In the hunt for great comedy we're going back to where it all begins, the writer's room.

For the second year running London Sketchfest is hosting it’s new writing competition Sketch Scribe, challenging aspiring and emerging comedy writers to pen a sketch, which is then performed live by a super sketch troupe (a troupe made up of comedians from other troupes).

The process is a unique one. Submissions were collected from writers around the country, with the help of a new online comedy writers network The Comedy Crowd seeing 90 scripts submitted.

A panel of judges featuring the festival producers, a comedy producer and professional script developer then drew a longlist featuring a sixth of the submissions, soring based on a set of criteria including originality, writing and comedy.

The longlist is then sent to the super-troupe, specially formed for the competition, to pick their favourite concluding in a final shortlist of 10 sketches. 

Seeing never-performed sketches, performed by a group of talented and experienced comedians takes the process to the next level as we see how writing is handled by performers and what stands out to them. The writers get a great chance to see the evolution from page to stage.

During the festival the 10 sketches are performed live in front of a panel of judges who score each to decide on the winner of Sketch Scribe.

This years super-troupe is formed of:

Noah and Jordan
Omar and Lee
Mid Brow
Jon and Nath
Jiggle and Hyde
Matt Lacey (The Unexpected Items)
Gal Pals

After being read by all the particpating comedians, each act chose their favourites forming the final shortlist selection for the competition. At this part fo the process we saw what sketches resonated best with performers. The following scripts will be performed live at the festival:

Bex Harvey and Christian Azzola  - Tickets
Michael Brandon  -  Slugs
Rebecca Channon  -  Fish Tales
Tony Hickson -  Pie Pimp
Jonathan Jones  -  The Tried Judge/The Dangers of Listlessness
Graeme Knowles  -  Time Travel Lawyers 4 U
Scott Limbrick  -  The Last Request
Adam Martin -  Boyfriend part ex
Paul Steel  -  Careers Office
Nicholas Wooster -  Working From Home 

Sketch Scribe takes place during the London Sketch Comedy Festival at Hackney House in Shoreditch on the 5th November at 4:30pm. To buy tickets click here.

We would like to congratulate the following writers were longlisted for the Sketch Scribe 2016:

Frank Mariani  -  Monopoly
Vivienne Riddoch and Jane McCutcheon  -  Burglar Training
Paul Nash  -  Mugger Rugger
Shem Pennant  -  How to get Behead in Business