Will Smith (Slow Horses)

PLUS: Retrospecs returns!

Pro Spec Greenlight

Has there every been a sweatier pun heading than that? I’m ashamed.

But I wanted to tell you that Retrospecs is back! The live script read show I created returns to the Elysian Theater in LA on Sunday, September 29, 2-4pm. You can get tickets to attend or stream live here.

We’re doing reads of two hilarious specs:

We’re doing a Seinfeld by David Iserson (New Girl; The Spy Who Dumped Me) which he wrote when he was seventeen and which, for some reason, takes place during the Revolutionary War. It is genuinely funny.

We’re also reading a Succession spec by the notorious parody account creator Fake Carol Lombardini which takes place during last year’s WGA/SAG strikes and which features real Carol Lombardini, the studio CEOs, Fran Drescher, and dead-on character dialogue. It’s an impressive script.

And we’ve got an equally impressive cast already lined up, including Hannah Simone (New Girl), Paul Scheer (Star Trek: Lower Decks), Sherry Cola (Joy Ride), and more to be announced. Get your tickets now.

The Horse’s Mouth

As I say in the podcast, Apple+’s Slow Horses is probably my favorite show right now, and I was really looking forward to talking with creator/showrunner Will Smith. Will did not disappoint! It’s a wide-ranging conversation in which we discuss comedy in drama, building off of author Mick Herron's plots, Will’s work on Veep and The Thick of It with Armando Iannucci, and the reason why Slow Horses works as well as it does.

Get the podcast via Apple or Spotify or Acast or your favorite podcast app.