Yesterday, whilst reading an interview with Charlie Brooker, this sentence caught my attention:

Securing his first television job as a writer on The 11 O'Clock Show, at the relatively late age of 29, he feels he wasted time that many of his contemporaries and future collaborators didn't, bolstered by self-belief and connections they took from public school and Oxbridge.

This raises a couple of questions.

Firstly, if 29 is a 'relatively late' age for a comedy writer to attain their first television work - then what is the average age?

And secondly, does that mean that aspiring comedy writers who are 30+ have effectively 'missed the boat' and are thus essentially pissing in the wind?

What are your thoughts?

I would think age has nothing, at all, to do with it. If you write something someone wants to buy then that's all that matters.

I don't reckon matters that much. Loads of writers don't break through until their thirties, and some later. I guess there are some producers who may look for young writers for programmes like Skins, but mostly if a great script falls on your desk, you're not going to care how old the writer is.

Simon Amstell writes a bit of Skins and he's 33.
This is not something to get stressed about. Not when there are so many other things to get stressed about that DO matter.

Quote: groovydude89 @ February 9 2012, 12:20 PM GMT

Firstly, if 29 is a 'relatively late' age

View original

That is the view of that one journalist. Not necessarily received wisdom. The journalist might be 20! (The bastard.)

This is not something to get stressed about. Not when there are so many other things to get stressed about that DO matter

This should be put at the top of every internet forum!

In any career more potential routes will be closed to you as you get older; and the media more than most professions has a youth fetish. The BBC in particular seems interested in finding writers that they can develop rather than looking for actual scripts, so they will favour young writers who are hungry, malleable and with many working years left in them.

Of course the nature of the workforce is changing with redundancies meaning more second careers and people working longer, so things might start to change; we shall see.

But at any age if you can produce a killer script there is the chance of finding a buyer.

Brooker is right though if you really want a career in the media, public school and Oxbridge is the way to go.

Then again, writing in general has always been a career for the ugly/old/socially f**kwitted. It's never, ever going to be as age obsessed as the other media roles like acting or presenting etc.
Find comfort in that (I know I do).

One thing that's just occurred to me is that Brooker and several of his 'contemporaries and future collaborators' have actually starred in their television programmes, as opposed to just writing them.

Which puts the journalist's 'relatively late age' remark in a different context.

Quote: groovydude89 @ February 9 2012, 12:20 PM GMT

Yesterday, whilst reading an interview with Charlie Brooker, this sentence caught my attention:

This raises a couple of questions.

Firstly, if 29 is a 'relatively late' age for a comedy writer to attain their first television work - then what is the average age?

And secondly, does that mean that aspiring comedy writers who are 30+ have effectively 'missed the boat' and are thus essentially pissing in the wind?

What are your thoughts?

View original

Probably a typo & should be 92 not 29

No one asks your age at any stage, so don't worry about it.

I think all this thread found was another lazy journalist producing cliched drivel.

Of course there's excitement about getting a bright young thing, but plenty of people succed after plodding away for years.

I think wasn't Gervaise one of those in his 30s.

Sold my first script ten days before my 50th birthday.

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ February 9 2012, 2:05 PM GMT

No one asks your age at any stage, so don't worry about it.

View original

How old are you DD?

Quote: Marc P @ February 9 2012, 3:47 PM GMT

How old are you DD?

View original

Maybe a 38DD

I was once Script Associate on a show and got a sketch from a 90 year old comedian, actually the first person who ever paid ME for material when I was 20. The sketch went in, although I had to write the tag (hey, it's my job.)
Wisdom used to be you couldn't be funny until you were forty and had seen a bit of real life well, my grandson is 3 and he's the funniest person I've met apart from my Dad. And his Dad. And his Dad.