Hello and welcome to CityCongeeks on Tuesday the 28th of August, at 1pm, David and I do their Facebook Live event and this is the audio from Matt, hope you enjoy it. I'm looking, so I'm looking in the right place. I should look there, that's right. So this is purely for my reference.
Right, okay, that's good. Yes, so that's Dave. Hello. I'm James and we are CityCongeeks.
We are CityCongeeks indeed. And we've got a few things that we'll be talking about in the next hour or so. We're going to catch up later. Welcome to the autumn.
We've got a lot of interesting things coming up. We'll be talking about there's a new series of news Jack on Radio 4 Extra, so a little chat about that. We'll be talking about Audience sitcom as well. And comedy drama.
We've already had a few questions from our Patreon members, so thank you very much for those. And if you are a Patreon person, welcome. If you're not, check us out at patreon slash sitscongeeks and find out more about us. So we shall, shall we start talking about news Jack then?
Yes, actually, why don't we start with an art of victory? We could start with Neil Simon. Of course. Because you've posted a thing up.
Yes, the great Neil Simon, one of the greatest writers of the last 50, 60 years. Absolutely. And brilliant playwright, movie screen playwright, but of course started out as a comedy writer, starting writing gags on the Sid Caesar, your show shows. So that was the writing room of Neil Simon, Mel Brooks.
And then I think maybe Woody Allen came in a bit later, but Carl Reiner was there. And Neil's brother, who's, I was just about to say Paul Simon. No, no, it's a very different vintage. Yes, suddenly his name has escaped me.
But that's bad because he was also a brilliant writer. And there's a play with Gene Wilder as Sid Caesar, called Left on the 23rd Floor, which was about that writing for that show. So he cut his teeth on one hell of a show there. And that he is the absolute master of comedy, comedy writing, comedy drama, which we'll be talking about later.
And the particular line, which I haven't brought up here, basically it's from The Odd Couple, which was started out as a play, a Broadway play with Jack Glammon and Walter Mattow that became a fantastic movie and then became a sitcom. And in the play, in the show Jack Glammon plays a sort of neurotic recently divorced and he moves in with his slobby flatmate, Walter Mattow. And that is basically it, really, isn't it? But there's just, I put a little exchange on Twitter from that play, which I'd sort of vaguely remember and then picked up the quote, which is the Walter Mattow has got his poker mates coming round to play and he says, can you take that?
And Jack Glammon's made this, Flaming has made this lovely meal for him, spaghetti meal, and then Oscar says, take that spaghetti off the table and Felix does a little supersing his laugh. Why are you laughing at that? He's not spaghetti, he's an inguini. And then Felix grabs it and throws it against the wall and says, no, it's not, it's garbage.
So it's a tiny little exchange and you get the essence of both the characters in that tiny little exchange. There was one, my favourite line is when they're trying to give this guy pills, and he says, you're giving all these pills, he's probably the healthiest man here, that's a kind of an exactit, it's a context. But it is amazing and then a sitcom comes as a result of it as well, doesn't it? So many brilliant plays that he wrote became movies, the apartment, Sunshine Boys, and just just brilliant, brilliant writing, Bill Oxi Blues was a great movie.
But also, yeah, so Henrik, a Patreon subscriber, asked us about that critic crossover between sitcom and theatre, and is that even still a thing really anymore? I would say it isn't, but it should be, I'm kind of a bit worried. So when there's still lots of people wanting audience sitcoms as we'll talk about in a little while, and where are they, what's gone wrong? I think one of the big problems is the end of Rep Theatre.
And so now theatres are doing all the classics and they're doing, and the new writing tends to be not particularly comic, tends to be much more idea-based, much more experimental, as opposed to Edmond and Nabi, who sort of knocked out a play that was effectively became ever-decreting circles. And the Banana Box by Eric Chaball becomes the Rising Dam. Well I think that's actually changing now. And again, we're talking about this in comedy drama.
But we tried to go and see a play by our good friend, Danny Robbins, a show called The End of the Peer, which has Les Dennis as a washed-up comedian, apart from the play brilliantly. We couldn't get tickets, it was sold out on local theatre. So instead we went to see a show that was in the smaller theatres now that night, which was a very promising, very funny little drama about a couple of young couples, and it wasn't, it was sort of like what someone who was writing Abigail's party would now be writing. In the 21st century, it just had a lot of very interesting issues and mixed faith relationships and things.
