Concept?

Anyone know how to get the right balance between Men Behaving Badly and Red Dwarf? Anyone know what "they" are looking for in this area? Anyone know where I left my coat?

I can't help dumping my characters in a flat, I'm sick of doing this though, but it's just too easy. I don't want them floating through space, nor do I want to hear the ringing of a shop's door bell.

Red Dwarf, if you strip away the cheap looking Sci-Fi sets, is really just a flat-sharing sitcom. I'm sure this can be applied to many other high concept sitcoms too.

So is that really the secret? To hide a bog standard setup, behind high concepts? Is it pot luck whether you scare script readers away or entice them in?

Ah, I found my coat.

Quote: Griff @ January 7 2009, 3:18 PM GMT

I don't think Red Dwarf really was "just" a flat-sharing sitcom. (Actually I don't much like Red Dwarf but that's by the by.) Surely the point about Red Dwarf was the fact that they could have completely mental storylines about cloning or parallel universes or suchlike?

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I suppose so. But the best part about it was the relationships between the crew. Not the geeky sci-fi stuff.

I always thought Red Dwarf originally was more Porridge in space than flatshare per se.

I agree and in conclusion it just proves I didn't think this through very well.

Quote: Leevil @ January 7 2009, 3:23 PM GMT

I agree and in conclusion it just proves I didn't think this through very well.

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Bless!

I think you're sort of right. Like Porridge and a lot of flatshare sitcoms, it's a way of throwing together people who wouldn't necessarily be together by choice.

To get away from bunging them in a flat, I don't think you need anything particularly high concept, just a bit different.

Pretty much everything I write sitcom-wise could be considered 'high-concept' in one way or another, cos I just can't bring myself to write a traditional flatshare sitcom. I don't think it's in me.

I tend to do sitcoms the wrong way, coming up with the situation first then working out what kind of characters I'd like to see there rather than coming up with the characters first and then finding the situation that would suit them (I'm sure that's where I've been going wrong all these years). I'll be watching a film, see a situation and think "that'd make a great sitcom scenario" and then try to work back till it works logically in my head as something that could be made (ideally as inexpensively as possible). It's tricky (especially in the case of my latest project which I've been working out the logistics for over a year), but it suits what I think is funny and interesting, so it's the best I've got to go on.

The sitcom Bunker (https://www.comedy.co.uk/forums/thread/8072) I posted last year was an attempt at taking a high-concept (in this case the end of the world) and stripping it down to the bare sitcom elements. The idea had been in my head since 2003 and was a bugger to work out.

Whether high-concepts put off script-readers and commissioners remains to be proven (but it's probably the other way I've been going wrong all these years!). I personally love sitcoms with original or wild settings and styles (Red Dwarf, Father Ted, Garth Marenghi, Police Squad!) and strive to write something in that style.

It's all about approach, creating the characers, world and tone. Father Ted could be seen, at it's most basic, as a type of flat share sitcom really. Don't just think flat or shop, think of the world it could live in.

Quote: Griff @ January 7 2009, 3:26 PM GMT

I get your point though. The setting is all-important, and yet unimportant at the same time. The sitcom's not about the "sit", it's about your characters - and yet if you don't create a setting you can buy into (both as a writer and a viewer) then you're stuffed.

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That's what I was going for.

The unifying concept behind an awful lot of sitcoms is characters trapped, either by environment or their own personalities. And you can transpose that to an almost infinite number of settings.

Also (and this is getting away from the point a bit) I don't think the core of Red Dwarf is just a flatshare/Porridge-in-space scenario. Maybe originally, but when it was really good (series 3-5 in my opinion) it was something more original - taking serious, high-concept science fiction concepts (that wouldn't look out of place in science fiction literature or good sci-fi movies) and playing them out for laughs rather than drama/horror/suspense. That's why it got a bit rubbish in the later series (again, in my opinion), cos the writers seemed to forget that and thought the characters were enough to carry the show.

I suppose a real high-concept sitcom would be one that rewrote the rules (as wanky as that sounds), keeping recognisable elements of the sitcoms but doing something new. I'm thinking Spaced (standard flatshare set-up but very different in writing and visual style), Police Squad! (reoccurring characters and sets, running jokes, but with the look and style of a 70s cop show), The Office (standard office sitcom, but played out as a documentary), and so on and so forth.

Quote: john lucas 101 @ January 7 2009, 3:21 PM GMT

I always thought Red Dwarf originally was more Porridge in space than flatshare per se.

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Good stuff, cheers.

I think the most important bit is the characters, then put them in a situation that will most reveal and enhance their character (e.g Basil Fawlty and hospitality - he wouldn't have been as funny as a policeman) and then add an element that makes them trapped (a jail sentence, marriage, family ties, peversity).

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ January 7 2009, 3:56 PM GMT

Basil Fawlty and hospitality - he wouldn't have been as funny as a policeman

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That sounds quite a good sitcom.