By Daniel Page

I’ve previously talked about the importance of learning and mastering the basics of comedy writing and how it can help you move up the ‘ladder’ of opportunity and get noticed by producers.  Below are ten ways you can go about this… I recommend you try as many as possible!

1. Go on a comedy course. You wouldn’t try baking a cake without a recipe, so why try to write comedy without understanding how it works? They’d both just be a big floury mess. There are lots of courses to choose from, both academic institutions and industry writers/performers. Have a good look at the course description and tutor bio to find something that matches your comfort level and budget. The chance to ask questions of an experienced tutor and bounce ideas off fellow writers can make a real difference to your learning. Whilst some courses focus on sitcom (e.g. http://bit.ly/1Uc9JCg), others look at sketch (http://bit.ly/1VZbj9N) or more general techniques (http://bit.ly/1U8pKDM). Check out our courses page if you want to learn the basics of writing comedy.

2. Listen to Newsjack.  BBC Radio 4 Extra’s Newsjack (http://bbc.in/O7dyIz) is a great example of how new writers should write topical sketches and one-liners.  Listen carefully to an episode (sticking a pencil behind your ear might help) and try to unpick the structure and rhythm of the material.  They all follow a very similar formula and they ALL generate laughs (and the occasional groan) from audience.  It’s a simple but effective style recognised across the comedy writing industry.  Plus the producers are really great guys.  Like super great.  Top top people.  Like THE best (no really).  Any jobs guys…?  No?

3. Read a book.  There are many books on writing comedy, so why not invest a few pounds in what amounts to a masterclass from a professional.  To get ahead of the pack, I recommend investing the time putting into practice the words on the page (and you thought you’d escaped homework…).  I found The Serious Guide to Joke Writing by Sally Holloway (http://amzn.to/1PtGXFJ) to be a fantastic foundation into the basics which you can dip into time and again.  For a more detailed inspection of humour the The Cheeky Monkey by Tim Ferguson (http://amzn.to/1XphPb8) is pretty much the mother-lode, but be prepared to sink hours into that bad boy and James Carey’s thorough, charming and honest Writing that Sitcom (http://amzn.to/1Uju8Co) gets my vote for all aspiring sitcom writers (plus it’s a Kindle book, which makes you look cooler when you read it…right?)

4. Read writer’s blogs.  James Cary keeps a really good blog (http://bit.ly/28Scl7W) about the art of sitcom writing, PLUS does a free podcast.  He’s basically a very nice man sharing some very useful information.  I’d also recommend David Salisbury’s archive (http://bit.ly/28QKAYa), Ian Tiller’s site (http://bit.ly/290DnWa) and of course my site (http://bit.ly/28VHvtd).

5. Read some scripts.  Studying scripts that Producers have bought can provide a great insight into what ‘good’ looks like.  Try breaking down and understanding how the script was put together and what makes it strong.  Is is the characters?  The pithiness of the dialogue?  The surprising jokes?  Or that hilarious custard pie fight on page 7? (Idea for sitcom – two sexually repressed clowns head to Vegas where HILARIOUS antics ensue).  The BBC Writersroom (http://bbc.in/28JFcb1) is a great place to find sample UK scripts and this site (http://bit.ly/28JL8zA) is amazing for US shows.  Newsjack host a nice sketch from Sarah Campbell (http://bbc.in/17golt9) and Tom Neenan has written a brilliant introspective (http://bbc.in/28Jco0A) that is a must read.  Both Sarah and Tom are ex-BBC Bursary Writers, the ‘gold standard’ of comedy writing placements to aspire to!  I’d also recommend any time you meet a writer to ask if you can swap scripts – that way you’ll see what the ‘competition’ is up to, get a feel for different writing styles and maybe spot some techniques you can add to your repertoire.  Don’t forget, this deal only works if you have something for them to read as well. 

6. Watch some sketches online.  Try looking at sketches from the perspective of a writer.  Once you feel you’ve understand the basics, looking for the theory action can be a brilliant way of mastering your craft (and is a great excuse to sit on YouTube for a couple of hours).  Look for common structure, rhythms and mechanics.  Do they follow what you’ve learnt or break the rules in a knowing way?  If you think they’re rubbish can you work out why they didn’t work?  Mitchell and Webb sketches (e.g. http://bit.ly/1dMYla0, http://bit.ly/1T6enLT & http://bit.ly/2fzUlhj) can be a great place to start.

7. Collaborate.  Writer can be a lonely art…but it doesn’t have to be.  Bouncing ideas and gags off other writers and performers can help you quickly learn what works and what doesn’t and fellow writers will be facing the same challenges as you. Some may even have found solutions. Places like the Comedy Crowd Writers and Actors group, or the British Comedy Guide’s collaboration forum are a great way to find someone to work with.  Why not try teaming up with that writer you just met the other day who you got on really well with?  When you find someone good, learn from them.  When you just don’t click with someone, don’t be afraid to move on.

8. Go see live comedy.  It doesn’t matter if it’s stand-up or live sketch, there’s little substitute for seeing first hand what makes an audience laugh.  Again put on your writer’s hat (unless it blocks the view of the people behind you) and get a feel for why something is or isn’t working.  In particular, spot the moments that build the ‘energy’ in the room and help the audience find their way into a routine.  NewsRevue for me was a revelation – bad writing had nowhere to hide but good writing…that got the room in stitches and a round of applause.  If it’s your words that do this then the feeling is incredible.

9. Practice.  You wouldn’t enter a tennis tournament without having a few practice matches first, would you?  Actually you might, but chances are you’d crash and burn.  Write some jokes.  Write some more.  Create some sketches.  Bin them and try again.  They say it’s 10,000 hours to master something and whilst you might not agree with the exact number, hopefully you will agree that someone who’s been writing for a year probably has the edge on someone who’s been writing for a week.  That’s unless you don’t bother doing 10.

10. Ask for feedback.  I can’t understate the importance of this one.  If you’ve written 1,000 jokes but not shown them to anyone then I’m afraid you’ve not understood what it is to be a comedy writer.  Feedback allows you to test some material before it’s put in front of an audience.  It’s VERY painful when no-one laughs at your material, so why not test it first by sharing your work in a safer environment? Free options include friends and family, creative contacts you get on well with or, if you’re feeling a little braver, you can try the critique forum at the British Comedy Guide.  In terms of paid options the Comedy Crowd Writersrooms give you feedback from a select group of fellow writers and an experienced script editor. It’s vital that you embrace negative feedback as this is nature’s way of telling you where something isn’t working and allows you to try and fix it. It’s worth double any positive feedback you may receive, so be brave and share. It will make you a better writer.  

