Oh, and about the Doctor Who finale...
I loved it, which surprisingly, to me, seems rather at odds with the Who weblogs I read, written to a man, as they are, by very smart people, and yes, as you mention it, to a man by men too.
Thing is though-
it didn't skimp on the bleakness of the End of Days Utopia had rather skimmed over (and paid off on little Johnny McWood's 'Diamond Sky' cameo),
it took Martha's journey to a logical end (I'll miss her a lot though),
it had that lovely "Who's been watching Blackpool?" karaoke moment,
it played up the central theme of humans as potential monsters and heroes really nicely,
it just did madder and madder things to our hero while failing to diminish him (eat that The Leisure Hive),
and crucially
it explained why the hell this production team brought back something as naff as the Master- to define the Doctor in opposition to him and to finally kill him and make his death matter (eat that Planet of Fire).
Even the Ming the Merciless tribute loop-hole shot near the end didn't reduce the power of that last Doctor Master scene for me (and I was so pleased that "the one thing" the Doctor had to say was the one I'd said I hoped it would be to the wife).
Furthermore, right at the finish, what I thought was just going to be a tortuous gag about/explanation of how John Barrowman would be visibly ageing in Torchwood while playing an immortal turned into a supremely daft, but for me, just plain cool twist reveal. Air punched, much laughter. It did everything I wanted.
So, sorry, potty and all over the place, sure, but I adored this and it brought my raves of the series to an almost respectable five out of thirteen.
Disappointingly, a rather excellent actor I slightly know , has just had to turn down a role in the Christmas episode due to prior commitments, but I'm quite hopeful about that one still.
There can't be Robot Santas on the Titanic, can there?
Monday, 16 July 2007
Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head
I was once on Radio 4's popular (with people who listen to The Archers but are a bit slow getting up afterwards to switch the wireless off) arts show Front Row, talking about Monkey!, you know.
I was there primarily in my guise of cheap Stewart Maconoid to provide sound bites about the TV show for their review of a stage version of the story (I think in Bristol), but having read a translation of Journey to the West and knowing a tiny amount about the history behind it, I was able to talk a bit about the source material too.
Thus, I'm astonishingly well qualified to pass judgement on the "circus opera" Monkey- Journey to the West, which I saw just before my recent bout of radio madness broke out at the end of June.
Firstly, Manchester's Palace Theatre remains a rotten place to go and see anything if you have above average sized legs and below enormous depth pockets. It's veal crate seating unless you're loaded, and the sight lines in the balcony meant the tops of the animations, some flying effects, and the sub-titles above the orchestra pit could only be seen with considerable effort (with the whole tier moving like a Mexican Wave ripple to properly discern the latest plot point or bit of bizarre imagery).
The music however is great, melodic, dramatic, and satisfactorily Western and Eastern like Pizzicato Five meets Philip Glass (this is how music journalism is done by the way, by claiming something original sounds like a fusion of two pre-existing things, ideally a fusion readers can't easily or usefully imagine even if they actually have any idea how the two fused things sound individually), there are some lovely visuals (and visual jokes), some astonishing acrobatics and the plot and point of the original text is well served alongside the anachronistic zaniness of the TV show.
However, it's too long (in those seats anyway) and its episodic nature and sheer visual splendour early on, means diminishing returns set in over time. By the hour mark, people could be dismembering themselves and having the individual limbs dance on independently and we'd still be feeling we'd seen it or something more impressive earlier on.
More disappointingly, Jamie Hewlett's terrific animation, which plays alongside the action fantastically early on, all but vanishes as the piece progresses, which is a real shame. I hope as this spectacle tours the world they'll find room for more of it later in the show and that some way can be found of marshalling the many and various acrobatic wonders, so that the later scenes of human endeavour make audiences gasp like the early ones.
