Danielle Krage:

Today I have the fabulous Lucy Lumsden with me. Lucy was the first Controller of Comedy Commissioning for the BBC. And then she was also head of Sky Comedy for six years. And now she continues to contribute so much to comedy as a mentor, as a director, and with her own production company, Yellow Door Productions. So there’s so much I want to dig into today. But before we start Lucy, is there anything you want to add about you and your work that people should know?

Lucy:

Hmm, no, I guess I’m glad you mentioned mentor because that’s a big part of what I like to do. I guess I came to the production side later in life, so I’ve probably done my career back to front and so I kind of thought yeah I’ve probably got quite a lot to give. So I was a sort of startup, but a grown-up startup. So yeah, topsy-turvy

Danielle Krage:

I love that. But it means you’ve got so many great perspectives. And just as a fun starting place, I wanted to ask you first about your production company. It’s called Yellow Door Productions. And I just thought that was such a lovely image. I wondered if there was anything behind the name…why you picked it.

Lucy:

Oh gosh, I mean, you know, I just, I had a long stint in corporate life and then kind of quit when just when people think, oh, you should be sort of settling down. I kind of did the opposite and walked out of that job and I suppose doors opening and closing felt like a thing. And then also I, I wanted to feel like I was bridging a gap. And so my little logo has got a door open to it. Particularly the international markets, that’s something that still interests me. So feeling that you could pass from one thing to another, I don’t know. And then if you look close, there’s a little smile on my letterbox.

Danielle Krage:

Oh.

Lucy:

So within it was just a feeling of it’s a hopefully a friendly place to be. At Yellow Door, we really care about nurturing our relationships, and making people feel very looked after. So yeah, and then I just painted my actual door yellow as an act of tiny defiance. It’s not very anarchic, but anyway, that was another thing I did. So yes, my door is actually yellow.

Danielle Krage:

Oh, I love that. And it’s so great to have you on as well as being that friendly face, because honestly, if I didn’t…if we just heard a title, like first Controller of Comedy Commissioning, it might sound incredibly intimidating, particularly for people from the outside who are writers, comedy, you know, working away on their laptops, trying to figure out how the industry works. So it’s great that we have you today to kind of go behind the scenes and with a few practical examples… some of the process.  But first I’d love to wind back time a little bit and ask a big question, which I’m just super curious about, which is why you’ve made comedy the focus of your career. Because you’ve made… it’s just a huge commitment. Do you know why comedy?

Lucy:

Um, God, I don’t know, you just sort of get drawn to these things. I think it probably started at university, when I was very fortunate to be part of the Bedlam theatre, which anyone who went to Edinburgh University knows well, in fact, maybe beyond Edinburgh, it’s known quite well. And then it’s a great starting point because you get to do all sorts of plays and we had an enormous amount of plays to do in a year and then you find yourself drawn to the ones that kind of. intrigue you, surprise you, surprise the audience. I just kept finding it was comedy.

I found it so peculiar what made people laugh, what made people laugh one night and not the next. And for me, it’s been…it remains a constant search as to what is funny and what keeps surprising you and what you can say in comedy that you can say in drama but you might feel you’re being slightly hit over the head with a message or a notion.

And then I guess I’m just attracted to funny people in a way that I just find them irresistible. So it’s that. I’ve never really understood it myself. I just know that I find other things not so intriguing. I’m just constantly on a kind of search. Yeah.

Danielle Krage:

I love that. That sounds so fun. And you use so many great words, like surprising and delicious and intriguing. I mean, that’s a pretty amazing way to live a life and have a career with those kinds of words buzzing in your brain. I love that.

So I’m really curious, because I just don’t have this perspective, of how you put that curiosity and intrigue and looking for surprise and the questions of what people find funny, how you put that with a really big role, like the first Controller of Comedy Commissioning. And I think it might be helpful for people listening, and certainly for me, to use a practical example to kind of go behind the scenes a little bit. And the one that I have top of mind is Miranda, which was a wonderful show made by their brilliant performer, Miranda Hart. If you haven’t seen it, no problem. We’re still going to use it as a practical example today. But can you, when you think back to that time…how did you match that great spirit of curiosity and looking for things that make people funny with the practicalities of actually. commissioning that show and seeing the process through. What sticks in your mind as to how you matched up those things?

