Comedy Writing - Introduction

What will I learn?

This course will give you the skills needed to write two-minute sketches, the building blocks of comedy. You will discover valuable techniques in creating a flow of creative ideas and learn how to structure a sketch. You’ll explore ways of creating vivid, funny characters and writing sharp comic dialogue. There will also be advice on finding markets. Please note the Introduction to Comedy Writing on 1st March takes place at Hillcroft in Surbiton. You will find inspiration and encouragement to begin to write the shorter forms of comedy by which most writers get their first breaks. First. you will learn how to brainstorm ideas for material and how to convert them into sketches and gags which work. You will find out about reversals, juxtaposition and exaggeration and other essential weapons in the comedy writer’s arsenal. There will be hands-on work on dialogue, structure and characterisation as you build up a portfolio of work. We will also cover character comedy, which gives you invaluable skills to take forward into writing sitcoms. There will be video and audio clips of classic and contemporary comedy, discussions, and analysis of scripts.