British Comedy Guide

Sitcom Trials Autumn '09 Page 54

Here, from the vaults of The Sitcom Trials, is a previously unseen video clip of Miranda Hart, from the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe Trials, with a very early version of the sitcom that went on to become BBC2's Miranda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-jXbfVBULQ

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In it she's running a joke shop that sells penis pasta, there's a little blonde sidekick, played here by Charity Trimm, the love interest in the cafe, played by Gerard Foster, and the camp character, played by Dan Clegg (a character who, in the TV series, is played by James Holmes who was the star of the Sitcom Trials 2002 Edinburgh show. Small world.)

Quote: Kev F @ December 3 2009, 9:48 AM GMT

At long last, after an unbelievable 18 hours trying to upload it (long story, something to do with changes at YouTube) is the video diary from the Grand Final of The Sitcom Trials. Features interviews with all the casts, clips from all the sitcoms in the final, and the all-important results.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcEaOXath5w

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Congratulations to all the writers, directors, actors and judges who've made this, the 10th Anniversary Season of The Sitcom Trials, such a success.

James Parker deserves the greatest praise for his production of this season. The directors he found to work with have done marvellous work, the casts have been outstanding, and the end result on stage in every single Heat, Semi Final and of course the Final was outstanding. It is, without a doubt, the best and most consistent season of Sitcom Trials shows that I have seen in the ten years I've been involved.

The nature of producing this show is that the first thing any critic will notice is things that go wrong, and it's so much harder to notice when things are just running smoothly. So it is to James's credit that there were no glitches, no missing casts, no under-prepared productions, in fact the only thing I'd criticise was some of my compering which, thankfully, the Socks spared us from in the Final. Oh and the occasional error in the weekly programme, which was also my doing. I have no doubt James had many frantic moments behind the scenes, but he kept those all well and truly hidden so neither I nor the audience ever became aware of them.

Paul Gannon deserves special thanks too, for being Minister Without Portfolio/ASM and doing so much of the work on the day of every show that I am overwhelmed with guilt that he never got mentioned in the programme.

I may write more of my thoughts on the season, but for the moment I'd be much more interested in hearing yours. As a participant or a spectator, what did anyone think of this season of The Sitcom Trials? (And should we do it again?)

Is it not possible to post the winning script up on here?

Quote: Kev F @ December 3 2009, 8:39 PM GMT

Here, from the vaults of The Sitcom Trials, is a previously unseen video clip of Miranda Hart, from the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe Trials, with a very early version of the sitcom that went on to become BBC2's Miranda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-jXbfVBULQ

Image

In it she's running a joke shop that sells penis pasta, there's a little blonde sidekick, played here by Charity Trimm, the love interest in the cafe, played by Gerard Foster, and the camp character, played by Dan Clegg (a character who, in the TV series, is played by James Holmes who was the star of the Sitcom Trials 2002 Edinburgh show. Small world.)

Miranda Hart might not be so happy about you digging this back up! Nice to see, thanks for posting Kev F.

Congratulations to the winner of this year's ST!

Quote: bushbaby @ December 3 2009, 10:51 PM GMT

Is it not possible to post the winning script up on here?

That would really be up to the writers. To be honest I personally hadn't thought of that as an option. And having seen the 20 sitcoms staged, I'm not sure going back to the bare bones of the script would do them justice, especially given the fact that the winner, End To End, was a writer-performed piece.

Though the tiny snippets of video on the sitcomtrials website are a pretty poor representation, they give you a bit of the flavour of the live event, and I think you may have to settle for those. Until, of course, End To End winds up on the radio, which I'm sure can't be far away.

If you want to see the sitcoms in the Sitcom Trials, you really had to be there.

If any writers would like to upload their scripts, that can only be a good thing and I'd happily encourage it. I just don't think End To End will want to, but we could ask.

Quote: The Giggle-o @ December 3 2009, 11:33 PM GMT

Miranda Hart might not be so happy about you digging this back up! Nice to see, thanks for posting Kev F.

She well might not, and she could possibly ask me to take it down (and I may well be polite enough to do so, I like Miranda). So watch it quick, while you've got the chance.

Quote: Kev F @ December 3 2009, 11:36 PM GMT

That would really be up to the writers. To be honest I personally hadn't thought of that as an option. And having seen the 20 sitcoms staged, I'm not sure going back to the bare bones of the script would do them justice, especially given the fact that the winner, End To End, was a writer-performed piece.

Though the tiny snippets of video on the sitcomtrials website are a pretty poor representation, they give you a bit of the flavour of the live event, and I think you may have to settle for those. Until, of course, End To End winds up on the radio, which I'm sure can't be far away.

