Hello and welcome to sitcom gigs, I'm James Kerry. I'm Dave Cohen. And we are in very much the bosom of broadcasting house, new broadcasting house. It's all very shiny and exciting.
And we are here because we are visiting the BBC writers room, which is of great interest to our listeners. And we have a panel of three people, I'm calling you a panel, for about three or another. Three is a panel that's collected now. Yes, in fact it looks like we're being interviewed, you're going to ask us where we see ourselves in five years time.
It's like the voice isn't it? Yeah, it's like voice. And we can see you. Yeah, BBC, you don't get it, you get bordered.
Yes, OK, right, right, water bordered. I hope it sounds like a panel. So why don't we introduce our voice? That voice you just heard with Simon Nelson.
Hello, who is sort of in charge of the writers room. I would say sort of in charge of the writers room. You are actually in charge of the writers room. I've got completely in charge of the writers room.
I'm in charge of bits of it. But I am from the purpose of this. I look after comedy room. And I do that with my assistant producer, Amanda.
Hello. Amanda is Amanda. I'm Anzali. I'm an actor.
I'm also an actor or writer in the room with us. Athena, can I blame you? I can I blame you? Yes, I can.
That's close to that. People know me when that sounds like me. And it is me, guys. What you invited last year into the comedy room.
Hello, portals of the comedy room. And now you are Felix Dexter, a writer in residence, is that correct? I'm treating it like that. I'm coming every day in my laptop.
I'm typing away. So I guess that's it. Yeah. In residence.
So they haven't found a sleeping bag yet. No, but I've got a little booth. I've got a booth that I occupy. Yeah.
And that's where I live now. Right. Okay. That's great.
So let's go back to the comedy room. So let's talk about, so we last spoke to you just before the last comedy room window. No, it was two years ago. Two years ago.
Okay. So let's talk about what you learned from all those scripts in a moment. But first let's talk a thing about your experience of you were longlisted, shortlisted, selected, and then you sort of turned up to these comedy room sessions. Yes.
What did you expect and how did that meet your expectations? What did I expect? So I didn't expect to get anywhere as most people don't, but I now learn probably the less confident you are about your work, probably the better it is. Like you don't want to be too confident, right?
Especially if you're not working in the industry. Like you'd be great. We'd have stuff commissioned, wouldn't we? Oh, hang on.
I'm like, was that a metric? Because all I'm saying is I've had a thought I'm on a learning curve here. So if I send this in, it gets through, that's a real surprise for me. And then it's a question I'm thinking, I'll still have a bit of a way to go.
But what you said was exactly right, you send it in, you get faster, 10 page read, then you get faster, I think it's another read, and then you get an interview, and then you get about six to seven months of kind of work shopping and mentoring and learning and insight. And it's wonderful, actually. I'm not just saying that because Simon and Amanda are like, so I didn't know I was supposed to live, guys. It's really great.
I think for me personally, I come from a stand up world, which is not the same as scripted comedy. And in stand up, you spend your whole time being yourself. So there are certain things that you never think about character, you don't think about jeopardy, you don't think about plot, you don't think about relevancy. Because if you make people laugh, you've done your job.
Or you can write the most incredible sitcoms, but if it's about something that one cares about, if it's another down to down, we'll be all make that anymore. Or just a list of jokes. Yeah, right. We'll just a list of jokes.
So I learned how to not just be funny, but how to be compelling. And I'm going to say compelling, I'm going to say compelling to my producers, or commissioners, who I'm going to make your work. And that's very much part of the process. Yeah.
I mean, that's interesting because certainly over the last 15 to 20 years, there's been many more stand-ups who've gone into writing. And that tends to happen, as you get a lot of shows that are based totally around the stand-ups act with very few exceptions. You know, people like sort of Lee Mack, I guess. And I suppose Miranda was a bit of a bit of a stand-up as well.
Why, she did at least half a dozen Edinburgh one-woman shows. Right. One or two-woman shows. But generally, the sort of pathway has been stand-up, writer-performa gets in.
I suppose that's not what you had. And the writers are a little bit of a combination. The vast majority of people that come into Comedy Rem have come in through their script. Yeah.
And that comes through the big window that we talk about in a minute. And when we get several thousand scripts and we work our way to the big window. Big, big, big, big, French window. Absolutely.