You’ll note that none of the above include ‘send stuff off to a producer’ or send ideas into a competition.  That’s because I’d only recommend doing so after you’ve built your technique, rather than as a way of building your technique.  For more ways on doing this, check out my blog either directly or via the Comedy Crowd.

Daniel is a freelance script-editor, writer and producer of comedy shorts, sketch, sitcom and one-liners with credits on NewsRevue, Newsjack and The Sitcom Trials. For bespoke advice on your script visit www.coiledslinky.strikingly.com. Comedy Crowd members get a 10% discount on some services.

By Daniel Page.

So you wanna be a boxer comedy writer?  Congratulations that’s great news!  But where should you start?

There’s over 30 different aspects I could share with you, covering everything from punchlines to sound effects to the correct density of custard pies, but it’s probably best that I start you off with the basics.  If you can master these fundamental building blocks of writing comedy then you’ll stand a good chance of kick-starting your journey towards stardom, or at the very least a meagre weekly paycheck.

So what are these ‘basics’ I speak of?  Well, I’m not talking about words, although to be fair they are fairly important…

And I mean, obviously you’ll need a pen and paper.

And like a desk or something to lean on.

A chair helps too.  Also some tea….

Okay, enough distraction.  Consider this – just WHY do people laugh at jokes?  There are lots of theories out there, including this one from the excellent Tim Ferguson, but quite frankly you’re reading my article right now and I’m gambling you’re too lazy relaxed to look elsewhere.

Still here?  Good.

From personal experience there are a whole raft of factors that contribute to make something funny.  Creativity, ingenuity, personality, character, energy, conflict, confinement, dialogue, language, timing (more so for performance than writing) and rhythm are all important.

But for me the most vital elements of good comedy writing are CONTEXT and SURPRISE.  Let’s talk about each of these respectively.

SURPRISE

See what I did there?  Surprise is leading the audience one way and then doing something they weren’t expecting…. but CRUCIALLY is in CONTEXT.  This last bit is so important I did two of the words in capitals.  We’ll come back to this in a bit.  Context that is, not my penchant for capitalisation.

Let’s break down this ‘surprise’ thing a little.  Have a quick watch of the first 40 seconds of this classic sketch.

When the brain is expecting something but doesn’t get it (e.g. a surprise), I suggest two things happen over the course of a few seconds:

1. It gets startled, enters fight or flight mode and reflexively reacts.  This could be a yelp of fear, paralysis or perhaps, if it’s a joke or sketch, an unforced guffaw.   

2. Next it tries to solve the puzzle before it.  Is there danger or is everything actually okay?  Is it actually quite happy at solving the puzzle?  If the answer to both is ‘yes’ because you’ve written a joke (good) and not a death threat (bad) then it will react with relief and satisfaction.  A letting out of tension.  Perhaps a sigh, ‘aaaahh’, or if we’re really lucky, a laugh.

In the video clip Ronnie B builds the tension with Ronnie C – something is clearly wrong, but what it is?  When Barker then says “fork handles” around 0:21 there’s a nervous ‘it must be a joke so I’ll laugh’ reaction.  But when he then gives the true punchline and explains the joke “handles for forks”, the puzzle and there’s a huge wall of laughter (and relief).

So now we’ve identified that surprise is key and we’ve got a few ways to set our audiences to ‘laugh mode’ (not forgetting to spin their left nipple nuts anti-clockwise if they’re a 4000 series mechanoid), then presumably we’re ready to write some JOKES?

CONTEXT

Q.  What’s brown and sticky?

A.  SAUSAGES!

Our first joke using surprise, yay!  Except… it was pretty rubbish.  Which is odd as it was REALLY surprising.  So what went wrong?

The thing about surprise is that if it’s too surprising, it won’t fully work.  You may get the beginnings of a smile or giggle as the brain is startled, but as it rapidly considers what you’ve just said it’ll follow through with a confusion.  Because what you’ve said doesn’t really make any sense.

Instead we want the brain to feel relief that what you’ve said won’t hurt it and happiness that it’s solved the riddle you’ve posed it.  This means we need to make the joke friendly and solvable.  Things that make sense are friendly and solvable.  So we want a surprise that makes sense.  Or, to use the words of my fellow comedy writer David Salisbury:

“Comedy is confounding expectations in a way that makes sense.”

Memorise this phrase.  Write it down.  Get it tattooed on your arm.  This is the single most important piece of advice I’ve ever seen in comedy.  Do this and your jokes will be funny (or at least stand a chance of being funny).  It’s possible of course to go too far the other way.  Try this one out loud:

Q.  What’s brown and sticky?

A.  POO!

Yes!  Poo is very brown and very sticky (if yours isn’t consult your nearest poo doctor immediately) so the punchline makes total sense in the context of the question.  But it’s still not working as a joke as we’ve lost our element of surprise (although I did get you to shout the word ‘poo’).

So we’re looking for a level of surprise that we really weren’t expecting, but really does make sense in the CONTEXT of the riddle we’ve set them.  Because it turns out that most jokes are actually riddles dressed up in fancy clothes.

What might a middle ground look like?  Let’s finish up here and apply our new found skills to our stock joke:

Q.  What’s brown and sticky?

A.  A stick!

Hooray, a functioning joke!  The author has given us some surprise by interpreting ‘sticky’ as ‘like a stick’, which in the context of the riddle, is nicely satisfying.

Okay so it’s probably not the funniest joke out there, but then again we’re somewhat limited with our subject matter of… well…sticks.  I’ll talk more about the importance of finding good subjects and ‘angles’ another time.

In my next article I’ll look at how we can use context and surprise to build and structure jokes. For the time being, why not start having a play yourself and see what happens?  You might be surprised…

Daniel is a freelance script-editor, writer and producer of comedy shorts, sketch, sitcom and one-liners with credits on Newsjack, NewsRevue and the Sitcom Trials.  For bespoke advice on your script visit www.coiledslinky.strikingly.com. Comedy Crowd members get a 10% discount on some services!

