Tom Green
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Tom Molineaux reviews
  • Being Tommy Cooper
  • Plays & radio
  • Contact
  • Counterpoints Arts

Pitching The Tent

7/10/2009

2 Comments

 

For Radio 4 drama commissioning, pitch documents are really important. Apart from your track-record, they're all your producer has got as they try to steer your proposal through the commssioning rounds (although smaple scenes are sometimes requested).

I know it can be hard finding examples of pitch documents so here's what I submitted for The Tent.

This was my first pitch to the producer (I sent it, after an initial meeting along with two others)

The Tent

It starts as a solution to a lack of space. After the birth of his third child, with no money to move house or build an extension or even buy a shed, Gavin Lang puts up a tent in the garden.

It’s a place he can go for a few hours peace and quiet in which to work. Somewhere he can make calls without distraction. It doesn’t mean anything, he tells his wife, Fay. It’s purely practical.

She tries to believe him. But the hours he spends in the tent start to increase. And when, one night, Gavin doesn’t come back inside at all, they both realise that their relationship is in crisis.

Can they learn to love (or even like) each other again? Would a caravan provide a permanent solution? 

The Tent is a comedy about a couple overwhelmed by the everyday pressures of family life. 

Then, once we'd decided to make a formal pitch, this was the final draft.

The Tent

Gavin Lang is feeling crowded out. After the birth of his third child there is no room for his books, no space for his records and barely anywhere for him to sit.

His partner Fay is feeling overstretched. She and Gavin have always tried to be equal, to share and support each other. But it feels that only one of them is really driving family life. And it’s not him. 

The tent was up in the loft. Rather than taking chucking it out to make space, Gavin puts it up in the garden. Despite old sand on the floor and mould in the corners, it becomes a place where he can grab a few quiet moments and do some work.

Those ‘moments’ soon become hours. Then whole days pass with Gavin mostly under canvas. It’s practical, he says. But when he starts spending nights out there too, Fay knows that things are going seriously wrong.

One Friday, the house empties. The kids have been despatched to stay with Fay’s parents so that she and Gavin can spend the weekend making preparations for an event that has been 10 years in the offing: their wedding.

Amid discussions about flowers and salsa bands they are forced to question whether their relationship is now about anything more than beneficial tax arrangements. What do they really share? Why is Gavin spending so much time in the tent? Can they learn to love (or even like) each other again? Would a caravan provide a permanent solution?

Things come to a head at the zoo – a putative wedding venue. All that captivity seems to make it an ideal place to get married and they finally realise that it is not for them.

Back home, they feel their relationship has run its course. Gavin starts to pack his bags but when he looks for Fay in order to tell her that he has decided to leave, he cannot find her. She is in the tent.  Gavin crawls in too. And, as rain starts to drum on the canvas, they remember the first camping holidays they shared.

With the kids not due back until the morning, they spend the night out in the garden. Cooking together, sleeping together and falling back in love.

2 Comments
Gail Renard
7/10/2009 11:45:28 pm

What a brilliant idea, Tom. Good luck and let us know what happens!

Reply
Gail Renard
7/10/2009 11:47:46 pm

Ah. I just realised I'd missed it. Ever feel like you're living in a time warp?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Twitter

    Yes, I'm on Twitter...

    Archives

    March 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    January 2014
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    June 2012
    May 2012
    February 2012
    April 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    September 2010
    March 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    October 2008
    September 2008
    August 2008
    July 2008
    June 2008
    May 2008

    Categories

    All
    Ideas
    Opera
    Theatre
    Tv

    Blogs

    John August
    Stephen Gallagher
    Ken Levine
    Nick Robinson
    Elyse Sewell
    Danny Stack
    Helen Smith
    Tom Smith
    Writers' Guild GB

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.