About
Hi, I'm Dan. That's me above, trying to hug space. I've been writing comedy for what seems like ages, especially those days that feel like months. Some of my more successful attempts are listed below.
Among other things, I've written for TV, radio, stand-ups, corporate events, Edinburgh shows, satirical websites, non-satirical websites, radio ads and best man speeches.
I am available for any sort of work that requires funny writing; including (but not limited to) writing stand-up sets, funnying up of a speech or presentation and/or gags per your needs or even just a proof-read of what you've written to make sure all your punctuation and spelling is correct. Contact me for details and rates.
I offer services in script editing for your comedy scripts and can provides gags and/or whole routines for your stand-up needs. Please see the Script Editing/Stand-Up Material tab for more detail.
I also run RecordMyScript.com - a service that will create an audio recording of your script with professional actors, so you know how it sounds in its current incarnation, allowing you to see what it needs in future drafts. If you're interested, contact me for more details.
I am one of the writers for White Label Comedy - a Creative Agency powered by Comedy Writers and Copywriters. Helping brands of all sizes with marketing, advertising and social media. They told me to write that, so I didn't actually write that bit.
Below is an incomplete biography. Not all of it is interesting...
As one third of the gestalt entity Cooper Mawhinney-Sweryt, I am one of the commissioned writers for BBC Radio 4's multi-awarding winning The Skewer , one of the lead writers for BBC Two/BBC Scotland's Breaking The News and have contributed to BBC One's Only An Excuse? (2013-present), Away With The Tartan Army, Hogmanay Live, The Naked Week, the Rose D'Or-winning 'Best Radio Comedy 2015' Newsjack , Lewis Macleod's Wired News, Recorded For Training Purposes, Tilt (2008), Grrr and Play & Record (BBC Radio 7, 2007)
I am script editor for the New York Festival's World's Best Radio Program[me]s 2015 'Best Comedy Special' Bronze Award-winning Damn The Torpedoes!, the inaugural comedy sketch show commissioned by the British Forces Broadcasting Service and also the European Podcast Award-nominated podcast Live From Kirrin Island, broadcast on Brooklands Radio (2012-present) and reached the Top 20 of comedy podcasts on iTunes. Both shows produced by Kirrin Productions.
I have written regularly-attempted satire for NewsThump, The Daily Dafty, The News Dump and Screen Idle.
I have had material broadcast in The Comedy Unit's Rough Cuts audio sketch show podcast, dark comedy sketch podcast 4amcab, Zubox.tv's The Football Special, a weekly animated football comedy show, The 10-ish Minute Show, on Formal Shark Radio and Paul and Nessa's Happy Hour, on Spark Sunderland radio.
I also write routines and gags for a number of stand-up comedians, including Edinburgh shows and corporate material.
I was part of the writing team for stage-based sketch show Teak Show's Twisted Sketches and helped put together the sketch show Sketchaholics. Material has been performed on-stage by Mssrs Comedy. I won the sketch competition run by Stephens & Brooks' comedy residency at the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton, in both October and November 2010, that led to me writing material for their 2011 Edinburgh Show. Sketches have been performed at Radio Rejects in London. I have also had material performed at the long-running topical stage sketch shows The Treason Show and News Revue.
Material has been used in a television pilot sketch show produced by Breaking Bad Productions and and I have had material performed at CoFilmic's Sketch In The City sketch night (both 2012) and subsequently in the Sketch Competition at the CoFilmic Festival 2012.
Material has been shortlisted for BBC Radio 4's Recorded For Training Purposes (series 3) and also stage sketch-shows The Works (November 2009) and Mssrs Comedy (August 2010)
A 10-minute sitcom script, Departures, was performed on stage at 'Script Night: Harvest Festival' in Leeds in October 2008.
A sitcom, Outgoings, was in the final 32 (from 500) selected sitcoms to progress in 'The Sitcom Mission 2010'. Another, 5-minute, Christmas-based episode of Outgoings was shortlisted in the Top 20 for Tin Can Podcast's '12 Plays Of Xmas' competition in 2010 before being selected for performance in the final of The Sitcom Trials 2011 in Manchester.
Another sitcom, Separate Parents, was voted second in The Sitcom Trials 2012 Halloween-themed competition and was considered for the Bristol Finals before being performed at the Manchester Finals. It was shortlisted for the performance stages of The Sitcom Trials 'So You Think You Write Funny' 2013, run in association with the Gilded Balloon.
I script edited Neil Tollfree's Alice & The Genie, winner of The Sci-Fi Sitcom Trials 2012 and also shortlisted for the performance stages of The Sitcom Trials 'So You Think You Write Funny' 2013
I have sold original material to 118118's joke service.
The Sam & Dave Show (Soundart Radio) have produced and broadcast one of my sketches on air. They also animated a sketch and used it at their live show at the Hull Comedy Festival 2009.
I had a sitcom optioned by Ebuco, a Belgian Production Company, who pitched it to French TV.
But most prestigiously of all, I won the British Comedy Guide's 'Sketch of the Year' 2008, as voted for by my peers even if it is, apparently, 'bollocks'. This is the sketch that The Sam & Dave Show recorded and subsequently animated above.
I wrote a 'humorous' blog about getting married for prestigious male-oriented wedding website, Staggered.com.
