Six white Oxbridge blokes

[zomgmouse]

It's all well and good to say "just keep on making work" but it's very demoralising and demotivating when you do keep on making work and it goes nowhere slowly. It makes it harder to keep making work. And obviously it's meant to be about the joy of making the work and not of making it with your work but it does feel a bit like trying to make a void laugh. And eventually you stop wanting to keep trying. But anyway fuck it, I've just written another short script. Have at me, void.

[gloria]

I admire your positivity, gloria, but (unless you're loaded) I'd love to know where you can put on any play in a room above a pub for 'next to fuck-all' especially if you're expecting to get bums on seats?

A few years ago I had a play on at the Kings Arms in Salford as part of their free theatre festival. You got the theatre space free and rather than charge for tickets, you split after-show donations 50/50 with the venue. I paid a smidgen for a few posters to be printed (most publicity we did online) and a couple of props but, although we were only on for a couple of nights, we still made enough to pay cast and crew.Many towns and cities have thriving fringe theatre scenes. I'd recommend getting involved. Most of my writing these days is prose but I love doing a play every now and again because I really enjoy the fun and teamwork of putting on a show.

[Brundle-Fly]

Fair enough, if that's the case in Salford but in London, it's a little more expensive to put on stuff. I'm talking about putting on a play with a set, props, costumes, where you're going to need a technician, stage manager, rent rehearsal space, promote the thing. It's hard (because you have to wear so many hats) and costly unless you have a backer. Then, you have to get the punters in and that is not easy when you're competing with so many other shows/ nightly entertainment in the Capital.

[gloria]

Fair enough, if that's the case in Salford but in London, it's a little more expensive to put on stuff. I'm talking about putting on a play with a set, props, costumes, where you're going to need a technician, stage manager, rent rehearsal space, promote the thing. It's hard (because you have to wear so many hats) and costly unless you have a backer. Then, you have to get the punters in and that is not easy when you're competing with so many other shows/ nightly entertainment in the Capital.

If you've got no money why are you mounting such a large scale production? Of course it'll be expensive if you need sets built, a full advertising campaign, etc, etc. If you want to get noticed as a writer and you don't have deep pockets, you need to put on small scale self-produced stuff. It's the quality of your writing you want people to notice, not the scenery. (And I've seen shitloads of brilliant theatre that takes place in a black box set with no scenery at all). And if you insist on top-notch production values, why not raise the funds yourself? Student drama clubs do it all the time.

[gloria]

Also (and this is aimed at no one in particular), stop pissing about moaning on the bloody Internet about how impossible it is to do things and how no one recognises your genius and start finding out what you need to actually DO to succeed. You don't need to to be rich or well-connected (although inevitably, they help). You just need the chutzpah. Be positive. Delete your bookmark to CaB and every time you'd reflexively come here to gripe, do something positive to advance your own comedy career instead.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Finding out you're not as great as you thought you were is tough and a lot of people would rather hold on to a fantasy and rationalise their way out of trying.

[gloria]

Finding out you're not as great as you thought you were is tough and a lot of people would rather hold on to a fantasy and rationalise their way out of trying.

There's definitely truth to this. What's also true is that there are loads of people out there with real talent who never capitalise on it because, for whatever reason, they lack the ancillary attributes - confidence, people skills, positivity, self-motivation, determination, etc - that success requires. An actress friend used to complain that her peers at acting school were 'pushy' because they would introduce themselves to directors and other industry people at parties and get work out of it. Well, duh. This doesn't mean you have to be an own-trumpet-blowing bore, but, to paraphrase Blackadder, it's OK to at least let people know that you have a trumpet.

[Brundle-Fly]

Also (and this is aimed at no one in particular), stop pissing about moaning on the bloody Internet about how impossible it is to do things and how no one recognises your genius and start finding out what you need to actually DO to succeed. You don't need to to be rich or well-connected (although inevitably, they help). You just need the chutzpah. Be positive. Delete your bookmark to CaB and every time you'd reflexively come here to gripe, do something positive to advance your own comedy career instead.

