Giles Cooper Awards


The Giles Cooper Awards were honours given to plays written for BBC Radio. Sponsored by the BBC and Methuen Drama, the awards were specifically focused on the script of the best radio drama produced in the past year. Five or six winners were chosen from the entire year's production of BBC drama, and published in a series of books. They were named after Giles Cooper, the distinguished radio dramatist who wrote over 60 scripts for BBC radio and television between 1949 and 1966.
These awards ran annually between 1978 and 1992, instigated by Richard Imison at the BBC and Geoffrey Strachan at Eyre Methuen. There was no prize money, but publication was a notable mark of permanence in the ephemeral world of broadcasting.
Among the winners listed below are such luminaries as John Arden, William Trevor, Harold Pinter, Fay Weldon, Anthony Minghella, Tom Stoppard and Rose Tremain.

List of winners

1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991