The Sitcom Trials 2012 Page 27

Quote: RedZed333 @ October 21 2012, 7:46 AM BST

Well done 'Argument' Dave (if that is your real name)...

That bloody Argument Dave is always beating me. Him and that darned spool chucker.

Well done Eoin and Dave (no Argument from me)!

Yep, well done Eoin and Dave. Congratulations!

Dan

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Manchester Sitcom Trials team, Oct 2012 (l-r) Kate Collins, Bex Harrison, Michelle Ashton, Jamie Fillery, Phil Chadwick & (front) Sean Mason

The Halloween Sitcom Trials took place in Bristol & Manchester on Oct 19th & 20th respectively, showcasing 10 sitcoms in competition over two nights, with the audience voting for, and only seeing the ending of, the winner each time.

The Bristol line-up was
The Brides of Pete-enstein by Iain Keiller
Here Comes The Science by Stephen Keyworth
Three in Tow by Eoin Carney
Mid Afternoon of the Dead by Kev Page
The Princess of Darkness Wants a Tan by Oliver Ley

And the winner was Three in Tow by Eoin Carney

The Manchester line-up was
Separate Parents by Dan Sweryt & Jim Spiers
Grimm's Law by Sean Mason
Draszic's Lot by Diehard123 / Kiera
Wink Murder by Michelle Ashton
Randolph Carter's Casefile by Judgement Dave

And the winner was Randolph Carter's Casefile by Judgement Dave

Videos are still to come. And the best Pitch Fest entry? Well, I can only speak for Manchester's winning entry (The Pitch Fest being the audience's ideas, did I ever mention this happens every show?). Check this winning dollop of genius from "Chris"...

Title: 30 Something Wrestling Obsessive
One line pitch: Buying Rustler's Hotdog, 12 pack of Disco's crisps & 6 Walls Cornetto ice creams in Iceland, "Gotta make Sunday Dinner",......... (sic) At the checkout, "What's this?!!?, who put cock in my basket?!?" ....Impersonating the undertaker and throwing boxed spotted dick across store.
Chris

The next Sitcom Trials is the Sci Fi Sitcom Trials in London on Nov 28th. You can enter a script by Nov 4th, you can then join in the voting, and be at the show. Why wait?

Kev F Sutherland
Creator & Producer
The Sitcom Trials http://sitcomtrials.blogspot.co.uk

Bristol Halloween Sitcom Trials report

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Bristol Sitcom Trials team Oct 2012

Hello!

The Sitcom Trials returned to Bristol's Wardrobe Theatre on Friday 19th October for a special "week-and-a-bit-before-Halloween" show, which once again sold-out.

The evening's splendid host was Becky Brunning, a member of the Bristol team and a terrific stand-up. Becky made sure the audience was in a Halloweeny kind of mood by regularly encouraging everyone to give their very best spooky noises and evil laughs, and she had a special repartee going with a vocal audience member named Boycie ("You're absolutely in the right place," quipped Becky), and had great fun with the Pitch Fests by asking the audience whether pitches should be placed in her "pocket of opportunity", or discarded to the "floor of regret".

First out of the gate was "The Brides of Pete-Enstein" by Iain Kellier. This was one of the more Halloween-y of the sitcoms (featuring a mad scientist and a stitched-together re-animated corpse during a thunderstorm) and was attacked with real energy by the cast. It's a strange law of the Sitcom Trials that the first sitcom of the show is always the most difficult for an audience to get into, though "Pete-Enstein's" cracking (and very funny) cliffhanger was one of the best of the night. Incidentally, we didn't notice this until late into the rehearsal process, but a fair few of the sitcoms made reference to Einstein - and this was the first, with the theoretical physicist being evaluated on his shagability*.

CALLY - Janet Adams
KEREN - Anna Gallager
LISA - Louisa Smith
PETE - Troy Hewitt

"Three in Tow" by Ioin Carney was up next - a more sedate and character-driven piece about ghosts, and probably the most traditional of the sitcoms. The audience seemed to get this one immediately - proving once again that a simple plot, strong characters and a high gag-rate is always going to play well in a live environment. The core Bristol team are a competitive bunch, and actor/writer Lewis Cook has pointed out that he's now been in all three winning sitcoms staged in Bristol this year. Next time we'll cast him in all five, to give all the sitcoms an even chance. A line of dialogue from "Three in Tow" - "We buried your lifeless corpse, so call me Einstein" - was the second reference to the Nobel Prize winning father of modern physics.

RUTH - Naomi Carter
PETER - Lewis Cook
SANDRA - Janet Adams
ROGER - John Lomas

Sitcom number three was "The Princess of Darkness Wants a Tan" by Oliver Ley, an almost pantomime excursion into a fairy tale land populated by evil princesses, put-upon handmaidens, vampires and werewolves. This had the largest cast (who all raided the costume box) and some complicated staging - especially regarding the werewolf. And just as with "Se7en", David Fincher's block-buster serial killer movie, it seems an audience will always love a shock revelation about a severed head in a bag/box.