(C) Daniel Page, 2016

All Rights Reserved

By Shem Pennant of Amelia Comedy

Wanna make a webseries? We did and had a blast doing it. 2 Standup Comedians Living in a Flat is an 8 episode web series about exactly what you think it is. We made it all in one location, with a skeleton crew and minimal budget and thought we’d share a few tips with the Comedy Crowd. Ideally so you’ll watch it and tell us if you get the R Kelly joke, but also because we went from a blank page to finished show in 7 days and feel we learnt a few useful things from the many, many mistakes we made over the process.

Research

There’s an Italian expression “everything shapes good taste” and we watched a bunch of shows to work out what we loved and just as importantly, what we didn’t respond to. The Comedy Crowd’s forums are filled with people sharing their work and it’s useful to watch what people are doing for inspiration. Having a critical eye and self awareness of your collective taste is super useful when you’re creating and at the very least you’ll make something that’s funny for you. One of our key inspirations was the PFFR produced sitcom Delocated. Check it out.

Writing 

Writers write! Ideas don’t mean anything in your head so get them on the page. If you’re reading this you probably have at least three viable ones. So write it down! Too many people talk about what they’re writing and never go through the process of putting pen to paper. Writer’s block is more of a myth than the world of Entourage.  We locked the writer in a hot room in Cairo with no access to the Internet for 24 hours and forced him to polish off the scripts. You probably shouldn’t do that. But having a really hard deadline to produce *something*, is super helpful as you can really surprise yourself under pressure. And it gives something solid for you to bounce off with the rest of the team – or for your online peers.

Improv

Improv … yuk! But wait. Come back.Improv is more than just riffing lines on set – although that can be very useful. We all studied improv and sketch at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and one of the central principles they impart to students is “if this unusual thing is true, what *else* is true”. UCB-style improv is super useful for writing as you train yourself to really unpack ideas, and surprise yourself (and hopefully your audience). It’s also really good as you learn how to find interesting, relatable premises in real life and discover the various beats. The UCB Comedy Improvisation Manual is a great guide to the basics. And it’s easy to find some collaborators, pitch premises and use improv guidelines to really unpack the various beats that your idea presents. But just because you can improvise a fun scene in the moment, still put in the work to write, enhance and edit your material.

Limitations

Amelia’s old improv teacher Michael Delaney used to say “discipline is freedom”. Having strict limits imposed forces you to make hard choices and work with what you have. One of Amelia was about to leave the country for the rest of the year, so we only had a few days in which to shoot. We also had spent a fortune on improv classes, so had no actual money for budget, lights, locations etc. So we used what we had. The kitchen was the brightest room in the house so that because the focal point for most episodes (Puns, Shower and the Have You Ever Noticeboard). Once we decided that everything would be set in the flat, we thought it would be fun to centre an episode around them trying to leave (WillLyns) and trying to be noticed from the flat (Agents).

Shooting 

We’re very lucky that we have access to an ok camera, but you can do a lot with a smartphone, good light and attention to sound. And if you have a little money you can rent a great camera for a day or two. None of us are talented DOPs so we made a tonne of mistakes and had to redo a whole episode – you can see the painful puppet edit on the Shower episode. Good light is essential. Capture a tonne of coverage so you can edit around shots. Do multiple takes. Really ensure that you have nice clear sound. And when you hit the edit booth be ruthless.

Apps are also your friend. And apologies in advance that all these are on iOS, we’re sure there are Android equivalents. We wrote outlines in distraction free editing software IA Writer, and the full scripts in the iPad version of Final Draft, which is so much cheaper than the desktop version it’s silly. And there’s a free Final Draft Reader app so you can share with your team easily. On set the Light Meter app was super useful for making sure everything was properly exposed, and that we could have consistent look across shots. We forgot to use it sometimes and kicked ourselves. Filmic Pro is a much lauded camera app that gives you granular control over exposure, ISO and white balance. Sound is super important and iRig Mic Lav is a super cheap way of gaining access to Lav mics. We popped them on Will and Lyns, slipped a smartphone in one of their pockets and synced everything up in the edit later. And we used iMaschine and Garageband to compose the theme song and incidental music, as it’s quick to sketch out a jaunty ditty (WillLyns) or a dope trap beat (Queefy Keefy’s theme).

We edited in Final Cut Pro X which, whilst not as loved as Premiere, is pretty cheap. Our one expense was on the Colour Finale plugin for grading – you can get a free trial but we loved it so much we really wanted to reward the developer with money.

Do it just to do it and then do it again 

We made the show just to see if we could. And that was all. We’ve shared it a couple of places, some people have liked it, some people have *hated* it and most people haven’t watched it. And that’s fine. It’s very unlikely that Lorne Michaels is going to be on the phone asking you to host SNL tomorrow, but it is satisfying to have made something. And once you’ve done that … go make something else.

You can check out the ‘2 Stand-up Comedians’ web series by clicking here. And to see more from Amelia Comedy head to their YouTube and Facebook Pages.

To make sure you stay up to date with the latest opportunities and insights in the world of comedy, join thousands of creators and fans receiving our free weekly newsletter, plus when you subscribe you’ll get our e-book – Getting started and making an impact in comedy:

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Daniel Page is a freelance script-editor, writer and producer with credits on Newsjack, NewsRevue, 12 sketches in a London Shed and The Sitcom Trials.  In this article, the first in a series aimed at helping aspiring comedy writers, Daniel talks about the many opportunities that exist for those willing to embrace the realities of writing comedy.

Your mum laughs at your jokes.  Your friends tell you you’re funny.  That thing you do with a box of paper clips is HILARIOUS to your cat (at least you assume that’s why he took a shit in your shoe). 

The trouble is, Twitter rarely retweets your jokes, the BBC won’t touch your sketches and Baby Cow won’t read your sitcom.  You’re finding it hard to get noticed, find and take opportunities and generally make progress.  Also, it burns when you pee, but I’m sadly not going to cover that here.

For me the reason you’re struggling comes down to this – writing comedy is hard.  REALLY hard.  But here’s the rub… knowing this could make you a stronger writer.

After a few years researching the landscape I’ve found four things that help me improve my writing, challenge my own material and target the best opportunities.  I hope this article helps you do the same.

So here’s what I’ve discovered:

• Writing isn’t performance
• Most (not all) of your stuff is rubbish
• Many writers are better than you
• There are opportunities out there begging to be won

Writing isn’t performance

The words you write on a page are not the performance an audience will see.  Skilled actors, directors, technicians and producers will turn it into a work of art through a combination of body language, pace, rhythm, emotion, intensity, spotlights, sound effects, timing, panache and biscuits.

