Ok, that title doesn't really make sense. It's late. Cut me some slack. Anyway,on with the blog.
Over the last few years, I've had the chance to work on my own shows, where I came up with the original ideas (eg Hut 33, Think the Unthinkable). I've also worked on shows like My Hero and My Family, which were long-running, established shows with a clear separation between cast and writers. But I've also worked on shows that are 'vehicles' for other people. Happily, that vehicle has proved not to be a hearse in the case of Miranda Hart and Milton Jones. (Given my success with 'Mi's, maybe I should try and work with Micky Flanagan.)
So how does writing in this situation work - when you are non-performing writer, and the writer/performer star of the show is in the room? Maybe a few words of advice jump out at me.
Firstly, remember you are not the most important person in the room. The reason the show exists is because of 10-30 years work of building up a persona/character that someone else has put in. In my case with Milton Jones, for example, I began working with him in 2003 on The House of Milton Jones. He had won Perrier Best Newcomer in 1996 and been nominated for a Sony Award for The Very World of Milton Jones. When I sit in a room with Milton, and David the Producer, it is obvious who the most replaceable person in the room is.
Instinct
But this is not about status. This is about trusting the star to know what works for them. Before I worked with Miranda on her Radio 2 sitcom, she had done dozens of different stage shows, and 'been' Miranda hundreds of times in various media, and therefore has a very strong sense of what is likely to be funny for her and what won't fly. Sometimes, it can be explained. Often, it's just instinctive. In the past, I've found myself arguing a joke to Milton saying 'It's the same structure as that other joke you do' and Milton calmly and graciously says that he's not crazy about it, and I retreat. Ultimately the star will win the battle off what ends up in the script, since their name is in the title, they're in front of the crowd and the lights. And if they're heart is not in the joke, they won't make it work anyway.
Sometimes, it works the other way - in that you toss in an idea, the star thinks its hilarious, and you can't quite work out why or how. And then they do it on the night - and it's hilarious. They make it work. Whichever way it works out, remember they get the blame if it goes wrong. Nobody really watches the credits. The only people who care who 'wrote it' are other writers, and that's so they can say '[sigh] Why didn't they ask me?'
The point is the star has a nose for what works for them and what doesn't. So embrace that reality, rather than fight it. If they don't like the joke or scene or idea, drop it.
Your Perspective
But the flipside of this is to not be too intimidated. You have a perspective on the show that is genuinely valuable and necessary - purely by dint of not being the star. And what's more, they hired you so they must care what you think just a bit.
The fact is that you don't see the show through the eyes of the performer but more through the eyes of the audience, which is helpful. You're also not seeing things through the eyes of the producer, who's not just looking at the show, but dozens of other things off camera. So you can spot things that might not work or not make sense or would be better done another way or a different order. Exploit that perspective to make the show better - probably in ways that will never be noticed or fully appreciated.
Your job is to help the star to shine - and this will happen best if all the characters, scenes and jokes are firing on all cylinders. You're a wing man. No, not a wing man. You're a mechanic tinkering with the engine and sending the star out in the car for lap after lap. And yes, the one in the car gets most of the money, all the applause and has to hold up that dreadful trophy that looks like it was designed by a man going through a mid-life crisis. But... I can't remember where this metaphor's going on.
The point is they're the star and you're not. So get over it. And it you don't like it, go off and write your own show. And then in 10-30 years time, you'll know what it's like to be pestered by snarky know-all sitcom-geeks who don't get what you're trying to do. Easy.
Showing posts with label miranda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miranda. Show all posts
Monday, 25 July 2011
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
The First Two Minutes
I'm not a particularly big fan of Dad's Army. It's a show hugely respect - but not one I especially find myself wanting to watch. (Hi-De-Hi was the rising show as I was growing up and getting into comedy.) But I watched the opening of the episode that was on BBC2 on Saturday (why make new comedy when you could repeat the 70s sitcom about the 40s?). Sadly it's not on iplayer, so I can't link to it. It think it's the Brain vs Brawn episode from Series 5. The first two minutes were very impressive from a writing point of view, and worth stopping to think about for a moment.