Hewlett's costume design is fine, though real world physics make his horse less appealing than his design sketch, but what really is weird is to see actors moving and dancing like old frames from his Tank Girl strip- the big straight-legged heel forward steps of our heroes on the march, and the peculiarly angled arm and leg grooving of the Peach Girls in particular, took me straight back to Deadline magazine days, putting a big stupid grin on my face.
Go and see it, but somewhere else, and in a bit, ideally.
Oh and my top bit of pseudo-Maconie punditry on Monkey! for Radio 4?
"Monkey! is very much like Last of the Summer Wine. Monkey is human cunning, ingenuity and desire for betterment, he's like the Foggy/Seymour inventor figure, Pigsy is base human desires and instincts like Compo, and Sandy is a melancholic, penitent engager with the human spirit, world-weary and gentle like Clegg. The only difference is there wasn't a Buddhist monk in Last of the Summer Wine."
I got paid for that.
PS Have any of you out there ever heard Kenneth Williams' audio book reading of Journey to the West? I read a review of it, many years ago (Times Educational Supplement of all places), but I've never actually seen the thing...
I was there primarily in my guise of cheap Stewart Maconoid to provide sound bites about the TV show for their review of a stage version of the story (I think in Bristol), but having read a translation of Journey to the West and knowing a tiny amount about the history behind it, I was able to talk a bit about the source material too.
Thus, I'm astonishingly well qualified to pass judgement on the "circus opera" Monkey- Journey to the West, which I saw just before my recent bout of radio madness broke out at the end of June.
Firstly, Manchester's Palace Theatre remains a rotten place to go and see anything if you have above average sized legs and below enormous depth pockets. It's veal crate seating unless you're loaded, and the sight lines in the balcony meant the tops of the animations, some flying effects, and the sub-titles above the orchestra pit could only be seen with considerable effort (with the whole tier moving like a Mexican Wave ripple to properly discern the latest plot point or bit of bizarre imagery).
The music however is great, melodic, dramatic, and satisfactorily Western and Eastern like Pizzicato Five meets Philip Glass (this is how music journalism is done by the way, by claiming something original sounds like a fusion of two pre-existing things, ideally a fusion readers can't easily or usefully imagine even if they actually have any idea how the two fused things sound individually), there are some lovely visuals (and visual jokes), some astonishing acrobatics and the plot and point of the original text is well served alongside the anachronistic zaniness of the TV show.
However, it's too long (in those seats anyway) and its episodic nature and sheer visual splendour early on, means diminishing returns set in over time. By the hour mark, people could be dismembering themselves and having the individual limbs dance on independently and we'd still be feeling we'd seen it or something more impressive earlier on.
More disappointingly, Jamie Hewlett's terrific animation, which plays alongside the action fantastically early on, all but vanishes as the piece progresses, which is a real shame. I hope as this spectacle tours the world they'll find room for more of it later in the show and that some way can be found of marshalling the many and various acrobatic wonders, so that the later scenes of human endeavour make audiences gasp like the early ones.
Hewlett's costume design is fine, though real world physics make his horse less appealing than his design sketch, but what really is weird is to see actors moving and dancing like old frames from his Tank Girl strip- the big straight-legged heel forward steps of our heroes on the march, and the peculiarly angled arm and leg grooving of the Peach Girls in particular, took me straight back to Deadline magazine days, putting a big stupid grin on my face.
Go and see it, but somewhere else, and in a bit, ideally.
Oh and my top bit of pseudo-Maconie punditry on Monkey! for Radio 4?
"Monkey! is very much like Last of the Summer Wine. Monkey is human cunning, ingenuity and desire for betterment, he's like the Foggy/Seymour inventor figure, Pigsy is base human desires and instincts like Compo, and Sandy is a melancholic, penitent engager with the human spirit, world-weary and gentle like Clegg. The only difference is there wasn't a Buddhist monk in Last of the Summer Wine."
I got paid for that.
PS Have any of you out there ever heard Kenneth Williams' audio book reading of Journey to the West? I read a review of it, many years ago (Times Educational Supplement of all places), but I've never actually seen the thing...
