Sitcom Mission 2011 Launched
Thursday 4th November 2010
We're off again!
With The Sitcom Mission 2010 tucked into our belts, we're happy to launch The Sitcom Mission 2011. Bigger, better and back to basics.
When we got started in live sitcom, we wanted to help develop new writing and present it to the great and the good. We've been fantastically successful in attracting the industry to our shows - including all the comedy commissioners from TV and radio - but had lost sight of the development side over the past couple of seasons and we hadn't concentrated on our primary function - develop a quality product.
We're really proud of the shows we did earlier this year, and we worked with some fantastically talented writers, actors, directors, comperes, improvisers and techie people. Thunderer, 2010's winner, has gone on to have a full-length award-winning run at the Edinburgh Festival and Hat Trick pitched it to the BBC. And Cian, our Best Actor, can't get his face off advert-land.
We really believed in the sitcoms we showcased in 2010, and we feel we let the writers down by not spending enough time working with them on their scripts. So this year we're making sure the scripts are top quality before they get to rehearsal.
To this end, we're delighted to announce that we've got four excellent script editors on board in Hayley McKenzie, Kenneth Rock, Marc Blake and Dave Cohen. We're going with eight showcased sitcoms, and each will be assigned a script editor to make them sparkle. You can meet our script editors here, and we'll be finding out more about them in future blogs.
Last year, Simon and I spent a huge amount of time writing feedback for those who'd taken Bronze and Silver entry. We're concentrating our energies on the workshops this time around (details here), and anyone who wants written feedback can go straight to our hugely talented script editors who all run their own script doctoring services. Check out their home pages and websites for further details.
Another way we've evolved is that although The Sitcom Mission is initially a competition, and we'll be whittling those 500 entries (go on, send us two sitcoms each and let's make it 1000) down to a shortlist of 32, we want to get away from the combative element when we produce the live shows. So it's away with audience votes and industry judges and in with industry advisory panels and nights of pure comedy celebration. We want the evening to be a showcase for fantastic talent - we struck gold with The Scat Pack ending our shows last time around - so we'll be promoting sketch groups and stand-up too, with two sitcoms per night rather than four in a knock-out contest. Simon and I will be choosing five of the eight sitcoms to go through to the Grand Final. One of those will be crowned the champ (by the commissioning panel), but hey, by that stage every one's a winner. Did that sound too cheesy? Good.
One huge positive from last season was introducing The Scat Pack to The New Diorama Theatre. They seem to have fallen in love with each other and this team of fantastic young improvisers are on to their second residency at the NDT this year. We love you guys, and can't wait to treat ourselves to seeing the full-length Lights! Camera! Improvise! show after our Introduction to Sitcom Writing workshop on December 5th.
So check out our guidelines, rules and FAQs, and let's make The Sitcom Mission 2011 the best damned showcase ever.