Someone was advertising recently in my local paper for a ghostwriter to work on a book. Now, in theory this should be right up my street; fourteen years running a daily prep service certainly constitutes ghostwriting, as do my uncredited scriptwriting for cabaret acts, speechwriting, copywriting…
But nowadays an ad like this just sets alarm bells ringing. It might be perfectly genuine but I have had enough unfortunate experiences with would-be writers to put me off such collaborations forever.
There was a dear old lady in Southampton who had written some excellent songs for a musical set locally during World War II and was looking for someone to script the ‘book’ for it. The problem was that she wanted it ready for the VE Day Anniversary in 1995 and this was late 1994! She also expected me to act as an impresario and get it staged. Even if it could have been written, funded, cast, directed and rehearsed in time, a weekend at a community centre might have been the best case scenario, provided she had shed-loads of publicity and relatives, but it turned out that what she had in mind was the 2300-seater Mayflower Theatre! I felt bad for her but just quietly walked away from the project.
When I advertised in the Stage, I frequently got calls from loud wide-boys inviting me to work on their ‘sitcom’ ideas. They would bellow about some character they knew whose life experiences would, apparently, ‘make a good comedy’. In the exceedingly unlikely event of their half-baked ideas being commissioned by any broadcaster, they were prepared to offer me half the proceeds for doing all the work but nothing for wasted time otherwise! One wanted to meet me so he could reveal his brilliant concept in person but warned that I would have to sign a legal document binding me to secrecy about it. Another said he thought we could start off with a two-hour movie followed by several TV series as a spin-off! They all had pound signs in their eyes but not a clue about the requirements of TV or radio (not that radio’s rates of pay would have been of any interest to them). Of course, I never got involved with these people but simply returned to my (guaranteed) work; they probably returned to their market stalls.
But on one occasion, an impatient old man nagged me to read his sitcom. He led me into his ground floor flat. Halfway along the hallway, we walked up three stairs then down three the other side. There was absolutely no reason for them to be there; I soon began to identify with them…
Rather than simply write a synopsis, he had actually scripted six full episodes – of unequal length! Some were fifty minutes, some ninety. He obviously felt that TV or radio would disrupt their schedules to accommodate this blockbuster. There were no strong characters, subplots – or jokes! The storyline involved gambling and there was one scene where the hard-up hero told his partner that he was just off to use the week’s housekeeping to try out a new betting system. Her reply? ‘OK’…
I read through all this, returned (negotiating the six superfluous steps again) and gently offered my opinion about why it was a non-starter. I’d brought detailed written feedback as well.
I asked for some money for my time. I suppose I felt sorry for him; why else would I have asked for little more than minimum wage? He knocked a third off, saying he couldn’t afford any more as he’d just booked his holiday.
Then he showed me a page of a novel he was writing. It described an explicit and energetic sex scene. Looking at him, I assumed that it wasn’t autobiographical.
I left very shortly afterwards, resolving (unlike him) to stick to known quantities.
(Reprinted from the Radio Magazine Issue 829, 27 February 2008).
Wednesday 30 July 2008
Tuesday 22 July 2008
Growing My Own Arty Jokes
I know, I know: even by the standards of the titles I give these blog entries, that one’s a real shocker but, as always, it should at least give you some clue as to the content of the post to follow and its tenuous link to radio comedy.
I was at Broadcasting House one day, chatting about what I planned to be doing during the summer months while the topical shows I contributed to were off the off the air and one of my colleagues, a blunt Yorkshireman (is there any other kind?), remarked ‘Gardening? You don’t seem the type!’
I’m not sure exactly what the ‘type’ is but it’s hardly unusual for writers with a connection to radio humour to be have an interest in gardening. The prolific Mat Coward, author of the highly-acclaimed Pocket Essential Classic Radio Comedy, has been a regular contributor to Organic Gardening magazine since its inception exactly 20 years ago, while the first novel by Lynne Truss was called With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed and actually came with one attached to the cover (plus, I am sure, some perfect punctuation).
One of the questions I am most frequently asked at speaking engagements is who are my favourite comedians? I’m sure those asking always expect me to run off a long list of classic sitcom stars and stand-ups but I always answer that, although my influences are people renowned for using humour effectively, they are not always people you would think off as comedians. Groucho Marx certainly was a comic but the late Blaster Bates was a brilliantly funny speaker while Patrick ‘Call My Bluff’ Campbell was a wonderful purveyor of written wit which his stammer prevented from delivering (except in the smallest of doses) on TV. And then there is Geoffrey Smith.
