Halloween Sitcom Trials - script selection voting results

The votes have been counted (my thanks to Gary Brown and other members of the Sitcom Trials Facebook group for doing the adding up and cross-checking each others totals) from a wonderful influx of 32 different contributors who Read, Reviewed and Voted on as many scripts as they could manage, from the long list of 48. Well done and thankyou to everyone who took part in this process, I hope the peer-reviewing has been a positive and constructive thing for all of us, not just the few who've gained the highest scores.

The top of the list, from which the Manchester team now need to chose the sitcoms they'll perform in the Halloween Sitcom Trials, look like this:

36 points*:  Witches Be Crazy - Tobias Nichols
34 The Bitchin Hour - Amina Lesley Mottley
32 Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sects - Nathan Evans
24 Baby Driver - Christy White-Spunner
23 A Killers Guide To Halloween - Kain Watson
22 After Steven Halloween - James & Brown
22 The Party - Sean Fee
21 Country Rock Zombie - Neil Tollfree
19 Is This Seat Taken - James Wordsworth

*A Yes Vote counted as 2 points, a Maybe as 1 point, and a No Vote as minus 1 point. Hence the lowest ranking script in the table (above) having scored minus 13.

Since the next five scripts on the table have tied with 17 points, I think it's fair to make an arbitrary decision and to call the Top 9 The Shortlist. Sean and team will be choosing 4 scripts to perform from this list, but not necessarily the 4 at the top of this list. The online script selection has served to choose the scripts that have read well on paper, but once heard in a round table reading, other considerations will become clear as to what is going to work live or not. So, though we've made a cut-off point for the shortlist (and many scripts were only a vote away from being in this list, such is fate) we now make a considered decision and selection from the 9 we see above.

Stay tuned to hear which scripts Sean and his team will be selecting to perform live on October 25th in Manchester.

Halloween Sitcom Trials - the contenders are... (Time To Vote)

The scripts are in, and the contenders for the Sitcom Trials Halloween Special are:

A Cloud Got In The Way - Paul Campbell
A Killers Guide To Halloween - Kain Watson
A Man Called Henry - Robin Calvert
A Peak At The Void - Tai Campbell
After Steven Halloween - Gah Brown
Baby Driver - Christy White-Spunner
Being Frank - Andy Partington
Big Pickle - Jordan Birch
Cannibal Massacre - Naomi Palmer
Contacting The Other Side - Anna Wood
Country Rock Zombie - Neil Tollfree
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sects - Nathan Evans
Frank & Stein - Shezah Salam
Giving Up The Ghost - Scott Davenport
Godhammer - Paul Bruce
Grandma Knows Best - Maggie R Drahovska
Greenford Bunker - Nick John Whittle
Halloween Party - Michael Healy
How Not To Die - Adam Charles Baker
Infernal Seekers - Adam Martin
Invasion - Amanda Lee-Ross
Is This Seat Taken - James Wordsworth
Jeremy's - Caroline Dowse
Los Escapa - Naomi Westerman
Me 2.0 - Dan Hobson & Jon Bridle
Murder Manor - Paul Gibson
My Name Is Kevin For We Are Many - Dan Tindale-Taylor
On The Cards - Paul Gorrie
Radio Happy - MJ Gregory
Roomie - Lewis Charlesworth
Script Check Up From The Neck Up - Alan Morgan
Some Will Die - Jon Brown
Staying Dead  - Julie Burrows
The Bitchin Hour - Amina Lesley Mottley
The Chillings - Margaret Mather
The Curryvan of Courage - Belinda Hirzel
The Fiddler At The Courthouse - Thomas Boyle
The Killer Beside Me - Chris Mitchell
The Last Picture House On The Left - Elliot Stewart
The Master Bedroom - Philip Trow
The Monsters Are Revolting - Michael Young
The Orange Whistle - Shirley King
The Party - Sean Fee
The Psychics Nightmare - Charlie Lindgren
The Vampire Revival - Benetti & Mallon
Up Goblin - Nick John Whittle
Witches Be Crazy - Tobias Nichols
Zombie In The House - Randy Gross

Now it's your turn to Read, Review and Vote on the scripts in contention.  How do you do that? Read here, (or if you can't get into that, read it here on the blog), then go straight to the Facebook Group Files, which is where you will find all the scripts, and to where your completed votes must be posted.

THIS IS HOW YOU VOTE. What we want everyone to do is to read as many scripts as possible (though I know no-one can read all of them) and for every one you read, write a small review then vote Yes, Maybe or No. These votes are then totted up as Yes = 2 points, Maybe = 1 point, and No = minus 1 point. This way your votes affect all the scripts you have read, and leave unaffected those you've not been able to.
Did everyone get all that? You upload all of your finished Reviews & Votes, in one document, to the Files. Scripts are all in the Files, in the Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/5951180247/

Kev F Sutherland

Creator & Executive Producer

The Sitcom Trials

Mrs Brown not the first live sitcom in 60 years - we were!

The BBC are announcing a live episode of Mrs Brown's Boys, as part of their Landmark Sitcom Season, commemorating 60 years of TV sitcom. Reading between the lines, the inference is that this will be the first live TV broadcast of a sitcom since the 1950s. But, of course it won't.

The Sitcom Trials TV series was live.

From February to April 2003, every Friday night at 11.30, ITV broadcast The Sitcom Trials live from their HTV studios in Bristol. In each of the 8 episodes, two brand new mini-sitcoms were performed, then the audience voted, during the ad break, for which one they wanted to see the ending of.