We should point out that it's opening very soon. It's everything. We'll get on to dates in a moment. We will.
But every year we always have a little look at Edinburgh and at the phones. And just say if there is somebody who's a writer-performer, what Mand and I try and tease out of them as we introduce ourselves in the water, is do we think they have the capability to expand out into telling broader stories above and beyond the story of my tears or whatever that stand-up thing happens to be. So we are interested in what it performs as well. But generally, the majority of people that come into Comedy Rem have come in on their script.
It's fair to say there maybe are two types of Comedy-performa and sort of stand-up one person, a show-type person. There's the one who is the writer who hasn't found anyone else to perform their work or wants to get noticed. And that would be a long time ago. Ben Elson said he just did stand-up because he wanted his writing to get noticed.
And then there's the other one who is the performer, actor in Brackett's attention seeker. I knew you were sound from the start. Who are sort of looking for material to do. And in absence of any other material, they're just sort of making up as they go along.
And sometimes they discover that they are actually a writer and sometimes they discover that they are. Peter Sellers, one of the greatest performers of human history, didn't barely write a word. Elvis Presley didn't write a single song. So I'm not disparaging entirely the performing profession.
I think it's partly been a drift into sociology from another thing. I think it's partly driven by... Welcome to the sociology point. It's right.
It's the end of it. I love it. I think it's partly driven by the way that the entertainment industry, the theatrical industry has shifted. That in the old days you would maybe come out of drama school, you would go into a regional rep for a year.
None of that exists now. People cut their teeth and have those early successes, hopefully, on the French. You don't have cast of thousands in a small space above a pub. You have one or two people in a car.
And very often it's people self-starting and making their own material. I think that's quite good because otherwise performing such a wading game. You're waiting for someone to give you a script. You're waiting for the chance to perform.
When you can create your own material, you can be active. I think that's absolutely right. When you do get some people who... Of course, occasionally I watch something.
This is really badly written. In fact, it's not really written. And this is about you trying to give yourself a sort of show reel. But actually, more often than not, you're seeing someone who is a good performer and they have created good material as well.
Which makes the less talented amongst us feel sleepy and adequate. But there is a lot of talent around it. And one of the pleasures of the job is being able to go and see that. There's a lot of fashions around at the moment.
I'm seeing a lot of things at the moment that feel a little bit like a feedback. It's quite a lot of that at the moment. I think that's inevitable. But there is also some very, very interesting original stuff coming through.
And I think it's good to see that people giving it a go. I think you would have fitted into one of those two categories or you hadn't even got that far thinking about it. I was going to say, I don't think it's as binary as that. I think what you do is you start off with the urge to be a kind of creative whether it's right performer.
You follow your nose, the way it works for you. You go and I would say, although some of you disagree, I probably am a writer and performer. I think my stand-up is adequate. I think my writing is adequate.
I think I think I'm adequate. I think what I would say is... I can't think of you as a performer if you are un-obligate, anything kind of adequate. I think I'm a great performer.
I would say, and what's probably happening now in terms of more performance, because it's not a lot of money in stand-up. As in if your life's down-up and you're not particularly famous, it's very difficult to make a good living. Secondly, there's an issue of gatekeepers in terms of where we can be cast or used in the script to the comedy world. So it's literally the case of if I want to do this, I have to write the parts myself.
And we have the ability to do that now because of the democratisation of media and technology. We can film our own stuff. We can write our own stuff. So I think less than less than less, we're going to see this idea of just a writer.
I think more and more people are just going to get up and just be self-starters and have the initiative and do both constantly. Dave's going to mention his term, which he... No, I wasn't going to mention the writer-prunerer. I'm not mentioning that.
I know, I cringe just saying it. But I think what's interesting is that we saw two years ago when we spoke to you. We were still despairing at the lack of new shows that were coming out on TV. And I think over the last three or four years, there's almost been a kind of a bit of a reaction to that.
But there has been more... there seems to be certainly the BBC in the last year or so. More shows have come out, more sitcoms have come out. More writers have actually got jobs.
I mean, a lot of the sitcoms have come out. They haven't seen loads of them. There's a lot of zombies on a canal or something. I haven't seen that.
