A Total Write-Off is a fast-paced and fun television series where two teams of writers match wits in a writing showdown as they compete to create short stories based on spontaneous audience suggestions. With comedian Barbara North as host and ringmaster, it’s a hip Whose Line Is It Anyway? Meets Just for Laughs for both wordsmiths and fans of the written word.
Our guest authors run the gamut from novelists to screenwriters to journalists – even some not-so-famous writers who collaborate with our pros. Anyone who writes, whether it be novels, grocery store flyers, technical journals or even obits will be eligible to enter the fray. The object? To win what all writers desperately crave – the thumbs up from an adoring public!
Our writers are divided into two teams. With Barbara interacting with the audience and the writers in their “pit,” these impromptu literary masterpieces unfold on display screens before our eyes, based on plot parameters tossed out with wild abandon by audience members.
Barbara also interviews the writers to find out where they get their inspiration, how they face the blank page and hear about their current projects. It’s a car wreck of creativity, featuring a ticking clock, cliché alarms and instant reviews of the works-in-progress by a literary critic.
After “pencils down,” the completed short stories are read aloud by the writers – while simultaneously acted out by the comical A Total Write-Off Mime/Dancers! And it just wouldn’t be a complete write-off without the audience choosing their favourite story to close the show.
A Total Write-Off is created and hosted by Barbara North, who has appeared on Just For Laughs, CBC, W Network, Canadian Learning Television, and more. Barbara also recently created and starred in the CBC TV comedy special Army Brats.
Produced by Panacea Entertainment for Access—The Education Station, Canadian Learning Television and Book Television.
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