Radioactivity
Okay, so this is nearly what I wrote before the great sleep deprivation experiment a bit back. It isn't it, obviously, but it's a decent enough looky-likey, badly mimicking the real entry to Cat Deeley's most unCrowther-Kellyish pleasure in an assortment of strappy whore shoes...
My work here is done, I said, (cue statuory opening bars studio audience applause) where "work" equals "work on No Tomatoes "and "here" equals "Manchester and m'attic".
Now we enter precis land, where we hope the shockingly non-period backing dancers and the fact I'm dressed and coiffed quite like a reference photo of my previous entry will make up for the fact I'm not really much like it.
Basically, we did a day and a half frenetic recording in Studio 3 at the BBC in Manchester (where we did my play Made in Sheffield too) on Tuesday and Wednesday the 3rd and 4th of July. My stars were Paul Copley, who's just recorded one of those cameos in Coronation Street in which the actors, writers and producers don't quite know who the character is yet but do know they might be back and Helen Moon, who's currently in that thing on BBC 1 with Paul McGann and Dervla Kirwan (the well known bad hand at Scrabble) and all those sisters who you vaguely recall from something else.
They were both brilliant and lovely, and kind enough not to keep reminding me just how am-dram I am, or keep asking me where the funny bits were and both brought sections of the script to life in ways that surpassed my dreams.
I didn't sleep well in the hotel in between the two sessions to be honest and the second session was a bit of a blur for me, but I managed to get home with the recordings on a portable hard disc that evening, have my first drink in a week or so and fall deep into the arms of Morpheus, and worrying dreams about Dennis Norden.
The plan was that I'd deliver my edits and sound design on the six episodes for Monday morning when the people at Manchester would the do some tidy ups and master the things for broadcast.
The only problem was that on Thursday morning the portable hard disc wouldn't do anything with any of my PCs apart from generously try to reformat itself (I now know I need something called Mac Drive 6 to stop this hilarity). The only solution was having the DVD safety copy of the recording sessions couriered over, and that's what happened.
The DVD arrived about 2pm and, after cunningly providing the file extensions the Mac that wrote the disc felt it could do without, I was away.
Long story short- I worked quite hard for a few days after that, sleeping two hours on the Thurday night, three hours on the Friday, five on the Saturday and working through on the Sunday. Despite that I'd only managed to complete five episodes for the Monday morning sessions at the BBC.
Luckily, there were also sessions booked for the Thursday and Friday, so after a full night's sleep on the Monday I was able to complete the job with another all nighter on the Tuesday to deliver episode 6 for the second part of the session. It seems I'd done a lot more than had been expected... and much pleasure was expressed at how little needed doing and how good it all sounded, which was a relief.
Pleasingly, we had more material than the episode slots required, and as well as making minor cuts, I've chucked away five whole sketches, not very far away admittedly, just in case, and my only real regrets are a few ropey performances from me, a few vocal clicks and nasty edits all 'round that I didn't have time to sort and a couple of sketches where reverbs were applied live in the studio, which meant I had no clean takes of them and made editing at home much harder.
I've now also put together the FX and music list (a document the length of two whole scripts, absurdly) and knocked together some possible trailers for 7, and now it's time to start on the next jobs.
Bits of it still make me laugh even now, which amazes me, and there is a sketch in there that we all think might be the basis of a series... so pitchery may well ensue on that.
It goes without saying that the insomniac version of this entry was much better than this and had interesting insights into how you can function quite well (bar sudden blackouts into REM sleep if you sit still for too long) on prolonged wakefulness although you quickly become incapable of sociable conversation or lying (there is a subtle difference between the two).
Honest opinions just come pouring out unfiltered, even when they're about the suitability of work outfits, or indeed perceived arse size in them.
