 There aren’t
many businesses that boom in a recession, but luckily for you, comedy is one of them. I
can’t teach you how to be funny, you either are or you aren’t. But once you
think you’ve established that and decided to do this course, I can offer you tons of
advice on how to progress as quickly as possible towards a career as a professional comedy
writer.
Becoming a
stand-up is undoubtedly the most popular route in, and Laughing Horse run several
excellent courses. But you may have already discovered that’s not for you: or the
very idea of standing on a stage trying to make people laugh may fill you with unspeakable
dread.
The good
news is there are many other ways in, and the swiftest is by writing sketches for BBC
radio. We’ll discuss what they’re looking for, and will create our own sketches
from scratch, in the room. We’ll discuss writing for stand-ups, finding a writing
partner, putting on your own sketch show, animation, filming sketches for the
web, and we’ll look at the boom in sitcom-writing competitions. After my five minute
seminar on Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About How To Write A Sitcom, I can’t
promise a commission but hopefully some clues about where to begin.
We’ll
talk about writing for TV and radio shows with and without audiences, sitcoms, movies,
writing in the States – and at the end of the session you’ll be weighed down
with a giant package of information about what to do, who to contact and how to crack on.
Good luck!
Dave Cohen has been writing and performing
comedy for a living for 27 years. In the 1980s he was a leading stand-up, co-founding the
Comedy Store Players and winning a Perrier nomination. He has written for dozens of TV and
radio shows across from topical (Have I Got News For
You) to sitcom (Not Going Out) through kids’
shows (Horrible Histories) via Spitting Image, My Family and his own radio series Travels With My Anti-Semitism and award-winning 15 Minute Musicals. His new one-man show My Life As A Footnote is at the Counting House
(Venue 38) at 1pm from 20-22 August.
Click Here to book Tickets
http://davecohen.squarespace.com/ |
