The Sitcom Mission

Do you all know about The Sitcom Mission?

Yes. Yes. You do. Yes. You too. No? Jenkins, you do disappoint me. If only there were some promotional blurb explaining what– oh, there’s some!

Formed in 2008 by producers Declan Hill and Simon Wright as a launchpad for writers, actors and directors entering the sitcom world, The Sitcom Mission takes situation comedy back to its roots – live theatre.

Ever watched a new sitcom and thought: ‘I could do better’? Well, now’s your chance to prove it.The Sitcom Mission seeks out the best 15 minutes of original comedy that can be staged live. We want exciting, original characters with an individual voice and a plot that draws people in. Writing’s hard (certainly harder than shouting at the television) but it’s incredibly rewarding.

The 2010 and 2011 contests have been judged by top comedy executives from all the leading broadcasters. In 2011, over 1,200 scripts went through the judging process, with Abigail Dooley and Emma Edwards’ What’s Next? winning a commission from Hat Trick Productions.

Now in its third year, The Sitcom Mission is in partnership with Hat Trick Productions, the award-winning independent production company behind such programmes as Outnumbered, Have I Got News For You, Father Ted and Episodes. The prize for the 2012 contest is a £5000 script commission from Hat Trick.

There were about 400 entries this year, 32 of which were chosen for the longlist, 16 of those go on to the live quarter-finals and … well, one of those sixteen is me.

Which is very nice.

The full list of quarter-finalists is:

April 5

Also-Rans – Declan Taaffe & Chris Jeal
Keep Off The Grass – Sarah Christou
Non Stop Drop – Simon Mackness
Cold Front – Daniel Austin

April 12

Urban Guerrillas – Nathan Robinson
Help Yourself – Natalie Johnson
Medicine To Follow – Stephen Keyworth & Mark Clompus
Julian and Declan – Phillip Barron

April 19

The Staff – Emma Cochrane
Dying For A Happy Ending – Tracey McKoy
Wolf Country – Christopher Allsop & Stuart Gidden
Doing It For The Kids – Ian Clarke

April 26

Sparky’s – Tom Kirk & Stephen Davison
Two Vagazzles – Kate Wilson
Fall From Grace – Eoin Carney
Yo Valet – Snez Naik

I’ve put myself in red because that’s the kind of guy I am.

The Quarter-finals are being held at the Union Tavern, show starts at 19.30. I will be there, if anyone fancies coming along it would be lovely to see you. Tickets are £5 each and can be booked by emailing info@sitcommission.com, bought here or (if there are any left) bought on the door.

And if you think the title of my entry sounds familiar, it’s probably either because I’ve banging on for years about a feature script of the same title, one of the first things I ever wrote which has been optioned many times but never really gone anywhere; or because you’ve been reading this blog for a while and remember me dicking around with Xtranormal: