Student returns to tell the inside story

A former student of the MA in TV Fiction Writing  Philip Wright was back on campus yesterday to talk to current students about his career since leaving.

Philip (29), who prefers to be called Pip, has worked for a variety of TV dramas including Casualty, Holby City and Hollyoaks in a variety of roles from researcher  to assistant story editor.

He is currently a writer on the Irish drama Fair City for RTE Television.

Pip has also written for children’s TV including BBC Alba animation Froachy Bay, and his original children’s animation series The House of Shoogle for BBC Scotland.

Talking about his visit, Pip said: “I hope I’ve helped the students to see that TV is a great industry to work in although it can also be a very hard.

“I sit around and come up with stories and write scripts about characters and that’s brilliant, it’s such a good career to be in.

“Hopefully I’ve inspired the students and shown them the reality too, it can be difficult, there will be long hours and rewrites.

“You will come up with an idea that you love but it will be shot down in flames and you have to be able to bounce back from that.

“It is the people who keep coming up with new ideas and continue to be creative who will succeed.”

Senior Lecturer Professor Ann Marie Di Mambro said: “It’s the most rewarding thing for me to have one of our very successful alumni to come back and share his experience with us and teach a class.

“It is the wheel coming full circle and I’m incredibly proud of him and proud of the course.”

Student Julie Fraser said: “It’s been really inspiring to see what his journey has been after his experience of learning to write and create storylines for drama here. This is what we are all aspiring to do.”