Micheal Jacob
Blog posts in total 32
Posts
Shortlisting Laugh Track
Micheal Jacobs talks about the process of shortlisting scripts for BBC writersroom's recent Laugh Track sitcom search.
And it's goodbye from me
It's now 20 years since I became professionally involved in comedy, so that milestone, combined with leaving the BBC, has prompted me to embark on a nostalgic journey in my final blog. If there is a secret of comedy, I have yet to find it. Indeed, to use a rather overworked quote from Willia...
All Mixed-Up - End of part one
A packed and steamy Soho Theatre Studio saw the final of the All Mixed-Up competition at a showcase on Saturday night. An enthusiastic audience was joined by judges Freema Agyeman, Philip Hedley CBE, and Susan Nickson to see extracts from the six final scripts performed by a hard-working and ta...
Primary colours in grey Newcastle
Bright colours, repetition, a strong sense of right and wrong and a title sequence which tells the audience what the show is about are all important elements when it comes to making television for an audience of four- to six-year-olds. Those are some of the things I learned when the College a...
All Mixed-Up shortlist
Getting down to a final list of six for the competition has been extremely difficult, and all of us involved in the selection have had to lose at least one favourite. It was that tight. However, we now have the six, and I have written today to the writers who made it through, and the ones who ...
All Mixed Update
Now that things have calmed down a bit, I thought I'd do a bit of a report back on progress so far with the sitcom competition. In the end, we had just over 300 entries, which is obviously fewer than the number of applications to the last general college scheme, but very respectable given tha...
New College of Comedy initiatives
The BBC College of Comedy is to run a sitcom writing competition with a multi-cultural theme, and will also be working with CBeebies In-house Production on a writing workshop before the end of the year. Called All Mixed-Up, the competition is looking for proposals which reflect diverse Britai...
From Sunday Lunchers to The Inn Mates
The BBC College of Comedy was established in 2008 to select a group of writers early in their careers and accelerate their development through workshops with and mentoring by comedy experts. The college year ended with a showcase in March 2009, and of the scripts developed under the scheme, Sun...
Belfast, Scene and Heard, Big Top
Unintended consequences can often be good consequences, and such was the case when an unexpected back problem meant that I couldn't get over to Belfast for a combined College/BBC Northern Ireland workshop for writers from the island of Ireland. Rather than sticking to my structure scripts, ...
Pilot commission for college writer
Well, hello there, and sorry not to have been around since August. I've been waiting to have something to say rather than just dropping in for a ramble, but now there are a few things of note. The best news is that a script we developed during the first year of the college has been commissio...
The College year is under way
Last week the writers got together by the river at Teddington for an intensive workshop week, intensive because we are running one workshop this year rather than two (the cuts...). It was very full on for the writers, for me, and for our administrator Jane, but we managed to survive, and drama...
Out to play in Somers Town
When we ran the last Sitcom Talent scheme in 2004, we received an outstanding entry, set in a school. It had strong characters, an organised story, was extraordinarily funny, and came with a strongly worded letter saying that it would be age discrimination if the writers were ruled out of the c...
This year's College of Comedy writers
A news release is being issued today with some information on this year's scheme. And here it is... Following last years successful College of Comedy scheme, the BBC has recruited six writers to take part in its development programme over the next ten months. Once again the writers will b...
College of Comedy update
Well, it's Friday afternoon, and a dozen entries to the college are now with senior comedy colleagues for their opinion, and to help decide which applicants we'll be inviting in for a chat. I have e-mailed the 12, and over the next week I will be e-mailing the people who nearly made it to the s...
Nine days and counting
Applications for this year's College of Comedy close at noon on the 24th, and the volume of submissions is increasing as the deadline approaches. Last year, as the clock ticked down, we watched entries arrive in the in-box as fast as it could handle them, a sight that may or may not be repeated...
And now the end is near...
In a rare quiet moment, I'm taking the opportunity to apologise for my lack of blogging, and to say that tonight marks the end of the first year of the College of Comedy. We're doing a live showcase here at Television Centre, we're expecting 130 people from the comedy world inside and outside t...
Cheap and chirpy
It has been a while since my last post, which is largely because I haven't had anything much to say. However, earlier this week I was invited to give a couple of talks to a Comedy North/Writersroom North writing workshop taking place in Ted Hughes's old house near Hebden Bridge (he had a good e...
The surgery is open
In the past couple of weeks, I've met a lot of new or relatively new writers, first when I went to talk to the MA students on the television writing course at De Montfort University, and then at a rather overwhelming Writers' Room drinks. Many of the same questions cropped up, so in the spirit of giving, I thought the pre-Christmas blog could be devoted to comedy writers' FAQs. Bring them on and I'll try to do answers.
The College on Tour
So last week the College went to Manchester and had fun, despite the weather living up to the Manchester cliche of dark, cold and drizzly. Further entertainment was provided by a group of WWE wrestlers on tour who were staying in our hotel, and were pursued by some quite alarming fans - overwei...
He says, she says
So here are some thoughts on dialogue, which are more a meditation than a structured article. In essence, the purpose of dramatic dialogue is to advance plot and illuminate character. In a comedy, dialogue should also be funny. Audience sitcom demands that it should be laugh-out-loud funny...
