The Comedy Writing Weekend in Bristol




	Marlon Brando: I could have had class. I could have been a contender. (On the Waterfront)

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Read Paul Bassett Davies's article about how to stop people nicking your ideas.

Read Fenella Greenfield's article on How to Write a Treatment

Comedy Writing Weekend, Bristol

in collaboration with Bristol University
Department of Drama
Saturday 30th and and Sunday 31st May 2009

Lectures about writing are like poems about swimming: they may be inspiring but they don't improve your technique. The only way to learn how to write is by writing.

'Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult.'
(Actor Edmund Keane on his deathbed)

This course isn't fatal but it is hard work. Over the weekend you'll participate in intensive, practical exercises that are designed to develop the basic skills you need to make your material funny in any format or medium you're writing for: film, television, radio, theatre, stand-up, or print.

Working on your own, in pairs and in groups, you'll:

write gags, quickies and sketches;
create and develop comic characters;
discover your own unique comic persona and write a stand-up monologue;
write the outline for the pilot episode of your own original sitcom;
and plunder the best source of comedy material you'll ever find - your own sad, lonely life.Bring pencils, notebooks and a list of everything you hate about your friends and family.

Write Comedy all weekend

SATURDAY

Practice the basic structures behind different joke formats
Discover the dynamics of status in character and relationships
Write comic dialogue for stock characters
Write a topical sketch working from stories in the day's papers
Discover and develop the comic persona you never knew was inside you and use it to write a character monologue

SUNDAY: THE SITCOM DAY

Learn some underlying principles through improvisation and dialogue-writing:

why opposites don't attract, they repulse;
what's so funny about sluts, drunks and losers - use and abuse of stereotypes;
counter-characters and secondary characters;
why everyone isn't equal in great sitcom - status and power dynamics.

Create characters and storylines:

develop a counter-character to bounce off your main character, then use this relationship as the basis of a narrative;
learn how to express character through action and attitude;
learn about themes and subtexts, set-ups and payoffs, twists, shocks and mysteries, visual gags (show, don't tell);
leave the day with the step outline of your own original sitcom.

Whether you're a complete beginner or rusty and needing a work-out, by the end of this weekend you'll have the confidence and the tools to up the humour in your scripts.

Where and When?

DATE:
Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st May
Registration: 10.15am
Workshop: 10.30am to 5pm

VENUE:
Department of Drama:
Theatre, Film and Television
University of Bristol
Cantocks Close
Woodland Road
Bristol
BS8 1UP

PRICE:
£150 (concessions £135)

FURTHER DETAILS FROM:
E-mail: Isobel.pierce@bristol.ac.uk
Telephone: Isobel Pierce on 0117 9545471

Click here for information about the tutors: Paul Bassett Davies and Fenella Greenfield.

Please note, places are strictly limited as you will be writing and reading out your work all weekend.