Your job is to simply come up with some sure fire material for this group of people to perform.  People you’ve possibly never met and whose skills you don’t fully understand.

Somehow you’ve got to get past that and imagine how your words might play out.  You’ve got to write words that a bunch of strangers will use to get another even larger bunch of strangers to involuntarily expel air in a staccato manner.

This, is hard.

Witty won’t cut it.  Puns = groans.  Audiences reach punchlines to obvious jokes faster than then pound drops after a referendum.  You’re looking for those 20 words / 90 seconds of tight writing that neatly dissect their target with flow, rhythm and PUNCH.  The ones that force an audience spit their warm beer and overpriced cocktails onto their overpriced coats and warm crotches.  And not care that they’re doing so, because they’re too busy laughing.

Once you hear that ‘whoomph’ of laughter from a joke YOU wrote you won’t settle for anything less.  And nor will producers.  Why should they?

Knowing this hopefully tells you two things:

• You could really do with learning how to get there.  It’s hard to bake a good cake without having the right ingredients or knowing the recipe, so why do the same with writing?

• If it’s this hard to write to good material, many people will struggle.  So if you can consistently hit this standard, chances are you’ll eventually get noticed.

Most (not all) of your stuff is rubbish

A quick glance at my credits page shows I’ve written lots of comedy for lots of people, which suggests I might be good at it.  The trouble is you’re only seeing the stuff that made it.  The other 80% is basically garbage.  Even my joke about colonic irrigation I told them to shove up their arse didn’t work.

Just because I once wrote a gem that once got used on Newsjack doesn’t automatically mean my next piece is any good.

Writing a good joke, sketch or sitcom requires a goodly dollop of inspiration backed up by good execution.  Producers will sometimes take a well executed so-so idea, more often take (and re-write) a great idea that’s been badly executed, but will almost alway take a well executed great idea.  Does the piece you’ve just written have these qualities?

The trick is to learn to know when you got a gem or a turd on your hands (shoes, face, whatever gets you going really).  It’s far better you figuring this out than asking a producer to do so.  They get bored of receiving turds and you really want to be remembered as that writer who mainly sends in gems (I tried sending in some Jelly Babies once with my turds…didn’t work).

So try to be really honest with yourself about what you’ve written.  Or even better, ask someone else to take a look.  Then write another version.  Or better still, another sketch.  There’s a reason why writing teams start with 100 ideas, write 30 sketches and then record the best 12…

Many writers are better than you

There’s a huge and growing number of comedy writers out there and, quite frankly, many of them are better than me (and probably you).  Let’s consider the competition:

• In the UK alone there are easily 1,000s of beginners – writers who enjoy what they do, but lack experience and technique.  They may have the odd credit on a podcast or Newsjack, but struggle to regularly turn out quality work or get producers interested.  Even so, e-mail and social media makes it possible for them to sneak the odd gem through.

• Then there are the 100s of emerging writers who have mastered the basics and are capable of turning out a decent one-liner or sketch on a semi-regular basis.  They’ve got several credits under their belt and are using the power of the community to collaborate, make their good work and put it out there (check out the Kirrin Island Team http://bit.ly/1NWu1cz or the Wooden Overcoats bunch http://bit.ly/1OQptFH). Some of these writers are impressing producers enough to get invited to the Newsjack writers room or tryout slots on ‘The News Quiz’.

• That’s not even counting the slew of Competition Winners who’ve beaten thousands of others to win events like BBC Writersroom, or the Sitcom Mission or Class Dismissed.  Producers will definitely be in touch with these guys.

• Now we get to the hundred or so workhorse writers that producers rely on to churn out quality gags for the endless panel and topical news shows.  We’re talking established stand-ups, current and former BBC Comedy Bursary writers, New Comedy Award winners… people who know their stuff, are getting paid some money to write some comedy and are just getting better and better.

• After this I’m guessing there are perhaps a few dozen top end UK writers who earn a reasonable living from writing by contributing to mainstream shows, create episodes of a long running sitcom or even writing their own series.  And they’re not going anywhere.  You need to become better, fresher and more relevant than these guys to lure producers away from them…

• …which is exactly what some writers are doing.  These shooting stars are bringing innovative, fresh, smack-between the eyes writing to the table that’s winning awards left right and centre (hi Phoebe Waller-Bridge).  Producers will grab onto them as they accelerate towards stardom.

• Mind you, even these writers are having to compete with the twenty or so super-talented, highly experienced industry legends with a rock-solid track record on shows such as ‘The Thick of It’ and ‘Peep Show’.  Mind you, even these guys will be pitching against and around the writing royalty whose pop-star reputation means they can probably get a meeting based on name alone.

Place yourself somewhere on the list.  Does it help explain why producers aren’t beating a path to your door?  But don’t give up just yet, because…

There are opportunities out there begging to be won

I used to think there weren’t enough opportunities for new writers, but I no longer think this is true.  If anything it’s the pros who have a legitimate reason to struggle to find work.

There are LOADS of places to submit your work – the industry needs a constant stream of funny material.  Shows like NewsRevue have a voracious demand for topical gags and right now Amazon, Netflix and others are battling it out to find great new content.

I’ve talked about the need to get good at making people laugh, the importance of evaluating your own work before you send it out and the need to recognise you’re competing with lots of other writers.  Get this right often enough and you’ll start getting noticed.  I mean sure, covering yourself in honey and miming Beatles songs will also get you noticed, but the former is better for your career (actually both are good, but I’m allergic to honey, so let’s just drop it okay?).

So armed with this information, you’re going to learn how to write good comedy, find people you trust to give you constructive feedback and find opportunities that play to your strengths and expose other writer’s weaknesses.

In later articles I’ll say a bit more about how and where to find and convert opportunities, but in the meantime here’s a generic worked example:

• Not all writers spot all opportunities.  Do you know about www.londonplaywrightsblog.com?  Are you signed up to BBC Writersroom Twitter feed or The Comedy Crowd weekly newsletter?  Congratulations.  Out of a thousand writers you’re now in the top 500 who’ve actually realised there’s a chance to submit something.

 

• Does the opportunity have a deadline?  Do you have the self-discipline to hit it?  Great!  You’re now in the top 200.

• Does your work meet basic entrance criteria such as the right length or vaguely on topic?  You HAVE sent in topical writing for a topical news show?  Well in that case Mr ‘I’ve read the instructions’, move on up to the top 150.