But was a middle-class comedy as well, and I had lots of very funny jokes. And of course Declan Hill has just commented, Fleabag, which started life as a show, a stage show. Exactly, yes. Correct reference, so chewing gum as well.
Me came a couple of us started out as a play. But it's interesting isn't it, that these plays are now becoming single-camera shows. I'm not a student, I guess. Well, Mrs Brown, I guess as well.
Yes, there can also say chewing gum very good. Mrs Brown's voice was a live stage show as well. So it's just possible that I don't know what I'm talking about. No, I think what happened in the 80s was that French theatre just became impossible to do and too expensive.
And stand-up comedy came along and was cheap. And so for live comedy, you basically went to see one person talking with a microphone. And I think what's gradually been happening in the last sort of five, ten years is that a lot of people coming through, a lot of people coming through probably from ethnic communities as well. So there's a lot of new young writing about the immigrant experience and the second-third generation.
And there's just about enough subsidy in French theatre to get these shows up and running. And so you have breakouts like chewing gum. And now you've got people like Danny Robin, so you like James and I have attempted to make a living out of writing audience sitcom fail. Danny took his sitcom that he wrote with Lenny Henry, really rare records, and turned that into a play at the Hackney Empire, which is great.
I really enjoyed that. And now he's done this new play with Les Dennis. And I don't know who it was, but it was a very successful play. He may get a West End Run, or he may be looking to turn it into a sitcom.
I don't know how I'm really talking about that, but that's definitely happening now. And that's kind of what I remember growing up with as a child. I've watched shows like Stepto and Porridge, these were shows that had little stories. And also the writers that I loved in the 70s, I used to go and see plays by Alan Plater, Willie Russell, calling well under these, and all people who wrote sitcoms on telly or comedy shows on telly.
And nobody said, oh, you can't be a sitcom writer, you write plays. You know, you're not allowed to be that. So hopefully these things go around inside people. So that's part of what will happen.
And also, I mean, previously, there weren't as many places where you could get experience for writing sitcom type things. Whereas now you can make your own stuff on YouTube. There's now loads more channels. There's loads more media generally.
So actually, it's just much more of a mixed economy, I suppose, in that sense. Cool. Well, and thanks for that one, Henrik. Thank you, Declan.
Thank you, Declan too. Newsjack. Newsjack is coming back. Newsjack is coming back.
And we, yes, and we spoke to a number of people who subscribe to our show or listen to the show who are very grateful, especially for your work in terms of getting people up to speed on Newsjack. But you recently did a bit of a dry run on this, didn't you? I did. And I'm going to start this again because the new series of Newsjack is the first episode is on Thursday, the 13th of September.
So that means if you want to start writing for this series of Newsjack, you will need to start writing on Friday the 7th of September. So from this Friday that the 31st of August, I'm going to do, I'm going to be running a daily blog, which will tell you kind of what you need to do. That's actually the first hint of why so many people end up not succeeding in writing the whole time for Newsjack, is that unfortunately the first, the bad news is the bulk of what your writing has to be done over the weekend. So if you've got a job during the week, or if you're trying to get a job during the week, and the weekend is one of the few times that you have to yourself, I'm afraid that if you really want to write for Newsjack, you have to knock that on the head.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Saturday in Sunday in particular are the crucial writing days for that. But I'll be running that blog from Friday, and thank you Paul for saying Newsjack blog, great idea, much appreciated. And you'll get a sense then of what you have to do on each of those days. Don't forget, episodes 69 and 70 of Sick Com Newsjack page, how to write the show.
But I'm going to hopefully give you something that's a day by day, really gets you stuck into it. So that's going to be from Friday the 30th of August, that'll either be linking to our Patreon page or onto my website, daycohen.org.uk. Paul Lam says, I always lose heart when my brilliant one-liners or sketches don't get on, never give up. Perseverance is key, and actually one of the sneaky tips which comes across on the podcast, I do recommend you go and listen to if you've not heard them, is how lots of people trying to write for week one, and week two, and it falls off quite quickly.
And actually week five is the week to really go. So if time is limited for you, and you can only do four weekends, I would suggest listening to weeks one and two, and then writing for weeks three, four, five and six, rather than going one, two, three, four. Because also each new series has a bit of a life of its own, doesn't it, in terms of, you know, just sort of establishes a few new format points. And I think they've got a new presenter, I'm not sure.
