High concept, low expectations

Posted on | August 21, 2006 | 1 Comment

I have begun work with Messrs. R and W on a sketch show. We’re trying to aim for something different than what seems to be the norm for sketch shows – I hope to avoid middle-brow political humor, the umpteenth “office comedy” concept, and the requisite “musical bit.” This stuff seems to be the stock-in-trade of the Chicago comedy revue, and rather than making a value-judgement, I will say instead that I’m eager to pull inspiration from outside the echo-chamber (yeah, I’ll appropriate the term – take that, political bloggers!).

I came to the table with the general idea of exploring alternate realities – then Nick and Chris figured out how to make that concept funny, which is pretty much what they do. What I love so far about our discussions is that we go pretty far afield – and we seem to be able to loop it all together in the end. We have a very similar concept of humor – and they seem to be able to take my rambling descriptions of meta-structure in stride. I think it will be smashing. Look for sketches about time-travel, the news in a totalitarian future, English murder mysteries, derigibles and – God-willing – Patrick Stewart.

As you can see at their site, Nick and Chris are pretty adept with film and screenwriting, so our thoughts are travelling down those lines in terms of structure (i.e. gimmickry) – copious use of filmed bits inbetween and even on top of live-action stuff. We want to use the screen to tell more of the story, or a different story – it should be intrinsic to the show and not an add-on. Right now, all this is in the idea stage, and it’s generating a lot of great stuff. I anticipate a horrible Icarian crashing-to-earth when we actually need to tech this stuff.

Also in the realm of amazing works of comedic art – my great and good friends from my time abroad are currently running a couple of smash-hit productions in Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe. I have to say their boldly original tomfoolery is inspiring (not to mention their success). The company is The Penny Dreadfuls and the shows are Aeneas Faversham (Victorian sketch comedy) and ShamWagon (long-form improv). Humphrey and Jamie swung through Chicago (and NYC and Boston) a few months back and sampled the city’s wares. In addition to a strange obsession with baseball, I like to think they sucked out a little of the Windy City’s comic heritage and brought it back across the Atlantic. Good luck trying to get that on a plane these days. If you’re in the E-burgh area – go see. If not, lament your loss and cross your fingers that the BBC people who approached them the other day mean business. It would be to all the world’s benefit.

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