The show opens at a Rotary club. Mainwairing is there, receiving a sherry from a waitress, who says he can only have one because of rationing. Wilson arrives, who is there as Mainwairing's guest. Mainwairing points out the President of the Club and encourages Wilson to ingratiate himself with him, but Wilson turns his back to talk to the waitress, complimenting her on a pretty brooch. She is flattered and says she'll try and find him some extra sherry. Then Wilson meets the President - and it turns out he and Wilson were at school together and shared a room for a little while. Mainwairing tries to reassert supremacy by saying that Wilson works for him, but Wilson and the President walk off together, leaving Mainwairing behind - and the president says cheerio to Mainwairing, getting his name wrong. The entirety of Dad's Army is summed up beautifully in that little scene. The two main characters do their thing, and perform a mini-sketch, with nice jokes that sets up the rest of the show.
The opening of any show is, obviously, critical. I'd argue that, as the writer, you have two choices for that opening. Both are about building a relationship with your audience.
Choice One is go down this Dad's Army route, in which we re-establish the key characters leaving the audience in no doubt as to who the show is about and what the show is about. The only drawback with choice one is the sometimes it's a nice opening, and neat and clever, but not barnstormingly hilarious.
If were finding this choice a hard one, it may well be because we don't really know who the show is about, who they are in conflict with and what they are trying to achieve. We can't encapsulate the show in an opening sketch if we don't know what the show is. More work on the treatment, the characters, the outline and the stories for you, I'm afraid.
The thing to bear in mind with this choice also is that you cannot assume your audience know the characters - unless you're on Series 7 of your hit sitcom, in which case, you wouldn't be reading this blog (and if you are, can I have a job, please?) Always re-introduce your characters. Give the audience a hand getting a handle on them. This can slow things down or get in the way, which is why you could plump for:
Choice Two, which is to create a brilliant set-piece scene with a thwacking joke at the end. This might be done at the expense of re-introducing the characters to your audience, but it at least builds confident with the audience that this is going to be a funny show.
If you can pull it off, don't choose. Cheat. Do both. Miranda does this very successfully. She immediately builds rapport with the audience, establishing herself as a character, highlighting the potentially troublesome relationships in the show (with Penny, Gary, Stevie or Tilly) - and cutting to some big strong visual jokes to get the show moving comically.
If you watch the first two minutes of action (post titles) of Episode 1 of Blackadder Goes Forth (here), you learn that Blackadder is cultured (reading a book and listening to music), clever and cynical. You learn that Baldrick is very stupid, and the George is fanatically patriotic - and that Blackadder feels he's above the whole thing. That's the show. Then George produces a service revolver, and the story begins. That's how you start a show.
The show opens at a Rotary club. Mainwairing is there, receiving a sherry from a waitress, who says he can only have one because of rationing. Wilson arrives, who is there as Mainwairing's guest. Mainwairing points out the President of the Club and encourages Wilson to ingratiate himself with him, but Wilson turns his back to talk to the waitress, complimenting her on a pretty brooch. She is flattered and says she'll try and find him some extra sherry. Then Wilson meets the President - and it turns out he and Wilson were at school together and shared a room for a little while. Mainwairing tries to reassert supremacy by saying that Wilson works for him, but Wilson and the President walk off together, leaving Mainwairing behind - and the president says cheerio to Mainwairing, getting his name wrong. The entirety of Dad's Army is summed up beautifully in that little scene. The two main characters do their thing, and perform a mini-sketch, with nice jokes that sets up the rest of the show.
The opening of any show is, obviously, critical. I'd argue that, as the writer, you have two choices for that opening. Both are about building a relationship with your audience.
Choice One is go down this Dad's Army route, in which we re-establish the key characters leaving the audience in no doubt as to who the show is about and what the show is about. The only drawback with choice one is the sometimes it's a nice opening, and neat and clever, but not barnstormingly hilarious.
If were finding this choice a hard one, it may well be because we don't really know who the show is about, who they are in conflict with and what they are trying to achieve. We can't encapsulate the show in an opening sketch if we don't know what the show is. More work on the treatment, the characters, the outline and the stories for you, I'm afraid.
The thing to bear in mind with this choice also is that you cannot assume your audience know the characters - unless you're on Series 7 of your hit sitcom, in which case, you wouldn't be reading this blog (and if you are, can I have a job, please?) Always re-introduce your characters. Give the audience a hand getting a handle on them. This can slow things down or get in the way, which is why you could plump for:
Choice Two, which is to create a brilliant set-piece scene with a thwacking joke at the end. This might be done at the expense of re-introducing the characters to your audience, but it at least builds confident with the audience that this is going to be a funny show.