If you want to see the sitcoms in the Sitcom Trials, you really had to be there.

If any writers would like to upload their scripts, that can only be a good thing and I'd happily encourage it. I just don't think End To End will want to, but we could ask.

Ok thanks

Currently living in the culturally impoverished Oop Noorth, I'd love to be able to see some of these sitcoms in their entirety. You've videoed the lot, presumably. Might we see some of them YouTubed in the foreseeable?

Congrats to the winner, finalists, rejected entrants - everyone involved, really!

I went to see one of the heats, and it was my first experience of the Sitcom Trials. Everyone should be aware how small the stage is! I enjoyed the night and it is a great showcase opportunity, so well done on all that. The one thing that didn't really work for me, though, was the cliffhanger format. I think 10 minute scripts are too short to allow plot and character to develop in sitcom-style, and most the entries I saw played more like extended sketches. Annoyingly, just when things were getting going on a couple of them it was the "cliffhanger moment", and because only one finale was performed, the audience missed out on how the majority of the stories ended. I'd prefer to see four 15-minute entries rather than five 10-minute ones and one cliffhanger finale.

Quote: Badge @ December 4 2009, 1:29 AM GMT

I'd prefer to see four 15-minute entries rather than five 10-minute ones and one cliffhanger finale.

Okay Badge, how much did Simon and Declan pay you...?

Quote: Kevin Murphy @ December 4 2009, 1:35 AM GMT

Okay Badge, how much did Simon and Declan pay you...?

Laughing out loud
Nothing of course... and I am sure this sort of remark won't influence them in the slightest when it comes to choosing Sitcom Mission finalists. Whistling nnocently

Seriously though :| I understand the 15 minute format is one used in previous incarnations of the Sitocm Trials. And I wonder what the actors and directors thought about having to rehearse a cliffhanger finale when on the night 4 out of 5 didn't get the chance to perform it?

Quote: Badge @ December 4 2009, 1:29 AM GMT

Congrats to the winner, finalists, rejected entrants - everyone involved, really!

I went to see one of the heats, and it was my first experience of the Sitcom Trials. Everyone should be aware how small the stage is! I enjoyed the night and it is a great showcase opportunity, so well done on all that. The one thing that didn't really work for me, though, was the cliffhanger format. I think 10 minute scripts are too short to allow plot and character to develop in sitcom-style, and most the entries I saw played more like extended sketches. Annoyingly, just when things were getting going on a couple of them it was the "cliffhanger moment", and because only one finale was performed, the audience missed out on how the majority of the stories ended. I'd prefer to see four 15-minute entries rather than five 10-minute ones and one cliffhanger finale.

Yes I would think it would be much more satisfying to the writers/actors/audience to be able to have the whole 10 minutes performed rather than just the winner's shown

Quote: Kevin Murphy @ December 4 2009, 12:08 AM GMT

Currently living in the culturally impoverished Oop Noorth, I'd love to be able to see some of these sitcoms in their entirety. You've videoed the lot, presumably. Might we see some of them YouTubed in the foreseeable?

I only videod very short clips of every sitcom, in guerilla style from the wings, so what you've already seen online is all you're going to get. We learnt long ago that videos shot of live stage performances are a very poor representation of the live event (unless shot, sound recorded and edited very well), so giving a snapshot is all I ever aimed to do. (Try watching the Sitcom Trials archive clips of the Tony Robinson or Justin Lee Collins episodes to see the real meaning of "ultimately unwatchable" and "you had to be there".)

Quote: Badge @ December 4 2009, 1:29 AM GMT

The one thing that didn't really work for me, though, was the cliffhanger format. I think 10 minute scripts are too short to allow plot and character to develop in sitcom-style, and most the entries I saw played more like extended sketches. Annoyingly, just when things were getting going on a couple of them it was the "cliffhanger moment", and because only one finale was performed, the audience missed out on how the majority of the stories ended.

Amazingly that's the first complaint about the format that I've had. All the directors, casts and writers very quickly got into the swing of it, and my impression is that the audience loved getting the reward of the payoff. If there were any complaints, nobody's told me.

Of course for the Final we played all 5 sitcoms in full, with no cliffhanger, which was another reward for making it that far. It demonstrated something that we hadn't appreciated but were subsequently glad of - with the cliffhangers, the shows ran to time. Do the whole script every time and the show overran quite a lot.