There's other ones. There are more actual writers. I've started to see that in the last couple of years. Is that something that you've had a sort of input in in some kind of way?
Do you think? I think so. I hope we have. The results of any of my work probably were come to fruition, do I retire?
I'll find out. You'll be there for us. But I think there is sort of taken away from what we do. I think sort of generally across the industry, there has been a concerted effort to find voices that maybe they haven't heard before or haven't looked before or haven't thought they wanted before.
And I think that's good. I think that's helpful as well because it means that you don't have to think, what does the BBC want? What does Channel 4 want? It's like you are enough.
You look at something like the young offenders or the dairy girls or this country. This country is a very up-game face. It's been like, as part of one of the exercises I was thinking about was like, you've got to talk about something that's been made in the UK in the past 12 months in critique it. I could have given anything that I would critique.
So I was like, oh, I kind of like in the long run on Sky One, which was like, okay. So it's been so good that something that would normally be brilliant is now okay. So I think it's a good time to write because I don't think people who are stripped about what A, sitcom is in terms of theme. Yeah, yeah.
I think the voice thing is important. And when we were recently run our own competition with BCG Pro and somebody, one of our patrons, was sort of said, how come this one got through and not that one? It wasn't a, the nicer than we're here, but he was sort of curious because on the Patreon system, if you're a governor, a patron, a subscriber, then we would read your script and do a little mini podcast about it. And so there was one that felt like it was of a piece.
And there was another one which had lots of jokes in it, but it was actually quite hard to read because there was just too much going on. And the question was, why did you put that one through? Or why did you put the one that felt of a piece through and the one that had actually lots of jokes in it? And there was an element of like, mmm, mmm.
You know, after 10 pages, I wanted to read more of one. And I felt like I needed to lie down after reading the other one. And in the end, they probably with work would both come up the same. But I guess one of the things that you are looking for when you're reading scripts is you are looking for voices.
And they don't have to be, and so some people might be just thinking, you know, you need voices to tick boxes or whatever. But actually you just want an angle. I want an angle. I want to read something.
Well, first of all, I want to read something that makes me laugh. That's a good start. I was just like, if you can write jokes, like if you can write things that comes with jokes in them, that is not something to be sniffed at. And that is a great skill.
And if it is a case where it's just not quite hitting the narrative, right? You should be really proud of yourself as a writer. And like, you can work on the narrative. But you know, like you have to, you know, it's not jokes.
It's not a box-taking exercise. It's not a box-taking exercise. I want to be surprised. And, you know, when we have our big window and we get our 3000 plus scripts, one of the great things about it, it sounds like a big number.
One of the great things about looking at 3000's scripts is that they are on. The good ones really, really, really stand out. Because, you know, if you're going through script after script after script after script, some of which are completely competent. You know, I mean, I mean that in a good way.
I mean, I don't mean that in an insult to my competent, well-made, perfectly acceptable. Just not very interesting or very exciting or, you know, a bit ho-hum. And then you hit something that just makes the hairs look accurate next down up. And you thought, oh, yeah, this is something in here.
It's this thing that we all voice. I think the best way to think about voice for me was to think about my favourite shows. And all of a sudden you think, oh my God, Tina Fey's got a voice. What is that?
Cut to what it is. I can tell you that's her. You know, playing in the hand. It's like you have to listen to the music.
But you look at the shows. And it's like an entity that you can't describe, but you can see when people have it. And it's about, okay, who are you? How does one pick up a script and say, oh, this is X's work or whatever?
And that's really hard. I have a massive advantage having trundled around the circuit, working on my voice. You know, what I talk about in my comedy is very similar to what I care about as a person. So it was not easy, but it was a little simpler for me to sit down and think, well, I'm going to write about X, Y and Z.
Because I've been doing that. And if you haven't been doing that, then it's almost like you have to do some kind of self therapy. Like, think about what you, what do you want to say? Why do you want to say it?
Why are you the best person to say it? You know, why can't someone else say it? Well, that's exactly. I mean, we have the sort of two big sort of takeaways from reading our scripts.
The first one was that the person, the idea, which just hadn't been absolutely thoroughly tested enough. It was just a very well-selling, you know, oh, yeah, I love Tina Fey. So I want to do a Tina Fey type thing. Yeah.
