The new way to make your comedy show
When Steve Stamp left school he knew he wanted to write comedy. The problem was that he had no contacts or experience. He had no internship lined up, he hadn’t won any competitions, he had no credits to his name. In fact he didn’t even write scripts, and he had to hold down an office job to pay the bills.
Two years later Steve’s show ‘People Just Do Nothing’ was commissioned by the BBC. It’s now in its 3rd series and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2016. Steve no longer works the office job.
So how did he do it?
Steve was lucky enough to have funny friends, with a variety of skills in filming, acting and editing. So they got together and started filming themselves, showcasing the main characters in the pirate radio based mockumentary and creating ‘webisodes’ for YouTube. These were seen by producer Jon Petrie, who saw potential in the idea and helped them develop it for the BBC.
Steve got started by making his comedy. And it worked… not only was he able to showcase the characters, he demonstrated that there was an audience through its reception on YouTube. This was enough to persuade Roughcut to take a punt on them. (Last year we interviewed Steve at a live event – here’s what we learnt about making your own comedy show.)
But what if you don’t have a network of funny, talented people around you?
In 2012 Thomas Gray was a nobody in comedy. He started filming himself performing character monologues from his bedroom. For 6 months they sat on YouTube and nobody noticed. Then this one went viral:
This was a springboard for Thomas. Since then he has performed live and been commissioned by the BBC to create a series of 10 minute shorts of this character (they’re really funny, check them out here).
So what can we learn from these comedy journeys?
1. Comedy is all about funny and engaging characters – if you can show potential in a character nothing else matters, including production values. Filming on a smartphone is fine.
2. Agents, producers and commissioners are looking for new talent, and are willing to take a chance on creators.
3. If you’ve got no profile or agent to fight your corner, showing people a video showcasing your comedy gives you the best chance to get noticed.
4. Once you’ve made a video, simply putting it on YouTube may never get you noticed, and if it does it won’t happen overnight. You need a way of promoting it.
5. To succeed in this way you either need to be a good writer and performer, like Thomas, or you need to embrace collaboration.
So making your comedy show is no longer about sending a script to a list of production companies. Times have changed and as creators we need to change with it.
Which is why at The Comedy Crowd, we’ve created a bespoke platform to help you showcase your comedy character. It’s designed to support you to get your comedy noticed whether you are a writer, performer or both.
Chorts! are 2 minute videos that live on a dedicated page where you can promote them, get feedback, and get noticed. You can add as many as you like, it’s free, and if they’re good and you promote them (we’ll help you with this) then you’ll have a shot at getting noticed by producers and commissioners who can access and get updates on the best performing Chorts!
We showcase the best Chorts at Comedy events and festivals throughout the year – the next screening is at our own Chorts Live! event on 13th July in front of an audience of fans and top UK producers. Submit yours by 16th June for a chance to have it screened.
Click here to see the latest Chorts! and find out how to submit.
And right now if you’re a writer who doesn’t want to perform you can get involved too. We’ll soon be re-opening our competition to write a Chort!, and the winners will be shared with actors groups to help you find the right performer to showcase your character.
This is an exciting time to be a comedy creator. Commissioners are desperate for new talent. If you want to make the most of these opportunities we’re here every step of the way to help you make your comedy show.
Lets start creating!