We just finished the Urgent Genius and BBC Comedy Spout pilot. On Tuesday, I (Jon) briefed 8 BBC commissioned writer/performers and 25 non-commissioned ones and they made loads of comedy over 48 hours including this funny music video:
It went down really well, so now, we’re planning a global 48-hour competition on 18-20 of February called the Urgent Genius Weekender. I’ll be releasing more#UrgentGenius comedy on the blog over the next 3 weeks but for today, we have 2 ideas (including the video above) the BBC Comedy guys bought related to the Andy Gray and Richard Keyes scandal. These two Sky Sports presenters were recorded saying that female linesmen don’t know the off-sides rule. Gray was also caught on tape asking a female colleague Charlotte Jackson to tuck his microphone down his trousers for him. We chose this idea because we knew it would keep building. On Tuesday night, Gray was sacked. On Wednesday, Keyes quit. 5 days later, Gray and Keyes are still trending topics on Twitter.
This first #UrgentGenius idea above was an idea Matt Bateman and I had on Tuesday night 12 hours into the competition: what if we create an R&B star (he was later given the name Notorious B.I.G.O.T) who shows Andy Gray how to get away with being a filthy sexist pig and have women love you for it – by singing Andy Gray’s terrible comments in a sexy, soulful way. By 6pm on Wednesday, Matt and David Gyasi had written the lyrics and recorded them and Andy Hutch had directed the 2-minute music video. With real-time guidance and direction from BBC Comedy’s Will Saunders, Matt Holt and Andrew Gaynord, it was edited, approved and online less than 24 hours later. That’s Urgent Genius.
While we were getting our bump and grind on, Albion creative Jon Plackett and Steven Moynihan were on a 48 hour marathon to create a hilarious viral game called Shades of Gray featuring Andy Gray as a 70s game show host who asks you to answer 10 questions to answer the question “What Shade of Gray Are You?” Take the quiz and your results can then be instantly tweeted to your followers revealing what percentage of Gray you are. Brilliant.
Watch this space. And join us on the 18th Feb. Grant Hunter and I will present the winners of the competition at our talk at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in March and the content will feature in the Urgent Genius book to be published this summer.
