Sunday 31 July 2016

Sitcom Trials - So You Think You Write Funny, Final August 23rd


Here we see the flyer for The Sitcom Trials - So You Think You Write Funny Final. Look out for these on the streets of Edinburgh this August.

The final line up for the Sitcom Trials So You Think You Write Funny has been announced, and tickets are already selling fast. For anyone taking note of such things, three of the five sitcoms - who have made it here from 6 Heats showcasing 30 sitcoms across 5 cities - are by female writer-performers, and 4 out of the 5 have female leads.

The finalists are:



Like-A-Looks by Vanessa-Faye Stanley & Kate Bowes-Renna (London)
Kylie Minogue meets Captain Jack Sparrow in the temping job to beat all, as Valerie enters the world of Like-A-Looks. 



Sonny & Me by Baby Isako (London)
Everyone around him wants Eddie to grow up and face his responsibilities. Finding he has a 15 year old son changes everything. But wait, can that really be his son?



Aquarius Café by Rachel Sambrooks (Birmingham)
Birmingham’s only cafe cum therapy palace cum poetry experience cum music venue cum jazz bar cum folk museum cum wedding emporium cum flashmob cum love cafe. 



Agent of LOVCRAFT by Paul Hunt & Mat Troy (Cardiff)
Cardiff’s own slightly psychic investigator faces the biggest challenge yet when a maniac kidnaps a city bus armed with an electric screwdriver and a route map.



Graduettes by Sean Wilkie (Glasgow)
Three Glasgow women have recently graduated and now struggle to make their way in the world despite illness, unwanted pregnancy, and being a nutty religious zealot.

The audience will vote for their favourite and only see the ending of the winner, with the ultimate victor being chosen by a panel of judges. The winning sitcom writers are awarded their own show at the Gilded Balloon next year.



The Sitcom Trials So You Think You Write Funny? Grand Final is on at 10.30pm, August 23rd 2016 at The Gilded Ballon, Edinburgh Fringe. Tickets here.



Heat 1 London Video
Heat 2 London Video
Heat 3 Birmingham Video
Heat 4 Cardiff Video
Heat 5 Manchester Video
Heat 6 Glasgow Video 


If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.


See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Tuesday 26 July 2016

SYTYWF Cardiff & Glasgow videos


And finally we have the video clips from all 6 Heats of The Sitcom Trials - So You Think You Write Funny? up online. Above we have the last Heat from Glasgow and below, Heat 4 from Cardiff. Click to play.



The sitcoms in contention were:

GLASGOW:
20th Century Fox by Graeme Prosser
Compose Yourself by Richard Archibald
Graduettes by Sean Wilkie
Kapow by Griff Phillips
At Home With The Hipsters by David Keenan


Richard Archibald (left) and the cast of Compose Yourself. Best costumes of this year's Trials Heats.

CARDIFF:
Agent of Lovecraft by Paul Hunt & Mat Troy
Chops by William Kelly
Coffee Boys by Liam Jones
End the Night by Adam Charles Baker
Red Dragon by Michael Young-Drennan

And the winners of the audience vote were:

Glasgow: Compose Yourself
Cardiff: Agent of Lovecraft

We hope you enjoy the videos, testament to the highest standard of writing and performance. We hope to see you all at the Grand Final in Edinburgh on August 23rd.


Heat 1 London Video
Heat 2 London Video
Heat 3 Birmingham Video
Heat 4 Cardiff Video
Heat 5 Manchester Video
Heat 6 Glasgow Video

If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.


See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Sunday 24 July 2016

Sitcom Trials #SYTYWF - The Final Five



Thanks and commiserations to all the writers, producers, directors and actors - and indeed the audiences - who've made the 6 Heats of the Sitcom Trials So You Think You Write Funny such a success.

