The mechanics
Saturday 19 March is the starting pistol for The Last Laugh. Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ THREE
will transmit the launch programme that night at 9.00pm with the first
official 'sighting' of the starts, written by the eight writing teams.
The following Sunday morning, tens of thousands of Last Laugh books,
containing the eight beginnings, will be available at no charge at locations
across the country, from newsagents to kebab shops.
Sixteen thousand books will be available through libraries and a further
20,000 will be issued through book shops.
In practically every part of the country you will never be more than
20 miles away from a book!
The following major book chains are also distributing them: Waterstones,
Oxfam Books, Blackwell and Ottakars.
A full list of places will be detailed on bbc.co.uk/lastlaugh.
But be warned! At virtually every location last year, the End of Story
books were gone within a matter of hours and sometimes minutes.
A very limited number of books can be obtained via the phone line 09065
155166 (calls cost Β£2.50 to cover postage and packing), which will become
active at the time of transmission.
If you don't manage to get hold of a book, all is not lost.
The scripts will be available to download from bbc.co.uk/lastlaugh
from 28 March.
It is open to people who don't earn a living from scriptwriting, so
if you have sold the odd gag line here or there you should be fine to
enter but please check with the definition of professional scriptwriter
on the website.
Each professional writing team has written around 20 minutes of a sitcom,
with the remaining ten minutes open to the interpretation of the general
public who choose to enter.
The competition closes to entries at 5.00pm sharp on Friday 6 May.
Then a squad of readers get stuck in whittling down the entries to
just five possible endings per sitcom for the judging panel to assess.
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