Big Comedy Conference video: Writers and agents
Anecdotes offer entertaining insight - into someone else's past. But what about your future? In the recording of this session from our Big Comedy Conference 2024 working comedy writers and agents discuss the practicalities of the industry today and what you might expect in the future. From the realities of working daily as a professional scriptwriter to finding and securing work, getting an agent, when, and how, this panel offers a wealth of invaluable wisdom.
Hosted by writer and performer Nathan D'Arcy Roberts, the panellists are Toussaint Douglass, Simon Nye, CJ Rock and Andy Townsend. Their full biographies are below.
Toussaint Douglass
Toussaint is one of comedy's most exciting talents. Joyfully absurd and charmingly awkward with deceptively subversive writing, in a short space of time he has firmly established himself as both a writer and performer to look out for. His writing credits include Late Night Mash, Have I Got News For You, The Russell Howard Hour, Mock The Week, Bamous, Famalam, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, The Now Show, Dead Ringers and James Acaster's Springleaf: A True(ish) Crime Podcast.
Simon Nye
Simon's writing career encompasses translations, novels, television sitcoms and dramas, adaptations, animation and film. He translated books before turning to fiction, adapting his two novels Men Behaving Badly and Wideboy for the small screen. He won a BAFTA for Just William. Other credits include The Crown Jewels, Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This, How Do You Want Me?, The Larkins and The Durrells.
CJ Rock
CJ is an associate agent in the film & TV department of industry leading literary agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates. CJ joined Casarotto in 2020 as an assistant to senior agent Abby Singer; today Abby and CJ represent a broad range of writers, directors and producers working across both film and television, from BAFTA and Emmy award winners to exciting new talent. Prior to working at Casarotto, CJ worked at both the Park Theatre and the Boulevard for Julie Clare Productions, and formerly for the NHS in the mental health care sector in South Wales.
Andy Townsend
Andy runs Long Road Talent, a management agency representing screen writers and writer/performers across all their creative endeavours. His clients include Gemma Arrowsmith (Horrible Histories), Mike Bubbins (Mammoth), Kyla Harris (We Might Regret This) and Alice Fraser (D'Ancey LaGuarde). His roster of writers and performers have many TV projects currently in development.
Nathan D'Arcy Roberts (host)
Nathan is an award-winning screenwriter, stand-up, and actor. He has been twice nominated for the BBC New Comedy Award and has won the BBC's prestigious Felix Dexter Bursary. Nathan has written several successful short films. His most recent, Lemons, starring Jordan Stephens, premiered on Sky Arts as part of Sky's Comedy Shorts collection. His BFI-funded short, Blind Spot, starring Ben Bailey Smith, is currently screening at festivals around the world.
