I have just been writing the three little pigs sketch. I’ve been finding it quite difficult to decide how to do it but after much consideration I came to an idea. Basically the wolf attempts to be like the wolf in the story but monstrously fails. It turns out the pig he’s trying to eat is a friend of his. He invites wolf in for drink and has a chat about his life and why he’s such an appalling wolf. Pig encourages him to have another go and then ridicules him when wolf threatens to blow his house down, going on about how absurdly impossible that would be and then the wolf dies through exhaustion in attempting to exhale down a house. It could end with instead of seeing the wolf’s body a projection of a newspaper front page describing the details of his death. Either this or instead of him dying he could storm off in frustration with the pig(Peter)’s unhelpfulness only to be told by pig that their houses are made of sticks and bricks and that it wouldn’t be a good idea. However I haven’t developed this alternate ending yet, I shall see whether I can find a way to make it work.

I have also written another sketch, the idea for which was completely new and off the top of my head. Well not completely off the top of my head, I kind of thought I wanted to write a sketch involving a murder mystery or detective of some sorts and then thought about how they often end with the detective going on a long rant revealing the parts each person played in the murder (Poirot for example). With this in mind I tried to think of a way that he could be making the speech but then find out he’s in the wrong house or something along those lines. I then thought as I was planning stuff out that he could be doing all his crazy detective stuff and then we find out at the end that he’s in an alcoholics anonymous group. This ending could be many more things e.g. we find out that he’s being interviewed on the news or is on match of the day but the revelation of this fact is only a short ending snippet of the sketch so it could be edited and changed quite a lot, it wouldn’t really matter.

On another matter, I have just realised that I haven’t really been doing much reading over this holidays but to be honest when I do read stuff (apart from earlier background reading) I find it isn’t that helpful at this stage and so I’ve just tried to concentrate on writing material. Considering that the deadline has been moved forwards as well I think this would be the best course of action. I am watching sketches on line just for inspiration on vague topics I could do the sketches on. (Not to copy them obviously).

That’s all for now, i’m going to try and do a bit more writing. Toodles

Aforementioned books acquired - commence reading

I have asked the librarian to order in some books: 1) Comic Relief: a comprehensive philosophy of humour 2) you’ve got to be kidding: how jokes can help you think. I think the first one will be particularly helpful to give some perspective on the key structures and ideology of humour - it could possibly help me to focus on specific areas in my writing. Hopefully they will have been ordered but i will inquire further as to the state of that particular scenario. I have also emailed Oliver Mann, the head of the Oxford Revue to ask for a meeting perhaps or just some advice. Him being an experienced sketch show performer i think this would be massively useful in terms of advice on how to write, stage and perform sketch comedy.

Had a tutorial with Dr Methven on the thursay before half term which was good and productive. We discussed various matters of importance mainly focused on the practicalities of writing and directing i.e. i should write the sketches keeping a group of actors in mind who will collectively be in all the sketches. This makes casting and rehearsals alot easier as i will already have the right actors for the right parts - the role will be written (vaguely) around the actor. We also talked about using a variety of different size, shape characteristics etc of characters within the sketches just to purely make them better and more interesting and funny.

He also recommended some reading and listening for me: Radio - goons, pete and dudd, derek and clyde (apparently very explicit, this should be interesting)   Books - Comic Relief, a comprehensive philosophy of humour and You’ve got to be kidding, how jokes can help you think

Here is the aforementioned outline plan:

From now until end of term (26^th March):

-         Aim is to have written all the stage sketches by this point. The sketches I have so far are: 3 little pigs spoof which will be in 3 separated parts for each different house (4 principal characters), language oral examination (2 characters), the invention of the penny farthing (currently 2 characters, both inventors), the life and times of a specific voice over character (possibly David Attenborough). Because the process of finding ideas for sketches is very continuous and cannot be done all at once I will add to the list I have now as I think of more potential sketches.

Over trinity term:

-         In this term I will write the scripts for the film sketches. These will include: a     period drama spoof, an advert spoof of some sort, an antiques roadshow spoof in which a spectator continuously corrects a failing expert. As before the ideas for these films will be ongoing in their creation and development and I will think of more ideas over the Easter holidays.

-         I will also write the audio script which will be a clip that is played in stages across the whole show. Currently the audio clip will be of a radio show where the 2 presenters will be heard on and off air, getting up to various shenanigans.

-         Cast planning:

-         Casting will take place at the beginning of September

-         For the theatre sketches the cast will be Magdalen students that will be auditioned unless someone is particularly obvious for a certain character

-         For the TV./audio sketches I won’t hold auditions as will be a lot easier to simply choose people who would be good for the parts.

The end project will be the scripts themselves and I will put on the show some time next year, I was originally planning to do the show this summer but realised It would be far too rushed and of a lower quality.

I have completed my bibliographic essay and outline plan and am currently pleased with the overall state of things. I have some ideas for theatre sketches which i am in the progress of developing such as a spoof of the three little pigs. I don’t know every single piece i will write yet because it is all very ongoing and i am always going to think of new ideas but i have enough to working on for the moment. I have decided to revert away from having everything complaeted by the summer because i realised it would be rather impossible to have everything written, rehearsed and performed within this year. Therefore i have decided to write all the script material by the end of the year giving me sufficient time to produce the best possible material and also to plan, rehearse, produce etc. all the stuff. I also realised that the production of film and audio clips will take alot more time than i expected and i will need to obtain all the necessary equipment for filming etc to ensure that they are of a good quality and not too “home movie”-ish. i.e. i need a good quality microphone to attatch to my camcorder and a microphone for the audio clips (i could ask mr. Anthony/Simon about the mic he uses for the 155 recordings and the best way to record good quality sound clips). I also would like to get hold of a green screen and the associated software to add possible effects to the video clips. To do this i’ll probably need some guidance so an investment into a book of some sort on how to make and edit movies would be good. This however is not a massively necessary thing to look into right now but when  i have written everything and am ready to start thinking about producing the show.

As for now - i will work on writing some material with the help of the books i have on theatre production that i looked at earlier in the year. Fare thee well bonnie prithee maidens of wither forsoothing henceforthednesses.

Bibliographic essay and plan thingy done, the plan is in my journal but i’ll try and transpose it onto here at some point soon

I recently remembered a section from the guide to making theatre about stanislavsky and so decided to check him out in the library and i found a book entitled: Stanislavsky On the art of stage which i will try to read to get yet more tips and advice on how to make/do theatre etc