So I’m writing this blog a few days after discovering that I have, as was foretold at the outset of this deterministic universe, been accepted into the 2025 cohort of the BBC Comedy Collective.

Here’s the official announcement on the BBC!

The Comedy Collective is a wonderful annual scheme run by the BBC that entails professional mentorship, paid shadowing, networking, and a bursary, for a small group of up-and-coming voices in comedy. I applied as a director, one of 1600 applicants each requiring a professional credit to qualify. Ultimately, ten of us got selected including myself.

The imposter syndrome is beyond description, to put it mildly.

However, enough days have passed that I’m no longer refreshing my inbox to invite the “apologies for our mistake!” email. Nope; it seems we’re actually doing this.

So firstly - some people might find this blog via Google when it’s application time for the 2026 Comedy Collective. If that’s the case, then welcome! Good luck! It’s probably useful for you to see the stuff I sent in on my own application. I’ve asked the BBC if it’s weird for me to upload this; if the answer is no, or the answer is yes but you’re allowed to do weird things, then I’ll upload them both here for the benefit of future applicants.

If you’re one of my fellow 2025 applicants and you didn’t make it, then I’ll resist my people-pleasing urge to outright apologise for taking up a space, but I will offer sincere commiserations. Go get ‘em next year!

I don’t know why I was chosen, but there’s one thing I can conclusively rule out, and that is an abundance of relevant industry experience. In reading previous years’ cohort bios, it was quickly obvious that I would be one of the applicants with the fewest professional comedy credits - maybe even the fewest in the short history of the Comedy Collective. I’m taking that to mean that the few things I’ve actually made show a bit of promise. Or again, admin error.

What I do know is that all of my progress can be traced back to one gambit in 2022. I speculatively wrote and directed a short, Splain, with lots of help from great collaborators, as well as marital joint savings, and I sent it to BBC Scotland. They bought it and commissioned two more sketches, and it later led to scripted development for regular collaborator Paul Hamilton and I. Making Splain was a very simple cause-and-effect moment of essentially backing oneself and being rewarded for it - you can read much more about that process here, but the upshot is that it’s made me incredibly evangelical about just saving up and getting out and shooting something, as there seems to be no substitute.

As I said in the above-linked blog, the life of an aspiring screenwriter seems to me a bit like being a chef who spends their days writing recipes without ever cooking and tasting a dish. So if you’re in a position to cook a dish, I implore you to do it - good things can happen!

If you’re interested, I’ll be documenting the journey - on Instagram and of course here. So give me a follow on @davidpmcginty and I’ll keep you up to date while I create the next great British ensemble comedy TV show!