The London Comedy Writer’s Festival has announced the full schedule for the event next weekend, and at last we can confirm what involvement TVO’s favourites will have!

The main draw if you want to learn from our regulars will be Sunday’s schedule, which features a session with Alice Lowe and Jacqueline Wright entitled Shortcuts To Screenwriting.  This will allow the Jackal Films duo to share some of the secrets which got them through the grueling but rewarding Calendar project last year – in which they wrote, filmed and edited a short film every month with hilarious results.

Also on the Sunday is a very exciting opportunity indeed: a chance to take part in collaborative projects with a number of comics, including our very own Colin Hoult!  First is a session on Collaborating With Performers, and this is followed by a Topical Sketch Workshop: a practical session involving a chance to brainstorm ideas and write your own sketch, which will be performed at the end of the session.  For this, Colin will be joined by the talented Sarah Pascoe [Free Agents, The Thick Of It] and Max Dickins [Dregs].

To make this even more enticing – if promising material is created, the head of the London Festival Fringe, Greg Tallent, will be on hand to help develop and produce your work and possibly include it in a show for the London Fringe in July!

The TVO links don’t end there, either.  Saturday’s schedule will feature a talk from Jessica Hynes & Stephen Mangan sharing their comic writing and acting tips whilst Robert Popper will be teaching you what they don’t teach you at Comedy Writing School.

BBC Comedy director Natalie Bailey [Time Trumpet, Dick And Dom’s Funny Business, BBC Comedy Online] will be on hand to help explain how to write for the biggest possible audience, and one of the people responsible for getting The Mighty Boosh onto our tv screens in 2004, Lucy Lumsden is also on hand to discuss comedy drama alongside veteran producer Jon Plowman.  Lumsden is now Head of Comedy at Sky, which makes her responsible for the recent Little Crackers series and the comissioning of forthcoming cult sketch show This Is Jinsey which is set to feature Alice Lowe – so its fair to say she’s on our side when it comes to appreciating great comedy!

Finally, IT Crowd writer and script-editor Andrew Ellard is moderating a discussion with Red Dwarf co-creator Doug Naylor about the decisions facing writers looking to make a pilot of their concept – and when all of this is factored into the numerous other discussions, networking opportunities and practical workshops on offer, the LCWF is looking more exciting than ever!

You can see the full schedule on the LCWF website, which also lets you buy tickets for the festival.

As mentioned recently, the organizers of this incredible event have very kindly offered us a special ticket offer for any of our readers who fancy going along.

Tickets for the entire weekend usually cost £149, but TVO is able to offer you a £25discount, AND the LCWF team will very kindly donate £5 to Comic Relief for every ticket we sell!

To purchase tickets with our discount attached, visit their official website and enter the promotional code:

VelvetOnion

The festival promises to be a great event, and we’ll hopefully be bringing you further coverage of our TVO flavoured acts involved in the run-up to the weekend.  If any of our peelers take up this fantastic offer, please contact us as we’d love to hear from you!

For the full list of speakers, see this earlier peeling.