Danielle Ward on Bottom

The very talented radio host, comedian and writer Danielle Ward was on comedy writing podcast Rule of Three to discuss one of my favorite BBC sitcoms, Bottom.

Listen to the whole thing here, but below are some quick sitcom writing highlights from the podcast:

Character Status
"Bottom is a live action cartoon where the characters will never achieve what they have set out to do and we will watch them again and again. And because it is a cartoon, there are things that you can do in it that would be unacceptable in another format.

Sitcom writing is about status: high status characters and low status characters and the episodes are the relationship between these statuses."

Bottle Episodes
"It’s important to remember the ‘sit’ in sitcom. Your characters should ideally be trapped by something they have done. Occasionally in sitcoms you do a ‘bottle episode’ where you confine the characters to the smallest possible space and don’t let them get out; it’s a writing exercise.

In Bottom, the entire sitcom is the bottle – it’s the biggest tightest trap and then all these characters can do is bounce off the walls with each other.

It gets smaller. In the pilot there are five or six locations and by the time we get to series two they’re just in the flat. It’s like watching a stage play."

Dynamics
"Matriarch, patriarch, craftsman and clown dynamic works in a lot of sitcoms and playing around with those elements. And in Bottom, they have taken away the matriarch, patriarch, the parents, and left the two feuding kids (craftsman and clown). One of them wants to better themselves and who thinks their life can be better and one who is happy down there. And you feel the absence of mum and dad and you worry for them."