And then, okay, yeah, but why are you the person to be doing that? Yeah. That's his fan fiction, isn't it? Yeah.
I think as well, like it's kind of like writing the craft and it's unusual for someone to write the best piece of work that they're ever going to do the first time. And sometimes if you're, I think with the last comedy room, we read a lot of like, free bag escariffs that maybe didn't quite cut through. But I'm interested to see what those writers do next, because those things that you learn from maybe trying to imitate your heroes. But it'll be the next thing that you do with those skills.
And actually, that's when it becomes more your voice coming out. Yeah. I do remember when we spoke two years ago and I remember mentioning that the first thing that I ever wrote was basically Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was with me with a Jewish bloke in it. That was a very different thing about it.
But basically everything else was sort of sub-dumbled atoms really. And that was, but you know, through writing it, I did sort of taught me various things like how not, you know, don't rip off other people. Quite niche. Yeah.
Well, except, you know, there is genre and that's fine to write with it. And the show that one, our competition is quite strongly genre as in its sort of red wolf slash cabin pressure. And it was, in one sense, it's not really about anything, but it is sort of like an office politics show set in space. And it was really well executed.
And the show that, the script that came second had a lovely sort of tone to it and had loads of energy and an interesting situation, which is not really fleabaggy. Yeah, but that's not so good. But it just felt like it was very infectious and you wanted to read on. And so, you know, you have to decide which one wins, which doesn't, I mean, nobody cares who wins our pop situation.
And in a way, no one cares which is the best script, but that you receive is just, you know, you've got how many places on the college in the corner. About 12, yeah. Give a take. Comedy always slightly variable numbers because a lot of comedy writers write in pairs.
Yeah. Much more so than drama. Yeah. We talk about less than one percent of the scripts that you get sent.
Yeah. Yeah. Coming second isn't a bad thing. Like I think sometimes it's really easy to be like, get caught up in the like, do you win, do you not win?
Yeah. You're still cutting through, you're sending in, you're hitting a deadline. We work with a writer, performer, Granny McGuire. And she's always talking about how you need to be kind to yourself as a writer because you're in it for the long haul.
Yeah. You haven't got your own back and you're not enjoying the process. You will struggle to make it because like rejection's hard at that and you have to kind of just be willing to kind of keep writing. Yeah.
It's a boring old cliche but persistence is just really, really important. Yeah. And you know, in general, the script you're writing now is going to be better than the one you did before. Let's talk a bit about, before we go on to the next window opening.
I think that's just going back to you in terms of when you were going through these workshops and as you've, in the last year or two, what have you been learning, what is it, what is, what is surprise to you that you like doing that you didn't think you'd like, or what is, what have you found much harder than you thought you would? In terms of what we did, you know, it's a lot of interview stuff. So like, okay, the business side, how do you sell it, how do you make it, which is, and then a lot of kind of creative stuff, a craft stuff, a character, archetypes and things like that. I think what I hadn't understood was, and I knew this, but I hadn't really appreciated it, like the BBC's massive and no one produces more comedy, right?
But the scale of, you know, it's radio, it's children's, it's podcasting and so getting a little taste of those opportunities to work, not just on your sitcom, but how can you get an opportunity to work on other stuff? Can you script edit, for example? Can you enter these one of, commissions was all on the right as your pages, you know? So that's what surprised me, like, it's not just, it's not just, I'll put all your exit to the sparsity and let your sitcom, there's a career for you as a writer, outside of your passion project, you know, and that's a great thing to know.
I would say the thing that's about your children's, I watched the audience TV because I got a little girl, but I hadn't, you know, I hadn't, because people were right here, you know, I just thought it was making up for you, you know, it's just how we do this. It's all you two weeks ago, you're doing exactly the same material, you make it walk, you know. So it's, you know, there's a lot of stuff that you don't realise that it's part of the comedy industry's country because you don't consume it. So opening those opportunities up to you in the future is great, but yeah, you have a project and it's great, but there's other ways to be to earn a living in the writing world.
That's great that you're, and again, so it's not about thinking this is my sitcom and the BBC writers' room is other people who make it happen. It's really not about that. And in a way, we try to sort of, I always try to say your sitcom script shows what you can do as a writer because statistically, they're not going to make your show, because statistically, they're not going to make my show either. You know, they did make one of my shows for the telly and they made a few for the radio, but my hit rate is, well, industry standard, quite good, but it's still one in 30.