Manners and deceit are higher brain functions requiring rest I reckon, and I'm convinced if I'd stayed up another night I'd have been in that state of mind you see in 1960s spy thrillers where I'd have been involuntarily spilling out all my nuclear secrets to the Stasi, even those ones I hadn't previously known I had...
My work here is done, I said, (cue statuory opening bars studio audience applause) where "work" equals "work on No Tomatoes "and "here" equals "Manchester and m'attic".
Now we enter precis land, where we hope the shockingly non-period backing dancers and the fact I'm dressed and coiffed quite like a reference photo of my previous entry will make up for the fact I'm not really much like it.
Basically, we did a day and a half frenetic recording in Studio 3 at the BBC in Manchester (where we did my play Made in Sheffield too) on Tuesday and Wednesday the 3rd and 4th of July. My stars were Paul Copley, who's just recorded one of those cameos in Coronation Street in which the actors, writers and producers don't quite know who the character is yet but do know they might be back and Helen Moon, who's currently in that thing on BBC 1 with Paul McGann and Dervla Kirwan (the well known bad hand at Scrabble) and all those sisters who you vaguely recall from something else.
They were both brilliant and lovely, and kind enough not to keep reminding me just how am-dram I am, or keep asking me where the funny bits were and both brought sections of the script to life in ways that surpassed my dreams.
I didn't sleep well in the hotel in between the two sessions to be honest and the second session was a bit of a blur for me, but I managed to get home with the recordings on a portable hard disc that evening, have my first drink in a week or so and fall deep into the arms of Morpheus, and worrying dreams about Dennis Norden.
The plan was that I'd deliver my edits and sound design on the six episodes for Monday morning when the people at Manchester would the do some tidy ups and master the things for broadcast.
The only problem was that on Thursday morning the portable hard disc wouldn't do anything with any of my PCs apart from generously try to reformat itself (I now know I need something called Mac Drive 6 to stop this hilarity). The only solution was having the DVD safety copy of the recording sessions couriered over, and that's what happened.
The DVD arrived about 2pm and, after cunningly providing the file extensions the Mac that wrote the disc felt it could do without, I was away.
Long story short- I worked quite hard for a few days after that, sleeping two hours on the Thurday night, three hours on the Friday, five on the Saturday and working through on the Sunday. Despite that I'd only managed to complete five episodes for the Monday morning sessions at the BBC.
Luckily, there were also sessions booked for the Thursday and Friday, so after a full night's sleep on the Monday I was able to complete the job with another all nighter on the Tuesday to deliver episode 6 for the second part of the session. It seems I'd done a lot more than had been expected... and much pleasure was expressed at how little needed doing and how good it all sounded, which was a relief.
Pleasingly, we had more material than the episode slots required, and as well as making minor cuts, I've chucked away five whole sketches, not very far away admittedly, just in case, and my only real regrets are a few ropey performances from me, a few vocal clicks and nasty edits all 'round that I didn't have time to sort and a couple of sketches where reverbs were applied live in the studio, which meant I had no clean takes of them and made editing at home much harder.
I've now also put together the FX and music list (a document the length of two whole scripts, absurdly) and knocked together some possible trailers for 7, and now it's time to start on the next jobs.
Bits of it still make me laugh even now, which amazes me, and there is a sketch in there that we all think might be the basis of a series... so pitchery may well ensue on that.
It goes without saying that the insomniac version of this entry was much better than this and had interesting insights into how you can function quite well (bar sudden blackouts into REM sleep if you sit still for too long) on prolonged wakefulness although you quickly become incapable of sociable conversation or lying (there is a subtle difference between the two).
Honest opinions just come pouring out unfiltered, even when they're about the suitability of work outfits, or indeed perceived arse size in them.
Manners and deceit are higher brain functions requiring rest I reckon, and I'm convinced if I'd stayed up another night I'd have been in that state of mind you see in 1960s spy thrillers where I'd have been involuntarily spilling out all my nuclear secrets to the Stasi, even those ones I hadn't previously known I had...