If you can pull it off, don't choose. Cheat. Do both. Miranda does this very successfully. She immediately builds rapport with the audience, establishing herself as a character, highlighting the potentially troublesome relationships in the show (with Penny, Gary, Stevie or Tilly) - and cutting to some big strong visual jokes to get the show moving comically.
If you watch the first two minutes of action (post titles) of Episode 1 of Blackadder Goes Forth (here), you learn that Blackadder is cultured (reading a book and listening to music), clever and cynical. You learn that Baldrick is very stupid, and the George is fanatically patriotic - and that Blackadder feels he's above the whole thing. That's the show. Then George produces a service revolver, and the story begins. That's how you start a show.
Monday, 14 March 2011
So Seventies
Last night, I finally got round to watching Part 2 of The Story of Variety with Michael Grade. Part 1 was excellent, interesting and surprising - full of stuff about the thousands of variety acts criss-crossing Britain to play the hundreds of variety. Part 2 was a little bit rubbish and covered the well-trodden variety acts who ended up on TV. Twenty minutes on Morecambe and Wise isn't really necessary given the dozens of docs they've been covered in before.
Why did they include all that footage of Morecambe and Wise? Because they know we love it and never tire of it. And Tommy Cooper, Ken Dodd and all those old-fashioned acts that are still funny, partly because they're so beautifully crafted, and also because they are experienced. But their comedy is universal and timeless.
I mention this because it struck me that one criticism levelled at shows like Mrs Brown's Boys is that they are so dated, and so seventies. That was the over-riding complaint on Twitter as the show was first broadcast. It's in some of the reviews too, but the point is not whether or not Mrs Browns Boys is so seventies - but the question 'Why is this a bad thing?'
Mumford and Sons are, essentially, a folk band. Aren't we done with folk? Isn't that so 1670s? Apparently not. Some people love them - and now they are popular, some people have decided to hate them. But why hate them? Because it's folk? Not really. Music combines old and new. Why is comedy different?
Specifically, comedy from the seventies is still shown on television very regularly today. Cable channels are full of it. At Christmas, they still repeat Morecambe and Wise. So why is it bad if, comedically, something seems very seventies? Certainly comedy has moved on for some people. Our tastes change. But comedy itself hasn't progressed. Just moved in a direction we call forwards because that's the way it looks from where we're standing.
A show is no better or worse for harking back to the old days or having a feel of a by-gone era about it. Miranda has attracted praise for being old-fashioned. But that is precisely the reason that some people hate it - or more specifically say daft things like "I shouldn't like it but..."
Mrs Brown's Boys
While we're on the subject of Mrs Brown's Boys, I should declare an interest in that I know the producer and the script editor, so use that to filter whatever I say on the subject. But I'll say this: I wasn't expecting to like the show given that I don't find drag especially funny, and the style of humour is not to my taste at all. I watched it out of professional interest and courtesy, and discovered I liked it much more than I thought I would. I don't love it, because it's not my thing. And yet, I laughed out loud several times - significantly more times than I did at cooler, hipper Channel 4/BBC2/BBC3 shows we could mention that pride themselves on being very now. I don't care what people say: Taizering yourself by mistake is funny:
Why did they include all that footage of Morecambe and Wise? Because they know we love it and never tire of it. And Tommy Cooper, Ken Dodd and all those old-fashioned acts that are still funny, partly because they're so beautifully crafted, and also because they are experienced. But their comedy is universal and timeless.
I mention this because it struck me that one criticism levelled at shows like Mrs Brown's Boys is that they are so dated, and so seventies. That was the over-riding complaint on Twitter as the show was first broadcast. It's in some of the reviews too, but the point is not whether or not Mrs Browns Boys is so seventies - but the question 'Why is this a bad thing?'
Mumford and Sons are, essentially, a folk band. Aren't we done with folk? Isn't that so 1670s? Apparently not. Some people love them - and now they are popular, some people have decided to hate them. But why hate them? Because it's folk? Not really. Music combines old and new. Why is comedy different?
Specifically, comedy from the seventies is still shown on television very regularly today. Cable channels are full of it. At Christmas, they still repeat Morecambe and Wise. So why is it bad if, comedically, something seems very seventies? Certainly comedy has moved on for some people. Our tastes change. But comedy itself hasn't progressed. Just moved in a direction we call forwards because that's the way it looks from where we're standing.
A show is no better or worse for harking back to the old days or having a feel of a by-gone era about it. Miranda has attracted praise for being old-fashioned. But that is precisely the reason that some people hate it - or more specifically say daft things like "I shouldn't like it but..."
