Slagg Brothers win a commission.

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The Slagg Brothers would like to thank everyone for the massive support recieved in an online video competition over the Christmas period.

The Slagg Brothers were placed second and won a commission for a series of sketches to be filmed for ComedyBox. ComedyBox is the new online presence of Time Warner and is fronted by John Lloyd, the producer of great shows such as QI, Not the Nine O'Clock News, and Black Adder.

If you want to see the sketch, please visit: http://www.comedybox.tv/topview-10640

Will have more interesting news to report from the comedy duo soon.

Slagg Brothers' Film Noir

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The Slagg Brothers' script for a comedy Film Noir has been accepted and filming will begin at the turn of the year in London. The process from approach by the company to acceptance of the script took five weeks. A fortnight to work out what the client was looking for, a week to plan, a week to write, and a week of redrafts. The keywords for the project were: poetic, erotic, dark, menacing. When we met up with the producers, we were pleased to find that they thought we'd delivered the script on time and fulfilling their expectations.

At present the actors are being cast. Frank Harper (Lock, Stock ... and Football Factory) is to play the lead role and we're hoping that Beth Winslet (Sister of Kate) will play the lead female role.

Will keep you informed of further progress.

Exciting times on Planet Slagg

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An update on my occasional writing pardners, The Slagg Brothers. They've told me that they've made the shortlist for a very prestigious award (more details to follow) and they're currently writing the treatment for a cinema release Film Noir, due out in 2008.

Will let you know at what exact moment everything goes bosoms up for them.

Slaggs placed in Liverpool Comedy Festival.

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Slagg Brothers, my occasional writing partners have been busy the last few months.

Recently securing an agent, they came second in the Liverpool Comedy Festival with a ten-second short called Angry Chaplin. The brief was a silent comedy in less than ten seconds, so the Slaggs wondered how Charlie Chaplin would have dealt with the pesky 1920s paparazzi, and this was the result. You can see it here: Angry Chaplin

There are (hopefully) big moves in the USA for this duo with a large film company expressing interest in one of their screenplays. More on that, later.

Slagg Brothers win Comic Relief Competition. Thanks.

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The Slagg Brothers have apparently won Comic Relief's Red Nose Day competition, run in conjunction with Lycos. I say apparently as the sketch is yet to appear on the websites.

The Slaggies have asked me to pass on their thanks to everyone who voted.

The prize is a presentation in London, but knowing their luck, it'll be downgraded to a free bottle of stout at the local Spar.

Please vote Slagg!

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The Slagg Brothers are vying for one of their sketches to be uploaded to the Comic Relief website but they need your votes and they've asked me for help in publicising their cause.

Please visit:
http://comicrelief.lycos.co.uk/gallery.php?pageNumber=1&id=30
http://comicrelief.lycos.co.uk/gallery.php?pageNumber=1&id=26

and give us 5 stars ... pretty please.

Slagg Brothers' Interview on the BBC

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My part-time associates, The Slagg Brothers, have just had an interview with the BBC. Very (emphasis on the word VERY) minor and well hidden, you'd never stumble on it by accident. You can read the interview here.

They also made pick of the week on the BBC's Comedy Soup page with their fake Dragons' Den pitch: Optimism In A Can

Slagg Brothers' sketches are being featured on TV:Homegrown (Sky 201) on Fridays at 23:00 and repeats in the week. Hope you enjoy.

Visit their website for all the latest video.

Slagg Brothers hit Sky - with a wet splat.

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The Slagg Brothers have been regularly featured on Sky Channel 201 and recently appeared in a Sky1 advert for the show. They aren't getting paid but the coverage is a much needed boost to their confidence.

You can see Flobb the Dogg - their take on the great British sock puppet tradition - in full on their website or Sky 201, Friday 11 pm. Coming soon is a possible interview with Radio Wales. I'll give you more details as they become available.

My PC keyboard died and I'm writing with a cheap rubber keybord, which is really winding me up. The key touch is very poor and the feel of the sticky rubber is bringing my Asperger Syndrome symptoms to the fore today.

Argh!

There's no business like showbusiness ... ?

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But it's not really true. Prostitution springs to mind.

SlagA pointed me to a great interview on www.sitcom.co.uk. The interview reinforced my impression that to get ahead in the biz, you have to have links in the biz.

The interview described a situation where a big TV company funded comedian Lee Mack to write a sitcom, the end result being a series of unrelated gags. The first lesson for budding scriptwriters is that character and their interactions / reactions derive your humour. The producer then called in Andrew Collins (Grass / Eastenders) to give it structure and characterisation. My question would be: Why did a producer fund a project totally deficient in the basic component of all sitcoms - character? They didn't even have a script to start with. The obvious reason is that Lee Mack and Tim Vine are big(gish) names associated with the idea.

