi-award winning, and BAFTA nominated, writer for stage and screen

Fifteen years’ experience working for universities, theatres and broadcasters

Fifteen years’ experience working for some of the biggest theatres in the UK as a script reader and dramarturg

My early success began with White, which won the Adopt a Playwright Award (2010), BBC Writersroom Ten (2011), and the Mercury/Weinberger Playwriting Prize (2016), and was shortlisted for the Bruntwood Prize (2011). I continued to gain recognition with work such as Plastic (Off-West End nominated, 2018), The Lash (Papatango shortlist, 2018), and This Must Be the Place, which won Vault Festival’s Show of the Year (2017). My screen-based interactive drama The Last Hours of Laura K achieved international acclaim, earning nominations at the BAFTA Craft Awards and BAFTA Cymru Games Awards, winning the Lovies and C21 Media Award, and receiving shortlistings from SXSW, Prix Italia, and Broadcast Digital Awards. My short film Petrichor was shortlisted for Best Short at Norwich Film Festival (2020).

Across full-length theatre, my work has been produced at major venues including Leeds Playhouse, the Bush Theatre, the Mercury Theatre, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, Oxford Playhouse, Eastern Angles, and the Old Red Lion. My plays range from A Different Class (2023), The Sht* (2022), and Sirens (2021), to earlier pieces such as Rust (2019), Plastic (2018), Terrorism (2016), England Street (2013), and Whispering Happiness (2009). I have also written short plays presented by Theatre Centre, HighTide, Nabokov, the Old Vic, and festivals including Latitude and Nu-Write (Croatia), with work read internationally at the HotInk Festival in New York.

In television, I have written for EastEnders and Doctors, and developed original projects with leading production companies including BBC Studios, Kudos, New Pictures, Merman, AMC Studios, Left Bank, Moonage, Artist Studios, Tall Stories, Raw, and The Forge. Upcoming work includes an episode for Phoenix Rise (BBC Studios, 2024). My film writing includes feature commissions for Wigwam/Universal (Football Manager) and Creative England (Bai), as well as short films for the BFI and Young Vic.

I have also written extensively for digital and audio, including the BBC’s groundbreaking multiplatform drama The Last Hours of Laura K and the first digital Agatha Christie adaptation, The Coming of Mr Quinn. My radio work includes dramas and features for BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, such as 837.9, Somewhere Between…, and Songs of the Sea.

My development as a writer has been shaped by competitive residencies and programmes with the Royal Court Theatre, BBC Writers Academy, BBC IdeasGen, Paines Plough, Soho Theatre, National Theatre Studio, and the Lark Development Centre in New York.

Across mediums, my work is driven by a commitment to character, experimentation, and emotionally resonant storytelling—creating narratives that speak to contemporary life while pushing the boundaries of form.

PLAYWRIGHT

PRODUCER

LITERARY ASSOCIATE

BID WRITER

FREELANCE DRAMATURG