I also wrote an article taking issue with 'comedy snobbery' for Chortle.
Among other things, I've written for TV, radio, stand-ups, corporate events, Edinburgh shows, satirical websites, non-satirical websites, radio ads and best man speeches.
I am available for any sort of work that requires funny writing; including (but not limited to) writing stand-up sets, funnying up of a speech or presentation and/or gags per your needs or even just a proof-read of what you've written to make sure all your punctuation and spelling is correct. Contact me for details and rates.
I offer services in script editing for your comedy scripts and can provides gags and/or whole routines for your stand-up needs. Please see the Script Editing/Stand-Up Material tab for more detail.
I also run RecordMyScript.com - a service that will create an audio recording of your script with professional actors, so you know how it sounds in its current incarnation, allowing you to see what it needs in future drafts. If you're interested, contact me for more details.
I am one of the writers for White Label Comedy - a Creative Agency powered by Comedy Writers and Copywriters. Helping brands of all sizes with marketing, advertising and social media. They told me to write that, so I didn't actually write that bit.
Below is an incomplete biography. Not all of it is interesting...
As one third of the gestalt entity Cooper Mawhinney-Sweryt, I am one of the commissioned writers for BBC Radio 4's multi-awarding winning The Skewer , one of the lead writers for BBC Two/BBC Scotland's Breaking The News and have contributed to BBC One's Only An Excuse? (2013-present), Away With The Tartan Army, Hogmanay Live, The Naked Week, the Rose D'Or-winning 'Best Radio Comedy 2015' Newsjack , Lewis Macleod's Wired News, Recorded For Training Purposes, Tilt (2008), Grrr and Play & Record (BBC Radio 7, 2007)
I am script editor for the New York Festival's World's Best Radio Program[me]s 2015 'Best Comedy Special' Bronze Award-winning Damn The Torpedoes!, the inaugural comedy sketch show commissioned by the British Forces Broadcasting Service and also the European Podcast Award-nominated podcast Live From Kirrin Island, broadcast on Brooklands Radio (2012-present) and reached the Top 20 of comedy podcasts on iTunes. Both shows produced by Kirrin Productions.
I have written regularly-attempted satire for NewsThump, The Daily Dafty, The News Dump and Screen Idle.
I have had material broadcast in The Comedy Unit's Rough Cuts audio sketch show podcast, dark comedy sketch podcast 4amcab, Zubox.tv's The Football Special, a weekly animated football comedy show, The 10-ish Minute Show, on Formal Shark Radio and Paul and Nessa's Happy Hour, on Spark Sunderland radio.
I also write routines and gags for a number of stand-up comedians, including Edinburgh shows and corporate material.
I was part of the writing team for stage-based sketch show Teak Show's Twisted Sketches and helped put together the sketch show Sketchaholics. Material has been performed on-stage by Mssrs Comedy. I won the sketch competition run by Stephens & Brooks' comedy residency at the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton, in both October and November 2010, that led to me writing material for their 2011 Edinburgh Show. Sketches have been performed at Radio Rejects in London. I have also had material performed at the long-running topical stage sketch shows The Treason Show and News Revue.
Material has been used in a television pilot sketch show produced by Breaking Bad Productions and and I have had material performed at CoFilmic's Sketch In The City sketch night (both 2012) and subsequently in the Sketch Competition at the CoFilmic Festival 2012.
Material has been shortlisted for BBC Radio 4's Recorded For Training Purposes (series 3) and also stage sketch-shows The Works (November 2009) and Mssrs Comedy (August 2010)
A 10-minute sitcom script, Departures, was performed on stage at 'Script Night: Harvest Festival' in Leeds in October 2008.
A sitcom, Outgoings, was in the final 32 (from 500) selected sitcoms to progress in 'The Sitcom Mission 2010'. Another, 5-minute, Christmas-based episode of Outgoings was shortlisted in the Top 20 for Tin Can Podcast's '12 Plays Of Xmas' competition in 2010 before being selected for performance in the final of The Sitcom Trials 2011 in Manchester.
Another sitcom, Separate Parents, was voted second in The Sitcom Trials 2012 Halloween-themed competition and was considered for the Bristol Finals before being performed at the Manchester Finals. It was shortlisted for the performance stages of The Sitcom Trials 'So You Think You Write Funny' 2013, run in association with the Gilded Balloon.
I script edited Neil Tollfree's Alice & The Genie, winner of The Sci-Fi Sitcom Trials 2012 and also shortlisted for the performance stages of The Sitcom Trials 'So You Think You Write Funny' 2013
I have sold original material to 118118's joke service.
The Sam & Dave Show (Soundart Radio) have produced and broadcast one of my sketches on air. They also animated a sketch and used it at their live show at the Hull Comedy Festival 2009.
I had a sitcom optioned by Ebuco, a Belgian Production Company, who pitched it to French TV.
But most prestigiously of all, I won the British Comedy Guide's 'Sketch of the Year' 2008, as voted for by my peers even if it is, apparently, 'bollocks'. This is the sketch that The Sam & Dave Show recorded and subsequently animated above.
I wrote a 'humorous' blog about getting married for prestigious male-oriented wedding website, Staggered.com.
I also wrote an article taking issue with 'comedy snobbery' for Chortle.