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
All Nighter
I just wrote something very interesting about the effects of sleep deprivation on higher brain function, then accidentally deleted it from the paste memory on the way over here to posting land. I think this may be all you need to know.
In an attempt to reassure me, Microsoft is sending a pretend orange dog with a friendly face on a potentially fruitless quest for the bevanished fragment in the Lost City of TMP files.
More, or about the same later, more or less.
In an attempt to reassure me, Microsoft is sending a pretend orange dog with a friendly face on a potentially fruitless quest for the bevanished fragment in the Lost City of TMP files.
More, or about the same later, more or less.
Friday, 29 June 2007
Doctor Love
It's the obligatory long Doctor Who posting- look away now. Look again, when you've managed to close the page with your eyes shut.
So here we are coming to the end of another season of Doctor Who, and well, it wasn’t my favourite.
David Tennant continues to please me, and the scripts have ramped up the damaged loner aspect of his Doctor this year, this seems to be the Doctor now, one part guilt-ridden survivor to one part reckless liver in the now. Works for me, anyhow.
Freema Agyeman’s done very well filling the hugely expanded audience identification role that the companion has become since Rose, John Barrowman's Captain Jack's cheered up a bit now he's not in Who's adolescent younger brother show any more and John Simm’s Master is a pleasing counterpart to the hyper-kinetic Tennant. I’d rather they’d left the character in the past to be honest, but the new take on him is at least refreshing.
The only problem is I’ve only whole-heartedly enjoyed 4 out of the 12 episodes so far, which is a worry when it’s your favourite show.
Smith and Jones, the season opener was great, well-paced and with just enough explanation, character work, incident and plot, supremely confident and layered in audience appeal.
The Shakespeare Code I found just a little dull, sadly. Some good jokes in there, but not enough sense of adventure for me, somehow. The threat such as it was, was a bit cartoon, and hadn’t started properly until the climax, which also rather let the 'words as numbers' concept down by erm, having the important word-numbers being erm, some numbers. Annoyingly Gareth Roberts did a much better take on this in A Groatsworth of Wit a comic strip for Doctor Who Magazine. This is clearly the wrong way round!
Gridlock had lovely set pieces, but really didn’t gell, I didn’t feel. It felt a bit like Season 1’s The Long Game in the sense of having all the elements you wanted for a story but coming across more like an expanded précis, where some of the important bits had been accidentally dropped in the process of making it.
Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, well it just didn’t work for me, obvious, stupid and old hat not the best combo really, particularly when coupled with slow. I can only really honestly praise it for the pig elevator etiquette scene and some pleasant music.
The Lazarus Experiment is an okay run-around, action story, if a little simplistic, and you know if the monster hadn’t ended up being a bit rubbish because of over-ambition, it’d be okay B movie fun stuff like the hugely enjoyable Tooth and Claw which it so obviously took as a production model. The TS Eliot quotes felt distinctly out of place amongst the rest of the whizz-bangery on display I thought.
42- yeah, okay in a dumb action way again, I guess, annoying reuse of Satan Pit music cues, nice airlock scene, central threat a bit dull and best not to apply any science brain to the eyes that shoot heat rays, hardly inspiring. Ho hum.
Human Nature/The Family of Blood- lovely really, and I think probably better than the book. Scarecrows a bit pants, bar that smashing Singing Detective arm wave from the horizon and the suggestion of blood around one’s eye sockets, but the Doctor’s judgement sequence as suggested for mature Vertigo readers was worth the journey on its own. The romance was well handled too, it felt real in a way that I just didn't think last year's in The Girl in the Fireplace didn't.* I really thought Cornell would have been winning all the gongs going for this one except that next week we got…
Blink- best Doctor Who episode ever. Damn. Funny, scary, mind expandy, domestic, it’s all in here. It also undoes a bit of Paul Cornell’s good work on getting kids to see war memorials as important in that final montage, but hell, if it gives the tinies a new irrational terror, great!
