Six Splendid People

I think it might only have struck me, a few minutes ago. Next month, a pilot will be shot for up-and-coming TV sketch-show Splendid. A pilot featuring several of my sketches, as well as delights by Piers Beckley, Dan Turner, Richard Glover and Sarah Morgan. How very fantastic.

Splendid has been instigated by Dan Turner and Richard Glover, and boasts an excellent line-up of comedy performing talent, which you can see down this left-hand-side column of faces and hair. Click the image to see them bigger - for some reason Blogger feels threatened by the notion of publishing them any larger on this page. So in order from the top down, they are:

1) Richard Glover. Actor, comedian, genius, lovely man. Starred in Dan and I's Look At Me short, and regularly knocks witticisms around with Danny Wallace on the radio.

2) Ty Glaser. Wow, look at this lady. Frankly, if she's in a sketch, you won't care two hoots whether it's funny or not. Ty's been in The IT Crowd, Emmerdale, Bones and Hotel Babylon.

3) Steve Evans. Another fine TV talent, seen in the likes of Hyperdrive, Nighty Night, Holby City, My Family and The Green Green Grass.

4) Hayley-Jayne Standing. Heartbeat, The Bill, Doctors, Dalziel & Pascoe. Top notch.

5) Eric Lampaert. I've never met this man, but by God he looks suitably ludicrous for this show. A stand-up comic, who has left scores of burning comedy clubs in his wake.

6) Rea Donovan. This naturally ticklesome delight of a lady rounds out the cast with aplomb. She has appeared in TV's Mutual Friends and Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights, radio's Hero Jones, as well as various theatre work. Hooray!

It really is thrilling to work on a project like this, knowing that its realisation - and the laugh quota - will be in such safe hands, on both sides of the camera.

You know one of the many things I love about Splendid? In a sea of sketch shows dealing primarily in topicality and satire, it strives to be utterly pointless and irrelevant. In our script meetings, perfectly good sketches would be hurled out of windows at great force, for daring to be about something. That really is Splendid.

Dan's company, Magician Pictures, has already surpassed itself in hunting down locations. While writing pilot submissions, I kidded myself that I was being quite budget-conscious, and not setting sketches on, say, an alien planet. Nevertheless, I wrote one set in a plane's cockpit, and another in a tropical jungle. Remarkably, Dan and co have sourced both. Kudos upon kudos there.

It's fundamentally all very exciting stuff: keep an eye on Dan's own blog and the Splendid blog for inevitable updates on production, if indeed he has time amid all the heroic hard work. You can also follow Mr Splendid, our iconic little fellow, on Twitter: @Mr_Splendid. I'm on there too, as @JasonArnopp, while Dan is @daniel_turner and Piers is @piersb.

In other comedy news, I recently attended a writers' meeting for another Radio 4 sketch show, having been recommended by the good people of Recorded For Training Purposes, so that's an exciting prospect. More as it solidifies. Am also progressing to script on the online drama Tempting Fates, while finding time to bring my own spec-scripts along. Yes, things are good right now.

Have the kind of weekend which makes others bend double and swallow their own feet with envy.