Prisoners are learning how to write sitcoms on a 10-week course. And there are hopes tutors could find some untapped telly talent after they passed with flying colours.
The course teaches lags how to pen gags, as well as ‘comic timing’, and how to develop comedic characters.
They explore the talents of a range of renowned writers, like Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who wrote Porridge, starring Ronnie Barker as HMP Slade inmate Fletch.
READ MORE: ‘Mini riots’ break out in UK’s jam-packed jails as tensions flare among lags
They also wrote The Likely Lads, and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
(Image: PA)
Other legends studied include John Sullivan, who created Only Fools and Horses, and even more modern shows like Fleabag, by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
The course at HMP Highpoint in Suffolk, which holds just over 1,200 inmates, began in early 2023.
At the end of the 10-week course, the inmates taking the course – which has capacity for between 10-15 students – finishing by writing a comedy sitcom script and handing it to the tutor.
(Image: BBC)
The aim of the course it ‘develop fledging talent’ that can be flogged to TV companies.
The most recent report by inspectors from the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) praised the scheme, which has already launched a second course.
It stated that inmates could attend a ‘multi-skills taster course’ at the north side to the jail, where they could chooses courses they’d like to try out before committing to them.
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The report stated: “A multi-skills taster course was instigated on the north site, bringing all vocational workshops together on that site.
“Short courses for the construction skills certification scheme, food safety, and comedy scriptwriting all continued from the previous year.”
It added that some new courses had also kicked off, including art and plumbing.
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The report continued: “Within the prison education framework provision, the newer courses in plastering, art, employability, peer mediation, and plumbing continued.”
A jail source, who has worked in prisons for more than 15 years, said the course was ‘a joke’.
He said: “At first I thought it was someone pulling my leg, but it seems the joke’s on me.”
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