The prolific South Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer has won the English as a First Language category in the 2026 BBC World Service International Audio Drama Competition for his script Here, on a High Hill.

The award-winning drama follows four teenagers as they reflect on life while gathered in a graveyard in south-west Ireland. Kruckemeyer was announced as a winner at a ceremony hosted by Fiona Shaw at the Commonwealth Foundation in London on 1 June.

Now in its 29th year, the competition attracted more than 800 entries from 87 countries. Winners were selected through a judging process involving the British Council, the BBC World Service and an international panel of readers and judges.

Idi Nasiru, Fiona Shaw and Finegan Kruckemeyer. Photo supplied.

Kruckemeyer is one of Australia’s most internationally produced playwrights. His works have been staged on six continents and presented at venues including the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center and Kennedy Center.

Across a career spanning more than two decades, he has written more than 100 commissioned plays and had his work translated into eight languages. His accolades include the David Williamson Award for Excellence in Australian Playwrighting (2015), the Mickey Miners Lifetime Achievement Award for services to international theatre for young audiences and an inaugural Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.

The English as a Second Language category was won by Idi Nasiru for Aisha’s Horizon, a drama charting a young refugee woman’s journey from tragedy and displacement towards Europe.

The prize-winning scripts will be produced by the BBC and broadcast on the BBC World Service later this year.