I might still be Angela Lones with the series, but they're definitely looking for new presenters. Paul mentioned that just to go to that question about losing heart when your stuff doesn't get on, we've got a question from Christian Corley, which is a general question, but it's certainly very applicable to Newsjack. What is the best way to handle rejection slash dawning realization that you're wasting your time? As far as news time is concerned, yes.
There was a, specifically with regard to Newsjack, I would say it's, rejection is such an integral part of that. Even if you're a commissioned writer on the show and your commission is right five minutes a week, you're going to write a load of stuff that isn't going to be used. So I would look on this not as an exercise in trying to get something on Newsjack, principally although obviously that would be fantastic if that happens. But as an exercise in teaching yourself how to be a professional writer, which is what that really means is getting up in the morning, looking at a blank page and thinking, I've got to write something here.
And I went into your own projects, it's very hard to motivate yourself, but this is someone else's project. You have to get up on Saturday morning and write that sketch and rewrite it on Sunday and find out it's not used the next week. Listen to the show on Thursday, be disappointed. Then on Friday, you've got to start looking for stories again.
And on Saturday, you've got that blank screen again. So you've got this six weeks cycle, which is pretty much what our lives are like really. That's what the S30 audience is doing for James and I. You get up, you know that if you don't write something, then you're not going to earn any money.
And so that fear kind of pushes you. But having this very specific deadline is great. And we've got somebody who's mentioned which needs to be. Lisa Richardson says, conversely, it's really nice to hear stuff.
Get on Newsjack by my mates and acts I've booked. Because I see more because it means good people are getting chances and proves that perseverance is worthwhile. Thank you Lisa. It's a good pet up there.
So rejection is normal, but also celebrate the wins and spend all that money you make from that gag on giving yourself a nice time. Yes, exactly. Have a bun. That's two jokes.
Second joke. One joke. Yes. But yeah, so I think it's a good, it's a good, it's a good, it's a good, wide question about how, when to stop.
I think in a way, obviously, you know, people, the very fashionable definition of madness is doing the same thing. And then you're expecting a different result. So it may be that you've been trying to get stuff on for series and series and series and series and literally nothing's gone on. And you've got to even got acknowledgement or any encouragement from the producer or at the show run or whoever it is.
So if that is you, then you might want to, if you're still enjoying doing it and still do it, you know, it's, and also it's a format that doesn't suit everybody. So it's, so do bear that in mind, but equally don't give up too soon. So it's such a good way. It's such a brilliant way into the way of sort of being a non-performing comedy writer that I would say you would close the door on it to suit actual peril.
There's a Christian's got a more specific question actually about recent series. He said, speaking to other writers, I noticed I'm not alone in spotting focus on cheap shots on Trump, Brexit, Bojo, et cetera, dominating topical shows. How can writers hope to get gags or sketches on news, Jack? How can writers hoping to get this on contend with those writers when there's a termination policy to let these topics dominate, despite potentially alienating 50% of the audience.
Oh, wow, that's a great answer. That may also be true, yes. 52% of the audience is to be quite fair. No, it really is.
It's the one point. It was about that. Yeah, have another referendum, the result will be insane. The thing to bear in mind on that is that firstly, they're only going to do one Trump sketch and they're only going to do one Boris Johnson sketch and they're only going to do one Brexit sketch.
So that means, and there's probably going to be, they're going to read through 18 sketches, they're going to record 15 of those and they're going to broadcast 12 of them. So you want to be getting stuff. So most of the show will not be those main topics. So you want to, so if you can avoid them, great.
The alternative is also to just think of a really good angle on those topics, just sort of saying, isn't it funny that we're leaving the European Union and these idiots don't know what they're doing. So, well, yes, but that's not enough. You need to work out a way of bringing a really fresh angle that is particularly relevant now in a way that wasn't relevant maybe last week or in the last series. I do talk about this in the blogs about which subjects to go for.
But I do also take your point. By the way, thank you Declan Hill says getting your name on Jews, Newsjack is almost as good as seeing James and Dave read your name out on Facebook live. Thank you. This is right.
Go on. Yeah. But I take the point having listened to more recent episodes. I mean, it's really hard because Trump and Brexit totally dominate everything in the news at the moment.
