Lee Mack's Sitcom Tips
Lee thanks you, Lee. For that clip of Lee.
oooooothat's cool ta Lee. Not Leevil. Lee, Lee.
I think Lee makes some good points - as do Lee and Lee for that matter.
A lot of the mechanics of great sitcom writing are a mystery to me so I always enjoy watching writers talks about the process. Unfortunately I didn't learn a lot from Lee as one thing I did know about sitcom writing is that Not Going Out is a series of quick fire standup gags bolted together in contrived situations. I knew this because I've seen an episode.
I really like Lee Mack. However, I don't agree that it's easier to become a stand up first. It's definitely each to their own.
Quote: Jacob Loves Comedy @ August 5 2009, 5:46 PM BSTI really like Lee Mack. However, I don't agree that it's easier to become a stand up first. It's definitely each to their own.
Oh good, I thought I was going to have to get over my crippling stage fright for a minute there!
Quote: youngian @ August 5 2009, 1:43 PM BSTA lot of the mechanics of great sitcom writing are a mystery to me so I always enjoy watching writers talks about the process. Unfortunately I didn't learn a lot from Lee as one thing I did know about sitcom writing is that Not Going Out is a series of quick fire standup gags bolted together in contrived situations. I knew this because I've seen an episode.
To be fair, that's not always the case with Not Going Out. A couple of the episodes featured quite tightly interwoven plot lines. Admittedly, these were mainly the episodes co-written by Andrew Collins. Reading the following in-depth interview (aimed specifically at comedy writing) will help you see that quite a lot of work does actually go into the plots:
Interesting. Cheers Lee and Mark.