Mrs Brown's Boys
While we're on the subject of Mrs Brown's Boys, I should declare an interest in that I know the producer and the script editor, so use that to filter whatever I say on the subject. But I'll say this: I wasn't expecting to like the show given that I don't find drag especially funny, and the style of humour is not to my taste at all. I watched it out of professional interest and courtesy, and discovered I liked it much more than I thought I would. I don't love it, because it's not my thing. And yet, I laughed out loud several times - significantly more times than I did at cooler, hipper Channel 4/BBC2/BBC3 shows we could mention that pride themselves on being very now. I don't care what people say: Taizering yourself by mistake is funny:
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Annoying People & Boring Bits
This week, I watched an episode of Red Dwarf Series IV that somehow I had never seen before. I am a huge fan of Red Dwarf and Series V and VI, especially - a really good blend of characters, gags and sci-fi imagination. But I missed the Waxworld episode all those years ago and never caught up.
Let's be honest. It's not the best of the episodes. The story is a bit wobbly and the location shooting is pretty ropey (which is a blog posting for another time). There are lots of unfamiliar characters that get in the way. But the episode starts with Rimmer telling a long boring story about a game of Risk that he played years earlier. The gag is that Rimmer is going on and on and has no idea how boring he's being. But, it's not really funny at all because it's, well, boring. Jokes about boredom, shaggy dog stories and anticlimaxes are often disastrous in shows, especially when shot in front of audiences. They don't usually play very well because they are boring, pointless or anti-climactic.
Non-audience shows can make a feature of these, and nuance them to perfection, as they did in The Office and People Like Us - making many others think they can do them. But my experience as an audience member, and as a writer, have taught me to avoid doing jokes along these lines.
A similar phenomenon has arisen in Friday Night Dinner. Mark Heap brilliantly plays a really annoying next door neighbour. But he doesn't make me laugh. He just makes me annoyed. The character is clearly sociopathic and doesn't realise when he's not wanted, and thus hangs around and causes embarrassment, and it's very true to life. People often don't get the message. It's believable. But I wonder how laugh-out-loud funny the character is.
There is certainly mileage to be had in these boring/annoying characters. But most of it is in the lengths the other characters have to go to in order to avoid being stuck with the annoying/boring character - and that this has comic consequence. In the Christmas episode of Miranda, she says that she finds carol singers annoying, because you just have to stand there while they sing and it's very awkward. And so, at the distant sound of carol singers, she pretends not to be in - and has to get all her customers to hide, which is, I think, rather funny. And even better, in so doing, she misses the van delivering her package in the process.
There are ways of doing this. But my general word of warning is to ask yourself whether you annoying character is funny - or just plain annoying. If it's the latter, delete, avoid, kill or rewrite.
Let's be honest. It's not the best of the episodes. The story is a bit wobbly and the location shooting is pretty ropey (which is a blog posting for another time). There are lots of unfamiliar characters that get in the way. But the episode starts with Rimmer telling a long boring story about a game of Risk that he played years earlier. The gag is that Rimmer is going on and on and has no idea how boring he's being. But, it's not really funny at all because it's, well, boring. Jokes about boredom, shaggy dog stories and anticlimaxes are often disastrous in shows, especially when shot in front of audiences. They don't usually play very well because they are boring, pointless or anti-climactic.
Non-audience shows can make a feature of these, and nuance them to perfection, as they did in The Office and People Like Us - making many others think they can do them. But my experience as an audience member, and as a writer, have taught me to avoid doing jokes along these lines.
A similar phenomenon has arisen in Friday Night Dinner. Mark Heap brilliantly plays a really annoying next door neighbour. But he doesn't make me laugh. He just makes me annoyed. The character is clearly sociopathic and doesn't realise when he's not wanted, and thus hangs around and causes embarrassment, and it's very true to life. People often don't get the message. It's believable. But I wonder how laugh-out-loud funny the character is.
There is certainly mileage to be had in these boring/annoying characters. But most of it is in the lengths the other characters have to go to in order to avoid being stuck with the annoying/boring character - and that this has comic consequence. In the Christmas episode of Miranda, she says that she finds carol singers annoying, because you just have to stand there while they sing and it's very awkward. And so, at the distant sound of carol singers, she pretends not to be in - and has to get all her customers to hide, which is, I think, rather funny. And even better, in so doing, she misses the van delivering her package in the process.