Episodes included a pair of improvised sitcoms by the Comedy Store Players, a solo sitcom by James Holmes (who went on to co-star in fellow Sitcom Trials alumnus Miranda Hart's eponymous sitcom), a historical themed pair of comedies, two set behind the scenes in the TV biz (one written by Roland Moore, who went on to create BBC's Land Girls), a sitcom devised by the schoolkids of the HTV Television Workshop, and in the final week two sitcom scripts sent in by viewers.  In all 16 new sitcoms were piloted in the competitive head to head format.

In the days before social media, the voting was done by phone and text, and we learned very quickly that you don't get very many phone calls through the system during a 4 minute ad break. So it was a very small, and quite possibly unrepresentative sample, that decided which sitcom would have its final few minutes performed and be declared that week's winner. Don't worry, whenever we do a second series we'll make sure that doesn't happen again.

Many of the sitcoms from The Sitcom Trials live TV series can be found on YouTube here.

The next Sitcom Trials takes place in Manchester on October 24th and is a Halloween Special. Scripts are welcomed from any budding sitcom writers, and the Sitcom Trials is free to enter (as always). The deadline for scripts is October 10th. Details are here.

If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.

See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Glasgow Sitcom Trials videos - highlights & full clips

The Glasgow Sitcom Trials took place at the Yes Bar on Sept 8 2015, here are the video highlights. Click to play.

You can see each of the five sitcoms in contention, in full, here:

THE RETURN OF IVORY SHADOW by Neil Tollfree

THE SHOP THAT SELLS EVERYTHING by Michael Beck
THE COMMONERS by Adrian Maitra

AFTER STEVEN by Gary Brown and Graeme James

BRING ME SUNSHINE by Conan Peters

And the winner of the audience vote was..? (Watch the video to find out)

You can also see the winning sitcom in full here.



Or if you fancy the whole thing from a totally different camera angle, it's in full here.

Announcing the Halloween Sitcom Trials - scripts wanted

Announcing a brand new Halloween Sitcom Trials, taking place in Manchester on October 25th 2015 at the Kings Arms, Salford. And your scripts are wanted now.

We want sitcom scripts that we can perform in the tried and tested Trials format (a 10 minute sitcom ending in a cliffhanger with a 3 minute payoff scene, to be performed by no more than 4 actors, you'll see details in the files). And this time, though you can write your sitcom on any subject, we're particularly looking for scripts with a Halloween or horror theme.

If you want to enter a sitcom, go to the Sitcom Trials Facebook group (not to be confused with the Facebook page) where you will see the Files. Upload your script to there (as a PDF or .doc) and it will then be subjected to an online script reading, open to all. You will be invited to join in with this script reading and you will be asked to vote on the scripts in contention.

The deadline for script entries is midnight Saturday October 10th, after which we'll have a week to vote on them and choose the scripts to be performed by Sean and the Manchester Trials team on Sunday 25th. (The show will also include at least one sitcom devised by Sean and the team).

Think spooky, think tricky, think treaty, and we look forward to reading your script entires.

Kev F Sutherland
Exec Producer, The Sitcom Trials

If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.

See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Glasgow Sitcom Trials report

The cast of September 8th 2015's inaugural Glasgow Sitcom Trials, with producer Colin McQuaid (centre) and creator and host Kev F (front left). The drawing on the flipchart is supposed to be Jack and Victor from Still Game. Yes it does.

The first Glasgow Sitcom Trials took place at the Yes Bar in Glasgow on September 8th 2015. The five sitcoms in contention were:

 

THE RETURN OF IVORY SHADOW by Neil Tollfree

THE SHOP THAT SELLS EVERYTHING by Michael Beck
COMMONERS by Adrian Maitra

AFTER STEVEN by Gary Brown and Graeme James

BRING ME SUNSHINE by Conan Peters

And the winner of the audience vote was Bring Me Sunshine by Conan Peters.

The Pitch Fest winning entries, which have sadly slipped from memory and long since into a bin, earned their authors drawings from the flipchart by your host Kev F of Baldrick, Trigger (looking more like Humphrey Bogart than anything else) and Jack & Victor from Still Game (below).

The Best Of.. warm up game was to decide which was the best Moustache In A Sitcom.  The winner was Basil Fawlty's. Beating, as you can see below, George out of George & Mildred, Ned Flanders, Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther (?), Rene in 'Allo 'Allo, Freddy Boswell out of Bread, David Brent, Lord Melchet in Blackadder, and Mr Mackay out of Porridge.

For some reason I've never bothered to record the flipcharts or the results from the Best Of... games before, which is a shame, as I've been doing it at the top of every Sitcom Trials since at least 2004 (including throughout that year's Edinburgh Fringe run). What classic creations have disappeared into the ether, we can only imagine.

Stay tuned for a video of highlights of the night, keep watching this space. In the meantime do please enjoy the highlights from the most recent shows in Cardiff, Manchester, Bristol, London and Edinburgh.

The next Sitcom Trials is a Halloween Special in Manchester on October 25th, listen out for the call for scripts. 

Glasgow Sitcom Trials - the chosen scripts are....

The scripts have been chosen for the inaugural Glasgow Sitcom Trials on September 8th, and they are..

AFTER STEVEN by Gary Brown and Graeme James

BRING ME SUNSHINE by Conan Peters

COMMONERS by Adrian Maitra

POPSTARS: INDIANA by Neil Tollfree

THE SHOP THAT SELLS EVERYTHING by Michael Beck

Colin McQuaid and the Beyond A Joke team will be performing these 5 sitcoms in competition, with you the audience choosing the winner, and tickets are on sale now.

And as if that weren't enough, the show will be MC'd by Sitcom Trials creator Kev F (last seen MC-ing the Cardiff and Manchester Sitcom Trials, and currently flyering for the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe).

The Glasgow Sitcom Trials, at Yes Bar, 14 Drury St Glasgow G2 5AA
Sept 8th, 8pm. Only £5