Now it's time for my sitcom

Everyone else seems to be doing it, so here are the first 6 pages of my first ever sitcom which I started writing yesterday morning. I don't have a title for it. Basically, they mostly know each other from being on Jeff's pub quiz team.

SCENE 1. INT. – DAY – SUE & KAREN’S FLAT
SUE AND KAREN ARE IN THE MAIN RECEPTION ROOM OF THE FLAT THEY SHARE. SUE IS CHECKING HER MAKEUP AND HAIR IN THE MIRROR, KAREN IS SITTING AT A TABLE WRITING SOMETHING. BOTH ARE DRESSED SMARTLY IN DARK CLOTHES.

SUE:
Hurry up. The cab will be here any minute.

KAREN:
Nearly ready Sue; I’m just writing his card out.

SUE:
What card?

KAREN HOLDS UP A CARD WITH ‘GET WELL SOON’ IN LARGE GARISH LETTERS ON THE FRONT.

SUE:
Oh no, you’re not seriously going to give Jeff a ‘Get Well Soon’ card?

KAREN:
Why not?

SUE:
Karen – it’s his funeral!

KAREN:
Well I already sent a sympathy card to his parents. I didn’t really know what other card to get for Jeff.

SUE:
I don’t think you’re supposed to give the deceased a card at all. At least not until Hallmark start selling ‘I Wish You Weren’t Dead’ cards.

KAREN:
I suppose. I just never know what to do in these situations. I knew it was bad when he told me he was ill but I wasn’t expecting it to be so…so…fatal.

SUE:
That’s pretty much what the ‘terminal’ part of terminal cancer means.

KAREN:
I sort of assumed that it was just a technical term. I didn’t realise it was all that serious. (BEAT) No wonder he gave me a funny look when I said that worse things happen at sea.

KAREN LOOKS SO SAD THAT SUE WALKS OVER AND HUGS HER.

SUE:
It’s OK. Jeff probably thought you meant someone with terminal cancer getting eaten by a shark. He wouldn’t have taken offence.

KAREN:
Is Tim going to the funeral?

SUE:
Looking forward to seeing what he looks like in a smart suit eh? I think Owen is coming too but it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t turn up. I still don’t get why Jeff was friends with him.

KAREN:
I think it was partly that Owen insisted he knew a lot about sport and Jeff was too polite to stop him joining our quiz team but mostly because Owen owed him some money and talked Jeff into letting him pay him back with any winnings from the pub quiz.

SUE:
No! I didn’t know that. How much did he owe Jeff?

KAREN:
I’m not sure, Jeff said it would take Owen about 15 years to pay him back from the winnings. Or about 6 months if he’d actually got any of the sports questions right.

F/X: CAR BEEPING OUTSIDE

SUE:
Here’s the cab, come on.

KAREN:
So do you want to sign Jeff’s card or not?

SUE:
(PAUSE) Yeah, OK.

SCENE 2. INT. – DAY – PUB
OWEN IS STANDING AT THE BAR; HE HAS A HALF FINISHED PINT IN FRONT OF HIM AND A GLASS OF SCOTCH IN HIS HAND. HE IS WEARING A DARK SUIT WITH A WHITE SHIRT AND BLACK TIE. TIM, DRESSED SIMILARLY, ENTERS THE PUB, SPOTS OWEN AND HURRIES OVER.

TIM:
Owen, there you are! We’re going to be late.

OWEN SIGNALS THE BARMAN WHO COMES OVER.

OWEN:
Two pints of bitter please mate. And another double whisky.

TIM:
We haven’t got time for a drink. Jeff’s funeral starts in twenty minutes.

OWEN: (RAISING A TOAST WITH THE REMAINDER OF HIS SCOTCH)
To the late Jeff Harriman.
And if Jeff is late, I’m going to be fashionably late for his funeral. He’s already as dead as he’s going to get and having a couple of drinks first isn’t going to change that.

THE BARMAN PUTS MORE DRINKS DOWN IN FRONT OF THEM AND OWEN HANDS HIM SOME MONEY.

OWEN:
Drink up Tim.

TIM:
We don’t have time. I’ve been trying to phone you.