Lucy:

Yeah, so Miranda was one of many, many shows. That’s the peculiar thing about that job is that you are this sort of rather grand midwife to, I’m not kidding, hundreds of ideas that are coming through the door. So it’s sort of like you’re just trying to tune into your instinct, really understand what the channel needs. You cannot ignore what the platform is about and what it needs. If you didn’t have that kind of framework, you could just be giving thousands of people a go. So you’ve sort of really, really got to think, and align yourself with how the channel thinks. And that was a very big responsibility at the BBC. I really felt that responsibility on my shoulders. I mean, Miranda was, I mean, there are lots of people involved with Miranda’s story and she just was an amazing, amazing person. Once you saw her, you would never forget her.

And her journey was really kind of quite sensibly paced at the BBC. And it was a brilliant place to be able to identify someone like Miranda, who I remember seeing actually first of all doing things like read-throughs. And she’d be kind of exactly in the background. And then I have to give credit to Joe Sargent, who really, really pushed Miranda to kind of… be spotted as someone who actually was a headliner as opposed to someone in the background. And the key thing I think was that she was allowed to develop her voice on radio.

Danielle Krage:

Mmm.

Lucy:

And that’s where the BBC was so brilliant, not rushing her into a TV pilot, but giving her that opportunity as a writer as well to develop, work with other writers, again just finding her voice Well I think she had her voice but finding the confidence to deliver her voice. And then there was a pilot and my recollection was that it was a really considered process and there were changes made from the pilot. It wasn’t just, you know, a ready-made series there. And then sensible things were done so it was a really good I think pragmatic development for her. And I hope she felt very looked after by the people around her. If you remember that in the BBC it was divided into in-house, so there were those producers and I kind of slightly sat apart from that as a commissioner.

As a commissioner, I was receiving ideas from the entire independent community of producers and from in-house so we’d have these very difficult meetings with the channel controller where Miranda’s series might be ready to be pitched and commissioned, but it would be now competing with 12 other ideas. So it was sort of a job of clearing the path for someone like her. It wasn’t that hard though, I think we all spotted that pilot and went, okay, she just is so ripe to have her own series. Those decisions aren’t that hard. But it’s wonderful to be part of that, you know, and I’m a big fan of Miranda’s to this day.

Danielle Krage:

That’s super interesting. I didn’t know that about the radio, which makes sense to me. And also gives me some comfort because I’m currently working on some audio projects myself too, because again, there’s an accessibility and an immediacy to them. So I’m starting in a writer’s room at the weekend, but it’s going to have an audio output first as a way to kind of test working together. So that’s super interesting to hear.

And I’m also picturing you with these hundreds of ideas coming at you in all these forms. And as you say, through independent production companies, and probably they, similarly in the chain are also having lots of ideas, pitched to them. And I know this is a really hard question to answer, but when you think about those sort of patterns in comedy that you’ve seen, I imagine some things have changed, but I imagine some things hold true in terms of… when you’re flipping around to think from the writer’s perspective, what kinds of advice do you tend to give people in terms of thinking about how to develop their idea and think sensibly about who to pitch it to, when, and in what way. What are some of the practical things that writers can do to try to match up their incredible imaginations and their unique perspective, but with that bigger picture of what the channel or the streamer is doing, what the Commissioner is looking for.

Lucy:

Yeah, I think there is a practical thing here, which is pick your producer carefully. I think that that gives you an in, it really does. It is quite hard to be quite a new writer and be working with quite a new producer. And this is a tough reality check, but the producer is really, you’re putting your… your work into their hands. You’re probably not at those meetings where they are representing you. So I really say to a lot of writers, really do your homework. I think it’s fairly simple now. It was harder before the internet where you really were a sort of just word of mouth and what you picked up. But now I really would say, take a look at who’s making the shows that you love. And… almost just do a bit of homework. I do a bit of homework every week if not a little bit every day on what’s out there who’s making it what names keep coming up.

