British Comedy Guide

The Sitcom Mission 2014 Page 5

Sorry to disappoint, Declan, it's only at the option stage, and being touted round the broadcasters at the moment. It's based on a cartoon strip I do in The Oldie. I know enough about the TV industry now not to hold my breath...

The Adventures of Simon and Declan

INT.FLAT - DAY

DECLAN is sitting at a desk staring hopelessly at the ceiling. A pile of unread scripts looms next to him. SIMON enters with a large crate on a trolley.

SIMON
How goes it?

DECLAN
I'm just gearing myself up.

SIMON
Well gear no more for here, in this 6 by 3 crate, is the answer to all our problems.

DECLAN
What have you bought now?

SIMON begins opening the crate with a crowbar revealing a tall metallic box festooned with flashing lights.

SIMON
This is the Auto-Crit 3000. The cutting edge script reading machine that is going to make us rich, but the easy way.

DECLAN
You moron! You've blown all our money on this junk?!

SIMON
No, no, no. This baby is Pay As You Go. We just put the script in here and a crisp ten pound note in here and our metallic messiah here provides us with a definitive Ye or Nay, Simples!

DECLAN
I don't know. Where did you get it?

SIMON
Just something Vince from the Sitcom Trials had knocking about. Pass me a script and a tenner and we'll see what this baby can do.

DECLAN
I've got a bad feeling about this.

SIMON
Nonsense, here we go (feeds in script and tenner).

AUTO-CRIT 3000
(robotic)
*Critiquing.....Critiquing.....Complete*

The Auto-Crit 3000 spits out the script with a post it note attached.

DECLAN
Well?

SIMON
(handing script to DECLAN)
It's a "Maybe"

DECLAN
Written in biro, no less.

SIMON
I don't get it.

DECLAN
I think I do

SIMON
(clicks fingers)
Are you saying we should put in the silver feedback fee.

The Auto-Crit 3000 makes a series of excited beeping noises.

DECLAN
No you plank! It's a con, Vince is taking our money and our scripts.

The Auto-Crit 3000 makes a series of unhappy beeping noises and begins waddling towards the door.

DECLAN
See?! It knows we're on to it, it's doing a runner.

SIMON
Hey! If I'd known it could do that I wouldn't have wasted fifty quid on the trolley.

The Auto-Crit 3000 topples over and breaks open. VINCE emerges from the wreckage and drops a ten pound note on the floor before walking shamefully to the door.

SIMON
Amazing!

DECLAN
What?

SIMON
All that clever machinery and you can still fit a grown man in there.

Throughout February, we're featuring bite-sized pieces of advice from some very nice and capable people in the writing sphere. Here's the latest from My First Planet author Phil Whelans:

https://www.comedy.co.uk/sitcom_mission/blog/51/

I liked it.

Another excellent blog today. This time from Stephen Keyworth.

Check it out.

Okay it may not go down well with the chiefs but here's my own blog: Yes know how to structure and form a narrative comedy script correctly but also have some talent. Sorry, not being disruptive, think this is a great comp but I side on the KP camp on talent or craft, not the Boycott camp. Learn it all by rote and copy everything you see or read then you'll be dull and unoriginal; have a natural feel for it and you've got a chance. And I mean a feel for form and structure too. You should instinctively know most of this if you love true sitcom. Do you?

I just saw blog after blog repeating the basics on well known standard form for sitcoms. FFS if you don't already know what a sitcom is then you're in the wrong comp, folks, and hobby! Blog 178 still having to say 'A list of jokes isn't sitcom' is plainly worrying. Teary

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 9th February 2014, 1:11 PM GMT

Okay it may not go down well with the chiefs but here's my own blog: Yes know how to structure and form a narrative comedy script correctly but also have some talent. Sorry, not being disruptive, think this is a great comp but I side on the KP camp on talent or craft, not the Boycott camp. Learn it all by rote and copy everything you see or read then you'll be dull and unoriginal; have a natural feel for it and you've got a chance. And I mean a feel for form and structure too. You should instinctively know most of this if you love true sitcom. Do you?

I just saw blog after blog repeating the basics on well known standard form for sitcoms. FFS if you don't already know what a sitcom is then you're in the wrong comp, folks, and hobby! Blog 178 still having to say 'A list of jokes isn't sitcom' is plainly worrying. Teary

We've been waiting for your entry. We look forward to reading it.

Gulp! Laughing out loud Too late to delete? Whistling nnocently

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 9th February 2014, 1:38 PM GMT

Teary Gulp! Laughing out loud Too late to delete? Whistling nnocently

Oh, ok then.

We're also still waiting for a professional writer/producer/script editor to blog "FFS if you don't know it already then don't bother." I'm sure it'll happen soon.

I thought that was on one of your stamps Declan?

What we need is a sitcom blog-writing competition.

Quote: Marc P @ 9th February 2014, 2:52 PM GMT

I thought that was on one of your stamps Declan?

Ssssh Marc, we charge £100 for that.

We'd just like to congratulate last year's winners, Those Three Girls, for signing with a literary agent on the back of their success last year. We understand that more meetings with production companies are lined up. You go girls, as I believe young people say.

Great news!

Why is it a read through now rather than the play format of a few years back? Much more entertaining for an audience, surely?

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