You know what I mean? Whatever it is. It's shocking. So you have to think about building a career and a life as a writer, and it is a marathon, isn't it?
Not, not a series of marathon. Did you say writer pernour that time? My version of that, which also makes me cringe slightly, is the portfolio career. You've got to have lots and lots and lots of things.
You can't be that person who has got the script under their arm that they've had under their arm for five years and you've been to every shop and town. You've got to keep writing, which I know you guys say all the time anyway, but I keep writing, keep it fresh, and have a range of stuff. I think writers get a little bit tunnel vision when they've got a script, and the script is the best thing, and it isn't. It's your unique point of view, and you'll bring that to lots of different things.
Yeah. I now treat my work as back pocket things, so I do other stuff for people. By the way, I've got the script. You're doing a sketch for them because they've asked you to do something else, but your script's in the back pocket for you to pounce on people with.
For me, that's a good way to say one day. If it never gets made, it doesn't matter because I'm making money doing other things. You get those contacts from the point of view, and that's probably the best thing, meeting people who then, and this has happened to me with all the histories. You meet people who then progress on to give you work.
So you have to work those contacts yourself, though. But that's definitely a big part of this. It's just going to be the good things like Newsjacket, which is currently open and it'll be open again later in the year, but submitting to those and getting to know the producers. And those producers then move on to other things, and they're looking for content and scripts, and building those relationships is really helpful.
I'd be interested to know what you learned from the last two or three years worth of 9,000 scripts that you've read, or whatever it is, in terms of what's been coming back from the people who are... So you have a team of people who read the first 10 pages, and again, we keep emphasizing how important those first 10 pages are. So, I'm literally just read a script today where the first 10 pages, but almost no relation to the setup of the show, but that's a story from another time, but it is amazingly common. What advice would you give or what mistakes have you seen people making?
So, and I'm almost certainly going to repeat everything that I know you guys say a lot. I'd like to keep saying it. Absolutely. Hit the ground running in those first 10 pages.
You don't need preamble. Forget the backstory. Obviously, you need to know the backstory as the writer, but what that backstory should be informing is really brilliant, strong, robust, bulletproof characters. When that character walks in and is seen one, you don't need to be told they're back story, because it's all there in the camera.
Watching current shows really helps with that. Just watch a show and stop at three minutes and figure out what you know about that character by three minutes into the script. That's great idea. That's why it's a pilot.
But the sheer number of scripts we've read where we must have given this advice maybe three years ago and has come back to haunt us about a nice cheaty pilot is it's somebody's first day at work. But what it normally feels like now, we often get 10 pages of, let me walk you around the office. Oh, there's Sue, there's Jeff, there's Pete, and I'm all going. What you need to know about Sue is the five years ago.
And it feels also like just before that person walked into that room, everyone was sitting completely still. And there was nothing happening in the office and now something is going to start today. And actually, what is the worst day to start in that office? You know, there's a fire.
You know what I mean? Or they've lost everything. A massive magnet has wiped their hard drive. Just some way of just kickstarting the story, which also says something about the situation.
And seeing them in action. You get two people who seemingly known each other for years and years are having a conversation that is the first thing, when you get to know someone. And that actually coming back to the second takeaway that we had apart from the ideas was, and this is something that we say all the time. Get your story started on page one and page two.
And it still doesn't happen. But I've been thinking about this. And actually, you know, it's in everything. How often do you come back from the cinema and think, I wasn't quite satisfied by how that ended or what was going on.
And I think it's the hardest, hardest thing, isn't it? To get a plot that is married to the camera. People always talk about if you come into the cinema like 10 minutes late, you don't sit there with the whole film going, I don't understand what's going on. Like you pick it up, you know, you'll get a taste of it.
You will. And you should understand it from the behavior of the character. But yeah, hit the ground running. Those characters have to be absolutely rock solid.
A very common thing is that I'll read a script and it's essentially all preamble. And in the last scene, you know, John rounds the corner and he looks at the ocean going liner that he will be working on for the rest of the series. And he goes, well, that's a star! And this is obviously about the guy in the boat, it's not about, you know.