After deliberation and consultation, I've chosen, as the final five entries in the Sitcom Trials Edinburgh Final:

Like-A-Looks by Vanessa-Faye Stanley & Kate Bowes-Renna (London)
Sonny & Me by Baby Isako (London)
Aquarius Café by Rachel Sambrooks (Birmingham)
Agent of Lovecraft by Paul Hunt & Mat Troy (Cardiff)
Graduettes by Sean Wilkie (Glasgow)


The final is on Tuesday August 23rd, 10.30pm in the Sportsmans Bar at the Gilded Balloon, Teviot.



The quality of entries in this year's competition was higher than ever before, and I want to thank everyone for the work they've put in. Special thanks to the teams across the country who staged these scripts, and to those writer-performers who put their own performing troupes together. This made the quality of presentation amazingly high, and thus all the more galling for those who've ended up not making the final.

I'd like to invite any and all of you to enter the Sitcom Trials again. We will hopefully be running shows, not as a tournament like this, but as stand-alone showcases giving you the opportunity to test out work in front of a live audience. So if you'd be interested in continuing with that process, please keep in touch with me.

I look forward to seeing as many of you up in Edinburgh as can make it, all the very best

Kev F Sutherland
Producer
THE SITCOM TRIALS


Heat 1 London Video
Heat 2 London Video
Heat 3 Birmingham Video
Heat 4 Cardiff Video
Heat 5 Manchester Video
Heat 6 Glasgow Video 


If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.


See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Wednesday 20 July 2016

SYTYWF Heat 5: Manchester video


The 5th Heat of 2016's Sitcom Trials - So You Think You Write Funny took place in Salford on July 17th at The Kings Arms Theatre. Click to watch the video highlights.

The sitcoms in contention were:
Adam & Eve & Steve by Sean Fee
Babestation by Stephen Lawson (entered as a video, as writer-performed cast were unavailable)
Lost Cause by Andy Partington
Vlog Eat Vlog by Christy White-Spunner 

And the winner of the audience vote was... Adam & Eve & Steve. We hope you enjoy the video, it's testament to the highest standard of writing and performance.
This result doesn't determine which sitcoms will be going on to the Grand Final in Edinburgh in August. We have to wait until the end of the 6th heat to be able to say which 5 sitcoms will be chosen. An agonising process for all concerned, we thank you for your patience.

Sitcom Trials So You Think You Write Funny 2016 shows: 

June 2 - London Heat 1, Ophelia Dalston, 8pm £5
July 7 - London Heat 2, Ophelia Dalston, 8pm £5
July 9 - Birmingham Heat, The Mac, 7.30pm £8
July 16 - Cardiff Heat, Exit 7, Motorpoint Arena
July 17 - Manchester Heat, Kings Arms Salford, 8.30pm £4
July 23 - Glasgow Heat, Dram!
August 23 Edinburgh Fringe Grand Final 

Heat 1 London Video
Heat 2 London Video
Heat 3 Birmingham Video
Heat 4 Cardiff Video
Heat 5 Manchester Video

If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.


See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Tuesday 19 July 2016

Sitcom Trials Manchester review

A nice review of the Manchester Sitcom Trials heat of So You Think You Write Funny, from North West End's Poppy Stewart.


Tonight was the Manchester heat of the Sitcom Trials, a popular competition which pits five 10 minute sitcoms against each other, with the audience deciding which their favourite is? There are heats throughout the UK, with the grand finals taking place at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Host Kev F Sutherland does a wonderful job of warming up the crowd and explaining how it works. His years of experience are evident through his total professionalism, and he has the audience on side from the start. We get to play a warm up game before the performances begin a vote to find the best (or worst, however you look at it) crude regional stereotype within a sitcom. I'm pleased to say my suggestion, Manuel from Fawlty Towers, was deemed the winner!


On to the sitcoms, and the first extract is 'Vlog Eat Vlog', the tale of two flatmates who are both you tubers, but polar opposites. One is a pretentious 'feminist' who can't quite get it right, and the other is the shy host of a food channel, who undertakes challenges such as, how many chicken nuggets I can fit in my ear! A spanner is thrown in the works when a girl moves in next door, and both men fight for her love. I really enjoyed this piece, it was well written and had the most frequent laughs of the evening; and I wanted to see more to find out who 'the everywoman' would choose.