You may get a Trump Brexit joke on in some other form somewhere else when you're writing the gags. So if you've got a new angle on Brexit or Trump or whatever, then a joke is probably a better idea. But it is very much about looking for the stories. And again, I think it's in the second blog that I talk about this finding the kind of stories that you will.
That you will that will work that aren't the obvious ones that the commission writers are going to go for. But have a maybe not another mistake people do make is they take the very funny story, the real gaggy story where the headline is actually the funniest thing about it. Yeah. And I remember when I used to write on Newsquiz, these were always the worst stories that you had to write jokes for because nothing you ever wrote could ever be as funny as the headline.
Yes. Well, yes, the person who actually did the thing. Yeah. Yeah.
So look for things out. And then these things often fairly dry looking surveys are sometimes quite good because you'll find a little bit of information. I noticed that with the whole Brexit thing, this is a massive page to the page to the note, what no deal scenarios that the number of writers who picked up on the fact that we get all our sperm from Denmark was vastly in great proportion to the numbers who mentioned that. Well, if there's nothing, if we have been Irish, we're not sure what to do, which is probably slightly a little bit more important, but there you go.
Thank you. Sorry. I'm not quite sure I have to pronounce your first name. I don't know.
I'm telling you in the seat. I'm telling you in the seat. Thank you very much for saying hello. I know you're a Patreon subscriber.
So please tell me how I should pronounce your first name. Great. Paul Lamb says, guys advice on dialogue, I'm writing a radio sitcom, great setups, characters, when I read back the dialogue, it's either unbelievable or urgent. Well, it's great that you're reading back the dialogue and discovering that because lots of people just type it and hit send.
So it is normal to find your dialogue to be, you know, sort of start to hate it. And that's okay. It's just sometimes it's just worth thinking of just making sure that people actually talk like that and, you know, read it out. Read it out is a good start.
And then keep rewriting it until you don't hate it until you're bored of it. I think that's a good point. Yeah, rewriting and writing and writing and writing. And we do say this all the time that you do have to be writing all the time.
And, you know, when you see a beautiful scene, a sketch or something, or a two minute scene in a sitcom or a play, you see, you know, the work that has gone into those characterizations. Sally Wainwright is again, Walter McConley drama, one of the great writers of dialogue. And, you know, the amount of time and work that goes into make those conversations work to sound real and to move the story on and to make, you know, you're moving the story on, you're making jokes. And it sounds like the way that people talk.
So, yeah, you've got to, that dialogue has to do a hell of a lot of work. The other couple of things worth bearing in mind is firstly, think about the characters in terms of people that you know who they remind you of and use their voices in your mind to write their dialogue. So I remember one character just thinking, oh, this is like one of my sisters and I can write that character and I know how my sister talks or I know how that sister talks. Or actually imagine casting it, who would your dream cast person be for that?
And it might be Keeley Haws or Matthew McClanion, a husband, or it might be Owen Wilson, it might be Keith Jegwin, I don't know. I'm not in Freeman, it's a good voice. But think about how a big Hollywood star even would say they're not going to do it necessarily, they might, I don't know. But do just anything that sort of gets them characters talking.
Once you've actually got the voice, it is actually a lot easier. So again, it's always starting as the hard bit, starting as the hard bit, unfortunately. Another question from Dave Trist, which is a fantastic name. When submitting sitcom scripts, do you think hard copies or emailed is more preferable?
I'm finished and about to do a mailing shot, should I save my money on stamps? I don't know. Yes, I mean, the more the question I'm more interested in is who are you sending them to? As we've discussed before, it's getting harder to get people to read scripts from writers that they haven't seen before.
If you're writing to producers, independent producers, maybe or script development people or agents, production companies. Right, okay. I don't know. I mean, I think maybe both, I mean, a lot of them say they don't accept unsolicited scripts in a language, which is obviously an issue.
But I would send it to a producer by name and send it to them. I think a physical hard copy is harder to throw away than it is to, an email will be eventually not deleted, but it'll end up at the bottom of an inbox. Whereas a script is a physical thing, it's going to sit there. I think, I mean, I would maybe suggest send a hard copy and then a few weeks later, a couple of months later, just say, did you get it?
Here's a PDF. Email, follow up. Email, follow up. Or ask them if they would like it as a PDF or something.
But just bear in mind, they've got a ton of other stuff to do and they might already have. If they do say, and a lot of them now do say, we don't accept unsolicited scripts, then they don't accept unsolicited scripts. I don't know. Maybe if you do send.
