Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays, episode 4
There is a fourth episode of my one-woman (+one cat) Yorkshire village sitcom Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays, and there has been for a while but I've been rather slow to tell you about it. You can listen to it on Spotify or Apple podcasts, or at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jysaville where you should be able to play it in a browser without logging in to anything.
For those who haven't heard about the podcast before, fortyish Lee-Ann has been moved on to a four-day week at work and wants to spend her Fridays with her portly black and white cat (Lord Salisbury) or researching the history of the village she moved to a few years ago to be near her baby niece. Unfortunately her interfering older sister (Gina) doesn’t think those are worthy pursuits, and Fridays are usually spent trying to thwart Gina. Lee-Ann's Scottish neighbour Douglas isn't on anyone's side but his own.
It's structured like a sitcom, but told as a monologue from Lee-Ann's point of view. In this episode Lee-Ann has forgotten she's supposed to be taking her descant recorder to an early music group that Gina wants to go to. Looking for inspiration on how to get out of it she goes to the library, but all that gets her is a chat about skiffle and Deep Purple with retired GP Dr Shah, and flak from Gina.
Gina said she was out power-walking before she headed off to her lute lesson and she’d seen me in the distance. Given the direction I was walking and the point at which I crossed the road I could only have been going home from the library. Why?
episode 4, Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays by JY Saville
I ended up down a 1950s chocolate rabbithole which is why Lee-Ann does likewise, and being bisexual means it's natural to me that Lee-Ann is similarly revealed in this episode to have had both girlfriends and boyfriends in the past, but I take no responsibility for her assumptions about the musical tastes of Douglas:
I don’t think it was at all unreasonable of me to assume he was into folk music. Half of Scotland is in a folk band, if Radio 2 is to be believed, and I know he doesn’t live there anymore but still...and anyway you only have to look at his knitwear collection, not to mention the fact that he cycles for enjoyment
episode 4, Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays by JY Saville
The day before episode four was released, Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays got a favourable mention on the Sitcom Geeks podcast, which was a lovely surprise. James Cary, whose sitcom-writing course I did a couple of years ago (and whose writing credits include Bluestone 42, Miranda, My Family, Hut 33, Milton Jones, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Think the Unthinkable) said nice things about it and encouraged listeners to check it out both because it was funny (thanks James, I owe you a pint) and because it was a good example of someone taking the DIY approach. If you're at all interested in getting into writing audio sitcom, do listen to episode 214 of Sitcom Geeks, it's a good overview (and if you want to check I'm not making up the favourable mention, it's about 7 minutes in).
If you've enjoyed any of Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays and want to support me as I make episode five (I'm aiming for six in series one), you can always buy me a cuppa at https://ko-fi.com/jysaville