Script Editing and Dramaturgy

A long, long time ago in a country far far away, I was a professional l writer, working mainly in TV sitcoms, where my biggest claim to fame was coming up with an alternative name for gherkins that became a minor national catchphrase (if you speak Persian, click here to watch the episode I wrote that did it).

But even then, I enjoyed working on other people’s writing more than my own. Since moving the to the UK, I’ve worked extensively as a dramaturg and script editor on a wide range of projects in theatre, TV, audio, film, and within educational contexts (i.e. with my students). I specialise in story structure and story analysis, which means that I know how to break down the key components of a narrative, identify its strengths and weaknesses, and suggest solutions – particularly for alternative and marginalised narratives, the solution to which is probably not found in the usual traditional books… I’m also very interested in the existential aspects of writing – that is, the process writers undergo personally while creating a whole new world; I’ve learned a few tricks to help writers navigate the difficult personal journey of creating something out of nothing.

To see some of the things I’ve done, see below – but I think the best way to show how I work is actually to read testimonials by writers with whom I’ve worked, so there are a few on the right!

Here’s a selection of things I’ve helped develop:

Daughter of Eden (Fatemeh Ahmadi, 2023-5)

This is a feature film that I helped my frequent collaborator write, produced by Shudder Films and Lunapark Pictures, funded by the BFI and BBC films, currently scheduled for production in September 2025.

Dual/دوگانه (Peyvand Sadeghian, 2020), a play/performance arts piece staged at Vault Festival and the Barbican.

I Am the Ghost of Qandeel Baloch (Guleraana Mir, 2024-present),

This is an amazing and very experimental play about the representations of honour violence, that I gave some feedback on. Fingers crossed it’ll come to a theatre near you soon!

Restart (Brett Neichin and John Scott Dryden, 2021-22)

I got to work with one of my audio drama heroes, the brilliant John Scott Dryden, and the fount of weird and wonderful ideas that is Brett Neichin, on this exciting conspiracy thriller podcast involving the Atari E.T. videogame, a 3000-year old mechanism, and two videogame-obsessed youngsters. It took a lot of late-night conversations, but it’s pretty cool! You can listen to it on the BBC Sounds website or app.

The Bitter Sea (Fateme Ahmadi, 2018)

I script-edited the initial drafts of this BIFA-nominated short film. It’s so good that I now use it in my workshops about how we write short films! You can actually watch it on Vimeo, where it was a Staff Pick!

Chandra (Fateme Ahmadi, Asmita Shrish, 2015)

Oh boy, do I have a story to tell you! I script-edited the initial shooting draft for this short film, and it was pretty good and all ready to shoot. The crew travelled to Nepal from the UK, and two days after they arrived, a terrible earthquake struck the country. The cast and crew were left with, well, basically nothing. After thinking about the ethics of it during a few late-night international calls, we decided that we had to tell the story of what was happening there. So the writer Fateme Ahmadi and I had a LOT more late-night international calls and came up with a new script that told a small, simple story in a complicated world after a gigantic disaster – and miraculously, a new film was made. It seems to have worked, according to Chris Olson of The UK Film Review….

One Thousand and One Teardrops (Fateme Ahmadi, 2014)

For such a short film, you’d be surprised how many years it took to get this animated documentary about the 200-year old history of Iranian dress codes right. At various points, it was a musical (for which I wrote a couple of song!), a straightforward documentary, and a live action film. But it worked well, had Shaparak Khorsandi as a voice actor, and got into quite a few festivals. Here’s a trailer!