Tom Moran’s work to be performed in front of some of America’s top TV professionals

An Axminster man has been named joint winner of a nationwide competition to find the UK’s most promising comedy writers.

Tom Moran’s success in the prestigious BAFTA contest will see him flown to New York to watch his work be performed in front of some of the biggest names in the US television industry this October.

A jury of comedy professionals from the UK and US helped select the winning entrants, including executives from leading independent production companies and major broadcasters.

The event, delivered under the banner of ‘BAFTA Rocliffe New Comedy Showcase’, is a special incarnation of the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum.

Tom, 28, was a winner at the event, in London, along with Samuel Jefferson and writing pair Henry Dalton and Paul Cope, who will all see an extract from their scripts performed live at the New York Television Festival.

His wining entry was Printheads (The Pilot), which tells how, following a phone-hacking scandal, disgraced tabloid editor Louise Sharpe retreats to a small rural town to take over her father’s weekly paper.

Tom, who grew up near Membury and attended Colyton Grammar School, studied scriptwriting and performing at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Following his graduation in 2009, he went on to work as a stand-up comedian and produced his first comedy play, Writer’s Block, in 2011.

The following year, he wrote his first novel, Dinosaurs and Prime Numbers, for which he won the inaugural Guardian Legend Self-Published Book of the Month award.

In 2014, he was shortlisted for the Nickelodeon International Screenwriting Programme. More recently, he was the winner of episode 48 of Literary Death Match – a writing showcase, where famous and emerging writers compete by reading from their latest work.