Report: Commission My Comedy event

Matthew Bell's report of the recent RTS Futures event Commission My Comedy: How to get your comedy script onto screen, which took place on the 1st December in London. The speakers were Siobhan Bachman, Sarah Hooper, Lucy Lumsden and Stuart Murphy. The event was chaired by TV and Radio presenter Richard Bacon. 

It can be a long, tortuous journey from page to screen. New Sky 1 HD comedy drama Mount Pleasant, which starts shooting in the New Year, began life as the appropriately titled Trouble and Strife. By the time it reaches audiences next autumn, it will be more than four years since writer Sarah Hooper came up with the idea for the series.
At an RTS Futures event in December, its creators (Hooper and Tiger Aspect producer Siobhan Bachman) - and the show`s commissioners - Sky head of comedy Lucy Lumsden and Sky 1 director of programmes Stuart Murphy - explained to the evening`s host, Radio 5 Live and TV presenter Richard Bacon, how Mount Pleasant came to be picked up by Sky.

The Tiger Aspect comedy drama about a Manchester family and their friends stars Sally Lindsay from Coronation Street and Daniel Ryan of The Street. Also involved are Bobby Ball, Pauline Collins, Paula Wilcox, Angela Griffin and Liza Tarbuck.

Mount Pleasant is one of a number of shows spearheading Sky`s latest move into home-grown comedy to supplement its existing US comedy hits, Modern Family and The Simpsons. Others include comedy drama Stella, created by and starring Ruth Jones of Gavin and Stacey fame, and This Is Jinsy from newcomers Chris Bran and Justin Chubb.

Leading the Sky comedy charge are Murphy and Lumsden; the latter left the BBC after 11 years in November 2009 to become Sky`s first head of comedy. The duo, who first worked together during Murphy`s stint as BBC3 controller, are hoping that Sky`s new comedy slate scores better than Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Show, which flopped when the satellite broadcaster made its first stab at producing original comedy a decade ago.

If the new shows fare as well as the station`s recent home-produced drama everyone involved will be satisfied; Sky has won critical and commercial success for its adaptation of children`s novel Skelig and crime thrillers such as Martina Cole`s The Take .

When Murphy moved to Sky in May 2009, he recalled that "Sky 1 was brand damaging - it looked a bit cheap". In his first week he chopped Gladiators and Don`t Forget the Lyrics before wielding his axe on Brainiac, Road Wars and Ibiza Uncovered.

"TV is a precious thing and I don`t want to waste an hour watching crap. So, instead of having 120 different shows a year, [I wanted to] just have 20 and use the same amount of money," he said. "We`re spending the same on comedy as we are on drama and, per episode on our comedy, the same as BBC1 and higher than Channel 4. It means we can get the best writers," Murphy added. "I worked at the BBC for 10 years and it`s quite a slow place to work. If something`s funny, let`s get it on telly."

Sky`s new comedy initiative, said Lumsden, needed to "reflect modern Britain. That`s where our customers are. We`re looking at brightening up our offering for the family audience. "Pre-watershed comedy can be so sanitised and diluted by the time it reaches air. Our families don`t have to be cute. Families aren`t cute; they`re cantankerous little shits some time."

Mount Pleasant`s writer, Sarah Hooper, has penned episodes of Channel 4`s Shameless over its past three series. She had always nursed writing ambitions but, having turned 30, was still working in the recruitment business she had set up with her sister. Her company was doing well but Hooper was bored and spent some of her time writing sketches in the office.

She took the plunge, sold the business, stared writing scripts - and, crucially, had some luck. Hooper yearned to write for Shameless. Spookily, her plumber husband landed a job at a house bought by programme creator, Paul Abbott. `I made him put one of my scripts through the front door and Paul phoned me two weeks later,` recalled Hooper.

She first took her idea for a Manchester-set sitcom, Trouble and Strife, to the late comedy pioneer, Geoffrey Perkins, at the BBC. He commissioned her to work on a script, re-titled What Women Want, but the BBC rejected it following a read through.

"The language was very raw, which was what I loved about it. It was exactly how people speak in real life," recalled Lumsden, then working as the BBC`s controller of comedy commissioning. But it was felt that the programme wasn`t a natural fit for either BBC1 or BBC2. "The quality of the writing wasn`t at fault; it was that the channels didn`t have space for it," she added.

When she moved to Sky, Lumsden immediately picked up What Women Want, now called Mount Pleasant. "I wanted to grab those projects that were going to surprise the audience a bit, but also that could [win] a mainstream, populist audience. This was genuinely the first show I thought of," she recalled.

"You have to make some big choices about who you`re going to invest in. I`ve worked with Tiger Aspect before and there`s a stamp of quality about what they do. [It was important] that Siobhan was so passionate about Sarah`s writing," Lumsden emphasised.

