Sitcom Trials Goes To Hull - March 3rd

Announcing the first ever Hull Sitcom Trials on March 3rd 2016.

The good students of Hull University have taken it upon themselves to stage a Trials next year, and they want your scripts now. Deadline Feb 2nd. Send scripts directly to sitcomtrialshull@gmail.com

The evening will consist of three performances of your written scripts all ending in nail biting cliff-hangers. The audience will then vote for which one they want to see the ending to.

We need your script by the 2nd February, so give yourself a break from uni work over Christmas and get writing! Each script must be 15 minutes long, as funny as possible and end on a cliff hanger with a 5 minute resolution, email scripts to sitcomtrialshull@gmail.com.

The Sitcom Trials would like to thank Grace and Bethany from Hull University who are behind the show. All going well, The Sitcom Trials' own Kev F will be there to MC the event at Johnny Mac in Hull on March 3rd. Further details, and comments and questions, are here on Facebook.  

You Say Potato - from 2001's Edinburgh show

Here's a treat from the archives for you, online in its entirety for the first time, it's You Say Potato, as performed in The Sitcom Trials debut Edinburgh Fringe show, at the Gilded Balloon in 2001.

The venue is now Cabaret Voltaire, on Blair Street, which was then used as one of the Gilded Balloon's performance spaces, their base being Cowgate. The following year those offices burnt down and the GB moved to its present base in Teviot, Bristo Square.

This particular sitcom was written by and starred Miranda Hart, with her Orange Girls double act partner Charity Trimm, Dan Clegg and Gerard Foster. The other two sitcoms in competition were The Client by Harris & Blakewill (which went on to appear in the Sitcom Trials TV series), and Kiss Me Son Of God by Jonathan Kirby (aka me), which is now available as a Kindle script book.



UPDATE:Bruce Dessau has picked up on this and run it on his Beyond The Joke blog, for which many thanks. Sadly that probably means it'll come to Miranda's attention and she'll ask me to take it down, so enjoy it while you can.

PPS: He ends his piece with the line "The Sitcom Trials returns to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015". Which was nice to read, and certainly happened and no mistake. Read all about The Sitcom Trials' biggest season for years on this blog, maybe starting 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.

The Sitcom Trials returns to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015. - See more at: http://www.beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/1327/news-early-miranda-hart-comedy-discovered#sthash.QQ1Ykfsz.dpuf

The Sitcom Trials returns to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015. - See more at: http://www.beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/1327/news-early-miranda-hart-comedy-discovered#sthash.QQ1Ykfsz.dpuf

BBC to mentor would-be comedy writers

New scheme for Scots

Six aspiring comedy writers in Scotland are to be given expert BBC mentoring to hone their skills.
Would-be writers are being invited to submit short videos to the new development scheme, Fast And Funny, with no experience necessary.

BBC staff will then select the six who will get to take part in workshops, masterclasses, and one-to-one sessions.

The focus is on short-form comedy, such as sketches and monologues, with entries having to be shorter than 90 seconds. Submissions from over-18s living in Scotland must be made by the end of November 13.

The BBC says: 'This is a rare opportunity to work with expert programme-makers, gain excellent feedback, develop your writing skills, understand what works online, experiment and have your work read by comedy producers.'

'It's open for anyone to apply – whether you consider yourself an aspiring comedy writer-performer, comedy writer, comedy actor or comedy actress – we are looking for people with funny bones who have a passion for short, snappy and fast turnaround content for online. There are no restrictions on experience.'

Full details of the scheme are available on the BBC Writers' Room.

Posted on Chortle: 3 Nov 2015

 

Halloween Sitcom Trials - the video(s)

Click to view the highlights video from the Halloween Sitcom Trials 2015 from Manchester. And below you can see all four entries in full.

The four sitcoms in contention were:

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sects by Nathan Evans - Full video HERE
Baby Driver by Christy White-Spunner - Full video HERE
The Party by Sean Fee - Full video HERE
After Steven by James & Brown - Full video HERE

Plus, for the very first time (considering he started doing this well over a decade ago), the video of Kev F's warm up game is also online in its entirety. This week it was the search for The Best Food In A Sitcom. Clip HERE.

And the winner of the audience vote, and the sitcom that had its ending performed as a reward, was...? (Watch the video to find out)

Full report with photos here.

And if you have a taste for this kind of thing, here are the videos from:
2012's Bristol Halloween Sitcom Trials,
and 2012's Manchester Halloween 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.

Halloween Sitcom Trials - results

The Halloween Sitcom Trials cast, Rob Hudson, Leni Columbo Murphy, Sean Mason, Kev Sutherland, Jennifer Banks and Daniel Thackeray. (Photo by Brainne Edge) 

The Halloween Sitcom Trials took place at the Kings Arms Salford on October 25th, with four sitcoms, each with a spooky seasonal theme, going head to head in front of a live audience who voted for their favourite and only saw the ending of the winner. What were the results?



The first flipchart drawing is clearly Father Jack from Father Ted, but can anyone recognise who, and from the Halloween episode of which famous sitcom, the second picture's meant to be?* (Answer at foot of blog) Either way, these drawings by me were two of the prizes in The Pitch Fest (the audience members come up with their own ideas for sitcoms). But that's not what you're interested in. You want to know the result of the night...

Well, as you can see, the audience voted and decided that the Best Use Of Food In A Sitcom was the cheese from I'm Alan Partridge, easily beating competition from the wine in Last Of The Summer Wine, Neil's lentils in The Young Ones, the porridge in Porridge, the cake with a jumper baked in it from Father Ted, a muffin from an episode of Friends, Homer's 12 foot hoagy from the Simpsons (runner up), Scooby Doo's Scooby Snacks, and Grandad's Christmas Dinner from Only Fools And Horses.

What's that you say? That wasn't the result you were waiting for? Fair enough.

The four sitcoms in contention were:
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sects by Nathan Evans
Baby Driver by Christy White-Spunner
The Party by Sean Fee
After Steven by James & Brown

And the winner of the audience vote, and the sitcom that had its ending performed as a reward, was The Party by Sean Fee.

An excellent night's performance, stay tuned for the video following soon. Congratulations to Sean Fee and all of the writers whose sitcoms made it to the stage, and to Sean Mason and his marvellous cast who brought them all to life. Watch this space for details of forthcoming shows.



* It's Ade Edmondson as Eddie out of Bottom, dressed as a banana. Not, as many of you guessed, Heston Blumenthal cooking himself.

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.

Halloween Sitcom Trials - the Final Four

 Sean Mason, Manchester Sitcom Trials team writes:

We sat down with a cast of actors last night to read through the scripts. We had plenty of fun and thought the general quality to be very high. Some were unanimous decisions, some we really had to um and aargh(!) about. We went with the scripts that impressed us with strong character and smart gags that read well. 

The best writers are ones who craft characters and stories that are compelling and are able to cram quite a lot into not a lot of time. We hope all the writers who didn't make it into the shortlist this time round the best of luck and hopefully you'll come back next year and do even better!

THE FINAL FOUR! (to be performed on Sunday Oct 25th)

The Party by Sean Fee

After Steven by James & Brown

Baby Driver by Christy White-Spunner

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sects (But Were Afraid To Ask) by Nathan Evans

Congratulations to everyone who's taken part in the script entry and selection for this show. Hopefully the online script selection has benefitted everyone, and the show on Sunday will be fun for all who can make it (tickets only £3, details below).

Meanwhile stay tuned for news of how you can participate in the next Sitcom Trials productions - and we hope that will include all of the writers, and some of the scripts, we've seen already in this year's Trials.

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.