Channel 4 Workshop for Sitcom Competition Finalists

The Actors Kick Back

Shaun Prendergast

"What's really annoying, when you get a script is when the character says something stupid for no other reason then getting a cheap gag. [There should be a] logic to the comedy which furthers the narrative.

"What you want to know is their nature, if they're righteous, courageous, if they're easily led or whatever. As William Goldman said in... `don't say your character is 6ft tall, 60 years old, do say he's courageous'. Otherwise a 5'10" character says I can't play the hero.

"Sitcom is about situations and situations have got to be there at the front. So many people write loads of gags but there's no situation, there's no defining, unifying universe in terms of characters. And that's the other thing you look for when you look at a script - what's the set?

"If you look at the great sitcoms they're institution based - where is your world? Define that, really precisely, that's where you're gonna go right. The thing is the hierarchy, which character has the most power and very often the traditional sitcom premise is that people in charge are idiots.

"[There is comedy which doesn't work because] the audience is thinking `that's not what would happen'. It doesn't mean you can't have farce or extraordinary situations, it's got to be a convincing premise, it's got to be believable."

Francesca Hunt

"It's nice when you get a script and there's - not reams and reams - just a couple of lines summing up what the writer had in mind. That can be very handy - it can really help you because you can go so completely the opposite way to what the writer intended.

"The one thing that I've come across is a writer who I think is probably more of a literary writer; writing things which were funny to look at, funny to read and not funny to speak. And there's a big gap between the two. It's something that would have been brilliant in a novel - coming across it as a gag, but it just didn't work if you were speaking it. And I think there's a big difference between the two."

1: Meet the Writers: Paul Mayhew Archer
2: Meet the Writers: Jenny Lecoat
3: The Actors Kick Back
4: Working with Comedy Producers
5: Meet the Commissioners