Of course, there are new producers but I think if you’re also a new writer I think it’s making sure that your hand is being held by someone who’s got that track record in the industry and really does know how the channels think and how to how to get to the commissioners. They are inundated with projects. So it’s not like it’s an impossible task, it’s not that, it’s just you really want to be surrounded by really brilliant people who will represent you and your idea really well.

And I’d meet a few producers, you know, don’t just leap at the first person who shows you some love. See how it clicks, meet with them, listen to what their feedback is about your idea. If you don’t particularly like it, you’re on a long journey with that person, so make sure you’re aligned. Yeah, it’s a lot of faith you’re going to put in that relationship. As a commissioner, I think I really was pretty persuaded by one idea from one company that had a track record. It came with taste, a sort of stamp, a kite mark of quality about everything that they produced. Not to say we didn’t take risks with the newer indies and sometimes they were wonderful, brilliant moments forging new relationships, but when you have so few slots and you really, really want to get behind something that you really feel will deliver what was said in a fantastic meeting. We can all do a great meeting, but you’ve got to back it up with the delivery of a show that really reflects how wonderful that meeting might have been. And I think I really did sort of focus on a few suppliers if I’m honest. Yeah, I wish I could say I could nurture the new producer relationships. I hope I did in some cases, but yeah, there were those key relationships were really fundamental.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah, no, that’s great. And I appreciate you just being very transparent because it is a business. It is an industry. It’s great to hear both the human side and the pragmatism too, that’s helpful. So thank you.

And I’d love to know if you would have similar advice for researching and finding agents, or is there anything else that you think is different for comedy writers that are at that step?

Lucy:

Yeah, I mean, I don’t think it’s so dissimilar. I think it’s like, look at the writers that you might feel you’re sort of the creative cousin of and see who’s representing them. I always think that’s really good. When you’re writing someone an email and go, I am such a fan of Julia Davis or whoever it might be. And that’s why you’re talking to them. So, and I feel it when I’m sent an email, it’s like, oh, you’ve made a connection. I can see why you think I might be a good fit for you, and I don’t think it’s dissimilar for agents.

I also think it’s how you approach them. It’s really good to have a variety of ideas, I call it the portfolio of ideas, particularly for an agent. So an agent’s hopefully trying to find a writer who they could place across different projects, so maybe they can write on someone else’s show for an episode. That would be very useful. And also you’ve got your babies, your own projects. But if you just send your very authored pieces to an agent, I’m not sure, they might struggle to place you. So you’re trying to make their job as easy as possible. And the age-old thing is wait. Wait until your material is as best as it could possibly be. Because you really might get that one shot at that email. That email is everything. It’s your calling card. It’s representing you. So don’t rush. Really have honed it, honed the work that you’re showing. It’s everything, really.

Danielle Krage:

Such sound advice. And I know that you mentor and coach so many writers too. And I’m curious, when you think about that process, I’m sure it is different for all of them individually, their different perspectives, their different voices. But I wonder with the longevity of perspective that you have, if there are any particular elements of craft that you find yourself kind of looking at and thinking, oh, gosh, I wish they would put some more work into that before sending? Or is that impossible to say? Is it just really varied?

Lucy:

I mean it is really very, but this is why I love comedy as well, is that anybody really, if you think you’ve got something funny to say, if you think you keep hearing your friends go, oh my god you should write that down, or you think, actually I know I’m good at this, you know, go for it. Because you can learn the craft bits. The craft bits are simple, they are something you can discover, they are how you present your work. It’s so boring, but everyone is reading the same sort of scripts. There is a certain way of writing scripts. And it’s really easy to discover that. I always think BBC Writers Room is a brilliant place to guide you on those absolutely essential elements. There is something deeply frustrating about badly presented work. I don’t know what it is. It’s because it interrupts what you’re trying to do. It’s just such a distraction. So just really work on the presentation, be professional, and come across that you really do know your craft. And then I think, you know, you’ll hear this over and over again, but- but it’s the first couple of pages, that good old thing of being really surprised. You know, be bold, be really bold, you know, surprise us with the first page. And then something happens to me, literally, I could feel a shot of dopamine level, my dopamine levels suddenly go up. Something happened, I’m literally, I’m falling in love with, is it dopamine or oxytocin? Anyway, one of them.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah, both I reckon.