If you send it to a producer by name, which makes stuff that you like, I think I would do that. But at the moment, I'm not aware that there is any official. We don't hear a producer sneagering and laughing at writers who send them scripts physically. And neither do we hear them full of content for those who are only pretending yes.
So there's the, I don't think there's any great thing on that. So, yes, so we talk about News Jack. BBC writers run. We're thinking about it now because there was a deadline.
It's miles away, but it will arrive soon. Why don't you say it? Yes. Okay.
Well, the next, the other two topics we wanted to talk about were the return of the audience sitcom, part 943, and comedy drama. So very different types of scripts, but actually they're both scripts that will be, Lucy Reider and will be looking for in the new year. And that's also, we did an interview with them earlier this year and I cannot tell you what number episode that will launch that tour. But it will have been after 72 because it was after News Jack wasn't it.
So it'll be somewhere somewhere in the 70s. But yeah, that's, first of all, I'd just like to say that I think James and I have been banging the drum for the audience sitcom, often feeling like with the lone voices in this. But I do. Somebody John the Baptist voice in the wilderness.
I do get a sense that us kind of banging on and on about it has sort of almost bullied these commissioners into thinking, all right, okay, yes, yes, we do want audience sitcom. But you're not sending us enough. So we went to this TV festival in June in Stratford, the London version, which was a thing BBC writers room set up. It's been going for years and it's called the TV drama festival.
And then suddenly about a month beforehand they decided to call it, rename it, the BBC comedy and drama festival. So there was something going on there that made them think, actually we should get comedy people here as well. And it was very interesting. So there was a lot of love for the audience that come, even though they're not necessarily making them.
Not really. The lot of the commissioners said, oh yes, we want audience sitcoms. Not all of them said it. I think it's fairly clear that ITV won't be making an audience sitcom in the end.
Proining up. And I'm guessing that Channel 4 won't make one unless your name is Graham Lindenhand. Well that seems to be the case up to now. But definitely Shane Allen seems to be saying, and in fact there was a pilot that was announced this week, a pilot coming out which name I've forgotten.
That's an audience sitcom that's being recorded imminently. Great. So it's still alive. The idea is still alive.
So yes, audience sitcom writes them, write more of them. That's one of the things that will help commissioners, hopefully, decide, well actually we're getting a lot of audience sitcoms now. Because I think they generally, I get the impression that they don't get sent a huge number of audience sitcoms. So do write those.
But yes, one of the main topics that came out of this sort of TV comedy drama festival was the comedy drama. What is comedy drama? You may well ask. Because nobody can give us the answers to that question.
James, what do you call comedy drama? Well it's interesting, we spent a whole hour thinking about comedy drama at this writer's comedy and to write drama writing festival, and nobody knew. And after an hour we were none the wiser. To me, so two great comedy dramas for me, which are undoubtedly comedy and undoubtedly dramas.
One, by sitcom writer Simon Nye is How Do You Want Me? And two, by sitcom writer David Renwick is Jonathan Creek. I think they are both really good models for comedy dramas. And the reason I think they're so good and why there's a lot of comedy dramas out there at the moment, I think, or at least comedies that I don't find very funny.
And I don't think they're even trying to be funny, which is confusing me. It's because I don't really know what the show is. I think the advice has often been, oh well just write whatever you like and you know leave all that to us. I don't think quite works because the audience need to know what this is.
I think they think the audience don't really care what format or genre is. And I think to be ignorant of genre is I think is doing you a disservice. People need to quickly categorize what sort of show is this. If they give me an audience laugh track and it's obviously from the studio, they know immediately.
It's a sitcom, it's meant to be funny. If I saw something that looked like a joke, it was a joke so I can laugh and I just heard people laugh. Okay I know what this is. The beauty of Jonathan Creek was it was obviously a murder mystery show, but it also had jokes.
So it's a murder mystery show written by a sitcom writer. And how do you want me was a homecoming show, wasn't it? Charlotte Harman coming back with her new husband Dylan Moran and all of her family and everyone locally think he's an idiot and don't like him. And it's a very clear premise and so the jokes then kind of get added on top so nobody's worried about what they're watching.
So to me that would be the genre. It's a familiar format with jokes or it's a familiar story idea with jokes that doesn't normally have that. But apparently I seem to be in the minority so I don't really know what the rules are. I'll give you some quotes.
