Writing and Producing Comedy

This course is an 18-month part-time Professional Diploma in Writing and Producing Comedy.

“The course Rachel Stubbings runs at the NFTS is a great way of acquiring the career sustaining skills it takes to be a comedy writer today. The course won’t make you funny though, you have to do that bit yourself.” – Jon Petrie (Director of Comedy at BBC)

This unique course aims to equip the participants with the relevant tools to be a skilled and versatile comedy writer. It enables students to develop all forms of scripted and unscripted comedy including sitcoms, sketch shows and panel shows for radio and TV.

The course is carefully designed to gear you up for a career in comedy writing and production so students will become practiced at juggling deadlines, talking about their ideas concisely, assessing their own work and those of others, and being part of a writers’ community. 

There is an emphasis on ‘learning by doing’ at the NFTS, so they will experience professional actors and comedians read their work and give immediate feedback, they will pitch ideas to development producers and commissioners and get a taster of a writer’s room atmosphere. 

Students will get the opportunity to grow an idea into a fully formed vision, whether that be a five minute teaser for a sitcom, a sketch, a professionally recorded radio snippet or a script reading. By the end of the course, they will have produced their own body of work, which will put them in good stead to approach industry professionals. 

There will also be inspirational and informative talks from some of the most successful creators of comedy working today.

Since the course started in 2014 many students have gone on to write for shows including: Sex Education (Netflix), Outlaws (BBC/Amazon), 8 Out Of 10 Cats (E4), Famalam (BBC), The Now Show (BBC R4), The Mash Report (BBC), Joe Lycett's Got Your Back (CH4), The News Quiz (BBC), Dead Ringers (BBC R4) and many are developing their own scripts with Channel 4, BBC, Sky, ITV, Apple and Comedy Central.

All NFTS students can attend Masterclasses. Recent guests include David Fincher (Fight Club), Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave), Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag), Ben Wheatley (Kill List), Rapman (Blue Story), Louis Theroux, Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone), Denis Villeneuve (Bladerunner 2049), Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here), Sam Mendes (1917), Asif Kapadia (Senna), Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir), Russell T Davies (It’s A Sin) and Ricky Gervais (The Office).