British Comedy Guide

Wingspan Comedy II - The Christmas Special!

Hi all you lovely people.

You may remember back in the summer we started up a comedy sketch night to help raise money for a charity a friend of mine runs called BIRD. Well I'm pleased to say we're back for a 3 night Christmas Special!

If you've submitted before let me tell it's similar to last time but there's a couple of things that will be a little different. First we're not going to be recording it as a 'radio-style' show but rather doing it as an actual performance with real acting and everything. That means you can add some action and movement into your sketches but it will still be bare bones so no props and FX.

And secondly, as the show will be in December please feel free to throw in the odd Christmas themed sketch to put us in a festive mood.

As before if you want more details then email me at:
[email protected]
and I'll send you a full brief and template for sketches. I'll also send my most common feedback from last time to give you some pointers on how to make your sketch as good as possible.

Timings are roughly:
21st Oct - Initial Submission Deadline
By 28th Oct - Rewrite requests sent out
18th Nov - Rewrite Submission Deadline
Mid-December - Live show! (Dates to be confirmed)

Any more information required drop us a line or reply to this thread.

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And if you haven't heard of Wingspan or BIRD before here's a little more about us and what we do:

A friend of mine runs a charity called BIRD that mentors young (16-25 yr olds) to help build relationships and improve wellbeing through creativity. If you're interested you can find out more about BIRD here: https://www.bird.org.uk/

Under the Wingspan name they are hoping to give up and coming creatives a chance to showcase their skills and Wingspan comedy is a chance for writers to get their work performed and actors a chance to get some credits on their CV. And so we're looking to put on a few live nights a year.

But we also want to make sure we're not taking advantage of people so we're looking to split the profits from these live nights roughly 1/3 for BIRD charity, 1/3 for the actors and 1/3 for the writers. So we do aim to pay everyone for sketches that get used and if the night becomes a roaring success the writers, as well as everyone else, will get paid more. Conversely, if we struggle the first few nights you might not be able to buy that new yacht you've always dreamed of.

Just to be clear we're linking up with a few youth organisations to get some young people involved in the writing and acting but it's not exclusively for them. The aim is to put on a good night and give a range of up and coming creatives an opportunity. So don't worry if you're not 16-25 you can still enter. (I've long since passed that bracket)

As someone who is 27, I still feel like I'm young enough to sneak into your preferred age range (I still struggle to wake up before midday), so I shall be sending an email forthwith. Saying that I've no idea what Snapchat is. So maybe I'm kidding myself.

Quote: eddbot @ 23rd September 2018, 4:13 AM

As someone who is 27, I still feel like I'm young enough to sneak into your preferred age range (I still struggle to wake up before midday), so I shall be sending an email forthwith. Saying that I've no idea what Snapchat is. So maybe I'm kidding myself.

Please don't Snapchat us, we'll never work out how to read it. ;-)

Fantabulous.

A little bump to remind you that the deadline for this is Sunday 21st October so get those sketches in this weekend.

We've already had some great sketches in so why not throw yours into the mix too!

In case you're wondering why you haven't heard from us yet we had a LOT of submission this time around and are still working our way through them. We'll hopefully be getting back to people soonish.

I'm keeping all my bodily parts crossed.

So we've (finally!) read through all the sketches and let everyone know if they've done through to the rewrite stage or not. Please don't be disheartened if your sketches didn't make it as we had a LOT of submissions and could only take 35 through. The standard definitely went up even higher from last time.

And if you're interested in coming and seeing the final show tickets are now on sale. 3 nights in December in Camden so no excuses for not coming along! Details on the link below:

http://etceteratheatre.com/?id=2&wod=12/17/2018

We're honoured to be given the opportunity to rewrite one of our submissions.
The second draft is in and awaiting critique/rejection.

What fun!

Stephen gives very good feedback. He transformed my sketch from clanger to classic,

Quote: Michael Monkhouse @ 13th November 2018, 4:08 PM

Stephen gives very good feedback. He transformed my sketch from clanger to classic,

Seconded. Well, not classic in my case, but certainly a vast improvement.

Aw shucks, you guys!

I just wanted to say that the e-mails have gone out to let people know they've got something in the final script. Hopefully some happy punters on here.

And also to encourage people to come to the live shows. We're raising money for a great charity - BIRD, which mentors young people in the creative arts and also giving up and coming writers and actors a chance to perform and get a share of the profits for their work.

But to keep doing this we need to make sure we get an audience. Please do come along if you can to support this venture and bring your friends too. I know it's always a bit rubbish to have to ask people to come but we need your help to make the live shows a success so we can keep offering a chance to writers (and actors).

The show will be 9pm on Mon 17th, Tues 18th and Wed 19th December at the Etcetera Theatre Camden and you can buy tickets here: http://etceteratheatre.com/?id=2&wod=12/17/2018

And if you do come along be sure to come say hi after the show in the bar downstairs!

Thumbs UP.

Warning! Bad news alert.

It is with a very heavy heart I have to tell you that, due to unforeseen circumstances, we have had to cancel our December shows. This was something we really didn't want to do but alas we've been left with no option.

I wanted to say a huge thank you to the writers and others who put a huge amount of time and effort in to get us to the final script stage, it is much appreciated. We're hoping we will be able to stage the sketches again in the new year so hopefully they will be performed at some point.

As you can imagine this is something we really didn't want to do but hopefully it will be a blip and we'll back again in 2019!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z0QUygjr2w

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