I think that name always takes them by surprise but when I was listening to Gardeners’ Question Time circa 1994, just after the entire panel left to present Classic FM’s Classic Gardening Forum, the incoming independent production company put together a new team which included Mr Smith and I loved his off-the-cuff humour. Many great laughs in the current shows come from County Down’s vegetable-hating John Cushnie.
But vegetable growing is what I hope to be doing again this year (at my girlfriend Val’s place; I don’t think the Residents’ Association in the block where I live would appreciate it if I started digging up the communal gardens to put runner beans in). The weather in 2007 meant a washout for gardeners all over the UK and it probably also cost me a lot of creative ideas.
You see, another question I get asked a lot at talks is whether all comedians are depressives (audiences always think about Hancock and Spike Milligan in this regard). I answer that some seem to be, some don’t; then I go on to explain that creating humour is not a 9 – 5 job; whether you are a performer or a writer, you are always thinking about that next joke, observation – or magazine article! Whether you are walking along the street, doing the shopping or waiting for a train, you are constantly mulling over ideas and this distraction may look like depression to the outside world.
Which reminds me of the time when my late mother visited her local corner shop shortly after my extrovert younger brother. The shopkeeper spoke very good English but had an occasional, slightly unusual turn of phrase.
‘Your jovial son has just been here’, he said.
‘Ah’, replied my mother, ‘As opposed to the miserable bugger?’
And if I’m up to my knees in mud and stinking of compost and nettle juice feed, I can concentrate on humorous ideas and no-one accuses me of looking depressed because no-one wants to come near me at all.
(Reprinted from the Radio Magazine Issue 837, 23 April 2008)
I was at Broadcasting House one day, chatting about what I planned to be doing during the summer months while the topical shows I contributed to were off the off the air and one of my colleagues, a blunt Yorkshireman (is there any other kind?), remarked ‘Gardening? You don’t seem the type!’
I’m not sure exactly what the ‘type’ is but it’s hardly unusual for writers with a connection to radio humour to be have an interest in gardening. The prolific Mat Coward, author of the highly-acclaimed Pocket Essential Classic Radio Comedy, has been a regular contributor to Organic Gardening magazine since its inception exactly 20 years ago, while the first novel by Lynne Truss was called With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed and actually came with one attached to the cover (plus, I am sure, some perfect punctuation).
One of the questions I am most frequently asked at speaking engagements is who are my favourite comedians? I’m sure those asking always expect me to run off a long list of classic sitcom stars and stand-ups but I always answer that, although my influences are people renowned for using humour effectively, they are not always people you would think off as comedians. Groucho Marx certainly was a comic but the late Blaster Bates was a brilliantly funny speaker while Patrick ‘Call My Bluff’ Campbell was a wonderful purveyor of written wit which his stammer prevented from delivering (except in the smallest of doses) on TV. And then there is Geoffrey Smith.
I think that name always takes them by surprise but when I was listening to Gardeners’ Question Time circa 1994, just after the entire panel left to present Classic FM’s Classic Gardening Forum, the incoming independent production company put together a new team which included Mr Smith and I loved his off-the-cuff humour. Many great laughs in the current shows come from County Down’s vegetable-hating John Cushnie.
But vegetable growing is what I hope to be doing again this year (at my girlfriend Val’s place; I don’t think the Residents’ Association in the block where I live would appreciate it if I started digging up the communal gardens to put runner beans in). The weather in 2007 meant a washout for gardeners all over the UK and it probably also cost me a lot of creative ideas.
You see, another question I get asked a lot at talks is whether all comedians are depressives (audiences always think about Hancock and Spike Milligan in this regard). I answer that some seem to be, some don’t; then I go on to explain that creating humour is not a 9 – 5 job; whether you are a performer or a writer, you are always thinking about that next joke, observation – or magazine article! Whether you are walking along the street, doing the shopping or waiting for a train, you are constantly mulling over ideas and this distraction may look like depression to the outside world.
Which reminds me of the time when my late mother visited her local corner shop shortly after my extrovert younger brother. The shopkeeper spoke very good English but had an occasional, slightly unusual turn of phrase.
‘Your jovial son has just been here’, he said.
‘Ah’, replied my mother, ‘As opposed to the miserable bugger?’
And if I’m up to my knees in mud and stinking of compost and nettle juice feed, I can concentrate on humorous ideas and no-one accuses me of looking depressed because no-one wants to come near me at all.
(Reprinted from the Radio Magazine Issue 837, 23 April 2008)
Wednesday 2 July 2008
Oh! The deadline stage is always a bit of a pain...
