About a year ago I came across the Felix Dexter Bursary opportunity on the BBC Writersroom website. It immediately caught my attention because I loved Felix in the Real McCoy. I remember as a kid being able to make my little brother Ben laugh with my pitch perfect impression of Felix playing a Nigerian man winning the lottery and telling his wife and kids to go to ‘ell. In hindsight I’m not sure how authentic either mine or Felix’s accents were but he was definitely an amazing comedy performer so I thought let me check out the scheme and it sounded wicked.
I had previously had various comedy scripts optioned with channels and production companies, but I’d never had anything commissioned. This sounded like a great opportunity to take that next step and to gain experience and meet decision makers within the comedy industry who could hopefully get a script of mine across the line and made. (It sounded like decent money as well, which it is.) So I applied, and it was a much more interesting application process than normal, as I had to write my own obituary and critique two sitcoms as well as write a scene of a date at a funeral, which I found much more interesting than the usual 'submit a sample script and tell us why you want to get on the scheme'.
The application was all going to plan, there were ten minutes until the submission deadline and then I hit submit. Then my submission vanished. It didn’t work. I started swearing at my computer, the internet connection, everything. I’m bashing my fists like a Neanderthal, attaching all the docs again and then the same thing again, they vanished, not once, but twice. It’s now one minute past the deadline and I’m sweating cobs, I jumped onto twitter and I tweeted the BBC Writersroom saying I was having technical difficulties. They replied within minutes to say, ‘don’t worry, we are extending the deadline by a week.’ To which I thought ‘awesome, now I have the chance to tidy up my application a bit.’ A week went by and I submitted the exact same thing, but with a few more minutes to spare this time. Then skip forward to a few weeks, I’m in Newcastle at my friend Abi’s wedding and I’m pretty drunk. I got an email from the BBC saying I’d been shortlisted. Now reading drunk is pretty hard and I think typing an email drunk is even harder, but I went for it there and then and replied to say I was available for the interview. It was probably full of typos, but they didn’t bring it up at the interview which was a few weeks later.
So now I’m in the BBC building, at W1A and I’m waiting in the lobby where unlike in the sitcom W1A I haven’t seen any folding bikes yet. My girlfriend told me to wear a shirt and blazer, which is very unlike me and I’m sweating a bit. So I went off into the corner to have a quick spray of antiperspirant (you’re probably noticing a sweat theme here) and just at that moment Celia Morgan from the BBC Writersroom came down to pick me up. I think because of the angle I’d sprayed at I’d got away with it and I quickly shoved the can back into my bag and tucked my shirt back in. But then I thought I had to explain why my hands had been down my pants, so I confessed, I said, I’d just had a quick spray. Celia smiled politely, but I think she thought I was a bit weird. Anyway I recovered and held it down like a G as we got the lift up to the ‘Albert Square’ waiting area. Celia offered me a water and I wasn’t really thirsty, but I took one anyway because I thought that was the thing to do and then I waited to meet Sarah Asante from commissioning. I’d made some notes to myself about why I wanted to get on the scheme and what I hoped to gain and kind of recited my answers. Then when I met Sarah we just talked about sitcoms non-stop for about 40 minutes. I left thinking "f**k she didn’t give me a chance to talk about my writing or give any of the answers I’d prepared", but then I got a second interview. This one was much shorter and was with Sarah and Shane Allen, who is head of BBC Comedy. I managed to shoe horn a few of my prepared answers in this time, but only a couple as we ended up talking about the Royle Family for ages and how Ralf Little’s aunt was a teacher at my school who pre-Royle Family no one really liked. I’m not even sure she was a blood aunt, she wasn’t very funny.
I left the interview and I thought "f**k I’ve not actually talked about my writing again!!". But Shane and Sarah were both really nice, so I thought I was in with a shot. They said they’d let me know that day. I went home, went on a run, dicked around for a little bit and then I had 90 minutes until decision time. On my brother’s recommendation I watched Horrible Bosses 2. It seemed much worse than the first one, and I’m not sure if it is because it’s just pretty sh*t or because I couldn’t concentrate because I was waiting on getting the news. The email came through ten minutes later and it was an amazing feeling.
I didn’t really know what to expect when I started, but I was looking forward to having my own desk at the BBC, so I could stick it to all the haters who said I’d never make it (like my career’s advisory Mr Ashworth - what up now sir!) Once I got into it though, the novelty of a desk at the BBC quickly wore off, I realised this wasn’t conducive to my best writing (where I talk my lines out) so I started locking myself away in these little private phone pods they have. I think you are only meant to use them for short phone calls, but I would literally write in there all day, only coming out for air, for toilet breaks and lunch. (As a side note lunch at the BBC is great and reasonably priced and shout out to the black chef down there, he brings that flava and his chicken never needs seasoning.)
I gained loads of experience on the bursary, with lots of talks from amazing writers and producers. I also saw lots of great stand up for free (and one awful person, but everyone else seemed to inexplicably like them) and had a tonne of great meetings too with production companies, comedians and comedy writers. Having the BBC name attached helped a lot, and I got to see the hilarious This Country be filmed, be a radio drama judge, be in a writers' room for Newsjack and see a recording of Newsjack too with one of my own jokes read out as part of the show (only to have it cut in the edit).
For me the best thing the bursary does is give you regular money (I’ve been self employed for years and it was strange having a regular pay cheque come in on the same day each month) to be able to dedicate lots of your time to writing and not feel guilty about it. I found this liberating. I was also part of a group who got taught how to make montage videos, which has seriously always been a dream of mine. I made loads of connections including with CBBC who have commissioned a sketch from me for Class Dismissed and Fudge Park who have optioned my sitcom Sick Leave which the BBC have since commissioned. And since the bursary I’ve had lots of meetings with production companies who are now aware of the work and had some freelance work on a Lenny Henry show for BBC Studios as a script supervisor. So far it has been career changing and I hope I continue on an upward trajectory.
The most valuable parts of the bursary I found were the connections I made with BBC Comedy and BBC Studios and understanding how the two are interconnected and the relationships I developed with production companies. Also it was great to see how there’s money to be made in Children’s TV and how important it is for writer performers like myself to film their own work in this day and age. (The only thing I’d change is I think they should have script-editing software on the BBC laptop.)
My advice for anyone applying is first off to do it and secondly I think the best interview prep I did was to watch a sh*t tonne of sitcoms, I watch a lot anyway, but I specifically watched a load before my interviews, ones from all channels, but especially the BBC. Also be honest in your critiques of shows in your application and your interview. You don’t have to like everything the BBC make, I certainly don’t, but I’ll love my show when they make it! So apply, be honest and watch loads of sitcoms, simple, oh and don’t spray yourself with antiperspirant in the BBC lobby, but if you do, do what I did and style it out.
Applications for the Felix Dexter Bursary 2018 close on Monday 30th July at 5pm
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