Writing ambitions bear fruit for versatile Abby
ClassicsFest winner 2026
The creative writing challenge for the third annual ClassicsFest, aimed at breathing new life into classic texts, was to produce a play script inspired by a wealthy Roman foodie called Marcus Gavius Apicius.
His name is attached to a recipe book called De Re Coquinaria (The Subject of Cooking) although he probably didn’t write it since it was published long after he died by his own hand in the 1st Century AD.
Supposedly he poisoned himself after his fondness for lavish dining and extravagant hospitality devoured his fortune.
North East writers rose to the challenge but it was Abby J. Walker, from near Bishop Auckland, whose script idea appealed to the judges, who read them all anonymously.
It’s Abby’s play, therefore, that will be performed as a highlight of the 2026 edition of ClassicsFest, brainchild of theatre director Cinzia Hardy.
Abby was delighted to win. “It was totally unexpected,” she says.
But she has said that before, last year in Bradford as one of the finalists for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award, run by the BBC in memory of a distinguished radio drama producer.
To be a finalist was enough, she says. It meant she got to meet Peter Straughan, the Oscar-winning (for Conclave) North East screenwriter.
“He was a hero of mine even before the Oscar and just listening to him speak was incredible.
“Sections of everyone’s plays were performed and then the time came to announce the winner. Honestly, there wasn’t a single part of me that thought I could win.
“I was looking at the person I thought would win, to see their reaction, when they read out my name. It’s a blur, to be honest. I was so shocked that people were laughing.
“I had to be led on stage and then, even more mortifying, they were like, ‘Do you want to say a few words?’
“I looked at Peter and said, ‘What do I say?’ And he said, ‘Whatever you like.’ I was red-faced so just said, ‘Well, you can see that I didn’t expect this. Thanks very much’. And he said, ‘That’ll do’.”
Peter is a past winner of the Award, as is Lee Hall who wrote Billy Elliot.
Out of that success came Abby’s first radio play, The Counsellor, which was on BBC Radio 4 this week and is now on BBC Sounds. A psychological drama set in a school, its cast includes Chelsea Halfpenny and Angela Lonsdale.
Also this week, Abby was announced as a finalist for the North East Playwriting Award run by Newcastle’s Live Theatre (winner to be announced on March 31).
Abby, who is 25, says she has been writing “since I was a kid, to be honest.
“I don’t know how it happened because my family aren’t really readers (dad worked for the gas board and mum as a primary school receptionist). It’s one of those things. I fell into it.
“But I’ve always wanted it to be my career and I was going to do it anyway. Whatever job I had, I’d have been writing on the side.”
Abby has pursued her goal with discipline and determination.
“Even in my teens I’d apply to everything I could to do with writing, and getting nowhere mostly.”
She attended Staindrop Academy and then Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington, and afterwards stayed home to study for an Open University degree, getting a first in English literature and creative writing.
From there she went (metaphorically speaking, since it was also a distance learning course) to Manchester Metropolitan University, graduating last summer with a master’s in creative writing.
But always she worked, as a waitress and in supermarkets from the age of 16, and then, after A levels, in libraries and a care home – and now, during lambing, helping on her uncle’s farm.
“Partly it was to do with the writing. Even though I didn’t think too much about what would happen, I knew I needed to save as much as I could.
“If I was to dedicate time to writing, I needed that financial cushion.”
For a writer, they say, no experience is wasted and it was from these jobs that Abby came up with Elsie, one of the two characters in what promises to be her funny and touching ClassicsFest play, Great Granda Apicius.
Elsie allows herself to be roped into helping her callow grandson, Josh, who fancies himself as an ‘influencer’ and wants to film a video in which he (she) makes “old fashioned food”.
Elsie is shrewder than Josh gives her credit for and he accepts her assertion she grew up in the Neolithic era.
“I had fun coming up with the concept,” says Abby.
“The challenge was trying to find a connection between stories that are thousands of years old and people now.
“I’ve worked a lot with elderly people and women in their 70s, 80s and 90s are like my mentors.
“I get so much out of those relationships and find it really interesting how my generation and theirs interact.”
Abby’s first notable success came when she won the Finchale Award, run by New Writing North, for a short story.
“It was a complete surprise, the first time someone had told me, ‘You’re good’, and it really motivated me.”
It led to her joining the 2024-5 cohort on The London Library’s emerging writers programme, a travel bursary paying for her train fares from County Durham.
“I was quite scared to go down there at first because I felt it wasn’t my world but I quickly found my feet and it made me feel I could do this,” she recalls.
Fortuitously, her brother – 10 years older – lives in London so she slept on his couch.
Abby also got a Faber Academy scholarship to attend its well-regarded novel writing course in Newcastle, which she completed a year ago.
It has all been happening… and there’s so much more.
She’s writing a short play for North East-based Hooley Theatre, called Rita in 3C, and also a second novel called Monster Face (a first is with publishers for consideration).
She describes it as “a folk horror tale about an elderly farmer who stops being able to see faces”.
Mostly she has written prose but encouraged by recent successes, she has embraced writing for stage and screen.
Writing dialogue for her Alfred Bradley entry, she “just loved the process. I found it really hypnotic. Sometimes I would close my eyes and the voices would come.
“It was such a good writing experience.”
Because she’s starting out, says Abby, she writes constantly. “I’m throwing everything at it so it’s all day, every day. I’ll work on my novel for three hours and then on a play.”
Her parents, though not avid readers, must be very proud.
“They’ve always had this unwavering belief in me and are very supportive,” she says appreciatively.
Great Granda Apicius by Abby J. Walker, directed by Ed Cole, will be performed at Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle on May 16 at 7.30pm, part of ClassicsFest which runs from May 14 to 16 with the theme Food & Feasting in Antiquity.