MORTITIA/SERENITY - Naomi Carter
CINDERELLA - Anna Gallagher
VLAD - Lewis Cook
LUCIEN - Troy Hewitt
QUEEN - Janet Adams
KING - John Lomas

After the intermission, Becky read out more Pitch Fests, a few of which were amusingly based around cheese or cattle (there may have been dairy workers in the audience), plus a near-the knuckle Jimmy Savile themed pitch that immediately hit the floor of regret.

"Mid-Afternoon of the Dead" by Kev Page kicked off the second half of sitcoms with aplomb - this one has some nifty ideas and a quirky perspective on the zombie holocaust sub-genre. A malfunctioning prop aside (actor Troy Hewitt's look of surprise was one of my favourite things of the evening), this went swimmingly from the get-go. Our third Einstein reference here was a visual gag (supported by dialogue) which had the brains-hungry undead menace distracted by a photo of Bert, the guy who did that e=mc2 thing. Kev Page was in the audience, with a friend named Matt who very kindly filmed the show; hopefully very soon we'll be able to upload the footage.

GEMMA - Louisa Smith
JULES - Naomi Carter
PROFESSOR - Janet Adams
OFFICER HARRIS - Troy Hewitt

"Here Comes The Science" by Stephen Keyworth was the last sitcom of the night, and the one that didn't feel like a pilot episode; with minimal exposition we were immediately into a developing plot featuring strong characters . In rehearsal, this very British sitcom suddenly became very American, which seemed to work perfectly. Oddly, despite being a sitcom about scientists, this didn't have an Einstein reference.

FIELDS - Troy Hewitt
YORNING - Louisa Smith
BARK - John Lomas

As the voting took place, the winning Pitch Fest was chosen retro-stylee, with a member of the audience invited on stage to catch slips of paper as they were thrown in the air, with the rest of the audience joining Becky in singing the theme tune to "The Crystal Maze". (Incidentally, the winner never made himself known to me, so please do drop me a line if you're reading this!)

The votes were close - closer, I think, than in any previous show at the Wardrobe.

"Three in Tow" = 14
"The Princess of Darkness Wants a Tan" = 13
"Here Comes the Science" = 12
"Mid Afternoon of the Dead" = 11
"The Brides of Pete-Enstein" = 8

Congrats to Eoin Carney, who sadly couldn't be with us because he lives several thousand miles away in a completely different time zone.

A huge thank you to all the writers; and to the brilliant cast (especially Louisa who gamely battled with a cold so that the show could go on); to Becky Brunning, our marvelous compere for the night; and to our talented director Alistair Hedderman; and to Kev F, as always; and to the Wardrobe Theatre who are a complete delight to work with.

Our next show will be on Friday Feb 22nd - stay tuned for details.

--Vince Stadon

* I've just remembered that we had an Einstein reference in one of the sitcoms in the first Bristol show back in March, so clearly, for reasons beyond my comprehension, this is now developing into some kind of weird in-joke.

A newbie to sitcom trials and I'm thinking of doing something for the Nov 4th entry date. I was just wondering how it works, do all scripts get put to public vote? And what does the winner get? Besides being able to proclaim themselves as the winner?

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London Sitcom Trials meeting Oct 21 2012, including directors Sarit Wilson Chen (left), Nick Ewans (2nd left), and Louisa Gummer (out of shot).

Having showcased 10 Halloween-themed sitcoms in the Sitcom Trials in Manchester & Bristol this weekend, it was frustrating that for various reasons we were unable to hold a matching show in London. We did however hold a small meeting in Greenwich on Sunday at which, as well as discussing future shows, we gave a table reading to four sitcoms that had been entered in the Halloween Sitcom Trials. They were:

13 Gormley Street by Chris Dennis
Country Rock by Neil Tollfree
Separate Parents by Dan Sweryt & Jim Spiers
Three In Tow by Eoin Carney

Having read these, we discussed them and voted on which were our favourites. Given that there were only eight of us, this is slightly less an example of representative democracy, however it was unanimous that the script we liked the best was.

Country Rock by Neil Tollfree.

This script, which didn't make the cut for either the Bristol or Manchester shows, having lurked just inside the Top Ten in the online voting, impressed us with its clear characterisation and well-written fast-moving storyline which made near-perfect use of its ten minutes of performance time. I would like to suggest that that script be re-entered into the Sci-Fi Sitcom Trials, into which category it does also fit, and that Neil could take the advantage of this to tweak or rewrite it if he saw fit. Certainly the actors gave it a big thumbs up, and I'd like to give it another chance with the online voters.

The London team's second favourite was Three In Tow by Eoin Carney, which had strong characters and some very good dialogue. Criticism from the group included the suggestion that, by the halfway point, this script runs out of steam and that its over-long second half doesn't deliver on the promise of the first half. It is still a good premise, with very good dialogue that we could see actors getting good mileage from (as was obviously demonstrated in Friday's Bristol Trials where it won the day).

