Live Tweet Show
Turning a cult twitter hit comedian into a cult television hit show packed with fast gags and viral sketches with the feel of an underground event
Michael Spicer (@MrMichaelSpicer) is a writer and comedian who has gained a cult following on Twitter through a mixture of one liners (with a 140 character-limit) and comedy sketches on YouTube. His Twitter feed is a show in itself. This is because he tends to refrain from taking artistic photographs of Eggs Benedict and talking about his new kitten.
Here’s a promo for one of Michael’s shows…
After winning the award for ‘Emerging Comedy Talent’ at the Hamptons International Film Festival in New York for his short film ‘How I Learned to Love Richard Gere’, Michael joined Twitter and now has fans back home too. His followers include Graham Linehan, Chris Addison, Sharon Horgan, Peter Serafinowicz, Matt Lucas, Dave Gorman, Sarah Millican, Graeme Garden, David Schneider and Sam Bain.
Highlights of his experience include achieving tens of thousands of hits for his series featuring Daniel Smeeth, the ‘Unrehearsed Voiceover Artist’…
…and his redubbed Barclays advert (‘Barclays. Fucking Barclays’) which appeared in The Guardian, The Independent and The Mirror.
During the last two Edinburgh Fringe festivals over eight half-hour shows, Michael live-tweeted his favourite jokes, observations and sketches, obtaining nearly 1500 new followers in the process. He simply set up his laptop in a bar (with free wifi) and at the allotted time started tweeting. Fans joined him in the bar on their laptops speaking through Twitter and not in real life, for some of them this would just be too much social interraction for them to handle and they just admired Michael and sniggered before retweeting their favourite jokes.
Michael Spicer’s Live Tweet Show recreates this experience bringing his timeline to the screen as he delivers his tweets `live’ and on film and interracts with his fans, fellow twitterati comedians.
Format:
Live Tweet Show is a sketch show, but linked by Michael both on camera and Twitter ‘as live’ as he hosts his performance sat at a laptop in a bar filled with some of his followers – and a few locals who have no idea who he is.
Set among the real fans in the ‘audience’ we’ll have comics appearing as characters in the bar such as the obsessive geek who can’t speak and the landlord angry at him using too much wifi and creating a disturbance in the bar. These elements would be scripted links and sketches in our main location within the show.
The show itself is ‘as live’ so when we film the tweeted links we can use any reaction to the twitter feed within the show – if it’s funny.
Michael will then link to (and we cut to) filmed sketches. Other performers get involved by sending their sketches to Michael and we then cut to that sketch.
We will obviously bring television production values to the show and reshoot sketches with this in mind unless the nature of the sketch needs a less polished feel.
The key thing about Live Tweet Show is that it is a fast paced sketch show as we use the Twitter device to show case gags and link to the next sketch.
The Show:
Intro: Michael tweets the welcome to his show and we hear a cheer go up in the pub. A few non-followers and the landlord look confused. Michael tweets to tell his followers to calm down – the landlord doesn’t know he’s using the bar for his show.
Michael welcomes us on camera and points out a few of his followers – who are geekily checking the timeline and responding to his tweets.
Throughout we’ll dip in and out of our location, but we’ll never dwell on it or draw a joke out beyond it’s merit – this will be a show full of gags.
The rest of the show is made up of a smorgasbord of:
1) Michael’s tweeted one-liners and reactions to them – both as tweets and also in the `live’ show location too, so we’re not just seeing the one-liner typed out on screen, but Michael delivering them and his commentary on the reaction.
Some of Michael’s Most Retweeted Tweets:
Seeing Linkedin Park tonight. They’re like Linkin Park except they don’t know who the other band members are or why they’re in the band.
Dominos should understand starting emails with Dear Pizza Lover is not a warm greeting, more a hurtful attack. Oh wait this is from my wife.
What concerns me most about children viewing online porn is that it’s giving them unrealistic expectations of pizza delivery times.
Bees who wish to proclaim their high status among other bees register with IMDb.com.
2) Michael’s filmed sketches, some of which are based on jokes he first tweeted such as these:
TOOTHPASTE TWEET: “Bacteria? But I brushed this morning!” No you didn’t. You smeared your teeth with the paste of lies, you foul wench.”
HOT GIRLS TWEET: According to the internet, hot girls are in MY area. Not yours.
3) Other comedians sending their sketches for Michael to retweet to us. Michael is followed by many comics who send him sketches, so we can include other sketches that have been viral hits.
4) Comedians invite Michael to be a part of their sketch and we see the result – this gives us the chance to have guest appearances and also perhaps some regulars who, in a series, would appear in sketches each week.
5) Interractions with characters in the Tweet Show venue.