Utopia- bit dull to be honest, though it does perk up for some reason towards the end (and has some lovely character/continuity stuff for the regulars, and one suspects a lot of set up waiting to be paid off). Who’d have thought the audience of Blue Peter was composed of so many wooden children, though? He was the best?
The Sound of Drums- well, Lord only knows, it’s all over the place, but enjoyably so, skirting between control and reckless silliness like the Simm Master. Shame Tennant’s old Doctor looked like Catherine Tate of course, but you have to love the cheek of the behind the door mincing scene, the gassing and the climax being built around a bit of linguistic pedantry. I never expected that from modern Who.
I punched the air when I saw a black Time Lord, and of course, you always feel pleased when you sing the pop hit being cued up in advance, but I won't know if this one's going to fall apart or snap together until tomorrow...
Really loving a third of the show isn't bad, of course, I'd have killed for that in 1986, but being a bit take it or leave it about half of it, and actively disliking a further sixth, definitely is.
Don't go dumb on us Doctor Who or we might sudenly realise you're a show about a monster basher in a time travelling 'phone box.
*whereas the Sarah Jane romance in School Reunion felt totally real to me despite being based on a relationship in which we'd never seen a hint of it before, possibly because Sarah was standing in for old fans' love of the show.
So here we are coming to the end of another season of Doctor Who, and well, it wasn’t my favourite.
David Tennant continues to please me, and the scripts have ramped up the damaged loner aspect of his Doctor this year, this seems to be the Doctor now, one part guilt-ridden survivor to one part reckless liver in the now. Works for me, anyhow.
Freema Agyeman’s done very well filling the hugely expanded audience identification role that the companion has become since Rose, John Barrowman's Captain Jack's cheered up a bit now he's not in Who's adolescent younger brother show any more and John Simm’s Master is a pleasing counterpart to the hyper-kinetic Tennant. I’d rather they’d left the character in the past to be honest, but the new take on him is at least refreshing.
The only problem is I’ve only whole-heartedly enjoyed 4 out of the 12 episodes so far, which is a worry when it’s your favourite show.
Smith and Jones, the season opener was great, well-paced and with just enough explanation, character work, incident and plot, supremely confident and layered in audience appeal.
The Shakespeare Code I found just a little dull, sadly. Some good jokes in there, but not enough sense of adventure for me, somehow. The threat such as it was, was a bit cartoon, and hadn’t started properly until the climax, which also rather let the 'words as numbers' concept down by erm, having the important word-numbers being erm, some numbers. Annoyingly Gareth Roberts did a much better take on this in A Groatsworth of Wit a comic strip for Doctor Who Magazine. This is clearly the wrong way round!
Gridlock had lovely set pieces, but really didn’t gell, I didn’t feel. It felt a bit like Season 1’s The Long Game in the sense of having all the elements you wanted for a story but coming across more like an expanded précis, where some of the important bits had been accidentally dropped in the process of making it.
Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, well it just didn’t work for me, obvious, stupid and old hat not the best combo really, particularly when coupled with slow. I can only really honestly praise it for the pig elevator etiquette scene and some pleasant music.
The Lazarus Experiment is an okay run-around, action story, if a little simplistic, and you know if the monster hadn’t ended up being a bit rubbish because of over-ambition, it’d be okay B movie fun stuff like the hugely enjoyable Tooth and Claw which it so obviously took as a production model. The TS Eliot quotes felt distinctly out of place amongst the rest of the whizz-bangery on display I thought.
42- yeah, okay in a dumb action way again, I guess, annoying reuse of Satan Pit music cues, nice airlock scene, central threat a bit dull and best not to apply any science brain to the eyes that shoot heat rays, hardly inspiring. Ho hum.