So we now all look forward to the Sci Fi Sitcom Trials in November. After the script deadline on Nov 4th and the voting deadline on Nov 17th, we will be having a team meeting and table reading on Nov 18th at which we will choose the sitcoms that get performed on Nov 28th. Get those entries in now, we can't wait.

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Quote: blahblah @ October 22 2012, 9:17 AM BST

A newbie to sitcom trials and I'm thinking of doing something for the Nov 4th entry date. I was just wondering how it works, do all scripts get put to public vote? And what does the winner get? Besides being able to proclaim themselves as the winner?

Hi newbie, welcome aboard. In answer to your questions, all scripts that are submitted to the online competition get put to the public vote, explained here, and from this result we choose the scripts that will get showcased in the live show. Live shows regularly include material that has been developed by the teams performing them, and this is not subjected to an online vote in advance of the show, but then competes with the scripts that have come from the online submissions. Did that all make sense?

There is no prize offered. However the Manchester team have taken winning scripts from their Sitcom Trials and given them fully-staged stand-alone presentations. The first of these was Checkpoint Dave by Vince Stadon, which won its Manchester Trials, got a full production six months later, and so inspired its writer that he took it upon himself to produce the Bristol Sitcom Trials.

Over this past weekend, the Manchester team had intended to stage a production of their last winner, Games Night, but unfortunately lost a couple of actors at short notice so had to cancel the production. On Saturday there was talk of staging the most recent winner, Randolph Carter's Casefile, in the New Year. Stay tuned.

Thanks Kev - one more question after writing the script and entering is it the end of my involvement? Of course ideally if I make it to showcase I would like to see it but is it okay if it's not possible for me to come?

One suggestion for Country Rock (which I liked a lot and would have voted for if I'd joined the group on time): tweak it so that Nina is quite obviously (to the audience) humouring her brother to get him away from the door. Combining that with an oblivious Steve getting angry with her and thus making Sheldon more determined to stay by the door could make the argument scene funnier.

Yay! That's nice to hear. Thank you very much. I'll def resubmit Country Rock but I'm not sure if I'll have time to tweak as I'm working on a new one for sci-fi trials.

My plan is to keep flinging scripts at the Trials until everyone gets worn down and eventually just votes me through to shut me up

And nice idea Enigmatic, thank you.

Quote: blahblah @ October 22 2012, 10:49 AM BST

Thanks Kev - one more question after writing the script and entering is it the end of my involvement? Of course ideally if I make it to showcase I would like to see it but is it okay if it's not possible for me to come?

Yes, you can just enter your script then go into hiding and wait to see what transpires. However we really like it if all the writers could join in with the voting process on everyone else's scripts. It's not obligatory, but it's in the spirit of the process.

You certainly don't have to come to the show if your script makes the cut, but you would be invited.

Quote: Trinder @ October 22 2012, 7:49 PM BST

Yay! That's nice to hear. Thank you very much. I'll def resubmit Country Rock but I'm not sure if I'll have time to tweak as I'm working on a new one for sci-fi trials.

Bring em both on, in whatever state. And well done with Country Rock, I'm so glad we got to read it. I seem to remember I only gave it a Maybe when I voted on the online voting, which once more proves how different scripts become when read out loud.

Some previous Sitcom Trials entries just made the Top 40 of Shortlist's sitcom competition out of over 2,000 entrants. That particular competition involves a £5,000 development deal with Big Talk Productions and Comedy Central UK for the winner.

The full list is here, but the ones I recognised are:
All The Fun Of The Fair
Keep Off The Grass

http://www.shortlist.com/comedy/sitcom-search-meet-the-final-40

Quote: Garry Lee @ October 24 2012, 2:55 PM BST

Some previous Sitcom Trials entries just made the Top 40 of Shortlist's sitcom competition out of over 2,000 entrants. http://www.shortlist.com/comedy/sitcom-search-meet-the-final-40

Congratulations all. You may take some pleasure in noting that, as well as beating all-comers, you beat an entry by, er, me.

Talking of changing the subject, here's something I found hidden in a file, the first ever Sitcom Trials flyer from 2001:

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Quote: Garry Lee @ October 24 2012, 2:55 PM BST

Some previous Sitcom Trials entries just made the Top 40 of Shortlist's sitcom competition out of over 2,000 entrants. That particular competition involves a £5,000 development deal with Big Talk Productions and Comedy Central UK for the winner.

The full list is here, but the ones I recognised are:
All The Fun Of The Fair
Keep Off The Grass

http://www.shortlist.com/comedy/sitcom-search-meet-the-final-40

Thanks for this, Garry - mine's All the Fun of the Fair, and this is the first I've heard about it. Made up! :)

Congratulations Alan (and Garry)! Well done.

Dan

Quote: swerytd @ October 24 2012, 5:11 PM BST

Congratulations Alan (and Garry)! Well done.

Dan

Thanks, Dan :-) I saw Separate Parents in Manchester on Saturday and thought it did well.