The second piece is 'Lost Cause', where a 29 year old babysitter arrives to look after five year old Julian, who she subsequently loses. I loved the characters in this one; babysitter Melanie with her awkward and uncomfortable humour, the posh mum from 'new money', who owns a bread business but won't let her child eat gluten because it's 'too common', and Melanie's idiot brother. There were perhaps not as many laughs as the first piece, but again, I really wanted to see the ending!


The third sitcom, 'Babestation', was slightly unusual in its format as it was presented on video ¬- its actors being University students who are away for the summer! I particularly liked the two young characters in this one, the experimental new director who is full of unusual ideas, and his hapless assistant. However we weren't left on a cliff-hanger as with the others, as the ending was fairly obvious (although I could be wrong, we will never know!)

The fourth scene was entitled 'Adam and Eve and Steve', and was set in the Garden of Eden. This was probably my least favourite sitcom of the evening, although I did enjoy the character of 'Keith' the snake, and it was an interesting twist on the original story. I can see this being filmed in a Monty Python-esque style.

We were also treated to another audience game of pitching our own sitcom, the winner being 'Putin On The Ritz', when Mrs Putin thinks Vladimir is getting fat, so puts him on a diet of savoury crackers! Now there's a sitcom I would love to see.

After the audience vote it was revealed that 'Adam and Eve and Steve' was the winner, and would advance to the next stage of the competition. It's not what I would have picked, but that's the beauty of theatre, TV, and life, everyone likes different things and that's alright!

Reviewer: Poppy Stewart
Reviewed: 17th July 2016 

If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.


See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Monday 18 July 2016

SYTYWF Heats 4 & 5, Cardiff and Birmingham Results


Here is the flipchart from the warm up game at the Manchester Sitcom Trials #SYTYWF Heat 5, in which the audience endeavoured to choose the Best Crude Regional Stereotype in a sitcom ever. The runners up were Groundskeeper Willie, the cast of Ello Ello, Mrs Brown, Father Dougal, Alf Garnett, Navid from Still Game, Brass (if anyone remembers that, with Timothy West?) and anything with Peter Kay in. And the winner was Manuel from Fawlty Towers.


But I detect that's not the result you're waiting to hear, is it? On Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th July we held the 4th & 5th Heats in the Sitcom Trials So You Think You Write Funny competition, in Cardiff and Manchester. The sitcoms in contention were:

CARDIFF HEAT:
Agent of Lovecraft by Paul Hunt & Mat Troy
Chops by William Kelly
Coffee Boys by Liam Jones
End the Night by Adam Charles Baker
Red Dragon by Michael Young-Drennan


MANCHESTER HEAT:
Adam & Eve & Steve by Sean Fee
Babestation by Stephen Lawson (entered as a video, as writer-performed cast were unavailable)
Lost Cause by Andy Partington
Vlog Eat Vlog by Christy White-Spunner

And the winners of the audience votes were...


In Cardiff: Agent of Lovecraft
In Birmingham: Adam & Eve & Steve

Now we only have to wait until the 6th and final Heat takes place in Glasgow on July 23rd, after which we'll be able to say which five sitcoms will be going through to the grand final in Edinburgh on August 23rd.

Thanks and congratulations to everyone who's got this far, and to our audiences who've been turning out in impressive numbers on some of the hottest nights of the year.

Sitcom Trials So You Think You Write Funny 2016 shows: 

June 2 - London Heat 1, Ophelia Dalston, 8pm £5
July 7 - London Heat 2, Ophelia Dalston, 8pm £5
July 9 - Birmingham Heat, The Mac, 7.30pm £8
July 16 - Cardiff Heat, Exit 7, Motorpoint Arena
July 17 - Manchester Heat, Kings Arms Salford, 8.30pm £4
July 23 - Glasgow Heat, Dram!
August 23 Edinburgh Fringe Grand Final 


Heat 1 London Video
Heat 2 London Video
Heat 3 Birmingham Video
Heat 5 Manchester Video


If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.