I agree with all this. As an old comedy internet messageboard poster once said to me years ago, "I'm off that place now. I don't want to be a passenger on this train anymore, I want to be the engine driver." He is now a very successful comedy writer for TV and radio.

Regards to the 'full scale play' thing . I think we weren't on the same page with the sort of productions being discussed.

[gilbertharding]

The only thing I'm clinging to is the chance that John Cleese's SPECTACULAR point missing all over twitter about this is itself supposed to be funny - a character - and the absolute shower of sycophantic wankers in his replies are the butt of the joke.

I doubt it though. Cleese hasn't been funny since 1986.

[Revelator]

I doubt it though. Cleese hasn't been funny since 1986.

Oh dear, even A Fish Called Wanda failed to satisfy your rarified palette? I also liked Fierce Creatures and So, Anyway. The best of his stage appearances and cameos could also be collected for the defense. And what point is he missing on twitter?

[EOLAN]

Has anyone yet mentioned that Terry Gilliam didn't go to Oxbridge?

[Ignatius_S]

Has anyone yet mentioned that Terry Gilliam didn't go to Oxbridge?

Yes, more than a few - Shane Allen also mentioned his blog post, which responded to the negative reporting of his comments, that he was aware of it.

[Ignatius_S]

The only thing I'm clinging to is the chance that John Cleese's SPECTACULAR point missing all over twitter about this is itself supposed to be funny - a character - and the absolute shower of sycophantic wankers in his replies are the butt of the joke.

I doubt it though. Cleese hasn't been funny since 1986.

I don't know about the last point - in the recent Hold The Sunset sitcom, I thought Cleese was very entertaining (although Anne Reid and James Cosmo were the real standouts for me).

However, I have found his Twitter comments about what Allen said to be very depressing - appears that he's taking what certain media outlets, like the Mail, are saying at face value. Given what the Mail reports about Cleese, I would have been less inclined to take what they say as fact, but what do I know?

[gloria]

Lads. On the basis of jokes she wrote on Twitter, Megan Amran was asked to contribute gags for the Oscars ceremony. She's now a staff writer on The Simpsons. So there you go. All you need is access to the Internet and the ability to write gags. Off you go...

[Brundle-Fly]

But it's all white Oxbridge blokes that post on here. Please advise.

[zomgmouse]

Lads. On the basis of jokes she wrote on Twitter, Megan Amran was asked to contribute gags for the Oscars ceremony. She's now a staff writer on The Simpsons. So there you go. All you need is access to the Internet and the ability to write gags. Off you go...

The thing is... you keep singling out the success stories. What about the millions of Twitter accounts who keep writing joke after joke to no avail? What about the people who put on show after show in a pub to no avail? Surely there's other ways.

I'm not saying perseverance is bad because you definitely get nowhere without hard work, but there's got to be more to it than just "Just do it"ness.

[Brundle-Fly]

Like with any opportunity, there is a lot of luck involved but you have to make 'luck' happen by putting stuff out there so it has a chance of finding you.  Also sometimes knowing someone in the business or someone who knows someone in the business considerably helps.

Planets have to align. Even if you do hit the jackpot, you then have to try and sustain it. And do not be under any allusion that the business of comedy is fair.

"How yer diddlin'?"

[The Boston Crab]

I'm white, went to Oxford, dead funny, and a man, but I have no interest in being a professional comedian because I don't thirst for the adulation and laughter of strangers.

Except on this forum for the last fifteen years.

[Replies From View]

Would an edgy evening sketch show look out of place on BBC1 or BBC2 these days? They're more likely to send a comic and his mum on a travel show.

I understand there's Tracey Breaks the News, I haven't seen it but I'm guessing its shit. From the still images it looks like a decently budgeted show that's as MOR as fuck. But its got a glossy look that dullards in the home counties might mistake for sophistication.

MOR?

[Twed]

Tracy Beaker?

