The Mayoress T-Shirt Arrives

This is just a quick update on one of the campaigns I pledged money to on Kickstarter earlier this year.  The campaign is now closed to backers but if the pilot episode of The Mayoress is successful then there may be future crowdfunding opportunities.

Backing a sitcom was a bit of a departure from my usual technology based pledges but this grabbed my attention because two of my favourite comedians are in it.  With the notable exception of Bill Bailey, Harry Hill and Jack Dee have caused me to have more laughter related asthma attacks over the years than pretty much any other comedians on the telly.  Whilst the asthma is something of a concern I always thought that if I’m going to go then I might as well go out laughing but as a precaution I carry a salbutamol inhaler with me these days.

The Kickstarter Campaign

If you scan the campaign page on Kickstarter you will undoubtedly recognise many of the people involved in the making of The Mayoress.  There are plenty of familiar faces throughout the cast and the production team and I’m pretty confident that they’ll deliver a very entertaining pilot for what will hopefully become a TV series.  I am also intrigued by the fact that a collection of what I imagine are very well-connected people have chosen to fund their pilot episode via a community effort.  I appreciate it’s not the first time this has ever happened, but in a fast-changing world where investors are harder to come by I wonder whether this type of direct engagement with fans is going to become the new normal for funding art projects of all types.  So here is me quite literally wearing the T-Shirt in support of crowdfunding.

The campaign set out to raise £75K to cover the pilot episode production costs and made it just past the post in the closing days of the fundraising.  The cast is working for free and the £75K is for production costs only.  Last year I also backed a film project being run by YouTuber Luke Cutforth who was also trying to raise £75K but in this instance to make an entire feature film based on the book The Drowning of Arthur Braxton by Caroline Smailes.  Although impossible to draw direct comparisons it will be interesting to compare the “bang for your buck” when these two projects are complete.  On the one hand we have a team of seasoned professionals who have the benefit of experience with regard to production costs and on the other an incredibly enthusiastic young man passionate about bringing his dream to life on a shoestring budget.  Watch this space, as they say.

About The Mayoress

Living in the middle of commuter-land I see the characters portrayed here every day.  My day job also requires me to take regular trips on the pointless paperwork merry-go-round and deal with people who get tremendously anxious if you want to do something without submitting the correct forms.  I can’t believe I am alone here and I think a lot of people will identify with this idea for a comedy.  Set in the fictional county of Mansford and based around the events at Mansford County Council, I imagine this will be in a similar vein to the awesome 2012 which followed the exploits of a fictional Olympic Games committee.

Updates

If you want to stay up-to-date with the making of The Mayoress then you can visit The Mansford County Council Website.