Conference successes

Anna Ferguson reports on the success of the conference
Johnny Jarman gives us a personal viewpoint of Coventry 2000
Diana Moore explains the BBC Writer's Workshops
Dave Sivers analyses BBC Talent Welsh Film Festival

Conference 2000

It was the event of the year! We all had a good laugh! And we all raised our glasses to this prestigious and exciting occasion, which only comes once in a lifetime. They say a Writers life is lonely! But that's just not true, a writer's life is full of magical moments that can only be captured with a pen!

The BSCW's International Comedy Conference had an amazing, electrifying atmosphere, which was full of inspiring writers, guest speakers, workshops, evening entertainment and of course, the most interesting bit 'socialising at the bar'.

The weekend kicked off with a drinks reception, courtesy of the president of the society, Mr Ken Rock. This was a pleasant introduction for the weekend of fun and laughter.

Maria Alexander was the first guest speaker to address the event, Maria spoke about her career in the US as a writer for a sitcom series and as a magazine journalist. Maria also has extensively travelled around the United States, where she performed her one-woman show.

Other guest speakers included Graham Frost who is the BBC executive producer of radio comedy, who spoke about the writer - producer relationship and Lotte Larzen who is the head of creative department for Wave pictures. Lotte discussed her attempts to build a database of sketches that could be used by production companies around the world. She encouraged BSCW writers to send her sketches for this.

Mark Overett and John Gough spoke about creating paper formats. They are the founders of Fundamental entertainment, and their work with this has included creating the format for 'In the Dark.' Justin Scroggie, a freelance writer and producer spoke, with David J. Bodycombe, a freelance games consultant, about 'The Consequences of Challenging your Ideas' and later, Justin covered the question of finding diverse markets to write short pieces of comedy. The guest speakers were very inspirational and offered many useful tips for professional writers and new writers.

The workshops stretched our creativity and imagination and offered an interesting challenge, by encouraging us to build and develop ideas for characters.

During the Champagne reception, sponsored by Distraction Formats and The Golden Rose of Montreux Festival, John Temple, a BSCW supporter and producer of comedy and drama was made an honorary member. John Gough, as Conference Director for The Golden Rose of Montreux Festival also announced that a special deal was being designed, to encourage writers to attend the festival. (Full details of this will be published in the this E-zine in early 2001.) Following dinner, an open mike spot offered writers and comedians the chance to entertain the audience, showing off their creative flair.

The weekend was full of much fun and humour, which brought out the creativity in everyone. It was an event not to be missed.

by Anna Ferguson

Johnny Jarman gets sent to Coventry

Coventry 2000 for me will be one to remember for a lot of reasons. I think it is the first seminar I have been to which has been enjoyable from the moment I set foot into the Coventry Hill Hotel (which I suspect was built around the time of Lady Godiva so that the patrons good get a good butchers at her) on the Friday afternoon.

Notwithstanding the bar being closed, (on a Friday afternoon?) the arrival of the members, for all the world like a slow gathering of relatives for a will reading, was a real pleasure as one by one, I got to welcome those I had previously met and a few whom I didn't know from Adam. It was a real treat as the weekend turned into a great time of informative sessions and informal sessions after hours... The open mike spot was especially enjoyable as I have never had the opportunity to prance about like a tart and sing a song (un-inebriated) in public and be applauded instead of having fag packets, half full coke cans and ashtray contents showering down around me with the accompanying cries of "Off Uck, Off Uck, Off Uck...." Just who Uck is, I have still yet to discover...

As for the "staying at the bar" record, I am grateful for the company of Terry Adlam and Ken Basford who made the record breaking session an absolute pleasure... And had it not been for the administrative craftsmanship of Jason Browne, it might have petered out well before 4.am ! At 5.40, we were still wanting to make it last to breakfast, but we had to terminate for three reasons; one, we had run out of songs, two, we had run out of beer, and three and most importantly, we wanted to attend the rest of the seminar in a fairly lucid state of mind. But the challenge was met and set. All those who fancy having a crack at the record for next year, include me in.

All in all, a cracking seminar, the first and the best so far.... and I am sure things will get even better.

BBC Encourages New Writers

BBC Writers Workshops are run each month by a BBC Radio Producer, and are aimed at newer writers. Diana Moore went along to find out what goes on…

The July workshop was run by Maria Esposito, a Radio 4 Producer, whose previous experience includes actress and stand up comedienne. Maria discussed presentation of work; i.e. making it the best it can be and using the correct format. She explained the importance of knowing your markets - an obvious source of information being The Radio Times, which lists all the current programmes and the names of each producer. Copies of the BBC Writer's Guidelines were available to take away. These can be obtained by anyone on request.