Murphy too was drawn to Hooper`s earthy writing: "Often you`ll get scripts that are written by people who take all the edge out of it. You can tell when someone`s written authentically and when someone hasn`t. It`s really special in its ordinariness. You know exactly who these people are. I feel like I`ve met them."

Commissioning is a complex business. "At Sky, hopefully, we commission very quickly or turn down stuff very quickly," said Murphy, in contrast to his experience at the BBC. He described commissioning meetings at the BBC as "a bit like a shit version of the UN. There was the channel controller, the scheduler, about 20 people who worked for the channel, then the genre commissioner. Then the indie would come in and pitch an idea."

Hooper has now penned six of eight, one-hour Mount Pleasant episodes. As a writer she is not precious towards her own words. "The process has to be a collaboration because that`s how [a programme] gets on telly," says Hooper. "In terms of a script, it makes it better when you work through it with other people. It would make no sense not to listen to what intelligent people have to say."

The collaboration between writer, producer and channel is crucial, argued Lumsden. "It`s a big conversation," she said. "Where the development process goes wrong is when you stop having that chat. You`ve got to be on the same wavelength."

Not all writers, however, value the collaborative process. Murphy recalled one writer at BBC3 as "a real nightmare to deal with, scratchy about every single comment. The next time they came to pitch something when I was at Sky I thought, `Fuck off, I`m not going to do it`. I`m not going to work with somebody who`s a knob." He added: "I used to be of the view that I would crawl over broken glass to work with someone who was talented but a prat. I refuse to do it now."

Commission my comedy was an RTS Futures event held in central London on 1 December 2010. The producer was Sam Ward, Development Coordinator - Comedy, Sky

COMEDY TIPS

The RTS Futures panel offer their advice on ...

... becoming a writer

Sarah Hooper: "It doesn`t matter what age you are. If that`s what you want to do, then do it.`

... where to take a script:

Siobhan Bachman: "Don`t go to a channel first ... Best to go to a production company first. At Tiger Aspect we always read unsolicited stuff because that`s how we`ve found the odd gem ... Since the recession each channel has become much more aware of its brand, so instead of developing a project and deciding where you might position it, I think you start off saying [the programme`s] for Channel 4 or BBC3."

Sarah Hooper: "If you`ve got a script, get it in front of as many people as you can."
Lucy Lumsden: "We are not in the business of reading scripts; we`re in the business of making TV shows. [A script] needs to come partnered with a producer who`s got a track record."

... script formats

Sarah Hooper: "I bought a book on how to write for TV, which was really helpful in terms of how to format a script."

Siobhan Bachman: "[Write your] scripts larger than 11 point; anything smaller in terms of font size makes our eyes hurt."

... where inspiration strikes

Sarah Hooper: "Sometimes I write in my [home] office, sometimes in the living room, sometimes while the football`s on ... If it`s ready to come out, it`ll come out whatever`s going on."

... agents

Sarah Hooper: "There`s some weight with having an agent but there are companies out there that will read scripts without one ... Agents will listen if you`ve got production companies sniffing around."

Siobhan Bachman: Siobhan Bachman: "We often help people get together with writing agents."

... read throughs

Siobhan Bachman: "Nowadays there`s less money to go around. Where people would once have commissioned more pilots, now you have a read through and then go to the pilot."

Stuart Murphy: "Read throughs are really weird ... [and] "not conducive to laughing ... It`s an unreal environment. I don`t know a better way of doing it but I find them really embarrassing."

... working on more than one project at a time

Sarah Hooper: "I always work on more than one idea ... It`s not like throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks - so many things don`t happen, it wouldn`t make sense to put everything into one project."

... the internet

Stuart Murphy: "Going on to the internet to look at comedy - there`s something about it that feels a bit rubbish ... I`d much rather someone spent £500 with their mates on a camera filming themselves doing a set of sketches [and send us the tape]."

... commissioners

Stuart Murphy: "I`ve worked with loads of lazy commissioners in TV. The art of being a good commissioner is being able to spot a great idea in a bad pitch ... When I was an independent producer, I`d pitch something to a commissioner and they`d say, `It`s not going to work.` And I`d think. `Well do some work; you`re on 200 grand a year. Work out how to make it better.`"

... pitching

Stuart Murphy: "The worst thing is when someone says, `Trust me` ... Sinbad cost us over £15 million. I can`t give someone £15million on trust ... When you meet a writer it`s really interesting to find out what their world view is: who and what they hate and who and what they love are more interesting than that particular story they want to write."

... on pitching more than one idea

Stuart Murphy: "We`ve said in meetings, `That`s in an area we`re already covering; but just tell us what else you are working on.`"

Lucy Lumsden: "Sometimes the other idea will get away."