Lucy:

I’m sort of falling in love with this world and this voice and this person and it’s… I mean it is that really. And it’s being surprised and I don’t take too long to set it up. I just saw a script the other day and it’s so gently lovely. We arrive in the car and it’s like nothing’s kind of happened actually. You’ve really politely introduced us to this world. Take us to your, what’s your killer moment to absolutely sum up that character, open with that. I mean, it might not work with everything, but I really think grab us, grab us quick.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah.

Lucy:

But I love it because you don’t need a track record. You just need a fresh voice. You need a fresh take on the world. And there are countless examples of that still cutting through, I mean, This Country, I think was one. Really famously Daisy May Cooper really didn’t have an in, she worked bloody hard to get it. And she arrived and the joy of that show was we hadn’t seen her and Charlie before. Yeah, that’s the total flow. The other one happening at the moment is Colin from Accounts, my absolute favourite show at the moment. I’ve never seen them before, it doesn’t matter. That’s just so exciting to go on a voyage of discovery. So, yeah, that’s what I mean. Fresh thinking, fresh voices will always cut through. Comedy is about surprise. So be surprising.

Danielle Krage:

I love that. Yeah, that’s perfect. And has anything changed in your thinking? Again, a big question now that you have your own production company in terms of how you think about ideas and what you really want to see made, because you’ve got, I assume, some different filters running and some different considerations.

Lucy:

Yeah, and I think this was the most liberating thing for me is that I said I aligned myself with channels as a commissioner for that real weight of responsibility for a broadcaster, and I could kind of know it and let it really go and really work for myself. Get back my gut feel. And I did a lot of work kind of getting back to… you know, I directed, I wrote a little short film. A small thing, but it was a brilliant reset of… where’s my voice gone? I think I need to be less that midwife thinking for others and start thinking for myself. And the joy of sitting down with talented people and thinking, oh, what’s a Yellow Door project rather than a Sky project or a BBC project was I just knew this is where I need to be right now. And it’s been super rewarding… to bring, I suppose, the accumulation of knowledge about the industry, but to really apply it to our own projects. Yeah, much as I have to say, I loved my job, but this is much more creatively rewarding.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah, wonderful. And would you mind taking us behind the scenes as much as you’re able to with a project of your choice? I know you’ve got some fabulous projects at different stages.

Lucy:

Yeah, well, Ruby Speaking is quite a good one. We just finished it in the edit and it’s soon to air on ITVX on June 22nd. It’s a really interesting one and I hope quite an encouraging one for new talent because it’s taken a while. It’s encouraging in one way in that we got it made, but it’s like never give up because it started with me going to a lot of producers …and this is something for new talent is… do these showcases because people like me are going to them and writers are going to them.

So it was a sort of agents’ showcase that happened in London and I saw Jade Adams for the first time and she’s a stand-up, she’s an actress, she’s a singer, she’s a quadruple threat. She’d just been on Strictly Come Dancing. but she really wasn’t that known. I think she had just won the Funny Women Award, but I didn’t realize that at the time. And we chatted afterwards. And I just felt she had this common touch, this feeling of, you kind of know her instantly… hiding all the hard work that’s really going on in terms of delivering her sets so effortlessly. And I just had a feeling. That she had it. And so anyway, I asked her what did she do before she was a standup. She said she worked in a call centre for three years and just little light bulbs were going off. And I went, call centre is a really good setting. We had a documentary here, but it felt like it was slightly a distant memory here, was kind of, yeah, a call centre documentary on BBC Three. So I sort of… I sort of thought, yeah, I can imagine commissioners might go, we’ve had, haven’t we had that setting? But I thought, I’m going to ignore that. We’re going to plough on.

