Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays Series 2
Preparations for 6 more episodes of one-woman (+one cat) audio sitcom
About a year ago in a mad and most unusual burst of self-belief I released the first episode of my audio sitcom Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays as a podcast. It’s done in one voice (mine) from the point of view of a forty-something woman who lives in a village in the Yorkshire Dales with her cat. It’s about still being under your older sister’s thumb when you’re middle-aged, and procrastination, and contentment vs ambition, and what happens when one sister has tried to ‘better herself’ and the other one doesn’t see what was wrong before.
So, I wrote a sitcom podcast
Remember how I did James Cary's sitcom course last year? And then realised that writing a radio sitcom was a daft idea because you're either competing for Radio 4 or you have to do your own podcast? Well, I've done my own podcast. It's called Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays and you can listen to it on Spotify or Apple podcasts, or at
And now despite everything I claim to have learnt, I’m back to do it all again.
By the time I released episode 6 of the first series, I knew I was going to make a second series. I’d been enjoying it, I had built up a small following of loyal listeners (thanks, you lot), and I had more plots I wanted to use. I got really organised over the summer and wrote the entire Christmas episode for December, and started writing series 2 episode 2. During the autumn I was busy packing up to move (it fell through at the last minute so I was also busy unpacking later) and the day-job took over my life for a while. Still, I got started on episode 4 (episode 10? How are we numbering these?).
I had been intending to finish writing episode 2 before I moved on, and write all of series 2 in order, but when you start formulating the dialogue in your head as you’re washing up, you know you have to write it down no matter what episode number it technically is. And yes, I do sometimes write dialogue as though it’s a normal script even though this is all a monologue from Lee-Ann’s point of view. Sometimes it’s just easier to figure out how she would report it if I know what was ‘actually’ said.
I had vague intentions of writing at least two episodes over the summer/autumn and then recording them in one go in time for the mid-December release of series 2 episode 1. Setting up the equipment often takes me nearly as long as recording an episode so I was all about efficiency as I planned this several months ago. Which is of course why I recorded the only completely-written episode about ten days before its scheduled release date.
In our quiet street there is very little traffic, which usually means I can record pretty much when I like. I no longer have to factor in the warm-ups of our opera-singer neighbour since he moved to London — when you’re used to projecting to the back row of a theatre, the partitioning of a house converted into flats is not going to contain that voice. So naturally, in the hour that I’d set aside for recording the Christmas episode, about a month’s worth of traffic drove by. The wet roads amplified every set of tyres, and a couple of rattling lorries diverted this way for good measure.
The phone rang. The doorbell rang. I stumbled over perfectly average words like ‘acceptable’. I gradually lost my voice and needed more water. It took me two hours to get 45 minutes of audio, nearly half of which was me coughing, swearing, sighing, or saying the same paragraph six times with different emphasis only for a car to swish past during the best one.
There’s some kind of law about having sleighbells in the theme tune of a Christmas special and we have hanging in our living room — for no particularly good reason — four iridescent bells on different lengths of twine. Sold as a Christmas ornament at the local garden centre, as I recall. Surely they ought to be able to be brought into service. My other half was less sure but I did give it a go (more swearing, lots of clattering).
I haven’t added them to the mix yet so if Series 2 Episode 1 (Festive Family Fun) doesn’t have sleighbells, you’ll know I couldn’t get them to sound right. Here’s a quote from pedantic history-enthusiast Lee-Ann from near the start of the episode, to whet your appetite:
How authentic will this Victorian market be? Only the one in Pickering had some suspiciously Edwardian skirts on view and not a single stallholder appeared to be suffering from consumption, which is statistically dubious to say the least.
Gina said, Did I want a family day out or not?
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 1
You’ll be able to listen to the start of series 2 on December 15th at Apple podcasts, Spotify, or in your browser without having to sign in to anything at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jysaville. You can try series 1 there now if you haven’t already. If you enjoy it, please spread the word — you could even let me know by commenting here or replying to the email.