• Does your sketch look like a sketch?  As in they’ve asked for a sketch and you’ve given them something that follows the basic rules of sketch structure and progression?  Holy smokes Batman, you’re now in the top 100!

• Can you spell corroctly?  Is your script vaguely formatted?  Have you written in short sentences with clear and punchy dialogue?  Hurrah!  It’ll get more love when it’s read.  Moonwalk on to the top 75.

• Have you got any JOKES in there?  Like actual jokes that people will laugh at?  Yes?  Say  hello to the top 40 you sly bastard.

• Are these jokes focused around a good premise delivered by funny characters?  Does your sketch finish with a decent punchline?  Welcome to the top 20.  Help yourself to a cigar.

At this point it’s now down to the producer’s preference and little bit of luck, but you’re beaten 985 other writers and have a good chance at getting your work produced.

The numbers are somewhat estimated, but I firmly believe the trend is broadly correct.  Producers basically say as much in their blogs (e.g. http://bit.ly/290DAYG and http://bit.ly/298RtY8)  and I’ve script-edited shows that follow this pattern.   

(Subscribe to The Comedy Crowd weekly newsletter below to make sure you don’t miss out on any opportunities)

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In summary

• Learn and master the basics of writing comedy.

• Learn how to assess your writing with honesty and the help of others.

• Find and convert opportunities to get your work out there.

Over the coming months I’ll be publishing lots of articles on the above.  Clearly I won’t have all the answers, so I’d welcome your (constructive) comments, corrections and critique as we go on this journey.  And after all, the journey itself is just as fun as the destination, right?

Daniel has provided excellent script advice for a number of Comedy Crowd subscribers.  To see their testimonials and get advice on your script visit www.coiledslinky.strikingly.com. Comedy Crowd members get a 10% discount!

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By Simon Paul Miller

My name is Simon Paul Miller and I’m an addict. The 12^th September 2013 was the day I got addicted. Before that, I just dabbled. I started by submitting a couple of one-liners, it seemed harmless enough, but then I moved on to the harder stuff, sketches. I thought I could handle it, but I was wrong. I crave the next high I’ll get when an email will pop into my inbox telling me I have something in that night’s edition of Newsjack.

I can try to remember the first time it happened, but it’s not like a normal memory. It’s like a memory of a dream. The email was vague in detail as, by necessity, it was the same email sent out to all the writers who’d managed to get something in. Once I’d recovered from the shock, and my family had recovered from my reaction, I was left with the thought… What was it they were going to use? Was it the sketch I’d sent in or one of my one-liners, or maybe more than one, or maybe a sketch and some one liners!

Normally, I’d listen Newsjack as a downloaded podcast over the weekend, but I had to know. Over the next five and a bit hours, I pondered over and over as to which material had made it. My heart pounded, my head buzzed and I only had a vague sense the real world was still around me. At about 10:20 I tuned our TV into Radio 4 Extra. I’d never listened to the radio on TV before. It’s very strange watching a radio show. It feels pointless looking at the screen but also odd not to.

The programme on before Newsjack consisted of two people shouting at each other. They appeared to think they were funny, I couldn’t tell. Eventually that programme ended. It was 10:30. The announcer wittered on and on and on and on, for thirty three seconds, before the Newsjack theme finally started. There was no monologue then, Justin Richards launched into one-liners sent in and I didn’t have long to wait. The third joke was mine…

“The Sunday Times has revealed that residents of Coleshill in North Warwickshire have the highest rate of Viagra prescriptions in the country. No one from the town was available for comment.”

And the audience roared. Wow! Fantastic! I loved it. I devoured it. Then listened to the rest of the show in what proved to be a vain hope that something else I’d submitted had been accepted. And then they read out the names of people who’d written the stuff on the show. I knew they did that, but I hadn’t thought about it. Any second now, my name was going to be read out.

But it wasn’t. I was confused. I tried to figure out why. Maybe they only included people who’d written sketches, but there were many more names than sketches. Maybe they didn’t include people who’d only had one one liner on the show. It didn’t matter. My joke had been told on the radio. It took a long time to get to sleep that night.

The next day I found out, on Twitter, that an error had been made and, as a result, a small number of contributors had been omitted from the credits. The team apologised on Twitter and a number of irate comments were tweeted back (none from anyone who’d been omitted). Sure, I was disappointed not to have heard my name, but given the enormity of the task the Newsjack team have to achieve, to get through all the submissions and produce a show in about 48 hours, I can not only understand how it happened, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more frequently.

I’d noted that my joke had had six words removed. (If you’re interested, my version started, “The residents of the town of Coleshill in North Warwickshire have been revealed by the Sunday Times as having the highest rate…”; if your not, skip this bit in brackets.) I took a note from this to work harder at making my jokes more succinct, maybe it would improve my chances of success.

Having actually got something on the show, I was now a lot more enthusiastic, and a lot more optimistic, as I tackled the task of extracting humour from the week’s news for the next deadline. On Thursday, I kept refreshing my in box, expecting the Newsjack email to appear. It didn’t arrive. I listened to the show that night, just in case there’d been a problem in sending the emails out, but no, I hadn’t succeeded.

The next week, I had to go out that Thursday night, and left leaving the house as late as possible to see if I’d got ‘the’ email. At 6:45pm I had to accept I had failed again to make the show. Maybe, I thought, my success had been a one off, never to be repeated.

It wasn’t till the following morning I discovered that I had got an email and had got this one liner on the show….

“New research has found that companies who employ a significant number of women bosses perform better than those dominated by men – mainly because the companies spend less on salaries.”

This time, it was exactly as I’d written it and my name was read out in the credits. For the next three weeks, every spare moment was spent scouring the papers for stories I could make a joke from. I also managed to get tickets to see episodes five and six being recorded. I was in the audience, fingers crossed, wondering if the next joke or sketch would be mine. Both times I would make the long train journey home, from London to Leamington Spa, disappointed.

For series ten I set myself a goal to get at least three one liners or one sketch in the series.

The deadline for sketches is midday Monday. This gives writers who don’t have to work on Monday mornings an advantage over those of us who do. We have to finish off our sketches on Sunday night, or in the early hours of Monday morning. The deadline for one-liners is midday Tuesday, so on Monday nights I would be agonising over which of my precious one-liners to send in. Back then, in the good old days, the limit was as many one-liners you could fit on a page.

