Sarah Dollard

Sarah Dollard (born 21 January 1980) is an Australian screenwriter, living and working in the United Kingdom. She made her start in writing for television on the long-running Australian soap opera Neighbours, before moving to the UK in 2008. Stints working in the script departments of British fantasy and science fiction TV shows, Merlin and Primeval, led to writing episodes of BBC Three supernatural television series Being Human and British spy thriller The Game, which first broadcast on BBC America. She created and wrote the Welsh romantic comedy series Cara Fi (Love Me), which debuted on S4C in 2014. She wrote the episode "Face the Raven" for Series 9 of Doctor Who.

Career

Dollard worked on Neighbours for four years, as a storyliner, a script editor, a story editor, and a writer of over thirty episodes. Before leaving Australia, she also worked in script development for popular children’s television series The Saddle Club, and in development on other children’s shows with the Australian Children's Television Foundation.

After moving to the UK, Dollard worked on season two of BBC One fantasy-adventure series Merlin, before moving on to Primeval in 2010, where she script-edited seasons four and five of the sci-fi series, and wrote all five episodes of the Primeval web-series that introduced season four.

Dollard wrote the fifth episode of the fifth season of Toby Whithouse’s popular BBC Three series Being Human, featuring guest star Kathryn Prescott, of Skins fame. Digital Spy called the episode, titled No Care, All Responsibility, "the latest in a string of knockout episodes – sweet and chilling in equal measure". Dollard also penned the webisodes that accompanied Being Human season five, focusing on the character of Alex Millar, played by Kate Bracken.

She wrote episode three of BBC spy thriller The Game, and co-wrote episode five with series creator Toby Whithouse.

Dollard created and wrote her own rom-com series Cara Fi (Love Me) with Touchpaper Television, for the Welsh broadcaster S4C. The eight episode series focuses on a sleepy seaside village in Wales that runs out of women, so the locals advertise their single men on the side of milk cartons leaving the dairy. Each episode focuses on a new woman arriving in the village to be set up with a local man. The show debuted in November 2014 on S4C, and was subsequently on the BBC iPlayer.

In 2015, she wrote the tenth episode of the ninth series of Doctor Who, titled "Face the Raven", and will return to write an episode for Series 10. She also wrote an episode of the UK-US co-produced comedy-drama You, Me and the Apocalypse, and ITV period drama The Halcyon.

In December 2016 it was announced that Dollard would adapt YA novel "Cuckoo Song" for television. Written by Frances Hardinge, the novel was "the first YA book to win the British Fantasy Awards' top prize and was shortlisted for both the Carnegie Medal and the James Herbert Award".