Now Jade, Jade said she didn’t want to write it, but I could see she was the voice. It was really inspired by her experiences. So I added a writer into the mix. So that’s a slightly unusual thing for a writer. So a lot of writers will conceive their own idea on their own. So Abigail Wilson, who I’d known from other shows like Trolleyed, the supermarket sitcom for Sky, and Stella, she worked with French and Saunders. I just sort of, it’s a difficult one making these marriages happen, but I put them all together.

And the way we kind of bonded was we went to a call centre. I had just worked for Sky. So I used to do lots of trips to call centres and tell them about all the shows that were coming up. And so I went to the Cardiff Sky call centre for a day with Jade and Abby and we were just having light bulb moments all day long, and we knew we had a show.

So we were round my kitchen table, we came up with the idea and then no one wanted it. No one wanted it because quite simply Jade just wasn’t known enough and it was definitely her in there, headlining the show. There was no question about that. You go into that knowing that this is a vehicle for somebody. So we put it in a drawer and we brought it out again and I’d say to writers out there, don’t forget your archive because sometimes it is just a question of timing and we just needed to wait. We needed to wait for the world to catch up with Jade Adams. And she was in Alma’s Not Normal as the friend, and then we got the commission actually before she was in Strictly, so that timing worked out very well as well.

And then Nana Hughes, brilliant, at ITV. The stars just aligned. She wanted a vehicle for Jade, and there we were with a ready-made show, and ITV too, was very much about reflecting a young audience. I mean, how many people have worked in call centres. It’s so often the first rung of the job, of the career ladder for so many people. And so we just sort of knew that this was a world that would reflect the audience well back to them. So yeah, I mean, it’s just been a brilliant, brilliant experience. But it needed to take its time and needed a little bit of luck, a little bit of timing. But I’m so thrilled with it. So yeah, that’s been the last year of my life working on Ruby Speaking.

Danielle Krage:

Oh, congratulations. My goodness, it does sound really fun. And what was it…because I can guess and assume but I might be guessing wrongly…what was it about the setting, do you think, that really grabbed you comedically? When she said that’s where she’d worked, the light bulbs going off. And when you went that day, the light bulbs were going off. What was it comedically, do you think?  was it? Do you think?

Lucy:

I think it screamed a sitcom setting, a situation where we had trapped characters where… we’ve seen this before, trapped characters, hierarchy, rules, the opportunity for characters who are toeing the line and are going, swimming in the wrong direction. Abby came up with a really lovely thing of… that Ruby can see the callers, the other characters can’t. So there’s this other little, I don’t know, crackle about a brilliant little idea that she had that Ruby sort of had this gift. So that was something yummy that happened then.

Bristol, you know, out of London, something about that voice. Also of Jade Adams going back into her own experiences. So we’re not just making up a world. All of the things I’ve just said could be, yeah, just sort of, that’s a perfect sitcom. But it was also… a thing I love…. You can look back at a lot of things I commissioned that had an autobiographical feel to it. So all of that goes much deeper. And I love that. There’s another reason why a show like Alma’s Not Normal is one of my favourite shows. Based on true experiences, totally joyous, but messages in there.

Jade is saying this lovely thing about Ruby speaking. It’s a bit of a Trojan horse for these other messages around women that we’ve snuck in there. But again, the reason why I love comedy is we’re not hitting people over the head with it, but they’re in there. So yeah, it’s not just disposable. I want it to matter and to move people and to change the perspective of people. So I hope we’ve done that with Ruby speaking, I really do.

Danielle Krage:

Wonderful. And how do you think that filtered through to the sort of ensemble that you created? Because you mentioned that the call centre has got this inbuilt hierarchy. I’m wondering…because it’s such an important part of comedy and how it functions, but there are so many ways to do it. And I know that you’re so supportive of women in comedy, as well as all people in comedy. So I just wonder when you when you sat down to think… you knew who was going to be at the centre of it and with her… Can you remember anything about the process and how you thought about filling out the rest of that cast?

Lucy:

You know, funny enough, I had to do something a bit counter-intuitive, which was not get too hung up on our casting of the other roles. We had a lovely director, Rosie Gordon Matheson. It was the first time she’s directed a big series. Gloriously, she’d gone to school with Jade, so there were all these lovely connections going on. And the first time we had Emma Garrett, her first big series, as our casting director. So there’s a lot of having to take some, I’m not even gonna say the word risk actually, it was almost just give people opportunities to find us a cast that we hadn’t seen before.