Deciding which one-liners to send is a form of self-inflicted, psychological torture. I’d ask friends to rate my jokes but, once I got the results back, I’d often be looking at choosing between jokes that had been rated averagely by all the panel or jokes rated highly by some but totally disliked by others. And if only it were as simple as being funny and topical! If two writers send in the same joke, the production team discard it, so you need to consider how likely it is that another writer will send in the same joke. This is what I call ‘The Newsjack Dilemma.’ I can’t be the only Newsjack writer who’s heard a one liner on the show that matched one I’d discarded, the irony being if I had sent it in, neither I nor the other writer would have got it on the show.

One problem with writing for the show is that I found myself becoming very critical of jokes that did make it into the show, especially in the weeks when I’d not had anything accepted, i.e. most weeks. There’s bound to be at least one joke that will make me think, ‘they picked that over one of my mine!’ But there is no definitive measurement of how funny a joke is. It’s a personal thing that varies from person to person.

The inverse of this, however, is when I hear a joke that I think is much better than the one I sent in on a particular topic. Jimmy Carr says you don’t make jokes, you discover them. It’s like trying to solve a puzzle and when I hear a better solution than one I thought of, I really enjoy and appreciate the writer’s wit- whilst kicking myself for not finding the joke for myself.

After five episodes of season ten had aired without a single credit, my confidence had taken a blow, my goal was unreachable and I was desperate to get something, anything, on. A new production team had taken over the show and I’d convinced myself that my sense of humour was incompatible with theirs. I’d noticed, indeed it had irritated me, that the new team were often picking jokes that were not topical so, for my last page of one liners for that series, I included jokes that were not so closely linked to that week’s news and it worked…

“The farmer, who erected solar panels so large they blocked out the sun, has been arrested on a charge of daylight robbery.”

A few weeks before series eleven started, an email was sent out to all the writers who’d had something accepted in the previous series inviting us to a meeting held in a pub’s basement near Broadcasting House. As far as I know, this was a one off event. Never repeated, possibly because there were complaints made that it was unfair to writers not in a commutable distance to London. I enjoyed the evening but there wasn’t much information to be gleaned that wasn’t available on the web site. I wish I’d had time to stay afterwards and socialise with the other writers, but I had to catch my train. I did manage to speak to a couple of writers just before it started. They’d both had sketches accepted and both had commented that their sketches had been changed quite a lot by a script editor before being recorded. Another thing that came out was that the producers, Charlie Perkins and Arnab Chanda (who appeared to me to be the youngest in the room), had been told that series ten, their first, was not topical enough and they’d be looking to rectify this. So my new tactic to send in non-topical jokes was unlikely to work again.

I went into series eleven with a renewed feeling of optimism, but, like series ten, after five episodes I had not achieved a credit. It was late on Monday 27^th October. I needed to go to bed but I was one one liner short of the limit I could send in. I didn’t want to waste that spot when I found a newly posted story on the internet that inspired this joke…

“Claims that listening to Bohemian Rhapsody can cure illness have been confirmed by doctors after they managed to cure one poor boy, from a poor family…”

On paper, I didn’t think it was a great joke, so I was really surprised that, not only did it get on the show, but also that it got a huge laugh from the audience.

I didn’t get anything in the next series. Over time, it’s got tougher to get things on the show. Not only had he number of submissions gone up but, because the team were receiving so much material, the number of one liners you could submit had dropped from as many you could fit on one page, to nine, (six breaking news and three TV listings), and then to six (three breaking news and three Viewsjacks).

Another possible reason (excuse?) I came up with for my lack of success was a change in the format of the show where the first eight minutes of the show is taken up by an introduction, normally about a topic that has occurred in the news after the submission deadline. I can see why they did this, it makes the show more topical. With this format the show did win the Rose d’Or Best Radio Comedy Award for 2015, but it does mean less submitted material makes it into the show. I had assumed they had cut the number of one liners they used but when I compared an episode I’d kept from 2013 to one in 2016, the number of one liners were about the same (the 2016 episode had 20 one liners compared to 21) but the number of sketches had dropped dramatically, from 17 to eight.

So having come up with some excuses, I was very pleased to achieve two credits in series thirteen. The first one was my first Viewsjack item, where you have submit lines where a member of the public voices an opinion …

“[SECRETIVE] I am really worried that Ashley Madison will find out I’m using another infidelity dating website.”

And once again I managed to get a News item in the last episode of the series…

“As part of a cull on big brand names, Tesco’s have stopped stocking Carlsberg lager. A statement from Carlsberg said it was unable to comment, but if Carlsberg could comment, it would probably be the rudest comment you’d ever heard.”

For series fourteen, the most recent as I write this, I failed to get any credits. Of course, I’ve come up with an excuse. Despite my efforts to the contrary, the rehearsals and recording of my Rhyming Detective Podcast (which I had to write, organise and perform in) clashed with this series air dates. As a result, I only sent in five sketches over the whole series and rarely achieved getting six one liners, never mind having a list to pick from.

So I’ve managed to get six credits on Newsjack, all for one liners. No success on sketches for Newsjack yet although I did get an email back for one of four sketches I sent to Newsjack’s sister show ‘The Show What You Wrote’ in 2016. This is a Radio 4 Extra show that consists of four episodes a series and does not appear to have a fixed slot in the schedules. In the email they said…

“This is just to let you know that something what you wrote is very good, and we’ve put it under consideration for the recordings. We don’t think there’s any more work that needs to be done on it, so you don’t need to do anything else for now … It might *not* get recorded – we’ve asked for rewrites on a lot of things, and obviously we want to be picking from a larger pile of sketches than we can use – but I’d say at this stage it stands a very good chance.”

Alas, my sketch didn’t make the final recording, but I’m glad I managed to get to the first recording session in Manchester and see my sketch being recorded (as well as seeing Jason Mansford live). Had I not gone, I wouldn’t have known that my elderly, male executive character had been recast as a young woman and the young, female producer had been recast as an older woman. The sketch started well, got some good laughs but then, probably not helped by a fluff which resulted in the sketch being restarted, the end of the sketch failed to get any laughs. However, to quote from the very nice letter from the BBC informing me it hadn’t made the final edit, “You wrote one of the 80 best sketches we read out of about 2,500”.

So maybe next series I’ll finally get a sketch in Newsjack. Maybe then, my addiction will be cured and I won’t feel the need to send something in for every episode. Of course, when I say I’m addicted, actually I could give up whenever I wanted to. I could. Honest, I could.

Simon Paul Miller is the creator of The Rhyming Detective podcast.

