Silk wins Writers' Guild drama award

Silk follows the fortunes of a team of ambitious London barristers

Legal drama Silk has been named best TV drama series by the Writers' Guild of Great Britain at its 2013 awards.

The BBC series beat The Village - also written by Peter Moffat - and ITV's Broadchurch to win the prize.

ITV soap Coronation Street was crowned best continuing drama, while hospital sitcom Getting On won best TV comedy.

The London awards ceremony also saw the playwright David Edgar honoured for his "outstanding contribution to writing and writers".

Edgar, who famously adapted Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980, recently wrote If Only, a play about the future of the coalition government, for the Minerva theatre in Chichester.

Friend and fellow playwright Lee Hall paid tribute at Wednesday's awards to Edgar's "preeminent work as a dramatist, groundbreaking innovation as a teacher [and] profound dramaturgical intellect".

Other shows recognised included BBC Two's Alfred Hitchcock drama The Girl and The Dumping Ground - What Would Gus Want?, winner of the children's TV award.

Screenplay awards went to British gang culture drama My Brother the Devil and the Irish film What Richard Did, while Scotland's Susan Calman was honoured in the radio comedy category.

A third series of Silk, again starring Maxine Peake and Rupert Penry-Jones, began filming in June.