Simon Bird, Joe Thomas & Jonny Sweet on embracing fears

Crafting a sitcom isn’t easy, so we spoke to Simon Bird, Joe Thomas and Jonny Sweet, the creators of Sky Comedy’s Chickens, and found out how they overcame their fears instead of ‘chickening’ out of making the new series. The writing and acting trio discussed the most challenging roles on a TV set and having faith in your ideas. They also shared why it’s important to experiment and embrace the fear of trying something new.

Which job in a TV programme’s production team would the trio fear the responsibility of? Bird considers “the most difficult job probably is the producer, in terms of workload. The producer, more than anyone, has to maintain a certain grace.”

Thomas chooses the director. “I think it’s really difficult, both organisational and creatively draining… On top of that, you’re expected as a director to have an esoteric signature in the way that you would expect an actor or a writer to.”

Bird admits every role has its challenges, including runners, which are “an important job and a very good way to get into the industry. I’ve encountered runners that did the first series of The Inbetweeners and worked their way up and are now second ADs.”

What challenges did they face while creating Chickens? Sweet describes the writing process: “you spend months and months in a room and it feels like defending in football.” Thomas agrees, “it always feels like it’s not working.”

Bird explains that perseverance is key to the creative process, “I enjoy every part of the process more and more as it goes on. When you sit down with episode one, blank page, that’s a pretty horrible feeling. But as you get more and more of it written, it starts to take shape and that’s exciting.”

As an actor and writer, Thomas finds performing equally challenging, “What I fear is the ticking clock and me not getting it right and time running out.” Bird agrees that time constraints on set are difficult to manage, “some of the people might not know, just coming into the industry, is just genuinely the lack of time, it’s incredibly expensive to film something so you do not have unlimited time… There’s lots of scenes in Chickens where we’ve had to do it in one take and that’s a lot of pressure when it’s going to be seen by millions of people.”

Breaking into the TV industry may be daunting, so what would the trio advise budding actors and writers to not be afraid of? Sweet says it’s important not to be scared of “experimenting and making mistakes. I think it’s so boring but I do think it’s true, you should do things which are really difficult and ambitious and if necessary fail at them.”

Bird shares that production companies initially pushed back on Chickens because “it was too weird an idea, the historical comedy wasn’t really in.” He encourages creatives to stick with an idea that they believe in: “You’ve got to have faith in your idea and hope other people are going to catch up and I feel like that’s the way good stuff gets made, there’s always going to be somebody ahead of the pack.”

As acting or writing for TV can often be a new and unfamiliar experience, it can feel scary and nerve-wracking. Thomas says it’s important to embrace these feelings: “Don’t worry if you’re fearful, it’s just being nervous. The minute before you’re about to do the thing you’re afraid of, your brain will be telling you that it’s going to go wrong, you just have to accept it is just nerves and do it anyway.”

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