So practically everyone is new in that young cast. We have got amazing Katherine Kelly playing Vicky the boss. So we kind of knew we needed, you know. someone with a bit of profile in that role. But when it came to these younger parts, I mean, we even went to the point of doing an open call and we got 600 people to apply for one of these roles for the role of Craig, and then in one day saw 30 people. These are people who never had any experience before, and we found the most glorious Daniel Hiscox, who was actually still is pulling pints in the pub. But he’s a real discovery. He plays this security guard receptionist, Craig.

So these are things almost where you don’t think too hard about it. And Abby was great here,  the writer. She wrote the younger characters quite lightly, she held them lightly because she said I want the actors to bring themselves to it. And definitely with Dan Hiscox and Craig, she went… I’m not going to pretend I can know exactly how a 20-year-old from Bristol speaks. Dan, bring us how you would phrase these lines. So there was a lot of give there. And I suppose, yeah, if there was anything with Ruby, it was almost letting go of the reins and letting the talent really inhabit their roles. We did it with Katherine Kelly was… was great as well. She just came to the part going, I don’t want the boss to be a boss we’ve seen before. So things like her look and her, just her phrasing and the things she was blessed by, little props on her desk, very much were left up to her. And I know she’s really grateful. Not many actors are given that. And so we went, yeah, of course, you know, you’re… such an expert at this and we want her to bring her everything to the part. So yeah, it was great and I really, really think it’s worked as well because you could say all of these things and it ends up being a bit of a porridge but it’s, I think it’s worked really, really well.

Danielle Krage:

Oh, I’m sure it has. And again, it just chimes with everything that you said that you love and want with comedy, in terms of that freshness as well, creating space. So as you say, it’s not controlling all that, it’s deliberately and intentionally making that space for people to do their jobs and bring that freshness and find those surprises. I love that. I’m so looking forward to seeing a boss that’s different to bosses we’ve seen before and where they’ve been able to bring themselves to it. That’s super fun. That’s wonderful.

So I’d love to know, again, big question, but what it is that you’re excited about in the comedy landscape now. And when I say comedy, I mean, well there’s so many labels we put now that are kind of clunky… of dramedies and comedy dramas.

Lucy:

Mmm.

Danielle Krage:

What’s exciting to you currently as you sit in 2023 looking out?

Lucy:

Yeah, it’s so difficult. I think I kind of know what doesn’t excite me if I can start there.

Danielle Krage:

That’s valid too, let’s do that!

Lucy:

Well, I think we have had a lot of issue-led comedies

Danielle Krage:

Mm.

Lucy:

And I’m bloody grateful for them and I’ve watched a lot of them. But we’ve almost, what happens is we go, oh they work so we’ll do 10 of them. It’s like no no no they… They work because they were a refreshing change from everything else we had. So it’s also slightly that we edge over to drama. And you go, no, drama’s got the lion’s share of the money. Let comedy be comedy. And also, look at what we’ve been through over the last three years. We’re still in it in a way. No one’s talking about it, but I still think we’re feeling the effects of it. You know, we’re so lucky in this country to have people invest in comedy the way they do. So don’t use up our slots on things that would read as drama or win the Drama Award. You know, let’s make sure that our comedy voice is… it’s so hard comedy. Writing comedy is so hard. That’s why so many comedy writers end up writing drama and they go…They admit it, they go, God, drama is so much easier than comedy. Comedy you’ve got to do everything and make people laugh. So I suppose I’m looking forward to more out-and-out comedies and comedies that are really joyous and really unite the nation and get the generation…. I know I’m old-fashioned, but I still imagine the many generations on the sofa. I know no one watches things on the sofa anymore. but the equivalent of joining up, and uniting people.

Danielle Krage:

Sorry, there’s a big hornet landed on my knee. So in case you wondered what the thing was. Okay, I’ve brushed him off. It was just a little bit of a shock. It was THAT big. Anyone who’s listening at home, it was like huge.

