Since 2008, Script Yorkshire and York Settlement Players have come together with York Theatre Royal to offer an exciting and interactive outlet for new writing to be nurtured.

The concept is just as beneficial for the audience as it is for the writers. It is refreshing and challenging to watch a performance where the acting and presentation should be over-looked and the primary focus should be on the narrative and the dialogue.

The immediate self-consciousness of the script-in-hand performances, which had been rehearsed in only an hour, heightened the audience’s sensitivity to the importance of the script.

That is not to say that all the scripts shone with clarity. Plays such as Charlotte Court’s The Spears’ Effect would only work with the support of a strong set dressing and costume designer, and a considerable amount of script tweaking. Sara Murphy’s Secret Santa would perhaps have benefited from a wider airing, as it was hard to gauge exactly where her characters were going.

But this is the defining experimentalism of Script Factor: the writer not only has to fully flaunt their script with limited time and resources, but ruthlessly adapt it so that it can be effectively shown to its utmost potential in only 15 minutes.

Runner-up Paul Osborne and winner Helen Shay were the epitome of meticulous editing. Osborne’s simple yet striking Nothing Extravagant was the most well-received piece of the evening, but Shay’s Minghella-esque When Is A Door Not A Door emerged as undoubtedly the most professional and poignant piece.