Thanks for your submission

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Lee

We once again opened our door, or rather inbox, to you to submit your sketches and scripts for the next episode of 4amcab and, flippin’ ‘eck did you respond? Yes you did. We had by far our highest number of would be cabbers send us their thoughts and we thank you all for taking the time and interest to send us stuff. We’re currently sifting through everything to see what will work and what is, well, not quite right for us.

We had a really wide selection of ideas, probably in the region of about 50 sketches. We did notice there was one topic that was more popular than others which can only be termed ‘bedroom’ sketches. I guess you lot get up to more interesting things at 4am than we do. Seriously though, we too send our ideas out to other programmes in the hope that we will one day be loved, so we know how it feels to get rejected. If you’d like to get some feedback on why we’ve not used your contribution then do get in touch and we’ll get back to you. We’ve had some useful dialogue with several writers that have sent in their work. David Salisbury, from the Live from Kirrin Island podcast, sent this response after we’d given him feedback:

“As you know dealing with comedy writers, especially beginners involves a lot of fragile egos so your gentle approach to criticism is appreciated I’m sure. As I wrote recently, submitting sketches is the emotional equivalent of asking complete strangers to slap you in the face in the hope that one day they will miss. So it’s always good if they’re not swinging their arm too hard!”

Read David’s full blog post here

Episode 5 ought to be ready towards the start of next month, we will shout about it the minute it is ready. As always, follow us on twitter for updates.

S1Ep4: Hainault?

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Lee

Martin has been burning the candle at both ends, then taking a blow-torch to the middle just for good measure.

Falling asleep on a night bus to Hainault, he finds himself stranded and alone at 4am. His cries for help appear to have been answered when a cab pulls up and offers to take him home. Until the cabbie finds out where home is.

Will our hero make it to Clapham?

Meanwhile, speaking of ham… Charlie has found a gold-ham ticket to Billy Bonka’s magical abattoir, the rapture breaks out in North London, Flatsy take to the silver screen and Callam is fighting to keep THE SHIRT ON HIS BACK!

Join us for another nocturnal adventure in the 4amcab.

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Episode 4 Video

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Lee

4amcab has once again ventured into the dark and disturbing world of video. This time it’s a clip from the upcoming 4th episode and it’s subject matter may be familiar to our more hardcore listeners.

As if by magic (we think it actually IS magic, by the way) you can watch the video right here:

The full episode in lovely, familiar audio format is currently being forced through the editors head and being cleaned, shined and waxed ready for you to download in the next day or so. While you’re waiting for the podcast, go on Facebook and ‘like’ us‘ and tell everyone you know about us, please.

Thank you

Scribble us something

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Rachel

Episode 4 has now been recorded and dispatched to the edit dungeon for a final polish. Up in the glittering writers’ tower, we’re sharpening our biros ready to start on episode 5. We hope to record towards the end of September. If you’re a comedy writer we’d love to read a script inspired by a 4am moment.

Have a listen to episodes 1, 2 and 3 before you start writing. 4amcab has clear themes and a unique style, so write something just for us, keep it short and keep it funny. Our writer’s guide is here. The deadline for submissions is 4am on Friday 14th September. All right, all right, noon on Friday 14th September.

Happy scribbling.

4amcab goes multi-media

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Rachel

Just a quick one to say we have just posted our first video over on YouTube. It’s a clip from episode 3. I expect we’ll be posting more video as we go along, so please check it out, like it and leave us a comment!

Recording episode 4 tonight, we’re more excited than the Twitter newsdesk* when they got that call from Vegas.

* there is no Twitter newsdesk**

** or is there?***

*** no, there isn’t.

4,000 downloads

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Rachel

Morning cabbers!

Just a quick post to say that episodes 1-3 have now been downloaded over 4,000 times. This is great news, but we’re keen to spread the 4amcab message even further, so please tell all your friends about us!

But what about episode 4? We are recording next week so another 4amcab will be motoring onto your iPod (other mp3 players are available) very soon. You have subscribed haven’t you? Good.

And don’t forget that you can write for us. We’ve slammed shut the laptop on episode 4, but we are accepting submissions for episode 5, so do send us your ideas.

Finally, if you enjoy that sort of thing, hook up with us on Twitter, Facebook and iTunes.

Find us on Facebook

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Rachel

4amcab is proud to present our shiny new Facebook page. We’ll be posting frequent updates on the progress of episodes, plus a bundle of other 4am goodness.

We’re also canvassing opinion on a number of topics from our Facebook friends, and may even incorporate some of your ideas into sketches.

So ‘like’ us and join the conversation, you might find yourself appearing in a future podcast! Click here to get involved.

A good week

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Rachel

Here in the 4amcab bunker we’ve had a busy week writing, re-writing and honing scripts for episode 4. It’s been a great week for submissions too. We’ve had loads of ideas and scripts come in, and we’ve been tweaking away to get as many of them in as we can.

We’ve seen our 3,000th download, the top spot in the iTunes comedy ‘new and noteworthy’ section and we’re now bobbing up and down the comedy podcast chart as well.

We’ve also been featured in the Succotash podcast, so thanks to Marc at Succotash for that. Thanks to YOU for following our progress, particularly if you’ve submitted scripts to us. We can’t use everything, but you will be credited if we use your stuff, even if we’ve made changes.

If you’d like to help us out, please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes and write a review. There is a strange and magical iTunes algorithm (which only Bob at iTunes knows) and although we can’t fathom out what it is, we’re pretty sure it depends upon numbers of downloads, subscriptions and reviews. Click here to do that for us.

More news on the forthcoming episode 4 soon, and as always if you have any requests, let us know!

New and Noteworthy

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Rachel

Morning 4amcabbers,

We’re three episodes and 2,500 downloads into the 4amcab project and we’re now in the top 4 new and noteworthy comedy podcasts on iTunes. Here we are hanging out with Scott Mills, Radio 4 and The Weak Crave on the comedy homepage.

We could be busted back down to 20th by lunchtime, so we grabbed a picture. As one of our new contributors (the brilliant @kerihw) would say, they can’t take it away now.

Thanks to everyone who’s subscribed, rated, reviewed, RT’d and generally supported us, we bloody love you guys more than a brand new, glossy copy of OMFG magazine (January 2013 edition out now!)

In other news, episode 4 is on the way. The script is being hammered into shape by our script editor and we are still very much open to submissions. Have a listen to episodes 1, 2 and 3, and then read our ‘write for 4amcab‘ guide and you’ll be away.

Leave us a comment letting us know what you think of the series so far, what you want to hear more/less of and we’ll do our best to make it happen.

What our listeners say about us

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Rachel

Brilliant! *****
Love this! Sounds like no other podcast. The actors are great and the writing is funny.

Nefarious nocturnal matters *****
I love this brilliantly produced podcast. It’s like Monkey Dust for the iPhone generation.

All clubbers must listen to this! *****
Highly recommended to those who have stayed out til all hours of the morning.

Yes we cab! *****
Splendidly produced and mixed sounds of somewhere at 4am, topped off with some cracking joke-writing. Reminiscent of Chris Morris’s Blue Jam.

Superb *****
A fabulous podcast. Brilliant performances and superbly produced. Listen and you’ll be hooked for sure.

And the lovely David Salisbury has even blogged about us.

We really hope you’ve enjoyed the first three episodes. Please take a moment to click here and write us a review. If you don’t have time to construct sentences, simply give us a star rating. Believe it or not, the more reviews and ratings we get, the more people will find us on iTunes, it’s a funny old world.

Thank you kindly.