If you like this article check out another of Simon’s posts on getting an audience for a live event.

Before I say anything about entering this years BBC Writersoom (comedy), let me just say that I’m no expert. I’m young, inexperienced and most of the advice I’m offering has been handed down to me by far more knowledgeable people.

I entered my script for the BBC Writersroom scriptroom 9 (comedy) back in March. At the time I was living in Melbourne, and I actually wrote the script whilst sitting on a park bench as I had no internet at my flat. I wrote a pilot called Leonard’s Having A Baby, about a twenty-something who discovers his girlfriend is pregnant just before he can break up with her.

This story has been covered before but I guess what was original about my script was my take on a familiar subject. The writersroom are looking for your ‘voice’ to come across in the scripts they read. You might be writing a flat-share comedy or a sitcom set in a hotel, that’s okay as long as you make sure you have something new to say about that tried and tested subject.

Entering is really easy as well, you just go the writersroom website, click submit, create an account and upload your pdf. Don’t worry about including a layout of the whole series, I didn’t and it didn’t affect my chances. Just make sure your script is as good as it can be. Make it funny, make the characters stand out, the dialogue zing and the story surprise.

There were over 2,200 scripts entered so I didn’t hear anything until July. I was invited for a meeting at Salford’s BBC. I met with the head of the writersoom and one of their producers. We talked for a long time, our meeting ran over a bit, which is usually a good sign. They told me they liked my ‘voice’ –- there’s that word again — and we spoke about my writing plans for the future. I made sure that they saw how passionate I was about writing and the other projects I had been working on. That takes me onto my first tip.

1. Make sure you have written other scripts before entering a competition. If you win something you want to be prepared for people who say, ‘okay, we liked that, but what else do you have?’ I’m not saying you need to have written tons of stuff but at least have a few scripts and a couple of ideas in the pipeline.

2. As this is comedy, make the reader laugh on the first page. You only have ten pages to impress them but lots of readers will make a decision on a script after only reading the first few.

3. Get to the story as quickly as possible. Don’t spend the first ten pages introducing your characters. Put them in a situation, give them a goal. Be as economical as possible. This mainly applies to sitcom as you only have 25-30 pages to tell a story but if you’re entering a 90 page script then you have a bit more leeway.

4. Make sure it looks like a proper script. If you don’t want to shell out a hundred pounds for Final Draft download Celtx for free. I used it for years and it’s great.

5. Great characters make great comedy. Think of all the great sitcoms, it’s the characters not the situation that keeps you coming back week after week. Make sure all your characters have different points of view. Comedy comes through difference, not just conflict. An easy way to highlight their differences is to get them talking about the same subject.

6. Finally. Have an active protagonist. This is probably the most important piece of advice I can offer. Passive characters are the death of a comedy script. It’s the characters who get themselves into tricky situations (David Brent, Alan Partridge, Mark and Jez) that make comedies.

But at the end of the day, what do I know? Some people break all these rules and get hailed as geniuses. You might disagree with everything I’ve said and get chosen as one of the 2016 winners. But trust me on the sunscreen.

Laurence Tratalos

@loztrat

Dan Page is a script-editor, writer and producer of comedy shorts, sketch, and sitcom with credits on NewsRevue, Newsjack and The Sitcom Trials. Here are his tips on the key pointers people often struggle with when starting out writing comedy:

• Let your characters do the talking.  Even the simplest of phrases can be used to show the audience who your characters are and their relationship to each other.  How might each of them say a simple ‘hello’?

“Hello Ben” – Fred doesn’t know Ben well or is cross with him

“Wassup Benny?” – laidback Luke doesn’t care what Ben thinks

“Hiya Ben!” – excitable Emma likes Ben

• Show emotion.  Are your characters angry, happy or sad when they speak?  Actors will look for cues as to how to play the emotion in each line – why not help them out?

“Just sod right off Ben”

“Get your gorgeous eyes out of here Ben”

“Maybe you should just go Ben”

• Avoid dialogue that starts or ends with ‘Anyhow’, ‘Look’ or ‘Also.  These words suggest to the audience that any preceding lines were unimportant.  Try finding a more natural conclusion to that segment or explode what you’re doing by having another character burst in, ask a question, or interrupt.

• Punctuation and pauses are your friend.  When writing for radio, think about conveying how a character feels through adding emphasis…or pauses…within their dialogue.

“Yeah Ben… I’m really up for that…’’

“Yeah Ben!  I’m really up for that!”

“Yeah Ben?  I’m…really up for that?”

• Keep it short and punchy.   Try to have your characters addressing one emotion/question/problem at a time unless it’s crucial to the plot/a joke.  Watch/listen to some shows, outside of joke laden monologues do characters often say more than one or two sentences at a time?

If you’ve got a script you’d like Daniel to take a look at, then visit www.coiledslinky.strikingly.com for details of how he can help.

By Simon Paul Miller.

When I mentioned to the leaders of the Jubilee church that I’d love to use their new facilities to record a comedy adventure script I’d written, I was surprised at the enthusiastic response I got. Turns out, the church were looking to publicise their new building to the local community and, fortunately for me, they thought the idea of getting locals in to watch a podcast recording fitted this requirement nicely. So I sent them a Rhyming Detective script, they read it, thought it was very funny and I got the go ahead. I not only got a venue from the church, but volunteers to act, a technical crew to assist in the recording and some members of the church made cakes and hot drinks for everyone in the interval. All I had to do was get an audience for a free event on a Thursday night, which wasn’t as easy as you might think. So, for those of you who find yourself in a similar situation, here is my experience of what works, what doesn’t work and how much it cost me…

The first thing I did was to set up a web site. I managed to purchase www.rhymingdetective.co.uk through one.com for £10.80 and that included more than enough user-friendly, on-line software to set up everything I needed, including as many email addresses as I wanted that end with rhymingdetective.co.uk . I should mention that’s a special price for the first year, after which it’s an annual subscription of just under £25 (assuming I stay within the 15 gigabytes I’ve been allocated). I didn’t shop around, so you can probably find a better deal if you do. Fortunately Thomas Adams, a friend of mine, created a great image for the podcast cover for me that I could also use in my advertising and on the web site.

I set up a tickets page on the web site and, using the software provided by one.com, I found it very easy to set up a form that people would fill in to request seats for the performance. Importantly, from this article’s point of view, I included a drop–down list on the form that asked where the person requesting seats had learnt about the event. I’ll now go through those options, telling you what they cost me and what results they gave me…

Church
Amount spent – £0.