Human Nature/The Family of Blood- lovely really, and I think probably better than the book. Scarecrows a bit pants, bar that smashing Singing Detective arm wave from the horizon and the suggestion of blood around one’s eye sockets, but the Doctor’s judgement sequence as suggested for mature Vertigo readers was worth the journey on its own. The romance was well handled too, it felt real in a way that I just didn't think last year's in The Girl in the Fireplace didn't.* I really thought Cornell would have been winning all the gongs going for this one except that next week we got…
Blink- best Doctor Who episode ever. Damn. Funny, scary, mind expandy, domestic, it’s all in here. It also undoes a bit of Paul Cornell’s good work on getting kids to see war memorials as important in that final montage, but hell, if it gives the tinies a new irrational terror, great!
Utopia- bit dull to be honest, though it does perk up for some reason towards the end (and has some lovely character/continuity stuff for the regulars, and one suspects a lot of set up waiting to be paid off). Who’d have thought the audience of Blue Peter was composed of so many wooden children, though? He was the best?
The Sound of Drums- well, Lord only knows, it’s all over the place, but enjoyably so, skirting between control and reckless silliness like the Simm Master. Shame Tennant’s old Doctor looked like Catherine Tate of course, but you have to love the cheek of the behind the door mincing scene, the gassing and the climax being built around a bit of linguistic pedantry. I never expected that from modern Who.
I punched the air when I saw a black Time Lord, and of course, you always feel pleased when you sing the pop hit being cued up in advance, but I won't know if this one's going to fall apart or snap together until tomorrow...
Really loving a third of the show isn't bad, of course, I'd have killed for that in 1986, but being a bit take it or leave it about half of it, and actively disliking a further sixth, definitely is.
Don't go dumb on us Doctor Who or we might sudenly realise you're a show about a monster basher in a time travelling 'phone box.
*whereas the Sarah Jane romance in School Reunion felt totally real to me despite being based on a relationship in which we'd never seen a hint of it before, possibly because Sarah was standing in for old fans' love of the show.
It's Grim Up North, Pt.1
It's been a bit damp 'round my parts this week. That'll be the excitement of going to record my radio show next week, oh and the unprecedented flooding of Sheffield (beaten only by the precedent of the Great Sheffield Flood which happened in 1864, but that doesn't count because, although it killed 270 people, it was down to poor environmental management and not an Act of Gaia. After all, you can't compare mis-managing a great big dam until it bursts with systematically cocking up the eco-system, in any way).
Anyhow, we got off very lightly. We live in one of the higher bits of a town called High Green* (where the Arctic Monkeys come from, kids) which being a high bit of a high bit had most of Monday's torrential rain drain away from it. The next town down, Chapeltown is at the bottom of a hill, so, regrettably, some of the four foot of water swilling about down there, closing off our local train line, the motorway and flooding houses was rightfully ours.
This week, in not on the news news, I have had to cut one gag from m'show which uses bleeped dialogue and rewrite another, because current BBC policy on bleeped dialogue prohibits their comedic use (silly ****s) and rephrase a reference to the mouth of a popular TV entertainer (I think my discussion of the diabolist activity of a well-known stage conjuror has been let through, though).
I also apparently have a joke which requires vetting by Russell T Davies in Cardiff...
It's incredibly anodyne, but now Doctor Who is a big brand, it's possible that even a passing reference to a rubbish old Doctor Who monster (in a comedy-drama, say, not a sketch show), may require a Cardiff approval and a payment made to the writer who created the thing and rather hoped it wouldn't look as rubbish as it eventually did over twenty years ago, so I've heard, anyhow...
*Over coming weblogs entries Ian will reveal progressively more and more details of his personal life in a series that builds week by week into a lavish guide to fraudulently gaining access to his personal details you'll want to keep and exploit. Next week- his house number and three digit Visa security code and the uncrackable combinations on our suitcase padlocks.
