BBC Comedy Short Films - Season 1 / Year 2023

A short film by Uncle Shortbread about the dangers of sleep deprivation, the brutality of the music industry and the power of Iggy Pop's hip thrust.

Calamity James is a slapstick comedy about a young man, James, who is cursed with ‘acute misfortune syndrome'. James tries to reconnect with his dad after being thrown out by his mum for setting fire to their house at a family barbecue. In this world, chronic bad luck exists and the unbelievable is the everyday.

They're called 'gays' - but what are they? Who are they? And why? Part mockumentary, part sketch show, This Is Gay attempts to answer these important questions. Your guide, a figure simply known as 'Host', takes you on a strange adventure with many stop-offs along the way, including Renaissance Italy, modern-day London, a charming Welsh parish and a fridge.

Life is hard, so Callum and Jordan, two emotionally unassembled young lads from Northern Ireland, start the Funboys' Fun Club: a playgroup for childish young men to engage in wholesome mucking about. But when a juice party goes awry, Callum's ultra-religious fiancée Morgan kicks them out, and the Funboys must search for a new HQ. When they come across Marty, a catatonically depressed 60-year-old, can they bring joy back to his life and prove that fun won't necessarily lead to an eternity spent in raging hellfire?

Jobless is a sitcom all about the Adenugas, a middle-class British Nigerian family in Milton Keynes, in particular 16-year-old twin brother and sister Kehinde and Taiwo. Kenny is the family joker, who dreams of fame and fortune; sister Tai is, by contrast, sarcastic, super-smart and anxious to prove it. The twins live at home with their parents. Their mum, Bunmi, (chatty, energetic, control-freak tendencies, has a very stern side) runs Bunmi's Beauty Salon, and despairs at her hapless offspring and their schemes to hit the big time.

Tai and Kenny are desperate to make money by any means necessary – not only is financial independence very alluring, but the pressure they face from Bunmi doesn't help. The twins' different personalities inform their different approaches, however it seems neither of those personalities are quite compatible with the world of work.

A desolate train track seems the perfect spot to end it all – until someone else turns up with the same idea. Awkward.

Jack is an unfulfilled actor. Desperate for some meaningful work, he agrees to join fellow actor Lauren on a pantomime tour of the north east. Just one catch: it's an off-season tour of dementia homes, where the audience tend to be more interested in daytime TV than in Jack and Lauren's contemporary interpretation of Alice in Wonderland.

Lauren remains relentlessly upbeat, but Jack fears he's sunk to a new low... until he is unexpectedly confronted with the reality of life, his future and where it ends.

It's the first day of sixth form, and Mike is looking forward to a bit of social mobility. He thinks he's way better than the group of so-called 'loser' friends he's somehow accrued, and aspires to higher things.

But for now, he's stuck with powergeek Sonny and Dan, a lad who only communicates in put-downs, and he's going to find it hard to shake them off: Mike, Sonny and Dan all take the mobility bus to school. Mike has cerebral palsy, Sonny uses a wheelchair, and Dan ‘Syndrome' Simmons has Down's Syndrome. So Mike, Sonny and Dan are trapped together – at least for the ride to school.

Pobl Bachyn is a short comedy-horror film from Tarot about the triple threat of Welsh folklore, English tourists and, to a lesser extent, being hungover - all set on a farm on Ynys Môn.

When Adam goes to visit his friends Ed and Kath after a recent break-up, he is hoping for some consolation. What he hasn't realised is that he has turned up during Pobl Bachyn, a long-standing tradition in the town of Twll.

If a guest is found in the house when midnight strikes, the folkloric hookmen will arrive and all hell will break loose. But it's just a fun tradition, isn't it?

As midnight draws near and Adam is too hungover to leave, Ed and Kath need to choose between friendship and superstition. Perhaps, after all, it's safer to believe than not...

Don't be afraid to embrace the beast within you... even if that means wolfing down a load of pervy men.

An oddball family make a brave, but bungling, attempt to save their failing funeral home in the sleepy Scottish fishing village of Kincully. Archie, having recently inherited the floundering family business from his domineering dad, is determined to prove himself. His sister Moira, the company mortician, and hearse driver Cousin Ron are looking to Archie to prevent A Better Place Funeral Home from falling into the hands of Sympathy Plus, a corporate funeral chain run by the power-hungry Eileen.

Archie is also living in the shadow of his late father - literally. He keeps him in a great big freezer on the landing. With time running out, Archie hatches a plan to keep hold of the family business.

Will Archie's scheme work? Or will A Better Place fall prey to Eileen's growing empire?