There are ways of doing this. But my general word of warning is to ask yourself whether you annoying character is funny - or just plain annoying. If it's the latter, delete, avoid, kill or rewrite.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Getting Arrested
Since the show started, I've always been a big fan of Lee Mack's BBC1 sitcom, Not Going Out. In fact, I was so keen that I pestered them to allow me to write for it. It never quite happened, although I ended up writing a storyline that they used in Series 3 called 'Speech', for which I am bizarrely credited as 'Additional Material'. If we definite a story is 'additional', we have some problems.
I pitched that story in particular because I wanted to give Lucy a strong story in which she could be really funny - a speech for a business awards-type thing would be a big deal for her charcter and something she would take very seriously. And therefore Lee would have take it seriously too in order to stand a chance with her. I'm not sure how successful I was in that, but since I merely submitted the storyline rather than wrote the episode - I wasn't even 'in the room' - I'm not sure what the other writers thought the story represented.
I remain a big fan of the show and I watched the show again the other night, catching up on the first episode - and laughed out loud, very loud, several times. But I was wondering why I still didn't love the show. In some ways, the show isn't dissimilar from Miranda, being big, brassy and silly. The show is also told from one character's point of view in which the character's name is the actor's name. Despite the similarities, Miranda seems to have invoked an affection that Not Going Out hasn't yet managed - although Not Going Out, being a BBC1 show, has the larger audience.
The missing ingredient is, I think, pathos. Dave Cohen has written an excellent piece on Chortle on this subject here. He is kinder to Not Going Out than me saying that Lee's "character’s attempts to win his flatmate evoke sympathy as well as laughs". That is right. But for me, this relationship and quest for Lee is never quite consistent enough. In the first episode of this latest series, Lucy is away for the whole episode, which removes that strand of pathos - and it became a farcical (in a good way) caper between Lee and Tim.
Lee and Tim are a really strong duo. They play off each other really well. But perhaps the drugs story might have had more resonance if Tim, playing very prudish and respectable, had a particular reason not to be caught in possession of drugs. Daisy's disapproval was funny and provided some character-based context for the story - and silly cartoon-ish ending involving a nail gun.
Getting Arrested
The 'getting caught' story crops up in many sitcoms, but for some reason getting caught by the police doesn't have enough comic punch. Being arrested isn't funny in itself. Being arrested by a child is funny. Or an ex-wife. Or a policeman who's arrested you nine times before is funny. There always has to be a reason why this particular arrest is funny. Or perhaps our character doesn't want to be arrested because his Uncle Tom is a magistrate. Or it means our hero will be asked to leave the golf club that he has finally been allowed to join. You get the idea.
Cue Music
But let's just end with more pathos for a moment. It can, and should, start with the opening music. Not Going Out has a brassy, upbeat opening theme, very much in keeping with the upbeat, gag-heavy nature of the show. Miranda has a lovely, cheerful theme too, by the splendid Alex Eckford - but Miranda has pictures of her growing up and we begin the theme of family embarrassment and we're already beginning to invest in her emotionally.
Some sitcoms, especially in the 1980s, ladelled on pathos with opening titles. So let's finish with a few of real humdingers, where pathos is positively gushing out of the television.
Here's Ever Decreasing Circles. Yes, this bizarre, complex piano solo really is the opening music for a mainstream, BBC1 comedy show.
How about this one? Hospital comedy, Only When I Laugh (can you imagine ITV1 commissioning this show, let alone allowing this opening sequence?):
And finally watch a man's life fall apart in the opening titles of the extraordinary Dear John:
I pitched that story in particular because I wanted to give Lucy a strong story in which she could be really funny - a speech for a business awards-type thing would be a big deal for her charcter and something she would take very seriously. And therefore Lee would have take it seriously too in order to stand a chance with her. I'm not sure how successful I was in that, but since I merely submitted the storyline rather than wrote the episode - I wasn't even 'in the room' - I'm not sure what the other writers thought the story represented.
I remain a big fan of the show and I watched the show again the other night, catching up on the first episode - and laughed out loud, very loud, several times. But I was wondering why I still didn't love the show. In some ways, the show isn't dissimilar from Miranda, being big, brassy and silly. The show is also told from one character's point of view in which the character's name is the actor's name. Despite the similarities, Miranda seems to have invoked an affection that Not Going Out hasn't yet managed - although Not Going Out, being a BBC1 show, has the larger audience.
