Topical comedy
Posted By Iain Coleman on February 27, 2009
I sent three sample sketches off today to the new topical radio sketch show 7 on 7 (and thanks to Piers for the heads-up on the open call). It’s a kind of writing I’ve never done before. Sure, I’ve written and performed comedy sketches on stage, but there’s a whole extra discipline to topical skits. They don’t just need to be done to a deadline - you can’t even start them till the deadline’s nearly upon you, or the sketch will be out of date. I found myself scanning the news yesterday morning, searching for a story that would fit into the end of one of my sketches. I was immensly relieved to find something that worked, and leapt upon it hungry and slavering.
I guess regular writers of topical comedy must go through this routinely - the terrible worry that the news won’t give you any good material, the joy and relief when it does. At an intellectual level I’ve long known how demanding this kind of writing is, but now having done it my understanding is all the more visceral.
Whether the producers want to use my stuff or not is something I should find out next week. Whatever their decision, I feel I wrote some decent stuff - and at least I now know that I can do it under the real pressures of topical sketch writing.
(Of course, I must mention the important contribution of my lovely wife, who read one of my sketches, told me it wasn’t at all funny, and made me write something else instead in the wee hours of the morning.)
Good luck!
There’s a new open call up for Laura Solon’s latest radio series on the website too. Non-topical one-liners.
Details.