Shazia Ashraf is a writer and director who, after not seeing enough work around for BAME communities, founded My Big Phat Writers Group (@mbpwg) a group that supports BAME scripts.
Shazia joined us for our BBC Writersroom at Salford Sitcom Showcase 2015 sessions, where she live tweeted from the event using the @mbpwg account.
So here’s a joke.
What travels on railway tracks and goes moo?
A cow!
What do you mean that wasn't funny? It's hilarious!
Well it is when several attendees arrived late due to cattle on the tracks.
And that's how the Salford Sitcom Showcase 2015 started! Hurrah!
First day, first session and it was all about developing characters for sitcom, led by Development Producer for BBC Writersroom, Joanna Blake. Very much a practical workshop where archetypes were identified; the lovable loser, the logistical one, the neurotic, stupid one, the bastard, the horny one and so on. I found myself playing a game in my mind and going through every sitcom I ever watched in all my sixteen years on earth and ticked each character off against the list, even well after the session came to an end.
The second session for the day was Online Comedy for the Digital Generation, with words from Suzy Grant (BBC Comedy), Ben Thomson (BBC Academy) and Youtuber Mawaan Rizwan. Each had something very different and important to say. Suzy spoke of the short form content and the relationships you have to build. Ben spoke of the increasing number of online contributors and Mawaan about his experience and journey so far.
Talk about The Last Hours of Laura K* obviously crept in. If you’ve not heard about it, where have you been?! You need to go find out about it right now! (Or after you’ve read the rest of the blog) It was one of those things I've been hearing about a lot lately, but just didn’t get, until the session, when I had a 'ta-dah!' moment. Bit of a late reaction from me but “It’s brilliant!!” It gives you so much more power and time. It was something I wanted to check out as soon as I got home, now I’m making the time in my schedule to play detective. Check it out on www.thelasthoursoflaurak.com
You clicked the link before you read all the blog didn’t you? Admit it.
A question that I pondered over and never got to ask during the session was of the timescale. There were evident suggestions that relationships are made, the work is developed then produced. What’s great about someone like Mawaan is that he cut out the middle man. He had an idea, he wrote, directed, performed, filmed and edited it by the end of the week you had something fresh, raw and current. Having to build your portfolio/CV, making the relationships, discussing the ideas, developing narratives, having readings, so on and so on!!....yawn, excuse me I’m already exhausted.
Yes. Where was I?
...You’ve come somewhat down the line of that first initial spark of an idea. From the enduring process, how outdated will it look and feel once it’s ready?
A treat before the final session was watching a dress rehearsal of a new sitcom Barbara Nice, which dealt with the very contemporary issue of women of a certain age continuing to work as their husbands retired. It used brilliant footage from Barbara’s interaction with the public discussing topics of concern for her. It was sharp, witty and oh so British Sitcom. If Edina Monsoon from AbFab didn’t go into fashion and worked in a small town, she’d probably work in a community centre and be Barbara Nice. Probably. In my head I was still playing the game from the first session and ticking off the archetypes in Barbara Nice.
The final session was about moving from Radio to TV with Executive Producer of BBC Comedy Scotland Steven Canny. Radio gets sold to people left, right and centre. I can clearly see the benefits.
Less time.
Less budget.
Less risk.
Trying out material this way is great; however this is from a totally personal perspective. I think and write visually- radio for that reason has never been much of a friend. I've pondered whether I have to retrain myself to listen and write radio first, to get a better chance at seeing something on TV. However the session did make me think and question myself. A clip we heard of Start/Stop was replayed when it was made for TV and shockingly I enjoyed the Radio version better. Not sure if that was because I could create the image, or because I did create an image and the TV clashed with that vision.
So came the end of the day.
Such events are either mind numbingly bad you want to stick a fork in your eyes or full of speakers who stand before you like pretentious Gods, telling you how amazing they are. You’ll be glad to know this event was far from either description. It was just about being honest to the face about what can and can’t be achieved. Such events should leave you motivated and think about your own work. It definitely did that.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have an old sitcom script to pull out and polish up.
*’The Last hours of Laura K’ is NOT a sitcom.