The missing ingredient is, I think, pathos. Dave Cohen has written an excellent piece on Chortle on this subject here. He is kinder to Not Going Out than me saying that Lee's "character’s attempts to win his flatmate evoke sympathy as well as laughs". That is right. But for me, this relationship and quest for Lee is never quite consistent enough. In the first episode of this latest series, Lucy is away for the whole episode, which removes that strand of pathos - and it became a farcical (in a good way) caper between Lee and Tim.
Lee and Tim are a really strong duo. They play off each other really well. But perhaps the drugs story might have had more resonance if Tim, playing very prudish and respectable, had a particular reason not to be caught in possession of drugs. Daisy's disapproval was funny and provided some character-based context for the story - and silly cartoon-ish ending involving a nail gun.
Getting Arrested
The 'getting caught' story crops up in many sitcoms, but for some reason getting caught by the police doesn't have enough comic punch. Being arrested isn't funny in itself. Being arrested by a child is funny. Or an ex-wife. Or a policeman who's arrested you nine times before is funny. There always has to be a reason why this particular arrest is funny. Or perhaps our character doesn't want to be arrested because his Uncle Tom is a magistrate. Or it means our hero will be asked to leave the golf club that he has finally been allowed to join. You get the idea.
Cue Music
But let's just end with more pathos for a moment. It can, and should, start with the opening music. Not Going Out has a brassy, upbeat opening theme, very much in keeping with the upbeat, gag-heavy nature of the show. Miranda has a lovely, cheerful theme too, by the splendid Alex Eckford - but Miranda has pictures of her growing up and we begin the theme of family embarrassment and we're already beginning to invest in her emotionally.
Some sitcoms, especially in the 1980s, ladelled on pathos with opening titles. So let's finish with a few of real humdingers, where pathos is positively gushing out of the television.
Here's Ever Decreasing Circles. Yes, this bizarre, complex piano solo really is the opening music for a mainstream, BBC1 comedy show.
How about this one? Hospital comedy, Only When I Laugh (can you imagine ITV1 commissioning this show, let alone allowing this opening sequence?):
And finally watch a man's life fall apart in the opening titles of the extraordinary Dear John:
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Guardian Guidelines
Sitcomgeek is pleased to have written for an institution as august as The Guardian - in the Guidelines section here. It's a breezy and facetious piece about the recipe for sitcom success including the following:
If you've just found this blog because of The Guardian article, hello. This is a blog about mainly British situation comedy - the nitty gritty and the tricks of the trade. The author's credentials are to your right. The idea is to keep things friendly. It's best not to assume that if something is popular that it is bad. Likewise, niche comedy isn't necessarily superior. Horses for courses. Don't be sneery.
You can follow sitcomgeek on Twitter here, which will keep you posted on new articles here, and developments in the British sitcom world. In the meantime, have a look around.
"Writing a sitcom is a black art. Like baking. But without scales. And in the dark. You do what you can, put it in the oven and hope to hell that it rises. If it doesn't, it will invariably be dreadful."
If you've just found this blog because of The Guardian article, hello. This is a blog about mainly British situation comedy - the nitty gritty and the tricks of the trade. The author's credentials are to your right. The idea is to keep things friendly. It's best not to assume that if something is popular that it is bad. Likewise, niche comedy isn't necessarily superior. Horses for courses. Don't be sneery.
You can follow sitcomgeek on Twitter here, which will keep you posted on new articles here, and developments in the British sitcom world. In the meantime, have a look around.
Monday, 7 June 2010
Handling the Truth
People in television - especially comedy - love to look down on advertising and creatives who work in that field. Let's be honest, funny TV commercials are normally shot for about £250k, and are essentially one joke. Well, you can shoot an episode of a sitcom in TV studio for that, and this requires at least five jokes a minute for 30 minutes, which is about 150 jokes.
But one of the main gripes against advertising is that it's deemed to be professional lying. There's always the suspicion that advertisers are pushing us products we don't need, or inventing needs and filling them with their products. Or that we see products as part of a 'lifestyle'. The more we think about it, the more shallow and empty it seems. Surely a car is a car is a car. Those adverts with open roads, and slogans and exploding hills. Are we really so shallow or gullible that these tactics work?
Yes.
We are.
Or they wouldn't do it. Advertising is based on truth - or at least perceived truth. The fact is that we do define ourselves by the car we drive, and the packaging of our perfume, or the brand of fruit on our computer. Companies spend billions of pounds sussing out customers, and this is evidence of years of research.