Shane Allen, the BBC controller of comedy, he said there's a blur between comedy and drama. We're diversifying all the time. Make of that what you will. John Montague or Montague.
I'm quite sure how to pronounce his name. Head of comedy at Sky. He was asked what do you think comedy drama is? He said it's whatever you think it is.
I'm not sure it matters. Now which to be fair to him is a commissioner's way of saying look if it's funny and it's original I don't care. Now the problem that I have a problem we both have is great comedy drama. We all love comedy drama as I was just saying earlier.
I loved all those shows like Stepto, audience sitcoms were also comedy drama. There's no distinction. But you do what we talk a lot about in sitcom geeks is comedy is characters sitcom characters they don't learn and they don't grow. And the point about drama is that at the end of the drama somebody has grown.
You know somebody has catharsis Aristotle. The person has been through something and they come out of it slightly changed person. So that's a fairly fundamental way in which these two things contradict each other. Whereas if we look at something like Fleabag say which is okay she doesn't learn as far as I can remember.
She's not it is a drama. It's a drama because her life is a drama. The dramatic things happen to her in that life. Whereas comparison with chewing gum which feels much more sitcom like she is much more kind of classic sitcom character.
Tracy she wants to lose her virginity. I think that and every episode she doesn't get it. So that's a fairly good sitcom premise. What makes it dramatic I suppose more is that the characters around her are having sort of fairly dramatic lives or even if they're not.
They feel like they're kind of living in some sort of drama. So it is a difficult thing to define really isn't it? Yeah I think it's partly pace as well and frequency of jokes and all that kind of stuff. I mean in a way it doesn't matter in a sense of as long as every single character in line and scene can justify its place in terms of story and plot and character.
Then yeah it probably doesn't matter. So nobody wants drama for the sake of it or even comedy for the sake of it. It has to be telling the story. So in a way it's good that I think all of these commissioners are being very sort of open minded about format.
That's good. I don't know I just think the audiences are not really watching a lot of these shows in great numbers and they're still watching Mrs. Brown's boys which is obviously a comedy in great numbers and they're watching line of duty which is obviously a drama. And they're watching the Bake Off because they're baking competition.
So I think the moment it becomes murky I think people start to be alienated by it. Ah but Bake Off is it's a comedy making show isn't it? It's always had comedy at the heart of it. This is where we have this problem where the writer performer element comes in and so any show can be made slightly different and better by honking some funny people in it.
And so that's what Bake Off always was and still is replaced by something else. So that's the odd couple in the baking competition isn't it? And it's got drama as well. So that's a plot every episode.
Who's going to win this year? But it's a baking competition in the format it's very clear one of them is going to go home. I think the audience needs a clearer clue really. So let's talk about writer performance drama.
There's also writer performance stuff as well in terms of how to get your scripts or what we should be writing. Again this writers room deadline is in April and it's worth bearing in mind that the writers room aren't looking for ideas. They're looking for writers. If you go back and listen to that podcast you will discover that they are offering an apprenticeship or a mentoring process.
They're not actually offering to make your show because they can't do that. So in terms of the script that you choose to write needs to make you look good as a writer so that you can develop. Because getting your own comedy on TV which is writer led rather than writer before led I think he's getting harder. And I think that's a little thing that is changing maybe in that sense is if there is a revival of these if more sitcom writers like Danny Robbins and I know you've been writing live shows as well.
If more of us go out there and put Fringe Theatre on that maybe the next way back in that maybe the way in which comedy drama develops. That's certainly the kind of thing that Danny Robbins is writing now he had his sitcom was The Hay Hay with the Monk which was probably the longest gestation period. From from radio pilot to TV series of TV pilots. I think it was quite a little bit of a series.
But that was about 10 years I think that took from Bill Bailey to Justin Edwards and many other names in between. So yeah so maybe more writers are looking to Fringe Theatre as a place to develop your ideas. You've got nine months now. I think as far as writer performers are concerned they generally they kind of bring their own drama I suppose because the sort of shows that are very successful in Edinburgh and that they can get on to being made.
They tend to be like a stand up comedian of some vintage does a show that's not just their best joke strung together then. They kind of they sort of put a narrative on top of it and some best shows that they then become developed and those people become the writer performers who we see so much of now. As mentioned like Fleabag was an editor show. So I think for this writing competition for BBC as James said because it's not a show that's going to be made you can be very contemporary with it for instance.