And that's very, very common. And I understand where it comes from, it's that the writers are thinking that they don't want you to miss anything. But if they've written the characters well enough, you know exactly where you are from the very first star. And you mentioned Captain Pressure a minute ago.
Well, you know, you're straight in the opening scene of episode one in the cockpit with Douglas and Arthur among that. And you know where you are, but even before the music starts, you get what this show is about. And I think there's a couple of gags in there as well. They probably will be.
I don't need to do that. Absolutely. No, it is. So yeah, those are perennial things and it is surprising how often people don't.
But also I say that I look at my own scripts and something just think, oh, I haven't had anything happen for the first ten pages. I thought I was too clever for that. I think that's part of it, they're like, sometimes you write it out, but it's in the editing before you submit. It's going back and actually giving yourself a zedder eyes and kind of going, actually, where does it start?
Self editing is really hard, isn't it? I think one of the things that we talked about, we didn't talk about two years ago and the big thing that maybe helps with this is the rise of comedy drama inverted commas, which has become the mantra now for commissioners saying, we want comedy drama. And then they don't tell you what it is. Which is what it was.
It is a contradiction in drama, a character learns and in comedy they don't. And you have to find ways of marrying that. But that's part of what helps you to have more story, doesn't it? Are you getting more, we've been making more strong narratives.
So you're making more of that. I think it's tied back, not as particularly more, but I think it's tied back to where the theatre world has gone. That very focused single voice telling a longer narrative. And that has come through into television.
And so we've had shows which over six or eight episodes I've told us to do. And there hasn't really been reset at the end of every episode as you would have a traditional sitcom. But there is still warmth and a humour and funny in it. One of our readers talks about laugh points.
So there's not jokes, there's still laughter moments. The thing I've found also that happens a lot, and I think it's informed by the grammar of television, especially drama and especially movies. And I'm sure they get this a lot on an excellent movie podcast called Script Notes. Which I've sort of listened to about 300 of them now.
I've sort of stopped for a bit and I will go back soon. But sometimes people use very tricks, these storytelling narrative things, where they show you a clip of this and they show you something else and then something else. And the mistake that they've made is that they're basically writing a murder mystery. And not a comedy or even a comedy drama.
They're giving you partial information and they're trying to intrigue you and draw you in. And one of the things I say almost every time is confusion is the enemy of comedy. So I think people are trying to pick up skills from different genres and put them into comedy. And normally I find it fights the comedy.
Is that your experience? I think as a script editor I had the most annoying question, but the most speaking question I'm asking my writers is why. Why have you done this? Why have you made that choice?
If it is something like you solve Outflashback or a screenshot or something like that. There may be a good answer to that. But I need to know that they know why. And if the answer is well, just because I want to keep holding something back from the audience, that's for me that's not a good enough answer.
Because what that suggests to me is that the characterisation and the storytelling isn't robust enough to survive. And then I want to unpick that and go back to those basics of where's the strength of the character coming from. And I think in comedy drama that character drive, pop probably everything, but certain time that character drive is really really important. And if there is that moment where you suddenly flip the camera around and take a drone shot to space or something like that.
And there isn't a good reason for it. But the good reason is usually that there's something wrong in the DNA of the show. I agree with James. I think that people in comedy can become confused, but confusion of storytelling doesn't have a comedy.
But I think that comes back to what we were saying before, that thing of it's to do with again hitting the ground running, getting in hard on that story and that very opening page scene line. If I want my audience to come with me for the next 27 and a half minutes or whatever it is, you kind of have to grab them, especially if they've never seen this show before. Grab them, bring them with you, take them, get them on their train track and make that story compelling. One of the things that we see quite often is not having active protagonists or active needs.
And your character has to be doing something that makes their life harder. Because otherwise it's just a crazy world and it's so hard to kind of keep the story going. Yeah, is the hero of the story you and have you made you like a lot? Not funny.
That's a common. I got a bit of advice actually from yourself actually. You know what I mean? Give it to me.
But it was basically like give them a problem that we want to know how this ends. Don't just have them do stuff or don't just give them a boring problem like, oh God, there's no sort of paper we're going to do. Civil mess. I have a proper problem that will make people want to turn the page.