OWEN:
Yeah, I know.

OWEN HOLDS UP HIS MOBILE PHONE

OWEN:
37 missed calls. You hold the record. My mum only managed 23 missed calls that time I decided to ignore her birthday to see what would happen. Now drink up. The longer you take, the later we’ll be.

TIM TAKES A LARGE SWIG OF HIS PINT AND PUTS IT BACK ON THE BAR. HE IS BUSY CHECKING HIS WATCH AGAIN SO HE DOESN’T NOTICE AS OWEN PICKS UP THE SCOTCH AND TIPS IT INTO TIM’S BEER.

TIM:
Terrible about Jeff isn’t it?

OWEN:
Terrible.

OWEN DOWNS HIS HALF PINT, THEN DOWNS THE FRESH PINT IN ONE GO AND SIGNALS THE BARMAN AGAIN.

TIM:
I think sometimes he wanted to talk about it but I didn’t really want to ask him too many details. You know how bad I am at small talk.

OWEN: (TO BARMAN)
Two more pints, two more scotches please mate.
(TO TIM) For future reference, Tim - when one of your best friends tells you he only has three months to live, that definitely counts as ‘big talk’. Next time someone you know is about to die, try paying a bit more attention, eh?

TIM: (LOOKING DOWNCAST)
Yeah.

OWEN:
I’m only ribbing you mate. Look on the bright side, maybe Karen will be inconsolable with grief and you’ll get a chance to comfort her. A crying woman is an incredible aphrodisiac.

TIM:
That’s an awful thing to say!

OWEN:
But true. I remember when my ex’s dad died. She was in tears all over the place but I just had a lob-on for days. I mean, I tried to console her but it was aching so much I tried to get her to give me hand job. (BEAT) And apparently I was the insensitive one. Women eh? Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live with ‘em.

TIM: (CHECKING HIS WATCH)
Look, we really need to go.

OWEN:
We’re not going anywhere until we’ve finished these drinks. Then it’s your round.

TIM:
But…

OWEN:
You’ll need the Dutch courage if you’re going to try to shag that Karen. That’s the other good thing about funerals. Birds look great in black undies.

I'm off to a flying start then and I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to tell me so.

I have to say I am with the formatting, apart from the underlining of the stage diections it was a joy to read.

Not really my cup of tea this one though, I know it sounds naff but I didn't really believe the characters and the dialogue reads a little contrived to me. Perhaps it is because everyone is talking about things that Have happened - I prefer it if the dialogue runs along things that are happening.

Needs a bit of a polish on some of the lines ("The can't live with 'em, can't live with 'em" seems to be over-egging, and I can't imagine Owen would say "lingerie" instead of "undies") but I liked this. I thought the characters were well drawn and the humour came naturally from them.

And excellently formatted.

So everyone likes the formatting.

I was going for something fairly understated. I've only done sketches before and I wanted to try something that wasn't just linked or extended sketch writing.

I take your point Marc P. I haven't finished the script so I haven't done any re-writing as this is my first attempt done yesterday morning. This is just a quick intro and Jeff is already dead and they're getting ready for the funeral so it's hard to see how they can avoid talking about things in the past. but that will stoop fairly soon as it gets into it. What I've got so far is just the scene setting, and that's finished. Now I can make things happen to them.

Hopefully, the characters will find their own voice a bit more as I write and I can go back and make the earlier stuff match a bit better.

Well Afin may I ask what the scene is about? As you see it, what is it's primary function.

As I see it, the primary function of this is to introduce the characters (quickly, not in-depth) and the reason they are going to interact in the sitcom i.e. They are all different friends of Jeff and are in his pub quiz team.

The way I see it progressing is that Karen is the nearest to being the 'main' character with Sue to keep her on track. She and Tim fancy each other but are a bit too crap to really do anything about it, or when they do it goes wrong. Owen will mostly be a minor(ish) character involved in subplots to ruin Tim/Karen's relationship and trying to bring in one-off horrendous characters to make up the numbers for their pub quiz team.

That's all up in the air a bit at the mo as I'm basically making it up as I go along for a while.

Is it not a rather blase treatment of a young person dying from cancer? Not saying it cant be funny but it's going to narrow the audience and is it in keeping with the rest of the show?