Also, we know when adverts are based on lies - and when they are exploiting truth. Or offering something that is too good to be true. An advert, even an exaggerated and silly one which has some lies in it, must have a central truth to it, or else it's just fantasy. To get beautiful crystals, you need something for the freezing particles to form around - even if it's very small indeed. A pearl needs that grain of sand around which to form (unless that's one of those natural world urban myths...)
I mention this because comedy is the same as advertising. I was especially aware of this last night as I was considering the kind of comedy shows that get nominated for BAFTAs - or contains performances that do. These shows are not just about characters that we love and want to spend time with - but say something that's worth saying, and we like to hear it said because it is true.
Good comedy is based on truth, or revealing truth in a clever way, truthfully subverting a perceived and widely help untruth. The Thick of It, Miranda, Outnumbered, Peep Show, Getting On, The In-Betweeners, Outnumbered - they all do this.
The Thick of It reveals the truth about politics - that despite appearances and ministerial dignity, it's a rat-race of incompetence, fury and compromise. Yes Minister did broadly the same thing but in a different way (and that won BAFTAs too) Getting On reveals that a similar truth about the much-revered NHS, which is that it's a flawed slow-moving system, run by flawed normal people and often fails to care for people. The In-Betweeners reveals the truth about being 'that age' when you're meant to be young, free and able to do anything, especially sexually, but that the reality is always more disappointing than the fantasy. Peep Show does a similar thing but for slightly older people (and came first!). Miranda reveals the truth that fitting in is a lot harder than it looks, takes a lot of effort and can lead you down any number of blind or embarrassing alleys (in a way that many of the audience identify with). Outnumbered shows that if you try and parent by outwitting your kids - as many do - you will lose, especially if you're outnumbered by them.
Comedy shows - good ones - are often about a big truth, or truthfully exposing a big lie with truth. Friends did it. The show picked up on the fact that when you're young and single, after leaving your family and beginning your own new one, you rely completely on your friends. It had a ring of truth so had a good chance of connecting with the audience. They then created six brilliant characters and wrote fantastic joke. The truth is not enough. It requires art and skill to package the truth. But it's not all packaging. There has to be truth there.
So when plotting a comedy show, aim for a BAFTA and create a show that isn't just filled with jokes, or funny people, or amusing situations, or wry observations - but truth.
But one of the main gripes against advertising is that it's deemed to be professional lying. There's always the suspicion that advertisers are pushing us products we don't need, or inventing needs and filling them with their products. Or that we see products as part of a 'lifestyle'. The more we think about it, the more shallow and empty it seems. Surely a car is a car is a car. Those adverts with open roads, and slogans and exploding hills. Are we really so shallow or gullible that these tactics work?
Yes.
We are.
Or they wouldn't do it. Advertising is based on truth - or at least perceived truth. The fact is that we do define ourselves by the car we drive, and the packaging of our perfume, or the brand of fruit on our computer. Companies spend billions of pounds sussing out customers, and this is evidence of years of research.
Also, we know when adverts are based on lies - and when they are exploiting truth. Or offering something that is too good to be true. An advert, even an exaggerated and silly one which has some lies in it, must have a central truth to it, or else it's just fantasy. To get beautiful crystals, you need something for the freezing particles to form around - even if it's very small indeed. A pearl needs that grain of sand around which to form (unless that's one of those natural world urban myths...)
I mention this because comedy is the same as advertising. I was especially aware of this last night as I was considering the kind of comedy shows that get nominated for BAFTAs - or contains performances that do. These shows are not just about characters that we love and want to spend time with - but say something that's worth saying, and we like to hear it said because it is true.
Good comedy is based on truth, or revealing truth in a clever way, truthfully subverting a perceived and widely help untruth. The Thick of It, Miranda, Outnumbered, Peep Show, Getting On, The In-Betweeners, Outnumbered - they all do this.
The Thick of It reveals the truth about politics - that despite appearances and ministerial dignity, it's a rat-race of incompetence, fury and compromise. Yes Minister did broadly the same thing but in a different way (and that won BAFTAs too) Getting On reveals that a similar truth about the much-revered NHS, which is that it's a flawed slow-moving system, run by flawed normal people and often fails to care for people. The In-Betweeners reveals the truth about being 'that age' when you're meant to be young, free and able to do anything, especially sexually, but that the reality is always more disappointing than the fantasy. Peep Show does a similar thing but for slightly older people (and came first!). Miranda reveals the truth that fitting in is a lot harder than it looks, takes a lot of effort and can lead you down any number of blind or embarrassing alleys (in a way that many of the audience identify with). Outnumbered shows that if you try and parent by outwitting your kids - as many do - you will lose, especially if you're outnumbered by them.