See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Tuesday 12 July 2016

SYTYWF Heat 2 London & Heat 3 Birmingham - videos


You wait a month for a video of highlights from the Sitcom Trials So you Think You Write Funny Heats, and two come along at once. Click to play these 4 minute clips from Heat 2: London (above) and Heat 3: Birmingham (below).


Heat 2 London's five sitcoms in contention were:
Single In The Smoke by Tash Goldstone
No 74 by Victoria Reilly
We Three Kings by Christian Nardecchia
Sonny & Me by Baby Isako
Galaxy Ball by Diane Spencer

Heat 3 Birmingham's five sitcoms were:
Naval Gazing by Rob Smyth
The Cleaners by Richard Constable & Roger Saunders
All at Sea by Aaron Caris
Aquarius Café by Rachel Sambrooks
Falling Flat by Peter Etherington


Sitcom Trials So You Think You Write Funny 2016 shows: 

June 2 - London Heat 1, Ophelia Dalston, 8pm £5
July 7 - London Heat 2, Ophelia Dalston, 8pm £5
July 9 - Birmingham Heat, The Mac, 7.30pm £8
July 16 - Cardiff Heat, Exit 7, Motorpoint Arena
July 17 - Manchester Heat, Kings Arms Salford, 8.30pm £4
July 23 - Glasgow Heat, Dram!
August 23 Edinburgh Fringe Grand Final 

If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.


See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

Sunday 10 July 2016

SYTYWF Birmingham Heat 3


Thanks to everyone who came to Saturday night's Sitcom Trials #SYTYWF Heat 3 in Birmingham. A fabulous show of the highest quality. The five sitcoms in contention were 


Naval Gazing by Rob Smyth
The Cleaners by Richard Constable & Roger Saunders
All at Sea by Aaron Caris
Aquarius Café by Rachel Sambrooks
Falling Flat by Peter Etherington

And the winner of the audience vote was...? 



Aquarius Café by Rachel Sambrooks

Congratulations. This is the 3rd of 6 Heats, so the judges decision of which 5 sitcoms will be going through to the Edinburgh final will have to wait a while. Everyone keep fingers crossed. (And stay tuned for the video highlights of the show). 



The warm up game competition was an attempt to find The Best Sitcom Food ever. Runners up were the sausage from Ello Ello, Joey's Sandwich from Friends, Waldorf Salad from Fawlty Towers, the un-thawed turkey from The Royle Family, anything cooked by Wendy Craig in Butterflies, the porridge from Porridge, and Baldrick's Turnip Surprise from Blackadder. And the winner was (not from a sitcom, as it happened) Victoria Wood's Two Soups. And the prize..?



... a drawing of Birmingham's sitcom star Citizen Khan. The runner up got a picture of Tony Hancock. More famous name, less good drawing.

Sitcom Trials So You Think You Write Funny 2016 shows: 

June 2 - London Heat 1, Ophelia Dalston, 8pm £5
July 7 - London Heat 2, Ophelia Dalston, 8pm £5
July 9 - Birmingham Heat, The Mac, 7.30pm £8
July 16 - Cardiff Heat, Exit 7, Motorpoint Arena
July 17 - Manchester Heat, Kings Arms Salford, 8.30pm £4
July 23 - Glasgow Heat, Dram!
August 23 Edinburgh Fringe Grand Final 




If you would like to create the next great British situation comedy, The Sitcom Trials is an opportunity for your sitcom to be seen live.

Details of new shows, and our ongoing competition, are to be found here at sitcomtrials.co.uk and on Twitter and Facebook.


See the Best of The Sitcom Trials videos, here.

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