I'm trying to think of another sitcom that would joke about that in the same way?

'I'm basically making it up as I go along for a while.'

We all do that.

Sometimes, as I said before once, it's good idea to think about the end first. There should be more to the story other than a funeral being the framework in which you get to meet the characters.

To have things happening whilst they talk about things past, for example - Your opening scene could be set in the church as the coffin is carried in.

SUE TURNS TO KAREN WITH AN ANGRILY HUSHED WHISPER

SUE:
I can't believe the card you sent!

KAREN:
They didn't have any sympathy cards. It was the closest one I could find.

SUE:
What? Get well soon...

ETC

That way your exposition etc, gets played over the drama as it is happening. They can then talk about where the others are and you cut to the pub for your next scene and the audience already know what is happening so you don't have to explain it all again.

I quite liked it, albeit the style could be a bit more bedded down.

But good stuff, nicely written, and some very clever ideas.

The card for the deceased is a perfect sit com meta-gag.

It's funny, introduces the characters, and advances the plot.

The two blokes after, were a little bit of a let down.

But you seem to be well on the road.

Cheers Sooty. I know what you mean, the two guys aren't working as well as they did in my head. If they don't get good enough for me to go back and re-write their start point - they're fired. As I said, I've never tried this before and what you see represents a couple of hours bimbling around on Sunday morning. I'm just easing myself into it, it might turn out that I keep Karen and Sue and put them in an entirely different setting with entirely different people.

Marc P - I see what you're getting at. I'll have a think about that. I wanted to keep the bit about Sue agreeing to sign the card though. I might have Karen hastily writing it as they are waiting for the coffin to come in. I certainly intend there to be more to the story than the funeral, that's just the opening few scenes.

Pete - that didn't even occur to me. Personally I don't think it's blase as the humour was intended to be around the people going to the funeral, not the fact that Jeff died of cancer. Plenty of sitcoms have based humour around funerals - Alan Partridge at Tony Hayres' funeral, Karen getting drunk at a wake in Pulling, Eddy and Patsy turning up to Edina's father's funeral in Ab Fab all spring to mind without much thought. Anyone else have a comment on this?

Sometimes you have to kill your babies Afinkawan, or think of ways to keep them.

KAREN:
Well you signed it too,

SUE:
No I did not!

KAREN:
Yeah you did. I did it left handed so It'd look authentic.

SUE:
I'm not left handed.

KAREN:
Yeah but Jeff's parent's don't know that. And Jeff's dead, so he isn't going to tell them.

Or whatever... just saying identify what is funny about what you want to keep and you can usually keep it if you like it. Make sure every line earns it's place and you are halfway home.

There's a Graham Greene short story whose name escapes me about a man whose father is killed by a pig falling from a balcony. He has to find a way to tell people this without them laughing.

I wonder if there's an appropriately amusing death for Jeff that doesn't involve cancer. I'm not saying you can't get laughs out of cancer, but it does seem to be at odds with the tone of your sitcom as it comes across here.

This is great. I was getting bored with pulling poor Timbo's sitcom to bits.

I definitely like the awkwardness of Sue knowing that the get well card is the wrong thing to do but going along with the social programming that you should sign cards like that for people. It can be kept easily enough.

I don't have a problem with removing jokes from things, they can usually be used somewhere else instead.

I think what I'll do is try writing the next couple of scenes to work out exactly where it is heading then go back and redo the first scene but with them already at the funeral.

Graham - cancer is too serious for the current tone? Fair enough, I didn't think it was but I don't have a problem with that. I did vaguely think of something funny for Jeff's death but didn't want it to come across too 'wacky'. But, after Marc P's suggestions I think a funnier death might work.

Quote: Afinkawan @ June 30 2008, 3:52 PM BST

Plenty of sitcoms have based humour around funerals

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Not normally death from cancer (and you can be sure 95% of your audience will have been touched by that in some way.) and then gags about the word terminal....just putting up barriers that you don't need. People don't give a shit about 1000 babies dying each day in Africa because they don't know anyone with AIDS or starving.....but Grandad had cancer! (maybe kill your character in a famine )