Anyhow, we got off very lightly. We live in one of the higher bits of a town called High Green* (where the Arctic Monkeys come from, kids) which being a high bit of a high bit had most of Monday's torrential rain drain away from it. The next town down, Chapeltown is at the bottom of a hill, so, regrettably, some of the four foot of water swilling about down there, closing off our local train line, the motorway and flooding houses was rightfully ours.
This week, in not on the news news, I have had to cut one gag from m'show which uses bleeped dialogue and rewrite another, because current BBC policy on bleeped dialogue prohibits their comedic use (silly ****s) and rephrase a reference to the mouth of a popular TV entertainer (I think my discussion of the diabolist activity of a well-known stage conjuror has been let through, though).
I also apparently have a joke which requires vetting by Russell T Davies in Cardiff...
It's incredibly anodyne, but now Doctor Who is a big brand, it's possible that even a passing reference to a rubbish old Doctor Who monster (in a comedy-drama, say, not a sketch show), may require a Cardiff approval and a payment made to the writer who created the thing and rather hoped it wouldn't look as rubbish as it eventually did over twenty years ago, so I've heard, anyhow...
*Over coming weblogs entries Ian will reveal progressively more and more details of his personal life in a series that builds week by week into a lavish guide to fraudulently gaining access to his personal details you'll want to keep and exploit. Next week- his house number and three digit Visa security code and the uncrackable combinations on our suitcase padlocks.
Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Why haven't I been in Coronation Street?
You’re not going to believe this- I’m not sure I do yet, but my third performer in No Tomatoes now appears to be sorted and is, in my opinion, one of the country’s finest actors!
My first choice, as we know, was booked up, and I was kind of stuck for the replacement, because there really is no one else like him I could think of.
Eventually we went down a different route, where, at the producer’s invitation, I drew up a very short-list of people I thought were really good in a different way to my initial target, but who I thought were probably out of our league, really as an indication of the kind of voice I was after as much as anything.
To be honest who we’ve ended up with was the one I thought might well be furthest out of our league, but his agent has seen the episode 1 script and has said yes!
He’s been in Coronation Street, Tom Stoppard and Alan Plater plays, worked for Ken Loach and Richard Attenborough, been in The Lakes, Queer as Folk, This Life, Cracker, Shameless, Clocking Off and Life on Mars.
In other words- He’s a bit good.
My other co-star, who I ear-marked yonks ago because she’s so vocally versatile and has great comic sense, has been in Coronation Street and Shameless too, as well as Emmerdale, Phoenix Nights and tons of radio, and has incredibly generously delayed her holidays to record the show, which is terrific for me.
I can’t wait to work with them both and reveal just how poor a performer I really am. They’re top notch, they really are.
I won’t name them until we’ve recorded, because it might jinx things, but in five minutes with google you could probably identify them both with ease if you really wanted to.
My first choice, as we know, was booked up, and I was kind of stuck for the replacement, because there really is no one else like him I could think of.
Eventually we went down a different route, where, at the producer’s invitation, I drew up a very short-list of people I thought were really good in a different way to my initial target, but who I thought were probably out of our league, really as an indication of the kind of voice I was after as much as anything.
To be honest who we’ve ended up with was the one I thought might well be furthest out of our league, but his agent has seen the episode 1 script and has said yes!
He’s been in Coronation Street, Tom Stoppard and Alan Plater plays, worked for Ken Loach and Richard Attenborough, been in The Lakes, Queer as Folk, This Life, Cracker, Shameless, Clocking Off and Life on Mars.
In other words- He’s a bit good.
My other co-star, who I ear-marked yonks ago because she’s so vocally versatile and has great comic sense, has been in Coronation Street and Shameless too, as well as Emmerdale, Phoenix Nights and tons of radio, and has incredibly generously delayed her holidays to record the show, which is terrific for me.
I can’t wait to work with them both and reveal just how poor a performer I really am. They’re top notch, they really are.
I won’t name them until we’ve recorded, because it might jinx things, but in five minutes with google you could probably identify them both with ease if you really wanted to.
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