Actually that is worth noting, and praising James once more for. Every single Heat and Semi ran exactly to time, starting at 6pm and ending at around 7.30, nary over-running by more than five minutes I think. That is all down to having 5 sitcoms of exactly 10 minutes each. Yup, I think if we do it again we're sticking to the traditional Sitcom Trials format with the cliffhanger.*

(*The cliffhanger format is the established format, as used from the earliest Edinburgh Fringe shows, through the TV version to the current season. The full-play version, with no cliffhangers and no payoff scene at the end of the show, was only used in the 2007 and 2009 seasons produced by Declan and Simon.)

Quote: Kev F @ December 4 2009, 9:36 AM GMT

I only videod very short clips of every sitcom, in guerilla style from the wings, so what you've already seen online is all you're going to get. We learnt long ago that videos shot of live stage performances are a very poor representation of the live event (unless shot, sound recorded and edited very well), so giving a snapshot is all I ever aimed to do.

Do you think that, that is because the sitcoms are written for stage and as in many cases, a theatre production doesn't necessarily fare well on screen?

Quote: bushbaby @ December 4 2009, 10:55 AM GMT

Do you think that, that is because the sitcoms are written for stage and as in many cases, a theatre production doesn't necessarily fare well on screen?

We could be getting into a long discussion here! Stage to screen, both with comedy and other work, is a fascinating transition that we've all seen done well and done badly. Recently Sky Arts did a series of live transmissions of plays from the West End and they came across well, but you had to make an allowance for their context. It was once the case that sitcoms on TV were performed and shot much as stage plays, with the audience audible, and that can still work (IT Crowd, Miranda) but sometimes looks creakily old fashioned (Big Top). Whether that's the script, the style of direction, fashion, it's all a complex thing over which we could pore long and hard.

So sitcoms written for the 'stage' can, indeed, clash in style with sitcoms written for a more filmic treatment (The Thick Of It, Gavin & Stacey, Gary Tank Commander, Curb Your Enthusiasm - to name just four sitcoms I watched last night), they are different animals sharing a zoo.

As for whether the Sitcom Trials stage performances would look good filmed, the answer is that if you just point a single DV camera at a performance on a small stage, be it a stand up or fringe theatre (and the Trials are somewhere between the two), then it's usually going to capture little of what the audience experienced. You'll hear a lot of laughter, as a lot of this season's video clips have done, but you may not have gathered what it was that caused that laughter (it was very rarely a comic line, much more often a reaction or a bit of timing from an actor, or something which, in the context of the narrative, suddenly became clear, but in a 30 second snippet wouldn't).

Watch the Sitcom Trials TV series clips (all sitcomtrials.co.uk clips link to the others) and you'll see how we attempted to make the transfer from stage to studio. In some instances it works well, with the four studio cameras capturing what they were meant to. But then the paucity of the backdrop and the suspension of disbelief required to stop you realising you're watching four actors in close proximity to the audience in a very small studio, is hard to surmount.

Like I say, I could go on about this for ages, without necessarily answering the question. I really ought to concentrate on making good new comedy, always learning lessons from the past.

Quote: Kev F @ December 4 2009, 9:36 AM GMT

Amazingly that's the first complaint about the format that I've had. All the directors, casts and writers very quickly got into the swing of it, and my impression is that the audience loved getting the reward of the payoff. If there were any complaints, nobody's told me.

I didn't manage to get to any of this run's shows unfortunately, but from talking to a few people who did make it, they weren't enamoured with that particular format. Some were a bit disappointed with the ones that were left 'hanging', as those may have been the ones they liked.

Personally, I found it difficult to write something with the 'cliff-hanger' in mind. It felt a bit forced, rather than natural sitcom.

Just my view/what I heard.

Dan

Quote: swerytd @ December 4 2009, 12:22 PM GMT

I didn't manage to get to any of this run's shows unfortunately, but from talking to a few people who did make it, they weren't enamoured with that particular format. Some were a bit disappointed with the ones that were left 'hanging', as those may have been the ones they liked.

Yes, in the interest of balance, a fair number of people expressed to me a dislike of the format for the scripts - but then lots of people genuinely liked the set-up too. I liked it (amongst other reasons) because it enabled us to have twenty scripts go through to the live shows rather than just sixteen - and that makes a real difference to the four extra writers whose scripts are showcased.

Quote: swerytd @ December 4 2009, 12:22 PM GMT

Personally, I found it difficult to write something with the 'cliff-hanger' in mind. It felt a bit forced, rather than natural sitcom.

Personally, I don't think we explained well enough the purpose and the different options for the break. Forcing anything was never the intention, the five finalists all handled the split quite differently, and all with equal validity.

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