When we opened up this year’s Funny Women Awards we really didn’t know what to expect. Given that we don’t know what humanity will be doing from week to week this was very much a known unknown. Whilst overhauling the judging process and moving it entirely online, we had no idea if the most important people in the competition, the entrants, were even going to enter!
In late-March, a slew of articles suggested Lockdown would be a “great time” for practising and improving our creative skills; which was followed by April’s rather more realistic zeitgeist response of “maybe our brains have other things to concentrate on right now…”. So, it’s been incredibly joy-inducing to see scores of women in Britain, Ireland and beyond entering the Stage, Comedy Writing and Comedy Shorts Awards!
Does this mean that the first wave of thinking was actually right? We’re all creatively thriving in the face of our respective adversities? Well, yes and no. Watch brilliant filmmaker Tamzin Rafn’s (@tamzinrafn) hilarious short Lock Me Up Lock Me Down that she made both channelling and depicting her creative mind in lockdown.
In hindsight what should have been pretty obvious is that “we’re all coping and reacting differently and at different times”. To even think about our future performance, writing and directing careers at this moment is an incredibly difficult and positive act of defiance and our hats are off to all of you that have entered so far!
And for those that are struggling to get their heads into a creative space or even think about comedy, we totally get it. Personally, I am very much in that boat with you. So much so that even writing this article is tough… The key for me seems to be not pressuring myself to achieve and being proud of even the smallest expression of creativity when it appears.
So if you are blessed with a random five minutes of energy, try to override the overthinking and send in an existing video, script or even film a self-tape. You’ve nothing to lose and potentially so much to gain. At least three of you out there are going to win these Awards; my happiest known unknown of 2020.
Get your Funny Women Stage Award submission videos in by 11.59 pm, Thursday, 30th April
Your Comedy Shorts Award videos in by Saturday, 30th May
Your Comedy Writing Award 10 page script excerpts and treatments also by Saturday, 30th May.
