British Comedy Guide

Jokes without words

Shaun The Sheep Movie. Copyright: Aardman Animations

Here's a podcast featuring a fascinating discussion between three writers who spend a large amount of time having to explain what jokes look like, as opposed to writing them. It's a 55 minute chat about dialogue-free comedy.

When this was recorded at our 2014 conference, Julian Dutton had just written Pompidou with Matt Lucas, and Mark Burton was working on Shaun The Sheep Movie. Joining them was the prolific childrens' TV writer Mellie Buse (Grandpa In My Pocket, Ha Ha Hairies). Stephen Follows steers the discussion.

Listen in to hear the trio talk about how to craft good sight gags, the sweet spot of writing jokes that work for both adults and kids, just how detailed you have to be in your scripts, how many types of jokes there are (we're not sure that discussion is over yet), and much more.

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Published: Friday 26th April 2019

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