Take your sitcom script out for a coffee

And why I’ve got something much better than a YouTube Live

My latest YouTube video shows what I did when I finished my very first draft of my sitcom script, The Lab (a studio sitcom set in a Forensic Lab). I took it out for a coffee: which is a click-baity way of saying that I printed it out and relocated to a coffee shop. I took: my script, a pen and a wallet (to pay for the coffee). I did not take: my laptop.

Why not take my laptop? Two main reasons:

The first is a single-minded focus on the task at hand: reading the script, seeing what I’d written and deciding whether each individual line worked, and whether it worked as a whole. My laptop, if brought, would mean an inevitable checking of email, which would lead to answering email, opening other documents and distraction. Concentration builds, and is easily broken. And then needs to be rebuilt. So, for that reason alone, I didn’t bring my laptop.

The second reason is that I didn’t want to start fixing the script there and then. The temptation would have been to read the scene and, enraged by idiocy and unfunniness, immediately set about rectifying the script before I’d had a chance to read it. All of it. And think about it. All of it.

This meant that I could read the script and make notes on it while I drank a coffee. Most of it. And then I ordered another coffee and kept reading the rest of it.

Uh-oh. Problems.

By the end, I’d realised there were some problems with it. Most of the characters had plenty to do and say. But one character, Olly, was barely involved. I sat and thought about a solution since I wasn’t distracted by my laptop and my email. And I was able to think of a solution for this problem that runs through the script, rather than leaping in to correct lines and improve individual jokes. I found places in the script where these improvements could be made without unpicking the whole script. And then I rewrote the script.

Only now – having shown it to my wife and come back to it with fresh eyes, do I realise I need to unpick the whole script, and that I’ve made a mistake that I often encounter in the scripts of other people. So I need to fix that. But how?

Here’s where YOU come in

Would you like to read that script?

Instead of that YouTube Live on Thursday at 8pm, I’m doing this instead the following week:

A webinar called “Sitcom Script Development (Live!): What’s Not Working (And How I Fix It)” on Zoom on Thursday 14^th May 2026 at 8pm-9.30pm (UK Time). In fact, it’s all here:

We are going to look at my latest draft of the script referred to above: a studio sitcom called The Lab. You will be able to download the full script, read it, and form your own view, and decide what’s working, what isn’t and what you’d change. And not change.

Most of all, you’ll see that 25 years of experience writing sitcom scripts hasn’t given me a “Get Out of Development Hell Free” card. No one is immune from the gruelling process of script development. If you’re interested in writing sitcoms, this is the bit you never get to see: the reality of professional script development.

I’ll explain where I think the script isn’t working yet, what my options are and how I decide what to fix (and what to leave alone). Then we’ll talk through the different approaches — and why some are stronger than others. All in 90 minutes.

Want to join me for that? Pay what you like for this one down to the minimum of one shiny British pound sterling.

You can do that right here and right now:

And while you’re there, you could also get the 14 Problems with your Sitcom Script PDF and Webinar replay!