I don't know which to feel more nostalgic about - the amount of open door writing opportunities back then or the amount of hair I still had...
Showing posts with label BBC Paris Theatre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BBC Paris Theatre. Show all posts
Monday, 6 June 2011
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Like the clappers?
The grammar school where I was nearly educated had a Latin teacher who pulled pupils' hair if we got something wrong in a lesson. (As you can see from my picture, Latin wasn't my best subject). I can remember him once telling us how actors in ancient Rome would say 'plaudit' after a performance, which translates as 'applause, please'. (Well, if you have to ask...)
Of course, some audiences don't need to be requested to clap but rather have to be asked to reign in their appreciation. Another memory from my schooldays is of a primary school headmaster informing us that he would appreciate it if the applause at a forthcoming prize-giving where parents and local dignitaries would be present could be more subtle than that at a recent swimming gala. And I once saw a snooker match on TV where an overly-enthusiastic Steve Davis fan clapped in a loud (and lonely) fashion after every single shot his hero played. He was eventually told to tone it down by an official.
(Don't even get me started on the baying mobs at TV talent show auditions...)
But audience response can be stage-managed. Those cheers at the beginning and end of the new-ish, lower-budget version of Countdown don't quite sound spontaneous to me and we are, of course, well into the party conference season with its predictable standing ovations (probably the only exercise some of those delegates get each year).
So what about the applause on radio comedy shows? At my speaking engagements, I often meet people who believe that all the laughing and clapping must be 'canned' or in response to some little bloke frantically jumping up and down holding signs saying 'LAUGHTER', 'APPLAUSE', etc. Some may even have attended tapings of TV shows - some decades ago - where this actually happened.
Having spent some years regularly attending recordings at the BBC Paris Studios and Radio Theatre, I have to try and convince them that this just isn't the case. I have certainly seen producers tell audiences beforehand to be enthusiastic and observed an announcer hold up an arm to signal applause at the end of the opening and closing signatures but that's about it; the lion's share of the response is down to the material, performance - and audience.
For a radio comedy writer it's a great experience when 300 people in the studio applaud an original one-liner of yours. This may be because it makes a point which they agree with or because they simply find it very funny but the most glorious moments are when something subtle gets a laugh which builds into a ripple and then a full round of applause as the penny drops.
But I once wrote for a topical series on Radio 2 which had very little promotion. I didn't attend any of the recordings and perhaps I should have done; judging from the volume of the laughter and applause, this might have boosted the attendance figures by several per cent. It wasn't a bad programme at all but it only ran for one series and I can't help thinking that this lack of audible appreciation helped to seal its fate.
Some of the most enthusiastic responses can be heard when long-running radio comedy panel games record editions away from London, in fact listeners may be left wondering if this is the only live entertainment which has ever been staged in that particular city. How some commercial radio presenters must envy such audience energy when they compare the indifference at their OBs from shopping malls!
Right, that's the end of this column; please feel free to clap. Go on, 'plaudit, plaudit'...
(Reublished from the Radio Magazine, 30 September 2009)
Of course, some audiences don't need to be requested to clap but rather have to be asked to reign in their appreciation. Another memory from my schooldays is of a primary school headmaster informing us that he would appreciate it if the applause at a forthcoming prize-giving where parents and local dignitaries would be present could be more subtle than that at a recent swimming gala. And I once saw a snooker match on TV where an overly-enthusiastic Steve Davis fan clapped in a loud (and lonely) fashion after every single shot his hero played. He was eventually told to tone it down by an official.
(Don't even get me started on the baying mobs at TV talent show auditions...)
But audience response can be stage-managed. Those cheers at the beginning and end of the new-ish, lower-budget version of Countdown don't quite sound spontaneous to me and we are, of course, well into the party conference season with its predictable standing ovations (probably the only exercise some of those delegates get each year).
So what about the applause on radio comedy shows? At my speaking engagements, I often meet people who believe that all the laughing and clapping must be 'canned' or in response to some little bloke frantically jumping up and down holding signs saying 'LAUGHTER', 'APPLAUSE', etc. Some may even have attended tapings of TV shows - some decades ago - where this actually happened.
Having spent some years regularly attending recordings at the BBC Paris Studios and Radio Theatre, I have to try and convince them that this just isn't the case. I have certainly seen producers tell audiences beforehand to be enthusiastic and observed an announcer hold up an arm to signal applause at the end of the opening and closing signatures but that's about it; the lion's share of the response is down to the material, performance - and audience.
For a radio comedy writer it's a great experience when 300 people in the studio applaud an original one-liner of yours. This may be because it makes a point which they agree with or because they simply find it very funny but the most glorious moments are when something subtle gets a laugh which builds into a ripple and then a full round of applause as the penny drops.
But I once wrote for a topical series on Radio 2 which had very little promotion. I didn't attend any of the recordings and perhaps I should have done; judging from the volume of the laughter and applause, this might have boosted the attendance figures by several per cent. It wasn't a bad programme at all but it only ran for one series and I can't help thinking that this lack of audible appreciation helped to seal its fate.
Some of the most enthusiastic responses can be heard when long-running radio comedy panel games record editions away from London, in fact listeners may be left wondering if this is the only live entertainment which has ever been staged in that particular city. How some commercial radio presenters must envy such audience energy when they compare the indifference at their OBs from shopping malls!
Right, that's the end of this column; please feel free to clap. Go on, 'plaudit, plaudit'...
(Reublished from the Radio Magazine, 30 September 2009)
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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