Comedy shows - good ones - are often about a big truth, or truthfully exposing a big lie with truth. Friends did it. The show picked up on the fact that when you're young and single, after leaving your family and beginning your own new one, you rely completely on your friends. It had a ring of truth so had a good chance of connecting with the audience. They then created six brilliant characters and wrote fantastic joke. The truth is not enough. It requires art and skill to package the truth. But it's not all packaging. There has to be truth there.
So when plotting a comedy show, aim for a BAFTA and create a show that isn't just filled with jokes, or funny people, or amusing situations, or wry observations - but truth.
Monday, 24 May 2010
The Garry Shandling Show
Over the last few days, I've seen a few episodes of It's Gary Shandling's Show. It ran for 4 years, and they made 72 episodes in total. In one sense, the show was before my time, beginning in 1986 when I was only 11. The show was a decontructed sitcom that broke the fourth wall, and played around with the cliches and tropes of sitcom. It was an anti-sitcom, pulling apart the format whilst playing along with it. At the age of 11, I was familiar with the sitcom format since I watched pretty much every comedy on TV as I grew up (hey, I had good parents, ok?!), but I wasn't terribly interested in seeing them parodied. Plus, I don't remember it being on much in the UK, but I think it was at various times and at various points.As I watched the first four episodes, I was mindful that the initial impact was lost on me. The show came out in 1986 when there wasn't much smart, post-modern stuff like this around, and so there wasn't the buzz that you get watching something fresh and exciting. As you can probably tell, I was a little underwhelmed. I was surprised at how slow it was and how, on occasions, there were attempts at genuine emotion which struck me as a cheeky attempt to have your cake and eat it. I was also surprised at how charmless and unfunny his male best friend was - and it made me crave Jason Alexander. I really didn't believe that they were friends. There is plenty of good stuff in the show. Some nice jokes and Garry's vanity is funny (and obsession with how his hair looks is funny). But having watched four episodes, I wasn't inclined to watch any more.
My main problem with it is that lots of the jokes come from poking fun at the standard sitcom format. But that's so easy that it's barely worth doing. So why do comedians (and TV Critics) keep doing it? Sitcoms are contrivances. We all know that. We, the writers, know it. The studio audience know it. The viewers at home know it. We know that real life isn't that funny, and that coincidences don't happen that often and that our neighbours really aren't that wacky. It's a sitcom. So what's the joke?
Deconstructing yourself is a trick that's very hard to pull off. I've been working on the BBC2 sitcom Miranda in which Miranda's character regularly talks directly to camera, breaking the fourth wall. But we have to use that device very carefully and not overstep the mark. There are one or two lines delivered to camera in the middle of scenes like 'This is a like a farce' but these jokes have a law of diminishing returns, and we often write them, feel better and then delete them before they get to the readthrough. In fact, more accurately, I write them, feel clever and smug, and Miranda deletes them - because she knows that the audience aren't interested in my feeling clever and smug. They want jokes and characters and funny situations. They have invested emotionally in the world that's been created and they don't want to see behind the scenery.
Some might say It's Garry Shandling's Show paved the way for The Larry Sanders Show, which is undoubtedly a superbly crafted piece of work. In fact, it might be one of my all time favourites. But The Larry Sanders Show isn't deconstructing anything. It's a front-stage/back-stage character comedy. It's about relationships, real people and personas and the odd celebrity coming in and stirring things up.
To me, It's Garry Shandling's Show is the Beta version of Seinfeld, which is a sitcom about a comedian, and a best friend and a neighbour - with a certain amount of 'material' to 'camera'. Seinfeld is smart and clever and really funny - and it subverts the sitcom format by superb characters and sheer originality. The plotlines are so brilliant, partly because they are frequently based on stories that you couldn't make up. (Watch the DVD and interviews with the writers frequently reference a story or event that happened to them or a close friend). And they are crammed into episodes that last about 21 minutes. Now that's hard.Why make swipes at a sitcom format that can reach the comic heights of Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show? Parodying sitcoms use of Surprise Birthday Parties, Having to Look After Someone Else's Child/Pet/Priceless Vase etc is funny for a few minutes, but it doesn't sustain. Why do that when you can create a Soup Nazi? Or have an episode waiting for a table at a Chinese Restaurant? Or The Contest?
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