The creators of Nothing Much To Do give us a first look at sequel Lovely Little Losers and drop some hints about what we can expect of the new series.

Literary web series might be the rage, but Nothing Much To Do was the standout series of 2014. Based on Much Ado About Nothing and created by the Candle Wasters, the series dragged Shakespeare’s farcical plot into the modern day with more interpretation than adaptation, and this creative team is just getting started. The sequel Lovely Little Losers, inspired by Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, was funded successfully through a Kickstarter campaign last year and will premiere in 2015.

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We turned to creators Claris Jacobs, Minnie Grace, Sally Bollinger, and Elsie Bollinger for some hints about what we can expect in Lovely Little Losers. “Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Bad people. Good people. Beautifulest people. Spiders. Pain. Death. Bravery. Cowardice. Strength. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles… Basically the Princess Bride.”

Hypable: What else might we see in ‘Lovely Little Losers’?

Candle Wasters: We’re reluctant to reveal too much. We have a mix of the old cast and some new faces. We’ve set this series in a flat of university students, and this presents a different set of challenges. This gives the series a different feel to Nothing Much To Do; there’s more swearing and drinking for example. We’ve held onto some of the cuteness people loved in NMTD, but with a bit more angst thrown into the mix.

Lovely Little Losers is not a direct adaptation of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. We’ve taken more leaps in our interpretation of the text. Unlike NMTD, you can’t necessarily follow the events blow by blow from the original play, but there will be parallels between the original and our own. We also hope that LLL can stand alone, but for those who have seen NMTD there are references to enjoy.

Hypable: Did your fan base have any influence on the creative direction for these characters when it came to writing the sequel?

CW: In a way, not at all. We feel like the audience was happy with where we left the characters in the last season, which was great. We realised we were interested in where the characters could go, which was one of the things which inspired us to write a sequel.

We value many aspects of the characters that our audience also find important, and so we have purposefully put those things in the show, but to satisfy ourselves as much anyone else. Things such as realism, music, kick-ass female characters, LGBTQA+ representation, showing strong friendships, and expanding the story-lines of some of the minor characters from NMTD. We hope that the direction that we take the characters can be enjoyable to the audience, but we also want to challenge audience expectations.

Hypable: What were your creative priorities going into this show compared with ‘Nothing Much To Do’?

CW: With NMTD, we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could make something. With LLL we’ve tried to challenge ourselves, and improve on what we established in the previous season. We’re doing this in terms of story-lines and character development, as we’re aiming for more subtlety this time round. We have also been keen to push the boundaries of the vlogseries format. For instance there is a lot more moving camera in this series.

Another aspect of this process which is different to NMTD was being aware that we now have an audience, and it’s not just our parents watching it. We have a fan-base who enjoy immersing themselves in our content, and it’s wonderful knowing that they will appreciate the finer details of our storytelling.

Lovely Little Losers will premiere mid-2015 on YouTube. The Candle Wasters currently plan for episodes to air twice a week, pending confirmation later in the year.

First look: ‘Lovely Little Losers’ stills

Reuben Hudson.

(L-R) Jessica Stansfield and Harriett Maire.

Jake McGregor.

(L-R) Caleb Wells and Reuben Hudson.

(L-R) Bonnie Simmonds, Harriett Maire and Jessica Stansfield.

(L-R) Mouce Young, Bronwyn Ensor, Bonnie Simmonds, Kalisha Wasasala, Reuben Hudson, Caleb Wells and Jake McGregor.

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