And once you've got that, it's actually not easy but the dialogue flows a little better because you've given them, oh okay, how's it going to fix this problem? And one of the reasons that we do that occasionally is we think of a problem that's hard for the character to solve because we can't be bothered to think of how they would solve it and actually write yourself into a corner. And then see where you go. Thinking back, can you remember the script that you submitted that sort of began this thing?
And what, going back and thinking, what mistakes were you making and what makes you cringe? Oh loads. Just like corny stuff. But dull, not a lot going on.
Nice people but they're not doing much. What else? Again, not enough jeopardy, you know. But I would say, because I think my characters are quite interesting.
If you have good characters, you've got stuff you can work with. Okay, we've got good characters, just to write a different story. If you have good characters, then there's nothing you can, there's no sound in the pit to play with really, so to speak. So yeah, generally speaking, how my script started off was just quite, not going on.
What was the script? What was it about? It's called waste management. It's basically one of my favourite ever shows to think of it.
So I thought it would be nice to do a working-class version of it because I spent a long time working in the government. And I thought it was nice to say for a sitcom because we often see cats and stuffs blah blah blah. And also about when a reading version I read felt a bit like people like us as well. Yes, another reference.
Not about one of my favourite. Yeah, another reference to Shame Appetone. Another reference to the great show. I thought it was one of the first documentaries I got into because it was quite old.
So yeah, I think there was a lot going on with my page turning, but a nice people, a different setting. I don't think anything like that has been made so please write. He's like writing the event, whatever, about waste management. Which is very important.
One of the things I was thinking recently about that script as well is how the mockumentary style helped you get into that world to begin with. Now you've moved on from that. So that was an interesting journey on the script. I'd be interested to know what you guys thought about what you were saying as well.
What I thought about the first script. Well, I do. So this is one of the three and a half thousand scripts. And I think it's been little models because it really stood out.
There were great characters in there. The mockumentary felt a bit old and I think one of the notes we gave you or James gave you would be, you know, let's move it away from that. Because you don't need it. And again, that comes into what I was saying earlier.
I think probably what I said to you was, why is it a mockumentary? If there is a reason for that, talk to me about it. Let me understand it. But if there isn't, if it's just a good way to do very simple monologues down the barrel of the camera to give gags, that's not a good enough reason.
Well, actually, I said to you, I got rid of it. It was making me a lazy writer. So I was like, oh, I've got to get this into it. He turns the camera and he says this.
You know, and it's like, okay, once I got rid of that, I just wrote far more jokes because it was like, I have to have more interactions now. I have to have more stuff happening. So yeah, that's an interesting thing. I think the thing that you're holding on to the hardest and when you let it go, it's almost the most liberating thing.
You find that with the mockumentary style. Yeah, and it's hard because obviously not being an option, but I've achieved a lot with this script and I've got to come and do it with it for the next lesson. And then to say, oh, and I've got to take it apart and start again. But ultimately that's why you go for these processes, to get that feedback and also to learn and become a better writer.
So if you know that, take it apart and put it back together again and make it better, you've gotten informed decision. I'm not just an arborraging panicking. I've come and listened to people and I've watched one of the first things I did was I came in and people might say, I'm not the nicest thing for this, but I just watched a week just watching comedy, stuff that I had at the time to see, stuff that I maybe wouldn't have seen. And you watch it with a different eye and that was definitely contributed to me going, I don't think we need other mockumentary.
I don't think we need it. And yeah, totally, as you said, Simon, like why was I doing it? We should start to wrap things up because our time is nearly done. But there are some nuts and bolts and I'm looking at you, Amanda, because you're good on nuts and bolts.
It's only good for the written name. At the time of recording, it is 2020, just in case you're listening to this in future years when the following dates and deadlines will not apply. But why don't you just give us a little bit of a timeline about what needs to happen by when and for goodness sake, do this by then or else this. Give us some jeopardy, Amanda.
All right. Well, the window opens on the 23rd of March 2020 and it closes at 5pm on Monday, the 20th of April 2020. The advice we always give is don't leave a till 4.99 on the 20th of April because it won't get through all the issues with the system and we can't help you. So we always say, like, get it in a couple of days before the deadline.
If you have any technical issues, you can contact us then. We can chat to you. You know, like, the whole week before. Because you also need to create a login for yourself.
