The Judges Award was won by Ipswich-based writer, producer and actor, Martha Loader, for Bindweed: a ‘skilfully crafted, gripping inquiry that attempts to go to the root of violence against women’ which explores domestic violence from within a community-led perpetrator group programme and its effect on individual lives.

Bindweed by Martha Loader

Based in Ipswich, Martha Loader is a writer, producer and actor, who won the ‘Award for Promising Young Playwright’ presented by Richard Curtis at INK Festival 2019. She is an alumni of the Mercury Playwrights, Soho Writers Lab and HighTide Writers programmes. Bindweed follows the facilitator of a perpetrator programme for domestic abusers, whose life outside of work begins to buckle.   

The judges said: “A skilfully crafted, gripping inquiry that attempts to go to the root of violence against women, mapping the many pathways it takes through our society. With an unflinching determination, the writer takes us through the painful realities that continue to plague our communities, refusing to simplify and demanding that attention be paid.”