So you don't have to think about is this an idea that's going to be out of date two years from now which is a thing that we all worry about. We're writing because even if you're a very successful writer and you say I've got a great idea I want to do this thing. There's still all the possibility that two years down the line that that thing will have moved on. So if you've got something now that you can do that is that feels now that you haven't seen done before then that's something that's worth thinking about I think for your script.
But I think also I mean that what I would spend a lot of time doing in the next two or three months is not necessarily writing anything at all but really thinking about what do you want to write about what can I alone write about what can I write about that no one else can write about and you start to explore those things. I think that's I was hose of the starting point. Cool. I don't have much to add to that other than if you go and listen to the episode we did with Kerry Quinlan we end up talking about what sort of writer do you want to be.
I think that is possibly quite a helpful model of way of thinking so the writers are thinking is very much about trying to get development for you as a writer rather than for your idea. So I think write the sort of script that plays into who you are what you want to write about and I think that's quite important. We should do a couple of questions and then we'll sign off. Yes, we've got Henry Kerperson has asked a question which I do think we did answer somewhere else who said it was about cutaway scenes writing cutaway funny standalone scenes in your sitcom shows like Family Guy, Modern Family, the movie 99 you see a lot in American shows and I think the problem with the writing those scenes is that they are you do get an instant hit you get it like somebody says a line and then the punch line which is the opposite of that is this little five second long scene.
The problem is those standalone scenes there's only one of them and they take like an hour to film and you know and if you're on a British schedule rather than American schedule where you have to film like 10 minutes a day or however much you have to get done. There's sort of not the time to do that but also I think you want to be if you're doing too much of that and we do so we do see a lot of that in our shows they went in scripts that are sent to us we see a lot of people doing that. And it's sort of a way of getting out of doing the joke in real time. It's a little bit of a cheat and it's you as a writer need to get better at making the joke in real time.
Yeah but I also I think you can do it once in a script but I think you start doing it more and more then you know if you start doing it two or three times and somebody reading it will just think it's a trick and it diminishes the truth of the situation which I think is not going to help you so I think it's right to do once in a script I wouldn't do more than once I said you wouldn't make a big someone dance with it. So yeah I think you can get away with one but I wouldn't do lots more than one. Next question is Mike Arba, another of our Patreons. He said I've heard from script developers at indie companies that they're after new unexplored worlds.
Do you think there is a shift away from traditional settings and move to different ideas like zapped, sick note, etc. The jazz time traveling jazz musicians is a good example of that I suppose I'm pleb so I suppose also both ITV2 sitcoms that are. Sorry, you're saying Michelle is just looming over the computer angle it's like the alarming and I feel like I'm at the dentist. Yes okay funny dentist yes well Simon Godly yes indeed yes comedy as comedy performer who's also my dentist.
He's your dentist yes yes yes so sorry well go say Mike was saying about an article world I mean this is a sort of a commissioner says they're looking for an export world well of course they are. This is just sort of stuff they say because they have to say the people say what you're looking for. We're looking for more of the thing that's just been successful. And actually they're not looking for that and they know it but they have to say something.
So it's just they want funny shows. Yeah I went to a BBC event event and it was just at the point at which they had had about five years ago they had to surprise BBC one sitcom hits which was Miranda and Mrs. Moran's Boys. Nobody was expecting anything for and I mean Mrs.
Moran's Boys was sort of shoved out at 11 o'clock at Monday night or something. Miranda was really well people. BBC 2, 830. Yeah okay and so suddenly these two shows were huge successes and suddenly everyone was saying like we want sitcoms with larger than life monsters.
That's what we're looking for. Yeah of course you are you've just had a mere three hours of telly per per sitcom six half hour episodes. We want and the audience can't get enough of it. We've got more and more and more of that.
So it is always difficult trying to second guess that having said that yes it's great to see I think I'm really enjoying shows like the time traveling shows and American shows like the good places they are. They are kind of unusual worlds and you can do that with a single camera. It's all in the execution as well and these things have their time so. But at the heart of them every one of those shows you've got a character or characters they want something they can't get it.
So that's the crucial thing you look at any of those shows and that's what they're all about. We've had a hello to Sarah or Sarah or Sarah Joy Harmon in somewhere in the States I'm not sure where. But hi there she says I wish there was a US equivalent of your writers room. There's some great opportunities on there for obviously to be recognised.
