Sitcom (Com)Mission Page 69

The results should be in by now! The first round should be done and dusted...

Hi all

Sorry for taking so long to get this to you. A combination of staying behind after school, a glass or too of filthy wine and missing the train home are no excuses for not posting the results from last night.

Well, we're up and running.

The 5pm show was a corker, with MC Sara Pascoe introducing the sitcoms, and instantly furthering Dean Gafney's career with her improvised sitcom Fishery Days. Judges were Michael Deacon (TV critic, Daily Telegraph), Alexi Duggins (Time Out), Robert Epstein (TV critic, The Independent) and Dawn Ellis (comedy producer, Radio 4). (Apologies to Dawn for previously not including her in the listing, and to Catherine Oldfield of Monkey Kingdom for her premature listing - she's judging next week. Doh!)

Initial concerns about slow ticket sales for the 8pm show were confounded by a complete sell out and having to turn people away. We were really sorry to disappoint some people, and can heartily recommend buying your seats in advance.

The 8pm started slowly with Joel Slack-Smith's The Moo Crew not making the great impression that it had in the 5pm show, followed by Daniel Flinter and Elizabeth Rhodes' entertaining antidote to Last Of The Summer Wine, Stand And Deliver. After the interval, Bryn Mills' Victorian melo-comedy-drama Thunderer quite literally stormed the show, followed by John Stylianou's crowd-pleaser Sitting Ducks.

While we were counting the audience vote, the show was finished off in fine form by our now resident improv group The Scat Pack.

Enormous thanks go to the casts of each sitcom, and to Lisa Cagnacci, Fergus March, David Fynn and Jemma Gross for their brilliant directing and dedication to the cause. The wonderfully brilliant Deb Jones was stage manager, who made the whole thing look so darn smooth.

We'd also like to give a huge thanks to the guys at The Big Chill on Pentonville Road for all their help with preparations for the show and ongoing support.

And to David Byrne and everyone at The New Diorama Theatre for their hard work.

So, to the results... It was a unanimous decision by the panel of the two to go through to the semi-finals, although they were split over their preferences, two going for The Moo Crew and two preferring Thunderer.

The audience vote for the 5pm show had Thunderer out in front with 11 votes, followed by Moo Crew and Sitting Ducks on 4 and Stand And Deliver on 3. The 8pm audience showed their appreciation of Thunderer with 60 votes, Sitting Ducks on 42 and Stand And Deliver on 17 and Moo Crew on 16.

Congrats to Bryn and David, Joel and Lisa and their respective casts, we'll see you in the semis. Commiserations to Fergus, Daniel and Liz and Jemma and John, and thank you for helping create a fabulous first night of live comedy theatre.

We'll see you next week - don't forget to buy your tickets in advance!

Judges next week are a representative from Time Out, Catherine Oldfield from Monkey Kingdom, Anna Madley of Avalon, Robin Parker of Broadcast magazine and Jon Peake, editor-in-chief of TV Choice, TV Quick and The Total TV Guide.

Cheers, sleep well, I know I will

Declan and Simon

Having been to the 5 o'clock show, it appears to me that the standard is going to be very very strong for the whole of the competition.
Even at this early stage, it seems, the originality, great performances and top quality script of 'Thunderer' is going to take some beating...

A strong first 4 last night. As Russ says, Thunderer was my personal favourite despite leaving me with an uncomfortable image of Welsh members swinging in the African breeze which will make it very difficult for me to ever watch Zulu again, or even listen to Men of Harlech. A very funny script well acted and directed.

I'm presently comforting myself with the idea that Simon and Declan deliberately put all the best ones on in the first heat to create a good impression.

Quote: Kevin Murphy @ April 11 2010, 10:41 PM BST

Good luck to the finalists, especially "The Box" and "Should Know Better", which I believe are the titles of the scripts I saw getting their first read-through back at the workshop in December. Both were excellent.

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You're not helping my nerves you know, specifically complementing someone else in my heat.

Just wanted to say thanks to Mark. On Sunday night we were only a quarter full. Mark said he'd put something up on the website.

24 hours later we were turning people away.

Not because we didn't like the look of them you understand, but because every seat was taken.

If you'd like to come (and why wouldn't you?) I really suggest that you book via the Diorama website.

Simon

Do you want some more titbits about The Sitcom Mission? Course you do. Go to - www.gpearce.blogspot.com for an interesting review of the first gig. I'm not sure if it's going to be a regular thing - I do hope so.

Thanks for that michael b, very interesting

Yeah, cheers michael b. Enlightening.

Dan

Hold on a minute. I don't get the results from the first heat. How does

Thunderer 73
Sitting Ducks 46
Moo Crew 22
Stand and Deliver 20

translate into Thunderer and Moo Crew going through, when Sitting Ducks got twice as many votes as Moo Crew. Sounds like an election Saddam Hussein would've been proud of.

when you put it like that hm hm hm

Thunderer and Moo Crew go through automatically on industry votes. There will be 4 shows at the final picked by industry judges and one popular audience vote.

When Declan and I first started doing live sitcom the audience voted their favourite shows through. The problem with this is that all a writer had to do was pack the auditorium with mates and he/she had already won before a single word was spoken.

It was no guarantee of quality.

So we brought in representatives from the world of comedy (people from Tiger Aspect, Baby Cow, Hat Trick, BBC etc) to decide which of the sitcoms should be voted through.

We think this is a fairer system that raises the bar for everybody.

So, no vote rigging from us. Just an attempt to make things fair for all.

If you'd like to come along and see democracy in action please, please make sure you book in advance. We only have 80 seats available and since 10 of those go to the ushers, writers and directors it is vital to book. We turned people away on Monday.

oh yes, had I not had a bottle last night, I'd have fathomed that out

The ushers get seats? Shouldn't they be, y'know, ushering?

I still don't get it. What's the point of the audience vote at this stage, if no matter which show they like, it's what the four critics think that counts? Why not just skip the audience vote - the pretence that they have some say on the outcome - if there's a 'mates' issue? (Are you saying the reason for the strange and suspicious results on Monday was that the Sitting Ducks people packed the auditorium, while the Moo Crew crew have no friends)? And if the votes of four critics count for everything and the votes of the 80 members of the audience for nothing, then how is this 'democracy in action'? Sounds to me like the complete opposite of democracy - sounds to me like disenfranchisement, and that Sitting Ducks got a raw deal.

Thunderer and Moo Crew go through automatically on industry votes. There will be 4 shows at the final picked by industry judges and one popular audience vote.