STATE OF THE STORY – LONDON 2026
Gurinder Chadha – Writer, Bend it Like Beckham
Jason Solomons – Film Critic, Producer
Christina Pickworth – Agent, Imagine Talent
Queenie Miller – Producer, Hat Trick Productions, Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee
James Watkins – Director, Black Mirror, Speak No Evil
Zoe Ross – Literary Agent, United Agents
Arran Shargall – Script Editor, Producer
Andin Ngwa – Development Exec, Firebird Pictures
State of the Story crossed the Atlantic for the first time, landing at BFI Southbank — one of the world’s great cinema institutions — for a full day on the craft and profession of storytelling. Twenty storytellers across panels and keynote conversations took on what gets a script read, what gets it made, and what separates a good story from one that changes everything. The day was anchored by a keynote conversation with Emmy and BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated director Sir Stephen Frears, and included Emmy-winner Richard Gadd on the making of Baby Reindeer. Writers, showrunners, agents, script editors, and development execs from across the UK industry filled the room for a first edition that felt like anything but.
PANEL 1 – The First Read
Speakers: Christina Pickworth, Zoe Ross, Queenie Miller, Andin Ngwa, Megan Halpern (Moderator).
The day opened with the people who read first. Agents, producers, and development executives took on the questions every writer wants answered honestly: what actually gets a script pulled off the pile, what a UK agent looks for that an American one doesn’t, how development really works inside a production company, and what separates the writer who gets signed from the one who gets a polite pass. Frank, specific, and occasionally uncomfortable — exactly what the room came for.
PANEL 2 – Series That Travel
Speakers: Joe Barton, Joy C. Mitchell, Monica Beletsky, Charmaine DeGrate, Neil Marshall, Arran Shargall (Moderator).
A panel of television creators whose work has defined the last several years of prestige and popular TV, from period juggernauts to Emmy-nominated limited series to global streaming hits. The conversation ranged across the shape of a season, what a writers’ room actually does, the difference between writing for a British audience and a worldwide one, and how a specific story becomes a show that crosses borders. What makes a series worth returning to — and what makes it worth making at all.
PANEL 3 – The Long Game
Speakers: Richard Gadd, Gurinder Chadha, Matt Charman, Thea Sharrock, James Watkins, Tony Grisoni, K.J. Yossman (Moderator).
Writers and directors behind some of the most singular film and television work of the past decade sat down to talk about endurance: the years between an idea and a greenlight, the gap between writing a thing and directing it, turning lived experience into something an audience can hold, and building work that outlasts its opening weekend. A candid hour on what the business asks of the people who make it, and what they give up to keep making it.
KEYNOTE — Sir Stephen Frears in Conversation with Jason Solomons
The inaugural London conference closed with a career-spanning conversation between Sir Stephen Frears and film critic and producer Jason Solomons. Five decades of work across film and television — My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity, The Queen, Philomena, A Very English Scandal — and an hour of exactly the kind of unguarded, unhurried talk this series exists to make room for.