About
HIYA.
I’m Shaun Kitchener, a BAFTA Rocliffe-winning, double Offie-nominated stage and screen writer, who has penned over 40 episodes of Hollyoaks over the last four years. My play All That was the Queer Season headliner at the King’s Head Theatre in 2021 having previously been programmed as a supporting fixture of the same season in 2018 (Best New Play – nominee – Off-West-End Awards; Best New Play Raising Awareness – winner – London Pub Theatres Awards), and my professional debut Positive was produced at the Park Theatre in 2015 to critical acclaim (Most Promising New Playwright – nominee – Off-West-End Awards). I recently completed writing work on my first -made-for-TV movie and a second season of MTV’s Queerpiphany; and as a journalist I write fortnightly pop culture columns for Metro.
I have been through the Royal Court and Soho Theatre new writers’ programmes, and in 2020-2021 was part of the BFI Network x BAFTA Crew scheme. Also in 2020, I made it to the penultimate round of Screenshot, a competition run by Sister Pictures and Olivia Colman’s South Of The River Pictures, thanks to a work-in-progress project called New Queer New Me; and I’ve been moving into prose fiction by completing several courses – including the flagship Writing A Novel course – at the prestigious Faber Academy. My first full novel manuscript is currently being written.
I was selected for the BAFTA Rocliffe showcase in 2016 with my comedy pilot, The Flop; and I am currently developing several other original ideas for screen and stage – including a short film called Toothbrush which goes into production in early 2023.
Via my own theatre company West Avenue, I have self-produced multiple low-no budget shows over the last decade; including One Night Stand at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012, Christmas Farce at the Rosemary Branch in 2015, Shaun Kitchener’s Six Pack (a collection of short comedies) at the Leicester Square Theatre in 2017, and 5, 6, 7, 8 – an unofficial Steps musical – for the Camden Fringe, also in 2017. I have been running the short plays event Briefs at Waterloo East Theatre since 2013; and one of my own shorts, That’s Great!, was performed as part of Ink Festival in 2019, touring East Anglia and finishing in London’s West End.
On top of all that, I run Electric Angels; a pop music blog and radio station. Its podcast Behind The Bops ran in lockdown in 2020. I’m also an occasional DJ for Push The Button at the iconic Royal Vauxhall Tavern, and a sometime actor.
Twitter @ShaunKitchener
Instagram @shaunkitchenerbentley
SHAUN KITCHENER 