Euros for Sketches!

Buying British
Logo Quest
Members News
Writing about Comedy

Buying British

For BSCW members, a significant opportunity to sell your work exists abroad, particularly in Europe. In the second half of this interview, Gill Smith caught up with Top Belgian comedian Jacques Vermeire to ask why buy British?

Jacques explains that he likes to be sent work by British comedy writers for two reasons: "The British have a great tradition of comedy writing: they have simply always written good jokes. Secondly, there are a lot more comedy writers in Britain than in Flanders. Also, there is hardly a fulltime comedy writer to be found in Flanders." Apparently this is market driven. Jacques says "We have such a small market that writing comedy exclusively is highly uninteresting financially. Virtually all our Flemish writers have a daytime job and write comedy after hours." While there are many UK comedy writers who would admit to the same, if this means that British work is looked at, no one is complaining.

For the next series, Jacques is looking for "Good, universal, short sketches. Traditional, straightforward, 'realistic' humour. In other words: the sort of sketches we have bought from British writers over the past three years." For those of you who have written for Jacques before, the key phrase he uses is "The same as always." For those of you who haven't, the description of Jacques and of the show can be found on our website at www.bscw.co.uk . He has also been described as being similar in style to Russ Abbott.

I wanted to know about the selection procedure for sketches. Jacques says that "First of all, a rough selection of quickies is made by our two editors. They know what could work for the Jacques Vermeire Show and what will certainly not." This is the first hurdle. However, even if your sketch does not make that, don't despair: "That does not mean we just throw away the sketches we decide not to use in our programme. Some sketches which are not suitable for the Jacques Vermeire Show may be great for other programmes with a different type of humour. It would be unwise to conclude that something which does not fit our show is bad as such."

After the editors have made their selection, "a team of seven people discusses the first selection of quickies. The team consists of two producers, the director, the chief editor, the two editors and myself. Everyone reads the sketches in advance and gives a quotation. When the homework is done, we meet up and simply vote. It is a democratic affair, really. If six people like a sketch, we take it. If it is three against three, we discuss the quickie. If you discuss a joke in a team whose members all look at it from a different professional angle and have a different taste of humour, there is a reasonable chance the sketch will work with the viewers."

For those of you with filing cabinets full of sketches, I asked Jacques about the necessity of being topical. "In our case it is not worthwhile to use topical jokes. We need some time to get all the material selected and filmed. Current issues may well be out of the picture by the time our show is broadcast. So, we avoid topical humour as much as possible." This isn't quite an excuse to swamp the producers with your reject drawer, but may mean the timeless classics can be aired again.

Usually when work is sold abroad the rights are granted for that country. I wondered whether Jacques, or the TV station were ever tempted to sell the show abroad. However Jacques thinks it is unlikely to happen "The entire show would most probably not translate to another European country. The bulk of the programme is too verbal for that. Of course you could always try to dub the show or select half an hour of visual jokes only. You could try and sell that to other countries, but who would be interested in buying such a thing?"

Does Jacques try to take work in other countries instead? "I have no illusions about an easy breakthrough abroad. The competition is massive. In Britain alone there are scores of good comedians with their own shows. Besides, the Dutch language area does not exactly have a tradition of breeding internationally successful comedians. Toon Hermans, probably the most famous Dutch comedian, tried his show on Broadway and failed. Urbanus, a very popular Flemish comedian, managed to conquer the Netherlands, but in France he achieved very little." Jacques' point is proved in that I'm sure I'm not alone in not knowing an awful lot about either of those two...

One important help to writers would be any advice on what the Belgians are like, in order to target our work. I asked Jacques if there was anything we needed to know "Not really. As Belgium is a Western European and fairly civilized country, not surprisingly it does not differ much from Britain in general terms." That seems a relief, but he goes on "Explaining the subtleties of the Belgian mentality and humour in a few sentences, however, is impossible, as Belgium is also one of the more bewildering countries in the EU. Trouble already starts on a very basic level. We have three governments for one country and Brussels may be an enclave in the Flemish part of Belgium, but you will find it very hard, if not impossible, to find a Flemish-speaking helping hand if you have lost your way in our capital. Belgian politics are a maze of compromises between two different language communities, so if you want to write about the Belgian language-issues - the Belgian problem par excellence - you had best come and live here and be happy if you can get a somewhat clearer picture in a few years time."

Surely we should know a little more about a nation that this country generally associates with the European Parliament, chocolates, and of course Hercule Poirot? "One thing about the Flemish, though, is that they are very low profile, introverted, shy, unlike the Dutch, who are a lot more self-confident. The Dutch want to conquer the world, the Flemish had rather stay home. On the other hand, the Flemish are wily, they can take care of themselves." I hope that helps some of you in your choice of sketches...

To sum up, Jacques says "The past three years we filmed a number of very good British jokes. We hope to receive some more of those for the next season of our show."

I wish him good luck with that - and the same to our members!

Logo Quest

Deadline for entries to our logo quest has now passed - we're onto the voting stage now! Have a look on the BSCW website, pick your favourite, vote for that. Please vote as soon as possible - we want to be using our new logo by the conference. On which subject, do send your application in today!

Members News

BSCW member Karen Neville would like to draw your attention to an event in London:

"Anyone who saw Kiss My Honeymoon Lips will appreciate this is a different set up.

"It's just an hour of comedy sketches, (mainly written by me). It's very informal, smashing little theatre and running bar, so that can't be bad. Come along if you can on either Sunday the 22 or 29 of October, kick off 7pm."

The Revue Lounge, The Spot,
29/30 Maiden Lane (opposite Adelphi Stage Door),
Covent Garden,
London WC2.

Writing about Comedy

Wordup.co.uk was launched October 1999 with the full fanfare that is the excitement of wordup. Wordup is simply a resource centre for writers new and published. It provides information on various genres including, Crime, Children's Writing, Fiction, Historical, Poetry, Women's Writing etc.

At the end of October it will have completed the biggest update since it launched. Authors and groups are offered free web space and design from Wordup with a simple small link back to it. The site features book reviews and the book tools a new writer would find of use. All the top organisations and groups around the UK are featured, with addresses for the best places to find courses on creative writing etc.

We are currently looking for writers from the various genre backgrounds to write articles and tip sheets to getting published. At present we are looking for someone to write articles on writing comedy, and scriptwriting each of 1500 - 2000 words. The fee for this type of work is £66.00 to be invoiced to Wordup. We are looking for on going articles for a period of 12 months.

Please e-mail nigel@wordup.co.uk quoting this e-mail.