British Comedy Guide

The Sitcom Trials 2014 Page 4

Well, for what it's worth. I ruddy loved the year or so I spent entering things in different Sitcom Trials. Probably learnt more about writing through reading and commenting on everyone's scripts than I have doing anything else.

All the best and fingers crossed some kind soul is able to revive it

Quote: Trinder @ 31st August 2014, 7:29 AM BST

Well, for what it's worth. I ruddy loved the year or so I spent entering things in different Sitcom Trials. Probably learnt more about writing through reading and commenting on everyone's scripts than I have doing anything else.

All the best and fingers crossed some kind soul is able to revive it

I know what you mean about reading & commentating on others work. Do you have links to these other trials so that I can access the script entries as I would love to read more?

I was so impressed reading all the entries for this trials that it inspired be to start planning my own entry.

*************
EDIT:- Not to worry I have found all the previous entries on the Yahoo group pages.

Planning an entry that may not win to a competition that may not be running-a definition of over-optimism?

Seriously though, try NewsRevue, The Show That You Wrote, 4amcab, Sitcom Mission, etc. etc.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 1st September 2014, 8:26 AM BST

Planning an entry that may not win to a competition that may not be running-a definition of over-optimism?

Seriously though, try NewsRevue, The Show That You Wrote, 4amcab, Sitcom Mission, etc. etc.

In all fairness I was already planning my entry before Kev F's post announcing that the Trials would be hibernating, so definitely not over-optimism, just unfortunate timing.

:P

Quote: Deferenz @ 29th August 2014, 1:37 PM BST

Kev F, to clarify, does that mean there are no more Sitcoms Trials unless someone else picks up the torch and organises it?

Hi, sorry for taking so long to reply. But, yes, you're right. I personally love The Sitcom Trials, and everybody enjoys taking part so much that it's like throwing a big party and I wish I could do it all the time.

Or rather I wish I could afford to do it all the time. And there are discussions going on behind the scenes about the ways this could happen (ie The Sitcom Trials be a proper, profitable business).

But for the time being I have to devote time to my other creative work (which I'm very lucky to be able to do for a living), and can't make the time to organise any Sitcom Trials shows between now and Christmas.

The big 2013 tournament with its final in Edinburgh only came about because of the initial efforts of the Manchester team starting in 2011, and then Vince and his amazing Bristol team from 2012, which encouraged me to whip up the London team, until it culminated in the big August denouement.

But without the selfless dedication of those showrunners, for whom it can be thankless and punishing work, the shows can't happen. And, as I say, it very easily could happen again, and I'll help anyone who wants to take it on.

Gosh, even writing this reply makes me want to do it again, but (grits teeth), have work to do. Even though it's (grits teeth even harder) the 15th anniversary this autumn (gulp).

The Sitcom Trials Presents:

Good Little Boy

A One-Act Comedy by Lewis Cook

26th - 30th January 2015 at The Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol

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Mild-mannered school janitor George is desperate to win back his estranged wife, the breathtakingly self-absorbed Lesley. But she is inexplicably attracted to a cruel and loathsome lay-about, and George finds himself loveless, homeless and hopeless.

Driven to despair and beset by loneliness, George finally reaches breaking point and, in a moment of madness, he lashes out with grave consequences. As events spiral out of control, George finds his Jenga tower of deception becoming ever more precarious.

A darkly hilarious examination of infidelity, morality and Monopoly, Good Little Boy is a funny and quirky new play from the team behind The Sitcom Trials, Checkpoint Dave, and Barbara & Jeffrey.

Good Little Boy is at the Wardrobe Theatre, above The White Bear, St Michaels Hill Bristol, from the 26th - 30th January 2015. Tickets and details here.

Writer Lewis Cook was a runner up in the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe So You Think You Write Funny? competition, held at the prestigious Gilded Balloon. A stalwart of the Sitcom Trials team - a competition he won twice - Lewis is one half of the double-act Cook and Davies, whose acclaimed sketch show Planet Earth And All Who Sailed In Her took the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe by storm.

In case you've missed it (and you might want to catch it before it's taken down): Early Miranda Hart Comedy Discovered

And while I'm busy digging things up from the vault, here's a very early Sitcom Trials appearance by Bristol University student Iain Morris, 10 years before he wrote The Inbetweeners.

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