This comedy-writing lark's a very serious business

May 7 2010 by The Journal

Steve Chambers, senior lecturer (script), on Northumbria University’s MA in Creative Writing, abolishes the idea of the working writer in his ivory tower.

LAST evening at 4.45pm, I received an email from a producer about a pitch to re-commission a comedy drama serial for BBC Radio 4

The commissioning editor was a fan but our producer felt we needed a two-minute opening scene which encapsulated the drama, like the boulder rolling down the hill at the start of Sexy Beast or the scene in Bringing Up Baby where Shirley Maclaine pinches the baby to make sure it’s still alive and starts it crying.

She wanted it as soon as possible, first thing this morning and ended the email with “so no pressure xx”. The complicating factor is that I write this comedy drama with a co-writer and I had to call him and we spent the evening attempting to dovetail our home commitments with snatched phone calls and emails and by 10.30pm we had something which we liked. Having slept on the idea, we spoke early this morning and off the idea went.

That’s how it goes writing drama – weeks, months of inactivity followed by a frantic rush and then back to the quiet again.

Tomorrow I’m off to London for an in-depth notes session on the first draft of five 15-minute episodes of a Middlesbrough-set psychological drama for the Women’s Hour drama slot about the strain on a new marriage against the backdrop of a series of prostitute murders.

After rewrites, this will be cast and recorded in July for broadcast in September.

A complication with this idea is that I have to re-edit it into a one-hour, one-off drama.

Later this year, I am on sabbatical when I intend to write a film based on a short story – a black comedy about a teacher having a breakdown and seeing spaceships. On it goes.