Budding sitcom writers are being urged to enter a £5,000 competition to try to find the next comedy hit.

Winners of the ShortList Sitcom Search also have their script developed with Big Talk – makers of the likes of Friday Night Dinner and Rev – and Comedy Central UK.

Also the final four will receive a mentoring session with established comedy writers.

To enter you need to supply a one-page description and three to ten pages of script. Organiser say entries from reasonably experienced screenwriters are welcomed, but not via agents.

Organisers say: ‘Think laugh-out-loud and mainstream. Sitcoms that demand the budget to build a regular set resembling the surface of Mars will be a tougher sell. Words to consider include real, warm, bawdy, lively and big.’

Enter via the ShortList website by September 24. After the initial script-reading process, the judges will reduce the list of scripts down to 40, which will be revealed in early October, then reduced to four.