Heat 2 2010
Tuesday 20th April 2010
Four sitcoms last night for Heat 2, and, although the quality was good, nothing really sparkled like last week. Maybe a bit of a case of after the Lord Mayor's parade. Anyway, everybody gave 100% and we couldn't have asked for more.
The audience vote in the 5pm show went to Gladiators and The End Of Fun. The audience vote in the 8pm show went to The End Of Fun and Should Know Better. The judges, (Robin Parker from Broadcast, Catherine Oldfield from Monkey Kingdom TV and Gabriel Tate, TV Editor of Time Out) decided to go with Gladiators and Should Know Better.
We have decided, in the face of much public controversy and debate, to change the voting system. Hopefully it'll make it easier to understand. So, a non-winning sitcom from the heats can go straight through to the Grand Final if it receives a big enough score. We believe that all 16 sitcoms are good enough to be represented in the Grand Final, and if we didn't we wouldn't have chosen them or invested money in putting them on. However, as it's still done on a cumulative basis, with the heat and semi-final scores being added together, the chance of something going straight through from the heats are pretty slim, but still possible.
A thought we had was to have a third semi-final, with an audience winner from each heat going through, so that you have two semi-finals made up of judges' vote winners, and a third made up entirely of audience vote winners. This semi-final would then be purely done on an audience vote to see which one went through to the Grand Final. With our producers hats on, this is the idea we prefered as it pretty much would guarantee to sell out, but we'd really like to get away from the whole competitive side of the showcase anyway so we're not going to do that. Does competition in these circumstances make for better product? Does it encourage innovation? Or does it make for nervousness and fear, controversy and anger at a result that didn't go the way I wanted? Discuss.
Anyway, so, we'll see Gladiators and Should Know Better in the semi-finals. Congrats to Steve Keyworth and Maggie Inchley and Natalie Johnson and Suzann McLean and their respective casts.
Commiserations to Adam Greenwood and Kamaal Hussein and Chris Wallace and Phil Hodgson and Andy Fox and their respective casts for their hard work, effort, spirit and energy. Special mention must go to Andy and the cast of Sons Of Diamond, who met for the first time last Thursday, and turned it around in three days. Outstanding work, guys.
Thanks also to our brilliant compere Jessica Fostekew and stage manager for the night Stuart Aird. Improvisors The Scat Pack did their now legendary job of creating a musical film in 20 minutes, and brought the night to a satisfactory close.
Not a sell-out, and maybe without the buzz of expectation of last week, but still a good show nonetheless, and a fantastic effort from all concerned.