Another example is Lead Balloon. I only saw the pilot so can't comment on the rest of the series. If anyone else had sent in that first script it would have been rejected. Bland slow dialogue and amateur revealing of upcoming gags. The best performance was the whispering shop assistant - nicely observed. So what swayed the decision on Lead Balloon getting made? Most likely Jack Dee's name attached to it. I was hoping it was going to be a prophetic title but they got the go-ahead for a new series as the first was still running.

Anyway that's my cynicism excised for the weekend.

Slagg Brothers invade Poland

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Well, not quite but their Charles Kennedy parody song features on Purple Comedy - Episode 14, the second most popular podcast channel on podomatic.com. The Slagg Brothers can't say enough about comedian, John Burns and his lovely assistant, Austin. The Scottish team have produced a huge fan base from scratch in a few months.

Relative mediocrity beckons for the struggling duo, SlagA and SlagB, as the following opportunities have appeared on the horizon, like zulus the fateful morning that Michael Caine uttered his most famous saying: "Sod this. Phone me a taxi, there's going to be a rumble."
1) A production company is now plugging their scripts to UK broadcasters
2) A promising contact with The Puppini Sisters, an as-seen-on-TV 50s retro style trio. They've made several appearances on the Sharon Osbourne Show.
3) Our first scary venture into performance beckons at the Glasgow Comedy Festival in 2007.

Coming soon - Max Boyce: why we should lynch the leek-waving lunatic.

Slagg Brothers are on Podcast

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The Slagg Brothers emailed me. They've joined forces with a fantastic online broadcaster called Purple Comedy. Episode 12 contains a Slagg Brother sketch featuring the trials of being Dan Brown's publisher. Aww, bless. Can't be an easy job. Episode 13 involves a lawyer, a dockland gangster, and a baseball bat. What pleasing juxtoposition that sentence brings to mind.

Run by comedian, John Burns, the Purple Comedy podcast regularly broadcasts to audiences of 1500+. Why not give them a listen, any time, day or night, but be prepared for adult humour.

http://standupcomedy.podomatic.com/

YouTube and the phenomena of Big Brother

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The Slagg Brothers sent me the URL to their new YouTube site - SlaggBros.

YouTube is a marketplace for video / feature makers to get work in front of audiences that would otherwise never see them. But it's hard to spot the creators beneath the heaving mass of videos made by people with a DV camera but nothing to say.

There are thousands of video diaries telling us what was eaten for supper in a desperate Big Brother-style chat. In '48, Orwell wrote of a frightening future where Big Brother watched us all. In a weird reversal, we fear not that Big Brother is watching us, but that he isn't watching. Does this change in social attitude scare you as much as I?

Then there are copyright infringers posting stolen TV clips. YouTube claim to discourage this type of leech but don't give you opportunity to report the abusers. Hmm! Mouth says one thing, while hand does another, eh?

Next come the We-filmed-this-while-drunk brigade. They proudly inform you that the 6 minutes of giggling twitter was ad-libbed. Hmm, as if I couldn't work that out for myself.

Finally, the saddest group are the jerks that put themselves or other people in danger to bring us 'wacky stunts'. Their videos should used as evidence for a court to commit the makers to asylums for the criminally-insane.

If anyone has a YouTube channel and would like to swap subscriptions, please contact the Slagg Brothers at: slaga@hotmail.co.uk

Click here to visit their YouTube channel.

Slagg Brother update

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The Slagg Brothers - Welsh writers of surreal comedy and my occasional co-writers - have emailed me. They've struggled to find a Welsh producer for their work but now have a London independent touting a script to the major terrestrial broadcasters.

Time will tell. The Slaggies are well aware of how difficult it is to break into the business. I will update as, and when, news occurs but we may be in the situation where a Welsh comedy is 'exported' to Wales.

One of my favourite words: Irony. Because I live it every single day.

You can sneak a preview of the script here: Purgatory

The Slagg Brothers main page is at: Slagg Brothers Be prepared for post-watershed humour.

Slagg Brothers' new videos

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My great mates and occasional writing partners, The Slagg Brothers, have just released 3 new video sketches for the BBC's Time Trumpet competition. You can visit their website here. Don't be off-put by their appearance. Apparently they dress like that to dissuade stalkers. You can vote for them on the BBC Comedy Soup website, here. SlagB turns in a fine performance and SlagA's video direction is pretty nifty for a colour blind French man with terminal halitosis.

I hope to bring you news on the lows and lows of their struggle to break into the tightly-knit (dare i say, incestuous?) world of scriptwriting, from a Welsh angle.