This week, a series of fundraisers launched on Mirlo that we are excited to shout out!
In collaboration with Lead Mojo's Smelt, we're delighted to be able to host this eclectic array of projects from beloved names in comedy, encompassing missing histories, sharp political satires, covert agents and music industry morbidity—all original stories that the audience can bring into being.
Music and comedy have long intersected culturally through shared spaces, collaborations, intersections, at music festivals and grassroots venues. We look forward to this all finding a home on Mirlo.
What's most exciting about this, though, is Smelt trying out Mirlo for a feature we've had in the works for a little while. Since last fall, we've been tweaking a functionality that lets artists and labels raise money for specific projects. We're starting with albums, but have plans to roll out similar functionality for merch or other projects. Now, you can ask your community to help you out with a special project you've been wanting to work on, but need funds to do so. Need time in the recording studio? Or want to pay a producer? Mirlo's crowdfunding mode can make that possible.
Without further ado, here are the nine fundraisers launching this week, in the words of Lead Mojo:
Currently, it is extremely difficult for independent creators to fund scripted audio comedy. No matter how popular a series is, the gap between Series 1 and 2 means advertisers tend to favour interview podcasts that can run every week instead, so whether the creators have self-funded the project or have found someone to fund it, the advertising revenue to recoup that money simply isn't going to add up. This means creators can end up signing away their IP and rights in exchange for funding, or else end up out of pocket on the show.
Instead of being funded by advertising, each scripted comedy series will be funded in advance by listeners. This means that if enough people want a show, it will happen, with a budget that means that everyone involved—the writer, the cast, the producer, the sound engineers—will get paid fairly
This Conversation Never Happened by Andy Hamilton (Old Harry’s Game, Outnumbered, Drop the Dead Donkey): A series of imagined conversations from key moments throughout history.
Tamworth by Ian Martin (The Thick of It, Veep, The Death of Stalin): A period sitcom and political satire set in the late 8th century.
Undoable by Deborah Frances-White (The Guilty Feminist, Say My Name, Never Have I Ever): A sitcom about an impossible situation of sexual chemistry in a small town that can only be postponed in agony or end in disaster.
Shadow Rabbits by Joel Morris (Charlie Brooker’s Wipe shows, Philomena Cunk) & Ben Willbond (Ghosts, Yonderland, Horrible Histories): Spies. Fast cars. Exploding pens. Flirting in casinos. Also: paperwork. Lots of paperwork.
The Inn by Alice Fraser (The Bugle): A funny and playful, fly-on-the-wall comedy series based in the initiating location of so many Fantasy genre adventures in which the listener pieces together relationships and stories from overheard snippets.
Broken News from Larry & Paul (Broken News): An all-new series that treats the absurd minutiae of modern life with the urgency of a global crisis. This is hard-hitting cultural satire where the petty is presented as profoundly important.
The Least Bad Of All Possible Worlds by Eddie Robson (Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully, Doctor Who audio): A sci-fi comedy about the unusual residents of a Lancashire boarding house, who have accidentally fallen through gateways from parallel worlds and the case worker tasked with helping them integrate.
Randomly Selected by Amna Saleem (Beta Female): Funny, quick and laced with social bite, Randomly Selected is a fun romcom about the strange intimacy of being seen in a place designed to strip you down, set mostly inside the chaotic purgatory of an airport.
Missing History by Mark Evans (Bleak Expectations, The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff): A spoof history podcast in which our hosts finally fill in the gaps in history: events repressed by the rulers of the day; books and documents lost over time; and incidents that were simply ignored because everyone agreed that they were just too embarrassing to talk about.
Each one of this will be hilarious and well worth the pledge. Read more about it on Beyond the Joke, and on Lead Mojo's page.
Interested in using fundraising on Mirlo? Give us a shout at hi@mirlo.space.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://mirlo.space/team/posts/515