Brighton comedy writer Brian Mitchell thinks the problem with modern TV comedy is that it's just not crap enough anymore. 'I look at five minutes of Smack the Pony and I can't laugh, because it is so overproduced, beautifully shiny, and full of lovely shots that are totally inappropriate. It's not crap enough. I'd rather have wobbly sets. 'It's like Dave Allen putting two shoes on his knees and pretending to be Tolouse Lautrec. If they had mocked him up with CGI, would that be funny?

I prefer the production values of Monty Python,' says the 30 year old writer. 'No matter how elevated and witty your material, it's a moral duty to be crap in comedy. It's a genre.' Brian and his current writing partner Joe Nixon are part of the swell of comedy talent currently in Brighton. A show at The Sussex Arts Club called Hot Lazarus gained them top agent Ras Gold, who manages Supergirly and Lenny Beige. A stroke of luck that has led them to a score of writing jobs, including revamping the new series of BBC's Live and Kicking, due to air in September.

'I don't want to give away too many secrets. But we are trying to develop some stuff for Otis because he's really good and really underused,' he says. 'We have also got a sketch show pilot that is being pitched to Channel Four and LWT. But a lot of the material we are doing now is just the same as The Ornate Johnson's sketch show that was rejected by TV producers in 1993. and is now being widely accepted.

' Brian originally began writing this with The Semi Skimmed Comedy Dairy's Dave Mounfield after leaving a music degree at Sussex University in the early nineties. 'We were utterly convinced there would be a huge revival in sketch comedy. But the notion in the early nineties was that sketch comedy was purely for television and that doing it live was terribly, horribly middle class; that it was dead and you had to pretend to be working class and be a stand-up to be the future of comedy.

'We did very well, and almost never died, but the timing wasn't right for us. It's hard to break into comedy because TV producer etiquette is that they won't talk to you. No-one wants to be the person who turned down Ali G, so they literally won't talk to you at all to cover themselves.

' Like many artists, sick of the endless struggle with TV producers, self belief and the DSS, the cavalry arrived in the nick of time. 'After Edinburgh last year, I'd had enough of writing plays and putting on theatre and I didn't have the energy to pursue it. 'I was encouraged to come out of retirement by Dave Mounfield to write Hot Lazarus, a concept sketch show. I really didn't want to do it, and complained solidly for two months.

Dave and I both agreed that this would be our last shot at sketches and if this didn't come off, we'd never do it again. 'We did it thinking it would be a laugh for old time's sake. The irony is that we have never had such a successful show, and Joe Nixon and I got management out of it for our writing.'

Imogen Jones

Digital photos by Imogen Jones