A sitcom set inside a venture capital firm has been released free on YouTube, in what its makers believe is the world’s first sitcom written by a human and produced entirely using AI. The pilot episode of No Big Deal can be watched here.
The series was written and created by Andrew Dickinson, who worked as an angel investor and investment manager before turning to comedy. It was produced by ModeLabs.ai, a UK AI studio.
The firm at the centre of it is Janus, whose hunt for the next billion-pound business idea usually produces disastrous results. What reaches the table includes fart-proof underwear, clinical toilets and questionable items of sex furniture, and each promising investment ends in comic disaster.
Written out of the deal room
Dickinson says the material came from his own working life rather than from research.
“I wrote No Big Deal during my time as an angel investor and investment manager. Every storyline began with a real incident that has been exaggerated and expanded for comic effect. I also wrote all of the original music used throughout the series, which was performed and recorded with the help of my good friend and outstanding musician Andy Pike.”
Around the table sit Derek Tudor, brilliant, unpredictable and unable to keep his thoughts to himself; Lydia de Mabro, in charge in all but title since a board seat from the firm’s only successful investment settled the matter; and Perry Kent, an investment banker of long experience for whom Janus is chiefly a stepping stone to a US Green Card. Pitching to them is John Stevens, well-meaning, spectacularly underqualified, and in business only because he inherited the money to start it.
Television economics decided the production route
The choice of AI production was a cost decision rather than a creative one.
“I originally planned to make the pilot through traditional television production, but it quickly became clear that the process would be slow and prohibitively expensive. When I met the team at ModeLabs, I realised AI offered an entirely new way to bring the project to life.”
Dickinson is careful not to present the technology as a shortcut, and describes a long iterative process between the writing and production teams.
“Making the Pilot wasn’t simply a case of pressing a button. Every shot, camera movement, performance, line reading, location and visual detail had to be carefully planned, refined and recreated through an iterative creative process between the writing and production teams. Even while we were making it, the script was rewritten more than 65 times.”
Studio plays down the tools
Dan Hawthorne of ModeLabs.ai said the production method should not be mistaken for the joke.
“No Big Deal is brilliantly written and genuinely funny. AI isn’t the punchline – it’s simply the production technology that made an ambitious independent comedy possible.”
No Big Deal’s opening episode is streaming on YouTube at no cost, here.
The show keeps accounts on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X and Reddit.