Lucy:

Do you wanna deal with that though?

Danielle Krage:

No, it’s all good. So we’ve had dogs in the show before. We’ve had cats in the show. We haven’t had like a giant hornet, but yeah.

Lucy:

That was drama.

Danielle Krage:

I’m afraid I couldn’t cover that one. But no, you were just saying about joyous.

Lucy:

Well, I suppose I’m just, yeah, I mean, look, I’m an old romantic. I just, I do, you know, I look back, you asked me about comedy, I was thinking actually, it probably started when I sort of saw my parents cry with laughter at things like the Dick Henry show and Dave Allen and you went, God, this is having a huge effect on my parents. And there’s just something really magical about it. We should almost stop to… remember how magical it is. I mean there’s a genre out there that’s forcing us to have a physical response.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah.

Lucy:

It’s a very very special thing. We’re really good at it in this country. We need to really preserve it. So sorry you asked me what I was looking forward to. I mean what I love is seeing a show and going oh that’s it and that’s what we’ve been missing and I’m going to mention Colin From Accounts again because I do think I think we’re missing something around a kind of new romcom. You know, I hate that word. It’s got bad associations. But we had, obviously, Gavin and Stacey was a great one. Catastrophe was a brilliant romcom in a way. It had its lovely sharp edges. So I’m not afraid of sharp edges, but I just, yeah, I think they’re just brilliant, brilliant shows, aren’t they? And you really unite behind a relationship. Miranda was another one, wasn’t

it? Like, will they, won’t they, will they, won’t they? It’s just a great place to be and it’s really uncynical, it’s really open-hearted. So yeah, I’m a big fan of those. And then, yeah, I just like seeing families done in all sort of shapes and sizes and they really do not have to be the conventional family, but…back to Ruby speaking, we have a sense of family at work. It’s nothing to do with anyone being blood-related. It’s like, where do I find family now? And I think that’s just something that really matters a lot. And it’s just lovely to see it reflected back to us on screen. So I think my taste is definitely for these bigger shows that can bring all generations together. I think they’re hard and that…It’s like the holy grail for me.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah, well, that’s good. And I think it’s good to have a grail to go after and that makes so much sense. And I love that term – open-hearted – as well. And joyous. They’re all fabulous. Like, even as you say them, I feel like you when you get those good pages, like just like sitting up and wanting to lean forward and yeah, that would be a wonderful thing to go home on this evening and put on something that’s joyous so that you can share. That’s lovely. I love that.

So I’ve just got two more questions before we wrap up. One is that I know as part of your mentoring and supporting writers, you do do things like sit on committees for awards and things like that. So I wondered if you could speak to that a little bit for writers who haven’t considered engaging in that kind of process. If there are any tips that you have, not for like how to win specific ones, but…

oh goodness, this thing is like, I’m just gonna show you so you can see this. Can you see this huge thing?

Lucy:

I really can see that it is absolutely enormous.

Danielle Krage:

Just for anyone who’s like, she’s being a wimp, it’s really big.

Lucy:

I mean, are you like in Mexico or somewhere?

Danielle Krage:

No, I’m in Devon.

Lucy:

I cannot quite believe the size of that thing.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah. So apologies for the interruption again. It just decided to come for a second visit and perch on my delicate skin.

But what I was asking is about awards and committees. And just tips for writers as to why you think, if you do, it’s potentially a good idea to put that in your career thinking. And any tips for how to consider that.

Lucy:

Yeah, I mean, I cannot stress enough how great it is to get your work into a competition or any sort of award. I think most of them are just free to enter. They are sitting there waiting for good material. And I know it probably seems like it’s, I don’t know, maybe hard to do or hard to find. I’m a big fan of the Comedy Crowd website because I think they are really good at amalgamating all the competitions out there. They do a weekly newsletter or something anyway that’s a really good prompt. The reason why they’re good is that you really might win it if you’re

good. You might win this thing or you get shortlisted and then immediately that changes the good old opening line of the cold call email to… I’ve just won or, I’ve just been nominated. And I can’t tell you how that raises that whole proposition way above everything else.