Announcements were made in the Church email and during the Sunday service. Curiously, whilst 17% of the tickets we allocated were to church members, only 9% of the audience said they heard about the event through the Church itself.

Facebook
Amount spent – £23.

Before I could advertise on Facebook, I had to create a Rhyming Detective Facebook page and, when I eventually got to compose some Facebook adverts, I discovered the tight restrictions on how much text you can use (which includes text within the attached image). You’ll also need to design and format your image to fit Facebook’s requirements.

The £23 I spent went on two campaigns. The first was run for four days, six weeks before the event was due to take place. I chose to send the adverts out to Facebook users over sixteen within a 17km radius of Leamington (the smallest radius I could select), spoke English and who had an expressed interest in BBC Radio 4 Extra, Radio comedy, Podcasts, Theatre, Milton Jones, Podcasts, BBC Radio 4 or Sketch comedy.

In the second campaign I either stumbled onto a way I could narrow the advertising to just the Leamington Spa area or Facebook had made some changes that allowed me to do this. This campaign also ran for four days, from the Thursday through to the Sunday before the event, and I configured it to go out to Facebook users over sixteen with interests in Podcasts, Entertainment or Internet radio.

There’s a ‘Manage Adverts’ page within Facebook that is addictive to watch as you see the reach your advert gets, the resulting clicks and how much you are getting charged. Despite having set a limit on how much I spent, as the campaign ran, I got that screwed up feeling in my stomach akin to watching a taxi’s fare meter in a traffic jam. According to the ‘Manage Adverts’ page, the first campaign reached 7,444 Facebook users, but only resulted 47 website clicks. The second campaign had a reach of 4,286 users and resulted in just twenty website clicks. You have to take these statistics on trust, there’s no way of checking, but there are ways of adjusting how you are charged (which are completely baffling). The real value for me was in how many of those 67 clicks turned into seat reservations. I can tell you that the number of people who reserved tickets and said they had heard about the event through Facebook was… one. And that was a family friend who’d seen a post my daughter made on Facebook (and on the night couldn’t attend due to an illness).

So I found Facebook advertising an interesting experience, a lot of work but, ultimately, a waste of money.

Flyer on public display/ Flyer through the door
Amount Spent – £94.24 (A batch of 1,000 flyers followed by a second batch of 500).
I posted over 300 flyers through doors near the church and only two people indicated they’d seen one. However, sixty per cent of the people who reserved seats said they’d found out about the event through flyers on public display. I put out flyers around Leamington over the six weekends before the event, pinned on noticeboards in local sports centres, supermarkets, bookshops, the library, the Town Hall and anywhere else I could get permission to, but mostly in cafes. Often, I would have to re-arrange the notice board to fit mine in, but I always made sure I never obscured someone else’s flyer. It’s annoying to go back to a place where you’ve put up a flyer to find someone else has covered it, or even removed it. However, it happens and you need to regularly check that your flyers are still on display.

Some places had noticeboards in such obscure places that it completely defeated the point of having them. However, if I asked nicely, I found I could normally leave a small pile of flyers on the counter. It became easier over the weeks as staff recognised my face and just smiled and nodded to indicate I could leave more flyers. I did have one awkward situation where two managers in a Costa store, presumably on overlapping shifts, erupted into a huge argument over whether I could or could not leave some flyers on their counter. At the strong insistence of the one who said I could, I left a pile and made a quick exit, leaving them to their shouting match. I don’t know if the argument ended peacefully or not but, later that same day, all the flyers had gone. Maybe due to a sudden surge of interest, but I suspect not.

Hearing from attendees after the event, “I just picked up a flyer at <insert café name here>” was a common phrase, indicating that flyer piles were a successful tactic. My flyer was A5 sized which was great for leaving on counters and pinning up on noticeboards, but a few places had stands with pockets that took narrow leaflets about half the width of an A5 sheet, so if I do this again, I’ll consider getting two types of flyer. I’m sure having some nice artwork really helped (thanks, Tom!), but also keeping the layout simple and minimising the amount of text helped to make the flyer attractive.

WhereCanWeGo.com
Spent – £4 (Optional)

This web site is a community events guide where you can post your event for free, but I went for a premium entry where, for £4, you can make your advert stand out with an image. It really did look good and certainly stood out from the rest. Alas, nobody who reserved a seat said they had come from this web site so, if I use it again, I’ll just post a standard event.

Word of mouth/A friend

32% of people who went found out through a friend. Half of these I could identify as church members who didn’t hear about the event through the church, some friends, some friends of friends and relations of the cast. The other half, I assume, heard through people who’d seen flyers but I can’t know for sure.

Not Specified

On the ticket page I gave the option of emailing Enquiries@RhymingDetective.co.uk to get tickets if they experienced difficulties using the online form. I got three requests emailed directly to this address and, although I asked, none of them let me know how they’d found out about the event.

I did try contacting a local paper to see if they were interested in running a story about us, but never heard back. I also contacted Warwick University’s Student Union hoping they’d like to tell their members about a free event but received a very blunt reply informing me of their advertising options, the cheapest of which was £170 to distribute 1,000 flyers to Students (and I had to provide the flyers!). Maybe it just Warwick University’s Student Union, but was surprised at how Student Union’s have become so commercial.

When sending out the tickets by email, I did ask people to let me know if, for any reason, they couldn’t attend and this worked, in that I did get twelve (very nice) emails before the date from people telling me they couldn’t come. I also sent out a reminder email on the Monday night before the recording, which included the first mention that free tea/coffee and cakes would be available to encourage attendance. By the night itself, we had 150 reserved seats but I didn’t think they’d all come and I was right. Many of the larger groups arrived apologising for a missing member having caught a rather nasty bug that had spread over Leamington Spa that week and the severe flooding that had closed roads and caused traffic jams, put others off attempting to come. As a result, we performed to an audience of 120 people which was a nice size and, as Church members seemed overly keen to point out, was a lot more than turned up on Sundays.

So, in future, I’ll avoid advertising on the internet and stick to flyers placed in strategic, public places. I now have a mailing list that can use to inform those who attended the last event, or shown an interest in it, when the podcasts are available and if and when we hold any more recording sessions. Now that I’ve uploaded the first episode, I’ve got to figure out ways to publicise the Rhyming Detective podcast itself of which, did I mention, you can find out more about at www.rhymingdetective.co.uk .