Who Will Save The Sitcom? This was the title of a panel event at the Museum of Comedy last night, organised by Dave Cohen, Chair of Writers' Guild of Great Britain's Comedy Committee. Among those who took part were legendary writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, Julia McKenzie (Head of Radio Comedy for BBC Studios) and TV and radio writer James Cary.
James Cary, whose credits include Miranda and Bluestone 42, kicked off proceedings by declaring it was “nonsense” that we don’t want sitcom anymore.
Julia McKenzie agreed, admitting that while some people “slag off sitcom”, there is still an appetite for the genre, and if you find the right sitcom and the right characters there is no other artform “that elicits love and affection” in the same way. She pointed to various itcoms in production this year, including Life on Egg, written by Dan Maier and starring Harry Hill.
New Statesman co- writer Laurence Marks gave the audience an insight into the changing face of the genre during his career with Maurice Gran. Shine On Harvey Moon, their second hit show, “launched us into the stratosphere. Maurice and I had a maxim… that we must be thinking about our next show while writing the current one.”
Gran added that the snobbery around audience sitcoms was an obstacle that needed to be overcome. “A very fine fellow writer said, ‘if it’s good enough for Frasier, it should be good enough for us’ … I realise it’s quite a big ask, but the first step is to believe it’s worth doing, and we do.”
Marks said that an audience gives you “immediate feedback… it’s a real test… You don’t control laughter, it’s either going to make an audience laugh or not… TV comedy is a theatrical not a filmic experience.”
Getting that feedback is also possible for writers who are just starting out, he added. Before you send your script to a broadcaster you should “get mates round and read it.”
Laurence Marks argued that there were too many people involved in the sitcom process. Perhaps the writers know best. He recalled being at meetings packed with so many people round the table that “the intros were longer than the piece you were going to read”. The best shows come when there is trust in the writers, producer and director. “When someone had an idea and someone was allowed to develop that idea… [John] Cleese and [Connie] Booth knew what they wanted to do [with Fawlty Towers]” and “didn’t need someone from the Fourth Floor coming down” to tell them.
Read a full report of the event here.
Picture of Marks (right) and Gran (left) by Em Fitzgerald.
