Thousands of pounds worth of funding has been granted to playwrights across the country by Channel 4.

The Channel 4 Playwrights scheme awards bursaries to upcoming talent across the UK, in order to support emerging theatrical talent.

Birmingham based Joe White is one of this year’s recipients, being granted £7000 by the television company.

Mr White, 26, said: “Receiving a Channel 4 bursary is by far the most significant thing to happen in my career to date.

“After a nerve-racking wait, interview and wait again, I found out I’d won a bursary and that my life would pretty much change completely.

“I’m moving to the countryside in April, where, for the first time in my career, I will have time, space and financial support to completely immerse myself in writing, and find out what I’m capable of.”

Winners of the Channel 4 Playwrights Bursary embark on one year attachments across the country, where they must work on or write a play with a company.

He will work with Pentabus Theatre Company throughout 2015.

There he will produce his written work Pangaea, and teach young writers.

Pentabus Artistic Director Elizabeth Freestone, said:  “The scheme is hugely important as it buys a writer time and space.

“The hardest thing for emerging writers is to hold down a day job as well as try and kick start their writing. The bursary allows them time to just be a writer. But crucially, they don’t have to do it on their own.

“They are immersed in a working theatre environment which provides support, expertise and energy in addition to the bursary itself.”

The play produced as part of this scheme then gets submitted for the Catherine Johnson Award, for which the winner could receive a further financial boost.

Previous winners of the bursary, formally known as the Pearson Playwrights Scheme, include Nancy Harris, Hanif Kureishi and Lydia Adetunji.