The key to a comedy career...
LCWF: Robert Popper's unusual tip
LONDON COMEDY WRITERS' FESTIVAL: The key to getting into comedy: be persistent but don't be a pest. Robert Popper has revealed he bombarded Steve Coogan with eye-catching envelopes and spoof CVs before getting a break.
Speaking at the London Comedy Writers’ Festival, the writer said he wrote letters to Coogan as Alan Partridge and took the liberty of imagining the Radio Norwich DJ's response.
‘I thought it would show him I could write in his voice,’ he explained, ‘and I sent it in a gold envelope.’
He followed it up with a CV peppered with evidently false statements. Popper agreed it was a risky approach but after a few months of correspondence sent in gold envelopes, Coogan called and invited him to submit some proper material.
Popper cut his teeth working as assistant to Peter Richardson - creator of The Comic Strip - before 'ending up' as comedy commissioner for Channel 4. He has since worked on shows including Look Around You, Peep Show, The IT Crowd and South Park.
His first sitcom, Channel 4's Friday Night Dinner, starring Simon Bird and Tamsin Greig, has just been commissioned for a second series. But he admitted it took 'four years of trying' to get the show on air in the first place - sobering news for writers with lesser pedigrees.
It is crucial for writers to be able to accept criticism if they are to develop, he explained, adding: ‘I've had feedback I didn't want to hear or didn't agree with, but getting someone else's response is always going to help you if you're big enough to deal with it.’
A former solicitor who gave up his job to pursue a comedy career, Issac said he had also learned to be willing to work for nothing and to keep writing short and punchy. But the golden rule, he said, is to follow every lead: ‘You just never know where it will take you.’
Want to get your script read? Then put your name on it. TV producer John Griffin, whose credits include Shameless and Skins said that missing names was one of his biggest turn-offs when trawling through submissions.
‘They come through on email, I print them out, and when I come to read them, there's no name on the script. I then have to go back and try to identify who sent it. It drives me mad.’
Speaking at a lecture on the business of comedy, Griffin also advised writers to get to the nub of the situation as quickly as possible. ‘Don't spend hours setting everything up, just get in there and get to what you really want to write about’, he said.
‘Only submit one episode (if producers like it, there will be a phone call asking for more) and keep the covering synopsis as short as possible. You should be able to sum up what it's about in one sentence.’
Above all, he urged writers not to send anything until they were sure it was as good as it could be. As the old cliche goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Published: 11 Apr 2011