[Replies From View]

For me, sketch shows felt they were coming to a natural end with The Fast Show.  By the final series or so, their sketches were no longer about building up towards the joke; they were distilled fragments and echoes of previous sketches that in themselves were stripped of context.  A family runs along a train platform holding an enormous amount of luggage, and the dad at the front of the rush yells "come on!"  And that's it.  It takes about three seconds, and we're onto the next sketch.  It felt like The Fast Show was deliberately and definitively putting the coffin nails into the sketch show format as it had existed up to then, so future creative folk would need to work harder to not be simply moving backwards.

Then along came Little Britain and I couldn't believe it.  The Fast Show had seemingly achieved fuck all.

[Replies From View]

I agree with all this. As an old comedy internet messageboard poster once said to me years ago, "I'm off that place now. I don't want to be a passenger on this train anymore, I want to be the engine driver." He is now a very successful comedy writer for TV and radio.

What a shame.  I hope one day he realises his dream of becoming a train driver.

[BritishHobo]

For the funniest people evar, the Pythons really are being fucking humourless about this. I mean look at this from Gilliam:

"It made me cry: the idea that ... no longer six white Oxbridge men can make a comedy show.

Oh boo hoo. Some people from different backgrounds get to make comedy now, it truly is the death of civilisation.

Anycunt whining because people have prodded at them for having an Oxbridge education is a ludicrous tosspot. Get a thicker skin you hypocrites.

[Twed]

Oh boo hoo. Some people from different backgrounds get to make comedy now, it truly is the death of civilisation.

I don't think that's what it is. I doubt they care about other groups getting in, they just resent their group being attacked based on identity.

They're wrong and stupid and quite why they would sit down at the end of their rich lives and say this is beyond me, but I think we should criticize them accurately.

[gloria]

but there's got to be more to it than just "Just do it"ness.

Why?

[Revelator]

I think what the Pythons resent is BBC management saying it would reject Python outright because of its members' background--and this probably rankled even more because of the Pythons' never-comfortable relationship with the organization's higher-ups (as Cleese tweeted, many of them vocally disliked the show back in the old days too). Had the dolt who started all this merely said the organization was trying to promote more diversity and that an all-white, all-Oxbridge sketch show would be rendered unusual or less likely thanks to this approach, this brouhaha would never have occurred.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

I agree with all this. As an old comedy internet messageboard poster once said to me years ago, "I'm off that place now. I don't want to be a passenger on this train anymore, I want to be the engine driver." He is now a very successful comedy writer for TV and radio.

Morris or Hazeley?

[bgmnts]

Monty Python are ace regardless of their relative privileges.

[Mister Six]

I think for a fair amount of time sketch comedy was seen as a natural way in to comedy for young up and comers (/oxbridge graduates) in a way that just isn't true anymore.

Back in 2007 a pal and I submitted a sitcom script to the BBC Writers' Workshop and got a reply saying they weren't interested in an animated show for budgetary reasons or one set in America for British reasons, but we could go along to some free sketch-writing classes they were hosting. So yeah, that was the impression they were giving back in the day. Don't know if it's the same now though.

(I had just pissed off to another country when the letter came through and my pal was caught up in some personal stuff so we didn't avail ourselves of the offer. We could have been the next Corden and Horne! Except we'd both have been Matthew Horne.)

[thenoise]

I think what the Pythons resent is BBC management saying it would reject Python outright because of its members' background--and this probably rankled even more because of the Pythons' never-comfortable relationship with the organization's higher-ups (as Cleese tweeted, many of them vocally disliked the show back in the old days too). Had the dolt who started all this merely said the organization was trying to promote more diversity and that an all-white, all-Oxbridge sketch show would be rendered unusual or less likely thanks to this approach, this brouhaha would never have occurred.

If Python were greenlit today, I would make them have a black guy in the background of every sketch, and that blonde bimbo would have to have a few more lines. Oh and they wouldn't be able to call that progressive trans* character 'Mrs Niggerbaiter' either.