91Èȱ¬

It’s a farewell entry from Susan Riddell, our Fast & Funny blogger who’s kept us up-to-date with the team’s progress from day one. Warning: contains some strong language.

Hello there! Welcome to the last instalment of the blog (sniff). Quite a lot has happened in the last few months, it’s difficult to know where to start.

We’ve had masterclasses in editing, social media and self-shooting. I hate to skim over all that but I thought I’d talk mainly about the thing that the Fast & Funny scheme was building up to all along - filming our final shorts on the River City Set. Due to the River City cast and crew going on their hols, we had an empty, so to speak. This gave us access to a variety of sets to film our comedy shorts. My short ‘Laptop Etiquette’ was filmed in the Oyster Cafe. I won’t say much more about it as you can watch it above – and along with everyone else’s .

I decided to act the part of one of the characters in my sketch which was pretty terrifying considering I don’t regard myself a performer whatsoever. It’s kind of been a lifelong fear of mine.

When I was at school, while everyone else wanted to dog double maths, I used to try and convince my pals to dog drama, such was my fear at having to get up in front of the class. My pals would look at me like I was a mad woman and refuse to truant the 'fun' class. I’d have to go to the school nurse feigning some sort of illness. Ironically, they always believed me and let me lie in the wee medical room - maybe I was a better performer than I thought.

Anyway this is a blog, not a therapy session. Where was I? Yes, filming on the River City set. Even though I was nervous, it was a really enjoyable, rewarding experience. I had a bit of a pinch-me moment surrounded by lighting technicians, camera men (they were all men, I’m not being sexist) and sound engineers. It was quite surreal watching one of my ideas, that started off a wee note in my iPhone, be brought to life, and of course there’s the wee voice in the back of your head like, ‘I can’t believe people are taking me fucking seriously.’

Needless to say I screwed up my lines a few times. Think of that Friends episode were Joey keeps saying noodle soup and that’s a pretty accurate representation of my acting debut. I came out of there with a new found respect for all actors, especially ones in Casualty and Holby City. I had a sum total of three easy peasy lines, how they memorise all that medical terminology is beyond me.

Anyway, to wrap things up I’ll say I got so much from the Fast and Funny scheme. I faced a lifelong fear, I met a bunch of great people, some of whom I’m collaborating with on scripts and sketches and formed some really supportive relationships with the people who ran the whole thing. I see the whole thing as a starting point, not an end point and it’s taught me the difference between the ideas you have vs what you end up with when you actually make them.

So the shorts are . It’s up to you to decide whether they are fast, and more importantly funny. To anyone reading this who’s interested in becoming involved in comedy I’d definitely recommend applying for future 91Èȱ¬ Writersroom opportunities.

Farewell!