It’s appropriate to paraphrase a lyric from the musical Calamity Jane when writing about deadlines because their approach often carries the fear of impending calamity, such as a producer using another writer’s material, a DJ having nothing to say, or even (by far the most alarming) an empty page in the Radio Magazine!
I find that fitting writing deadlines around a busy public speaking schedule can be an interesting challenge, although the acquisition of a Blackberry has made emailing topical prep gags a lot easier. In the past, I have faxed material from copy shops, libraries and hotels in various parts of the UK. After speaking at a lunch in Winchester, I dashed out and asked the staff on the reception desk if I could send off a handwritten sketch. It arrived at the BBC bang on the 3pm deadline, was typed up at their end and got broadcast.
The trouble with deadlines is that they have a habit of changing. It’s bad enough when a new radio comedy producer suddenly decides to bring a long-established deadline forward by an hour without them also having a watch that seems to be ten minutes faster than mine!
Mind you, the pressure of a deadline can be very good for creativity. When I write topical material, I study various news sources and make brief notes about any items which I feel could inspire a joke or observation. Sometimes an idea comes to me straight away, fully-formed. Or there might be the germ of an idea which I will develop later. Then there are stories which are just crying out for a gag but nothing occurs to me – until the deadline.
In 1994, I was in a dressing room at the Paris Studios, Lower Regent Street, writing last-minute gags for the live recording celebrating the News Huddlines becoming the longest-running audience radio comedy show in broadcasting history. I’d submitted a number of items to Tony Hare, the script editor, and I knew that several would be used, but there was one news story that just kept nagging me to come up with something.
It was about a gang who had nicked all the pizzas from a delivery man. I read the details again and again: nothing. Then, just as Tony was completing the Stop Press script, this came to me:
‘A delivery man was devastated when his entire vanload of pizzas was stolen. He even tried topping himself – but the cheese kept rolling off his head’.
Yes, it’s a pun – but Roy Hudd loved it and it got one of the biggest laughs of the night. The Pebble Mill cameras were in filming and they showed it in their piece about the show, giving me a sort of TV debut, and the clip was also used when BBC TV South did a feature about my work. So thank you, Dr Deadline.
But I must go because the deadline for another day’s prep is looming; in other words (with further apologies to songwriters Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster):
Setting up jokes, setting up jokes, setting up jokes...
(Reprinted from the Radio Magazine Issue 766, 13 December 2006)
I find that fitting writing deadlines around a busy public speaking schedule can be an interesting challenge, although the acquisition of a Blackberry has made emailing topical prep gags a lot easier. In the past, I have faxed material from copy shops, libraries and hotels in various parts of the UK. After speaking at a lunch in Winchester, I dashed out and asked the staff on the reception desk if I could send off a handwritten sketch. It arrived at the BBC bang on the 3pm deadline, was typed up at their end and got broadcast.
The trouble with deadlines is that they have a habit of changing. It’s bad enough when a new radio comedy producer suddenly decides to bring a long-established deadline forward by an hour without them also having a watch that seems to be ten minutes faster than mine!
Mind you, the pressure of a deadline can be very good for creativity. When I write topical material, I study various news sources and make brief notes about any items which I feel could inspire a joke or observation. Sometimes an idea comes to me straight away, fully-formed. Or there might be the germ of an idea which I will develop later. Then there are stories which are just crying out for a gag but nothing occurs to me – until the deadline.
In 1994, I was in a dressing room at the Paris Studios, Lower Regent Street, writing last-minute gags for the live recording celebrating the News Huddlines becoming the longest-running audience radio comedy show in broadcasting history. I’d submitted a number of items to Tony Hare, the script editor, and I knew that several would be used, but there was one news story that just kept nagging me to come up with something.
It was about a gang who had nicked all the pizzas from a delivery man. I read the details again and again: nothing. Then, just as Tony was completing the Stop Press script, this came to me:
‘A delivery man was devastated when his entire vanload of pizzas was stolen. He even tried topping himself – but the cheese kept rolling off his head’.
Yes, it’s a pun – but Roy Hudd loved it and it got one of the biggest laughs of the night. The Pebble Mill cameras were in filming and they showed it in their piece about the show, giving me a sort of TV debut, and the clip was also used when BBC TV South did a feature about my work. So thank you, Dr Deadline.
But I must go because the deadline for another day’s prep is looming; in other words (with further apologies to songwriters Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster):
Setting up jokes, setting up jokes, setting up jokes...
(Reprinted from the Radio Magazine Issue 766, 13 December 2006)
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