Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke

2005 | Biography

'Right now we're deep into what the phrase-makers around here call "heavy development ". Essentially that means that the studio which gives us an office, a secretary, two parking spaces, and two pay checks is patiently waiting for us to come up with a new comedy television series But ideas are hard to come by So we sit and stare, at each other and out of the window, at the tour groups being led around the studio, pitch out show ideas, and mutter to ourselves, 'is there a show in that?'. An award-winning television comedy script writer is fifteen years on from his last major success and the ideas have dried up. His agent is constantly on the phone demanding at once where the next script is coming from whilst at the same time shattering his confidence with news of other clients' roaring success, as well as demanding unswerving loyalty from him. It's a fragile, nerve-racked existence and one where the writer tragically begins to realise only the strongest survive.By turns hilariously funny, shockingly honest in it's brutal deceptions and full of raw emotion, Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke gets to the core of Hollywood society whilst at the same time holding a mirror up to all of our basest desires.

Rob Long (Author)