Yeah so we have the BBC. Yes that's right. I'm sure the PBS not doing anything. Probably not.
But also bear in mind you don't have the writers room but you do have jobs for writers in a way that we don't. So every show every scripted show has a staff of between five and fifteen people and there are about 400 scripted shows at the moment. We have a few people sitting in rooms like this. You have what's called an industry.
We have a bunch of people. It is very much an industry and I know that also they have taken on board a lot of British stuff. They like the idea that British like the single author but America shows very much a team. Meanwhile we've tried to do the American way.
We've tried to get teams that comes going and we've had limited success but we just don't have the money to make it work. No no we do 10 in order to get one hit. We do have the money they just don't want to spend it. So last question is from Stella asked us about what our first writing job was.
This is one to finish on. Sorry just a couple I'm saying I'm inspired now. Thanks chaps. I think the rest of you said.
So as Stella asked us about what our first writing job was. I'm now struggling to remember. I do remember getting a joke on Rory Bremer. They used to accept submissions.
So my first one was probably on on week ending which was the new Jack of the day which is why I always recommend it. And I have got some stuff on Rory Bremer as well at the same time and I got some sketches on smack the pony. Because my one little bit of luck was knowing going to the same church being a Christian helps occasionally often but sometimes with Sally Phillips and so we had some ideas together and we put them into some sketches and and yeah and then I did an Edinburgh show in 99 which did okay. I got me onto a radio for thing but yeah so those early things I think it's probably was week ending and I moved to London in order to write for week ending because in those days we only had fax machines at best and actually had a meeting with vaccines.
And even have fax machines. Yes, 3911 you can sort it just walk into the BBC and there were some script meetings and stuff which is exactly what I did. Yeah I started exactly the same way James. I gave up my day job in the summer of 1983 and made my way to London in November 1983 and turned up at these meetings that week ending that anyone could turn up at.
And came up with some ideas again in a slightly similar way to James I was lucky that I had a person that I'd been doing French theatre plays with previously was now one of the lead writers on weekending so he kind of helped me get to know the ropes and very soon we were writing stuff together as well as we had done in the past. So doing French theatre sounds like oh well you already knew someone but you only knew someone because you've been doing French theatre with them you're actually involved in writing and that's why these things at the start of your career and Edinburgh shows and all that kind of stuff. You don't know where they're going to lead. So it is worth doing some of these things because the people you'll be doing them with will be needing help in two, three, five, ten, twelve years and I'm running the BBC at some point.
So it's just worth getting better, trying things because you don't know where they're going to lead. And that's good. And of course. And of course, the things that out of course, neither of us had that you have now much more is you can make stuff that looks as good as Telly and you can make it cheaply.
So that's another area that we'll be looking at in more detail in the year to come I think. But how much that's changed but you can make two minutes sketches. You can use great actors as well for that. So French theatre, writing for radio and online.
Make your own stuff, writers from Newsjack. Thanks for listening. Do you think about joining us on Patreon is a whole load of stuff that is about to be dropped for Patreon subscribers, including a whole course on how to write a sitcom from Super to Nuts as the American's calling. From initial idea to hopefully some kind of execution.
And Dave and I are going to write that. We are going to sit down. With a blank sheet of paper. Just improvise because you make it all up as you go along.
Absolutely. So that's going to be available to Patreon subscribers and it's well worth joining us for that. At the moment there's already an interview there with Al Murray and Stephen Moffat that you can listen to which won't be put out as a little while yet. Also if you've got a script that you want us to look at the first ten pages of and we're putting some new ones up fairly soon.
And also you get a free copy of my book called Writing That Sitcom and Dave's book. How to be average success from the comedy. And Dave's new book from my new book. And your one's his money book is called The Sacred Art of Joking.
And so that might be made available to certain. It's not even out until January and being published properly by grownups. So I should try to make that available to Patreon subscribers. And there's going to be a big competition coming up soon as well.
So we'll keep you posted about that. Don't forget Friday I start running the week naught of Newsjack. So on my blog, dado.uk I'll probably also put it on the Patreon page. Great.
Thank you very much. Thanks for all your questions. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. If you've watched all those of you and thank you for listening.
All thousands of you. We're very grateful. And I'll speak to you next time. Bye bye.
Thank you very much. Bye bye.