Which, yeah, what do you only do when you're submitting? So do that when you are trying to delay writing something. So if you're looking something useful to do, and you want to press the link by logging in and creating a login, and then it's there ready for you when you need it. Yeah, so you just need to submit one script.
It needs to be at least 30 pages in length. All the terms and conditions are on the website. Only send a script when you're ready, when it's ready to be seen because we don't accept resubmissions of scripts. So if you submit a script this year, we don't accept that same script no matter how much you've rewritten it.
So only send it when you think it's the best example of your writing and the best that you can do. So a rehashed version of something they submitted last year is a no. No, but you can send it to someone else. And also, like, part of our thing is we're developing writers.
So we don't need to see the same script again and again. What we want to see is the different ideas that you're coming up with, different scripts that you're writing. And I would say don't try and second guess any production company or broadcaster, but don't try and second guess us. Don't write something that is a bit like somebody else or sub somebody else.
Write your passion project right from your heart, right the thing that you care most about. And get the story started really fast with great characters and make us laugh. That's all. That's all.
But not about waste management. Please. It's not a documentary. But also, like, don't submit a drama script to the comedy window because the comedy window is open now and you don't want to wait until, like, the end of the year to submit your drama script.
Because sometimes that happens with both genres. And like, if you're submitting a script to the comedy window, you should think it's a comedy script, or a comedy drama. Even if you've read a Crit by a Guardian comedy critic saying, oh, it didn't have any jokes, but these comedy don't need jokes anymore. They do.
Yeah, I think they need laugh points at least. It should be funny. There should be a reason why it's a comedy drama and not just a drama. It has to be humorous.
Have we got a ton of that very quick mention as well? The studio versus audience sitcom argument. The audience sitcom is coming back apparently. There are some new ones.
I mean, while ITV is making a new one. You still, you don't get many audience sitcoms, and they do get made. So actually playing the numbers, if you, I don't know, how many, do you get roughly hundreds or dozens? We don't get many studio sitcoms.
It may be because people just aren't really exposed to them. Again, I would say if you have thought comprehensively about your piece of work, you will have asked yourself questions like, is the studio sitcom or is this what we call single-calm, which is actually looks like a drama. Is this a radio comedy? Actually, should this, you know, you accept radio scripts, theatre scripts, children's.
Absolutely, yeah. And that in itself shows that you're starting to understand a little bit of the business side of show business, that who are you writing for? What is the best medium for this piece of comedy? And if you don't listen to radio podcasts, you should be listening to the radio podcast because radio makes more comedy output than television or anyone.
And I love studio sitcoms. I love being at studio sitcom recordings, and you can apply it. I recommend every writer does that because there's nothing more magic than the energy of an analyzed studio sitcom. Terrifying as well if it's your script.
But it's your first laugh come through. Yeah, go and see what it's like. That's when you'll understand why when you have an idea that you go, it's a studio sitcom idea. This is what it should be.
It needs that energy. It needs that liveness. It needs an audience. So lots of practical advice there.
If you go back and to listen to previous episodes, we have episodes called Things Like First Ten pages, which is a bit of a checklist. There are loads of other podcasts we've done which are before you send it, try the following things. And that will just maybe help get your script one stage further. But just go, as you say, there haven't been that many studio sitcoms, but you guys are more interested in the idea and the voice and the writer and the talents rather than, so you don't want to second guess, trends because you're not commissioning comedy.
You're trying to find writers to develop. Yeah, and also, like, I think writers should write what they love, because at least then someone loves the script. If you write a script that you think someone else will like, but you don't like it? Yes, given that failure is certain, fail on your own terms.
Exactly. Do not die in somebody else's war. I've said that before. You have, yes.
Fail better at some of your buckets. Fail better, yes. Well, great. Also, if people listen on Patreon, there's an access to interviews that we've done.
We haven't put out yet. One is with Annal Gupta and Richard Pinto. And the first half an hour of that is a catalogue of failure, which is really funny. At the very end, we just say, so you also produce the office.
But it's sort of failure is normal, but fail better. So hopefully we have created better failures with this podcast. I hope so. In some way.
But we look forward to starting to read them. Yes indeed. Good joy. It is a pleasure for you.
Brilliant. Thank you very much. Simon, Athena, thanks very much. Thank you.
Thank you for listening. And we'll speak to you next time. Cheers, guys. Bye.