They are not out of reach. They are totally in reach. Just check the criteria of these things because sometimes 10 pages, whatever it might be. And if you don’t get one, just go for another. I sit on a lot of them. I’ll be honest. I think some of the quality… all I’m saying is it’s not impossible to get to the top 10 of these things. And we’ve, in lockdown I did a competition and we then worked up the final three. It really, really worked. It became this year-long project and out of it we got proper development for a couple of these things. It really did translate to something real. So yeah, they’re just brilliant and there are a lot of them out there. So don’t feel it’s beyond you. It’s a brilliant way to get going. And I’d even say for the quite well-known writers, you could still get people viewing your work. Like I’ve been introduced to writers by being on a panel, and then I followed up with them because I’ve fallen in love with the way that they write. So yeah, really important and really worthwhile.

Danielle Krage:

That’s a really great insight. Thank you. And really encouraging. We’ve had Sherice Griffiths on the podcast before, so you can go back and listen to her episode and she talks about how one of the awards, the Bafta Roccliff awar, I probably said it wrong, but how winning that actually opened doors for her too. So you can listen from a different perspective there.

Lucy:

I mean, here’s another example. Female Pilots Club, I think it’s called. They did a showcase with UK TV. I went along to it and out of the four, I optioned one of them. And now we are talking to broadcasters. It’s real. It’s not just a scheme for scheme’s sake.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah. And ways to make connections. In a human way.

Lucy:

And the other thing, look, if you don’t get to the top table, you’ll hopefully get some good feedback and then try again.

Danielle Krage:

Yeah, that’s incredibly valuable. Thank you. And the last question is just…we always wrap up with advice. Any advice that you’ve been given that you feel has helped you in whatever capacity in your career?

Lucy:

I’d say tune into the Core of you. A bit like me when I started my company. I had to sort of dispel the other voices and noise and pleasing others and all the rest of it and go to the Core of you. A bit like with Jade when I said, you know what experience have you got? Call Centre. It’s like what’s the core of her her first job? And that was such a great little acorn for what’s now a six-part series. So, you know, whatever you write, you are going to have to sit with it for a long time. So you’re going to have to really know it, trust it, and believe in it as you’re the kernel of your idea. And if you’ve got that strength, the feeling about it, you’ll transmit that to your first meeting with the producer or the first meeting with the agent, and then that producer will transmit it to the commissioner.

Danielle Krage:

Mm.

Lucy:

And so it’s really valuable to…don’t try and think for others and think what do people want right now. Really dispel all of that. That doesn’t get you a commission. I really don’t think it does. But a passion and your integrity for your own project, the essence of your idea, is such a winner. It really wins in a meeting as well. It’s not a pitch for a pitch sake. It’s you speaking from the core of you. I really believe in that.

Danielle Krage:

Oh, that’s such wonderful, really centring, useful advice and to keep coming back to you. I think that’s fantastic. Thank you. And before we go, where should people go to if they want to find out more about you and your work? And of course, any links will also go in the show notes too, but this is just if people are driving around and want to look you up.

Lucy:

Yeah, so Yellow Door is where I am and I have a not-brilliant website which I really must do something about, but within the website is an email. It’s basically the inbox for any new ideas. We will try and get through them as best we can, but I really do try and read everything. So at info at yellowdoorprods.com, that will be in your notes. I think that’s the best way to find me. But also, we have a Yellow Door Instagram and Twitter account. So you’ll probably hear a lot about Ruby Speaking right now. But I also talk about, we do, I’m very fond of Chris Head and we do courses together from time to time. We do small groups where we’ll take you through one particular project. We’re go into a bit more detail about what I think is navigating an industry. It’s not complicated but it can look very complicated from the outside. So my whole mantra is really anyone can get in there but it’s really good to just dispel some myths so we talk more about that.

Danielle Krage:

Wonderful. Thank you. And I really appreciate you doing that so generously today. Just being such a lovely human face for those people that we don’t always see and where we’re wondering how it works. And you gave so much great practical advice. So thanks so much, Lucy.

Lucy:

All right, well, thank you, Danielle. Thanks for having me on.

Danielle Krage:

Thank you.