There followed a brainstorming session on what makes a character funny, and some suggestions for further reading, e.g. John Vorhaus's 'Comic Toolbox' which has brilliant exercises for creating conflict for characters. The BBC have a bookshop where you can purchase books and/or cassettes of some of the shows that you might be interested in writing for.

Maria talked about the various time slots available and, particularly, an interesting slot at 11 p.m. This slot is used for introducing new work and is sometimes split into two 15 minute slots - which is enticing for new writers. Obviously, you will need to listen to the programmes to hear what is being aired.

During the day, there was an opportunity to meet one of the regular writers (Neville Fountain) and a producer (Adam Bromley) of Radio 4's Deadringers. The group were offered the chance to pitch ideas for the show! A list of characters done by each performer was provided for inspiration. Twenty minutes later, the ideas were rolling and the Deadringers 'duo' gave their thoughts.... some of the ideas put forward by the brave band of visiting writers were considered good, others not! (I've heard it's actually very difficult getting material accepted on this show)

Carol Smith, Producer of News Huddlines also looked in to talk about the continuing need for new writers as there is a fast throughput of commissioned writers - who are 'nicked at an alarming rate'.

All writers had the opportunity to pitch their own idea/ 'treatment' for a programme, gaining feedback from the group as well as Maria's thoughts. For anyone wishing to have their ideas looked at in more detail, this was the moment to thrust it into the producers hand.

The workshops follow a similar format each month. Places are limited (and restricted to one visit only per person). You will also need to have been published to qualify for a place. We have no information as to whether the BBC plan to run any further workshops. If you are interested, contact Claire Bartlett on 020 7765 4869 or Claire.Bartlett@bbc.co.uk

…oh! .. and apparently the hospitality provided was better than that of some 'star guests' .... we got the posh biscuits rather than Tesco's own brand!

Dave Sivers searches for Talent
at the BBC's showcase

As one of the 5,200 who entered a sitcom script for BBC Talent, I was intrigued when I heard that they planned to showcase some of the thirteen scripts that were commissioned - and no, mine wasn't one of them. Julia Bolden, with whom I co-wrote my entry, got hold of tickets, and we duly went along to London's Soho Theatre on an indifferent November evening to see readings of two of the scripts - Billie Piper Lives in Swindon by Stuart Dublin and Cooler by Alex Chance.

The Beeb did their best to make an evening of it. We had a warm-up man in the shape of Ross Noble, some spiel by Geoffrey Perkins (who sadly told us nothing about the selection process or how many rounds there were - a pity, since we knew we'd got beyond round one and would have liked to know how close we actually got) and then a few words from Richard Wilson (who didn't seem to disbelieve anything). Then it was into the scripts.

I still can't decide whether I wanted them to be crap, so I could tell myself the contest was devalued, or whether I wanted them to be so knock'em'dead brilliant that we could quite see how they'd beaten all comers. My conclusion - well, they were somewhere in between.

First the good news. Both scripts were good, with plenty of laughs, and compared well - and in some cases favourably - with most of the stuff that's been on our screens recently. Both concepts looked to have 'legs', and you could easily imagine them making it to the box and going down well. The not-so good news is that neither was outstandingly better than existing sitcom fare, and I found little here that was genuinely fresh and new.

Indeed, the two shows had much in common, not only with other shows but also with each other. Both featured young men with hopeless flat-mates, and both shows included romantic entanglements with women from the job centre. Both involved ludicrous attempts to impress a girl, and both had dodgy businessmen lurking in the background. Billie Piper Lives in Swindon featured 19-year-old Lee who, snubbed by his childhood sweetheart (who is now offering him lavatory attendant jobs down at the job centre), sets out to impress posh Alison, who is going to the local Hunt at the weekend and invites him along. Lee enters enthusiastically into the spirit, only for Alison to emerge in the final scene as a hunt protester. A bit predictable, but still quite funny.

Cooler was a little quirkier and had more layers of plot. Suffice to say, it involved the local mafia turning up at the wrong house for a fridge-freezer / sunbed swap aimed at getting Mr Big a date with his fantasy woman - who is actually a very obvious transvestite; a love triangle centred on a 'statue' performance artist; and an attempt to pass a small flat off as the hub of a thriving pogo-stick business. I especially liked the way the script began and ended with its main character on the couch of an obviously disturbed psychiatrist, who needs more help than he does. I thought this show had the most promise, although the script was a little uneven and probably needed more work than Billie Piper.

The Beeb were also showcasing Grant Smith's WLTM and Edward Granger's The Art of War on other nights. Weirdly, Geoffrey Perkins said the four selected scripts were "not necessarily" the best of the thirteen commissioned. One thing is for sure - in Stuart Dublin and Alex Chance, they have certainly unearthed authentic talent. Could they have done so without a competition? Maybe that says more about their normal process for dealing with script submissions than anything else. What I do know is, I will almost certainly enter again next year. I bet most of the other 5,187 will, too!