Episode 3 of Hut 33 is called ‘Yellow’ (at time of writing being here). And it starts with one my favourite scenes of the series. It throws the character into a simple game of Monopoly.
Our regular three characters, Archie, Gordon and Charles, plus Mrs Best, play this relatively new game and it should be no big deal. But it’s a great opportunity to express character, prejudice, snobbery and general anger. It was useful to the plot of that episode because it highlighted what a terrible Christmas they were having. And therefore the prospect of having to spend New Year’s Eve together in Quarantine would simply too much to bear. (This is what happens by the way. They are Quarantined with suspected Yellow Fever, which gives rise to tunnelling and escape plans.) In the first scene, though, the game of monopoly turns into a large political dispute about the ownership of property which was true to the characters. And the audience seemed to enjoy it – because they were starting to know the characters as well as I did.
In essence, one of the main tricks of sitcom is taking characters out of their comfort zone – without it seeming contrived or ridiculous. (It’s up to you to decide whether I’ve been successful in that.)
Mistakes in Writing Sitcom
Along the way, then, we can note that this is an area where many first-time writers fall down. New writers are tempted to make their characters sit around and say ‘funny things’ rather than get up, move around and ‘be’ funny. Witty characters swapping jokes and witticisms is okay for three pages – Hut 33 attempts to have our characters in the Hut for the first three or four pages talking about stuff to set up the episode and reintroduce the characters – but it doesn’t sustain for forty pages, which is what you need. Plus, they're not swapping straight jokes but revealing amusing character traits.
It's a good test of how well you know your characters. When I was setting up Think the Unthinkable, I tried to work out what sort of coffee each of the characters would order at Starbucks. I didn't actually have them order coffee in Starbucks until Series 3, I think, but you need to know everything about your characters, or at least be able to work it out. Where do they shop? What newspaper do the read, if any? How would they go about organising a hen/stage night? What would happen if they woke up in Narnia or Alice's Wonderland?
This is why my current practice is to think up storylines quite early in setting up a new sitcom. Once I have my characters in some rough shape or another - sometimes it only needs three adjectives - it's worth thinking up scenarios, scenes and sketches, and then combining these characters with other characters in the show. After some time spend doing this, one often finds that one character has nothing to say, or little to add, or just isn't very funny. This character is normally expendable. If your show is focussed around this character, you've got a problem (and no show).
Ban Backstory
Doing this also avoids falling into the trap of backstory and background which is often irrelevant. You have no hope of conveying in a script and is therefore pointless. Characters need to be straining forwards, not harking back (unless their main characteristic is being nostalgic/reactionary). Remember, what did Geraldine do before she became the Vicar of Dibley? We don't know. We never really find out. Only very late on do we meet one or two people from her past. What drives our characters forward in any given situation? That's what we all need to know for all our characters.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
A Busload of Quakers
‘Pigs n Spivs’ is the title of Ep 2 of series 2 of Hut 33 (now on iPlayer here) I'm not convinced this is the best title,since it implies that there is more than one pig and one spiv in the episode, when there isn’t. There is one spiv who sells our starving codebreakers a job-lot of bacon. Which is still in pig form. Unfortunately, they discover the origins of this pig and could be in serious trouble.
The difficulty in writing Hut 33 is always finding our characters things to do that the audience can understand, since they don't really have a hope of comprehending the actual codebreaking part of their work. I've read several books on the subject and I struggle to retain the necessary information in my head simultaneously to put it all together. The chance of doing this and getting laughs is almost impossible. Episodes about codebreaking in Hut 33 are fairly rare.
This is why the theme of Pigs and Spivs is shortages and hunger. It's something that we can all identify with and get our heads around. Food was in short supply for the whole war and an unpleasant reality for all but the wealthiest. World War Two ration were meagre. Most of us today could eat their weekly ration in a day. So it's good to keep coming back to that.
Quakers, Baptists and Jokes
There is one other point of minor interest on this episode. Hopefully my explanation of it will give a small insight into how you sometimes make a joke fit the context. I spotted a comment on someone’s blog about Hut 33. (Clearly during the original Radio 4 transmission of Hut 33, I’m regularly googled ‘Hut 33’ in order to find out what people think of it). This blogger, a wife of a Baptist minister, blogged about her irritation that the writer of Hut 33 seemed ignorant of certain religious groups and their drinking habits. This is particularly poignant as I am not ignorant of certain religious groups, since I cheerfully belong to one myself (yes, I'm a Christian. There. I've said it) and I studied theology at University, so I know a bit about all this stuff.
The joke in question is Archie’s joke in response to his discovery that the pub has completely run out of alcohol. He says “So we’re now standing in the world’s first teetotal pub. We expecting a bus-load of Quakers?”
The audience, as I hope, laughed at this joke. But, in a sense they were wrong to. The blog pointed out that it is Methodists that refrain from drinking, not Quakers. I knew that. Honestly, I did. But I chose Quakers for the joke because I knew it would work. Why?
Shared Knowledge
Comedy relies on shared knowledge and simplicity. If the audience have to think about a joke for too long, or are unsure about any part of it, they can’t laugh. And they don’t laugh. Simplicity and clarity is everything. This partly explains why people get upset about stereotypes. They are a reality in comedy because it relies about compressing information and leaving plenty of things unsaid. (eg. Cab drivers are racist. Builders are Polish. Rich people are dim. In fact, when one breaks a stereotype, that in itself can be the starting point for a sitcom eg. one of the first women vicars in The Vicar of Dibley. The joke was, at the start, 'it's a woman! And not a man! You know, like a normal vicar would be.' I over-simplify naturally. But that's stereotyping for you.)
In this case, I chose Quakers because I’m not sure how widely know it is that its Methodists don’t drink. It’s also the case that many Baptists don’t drink either. How widely known is that? Less so now than before. I judged that the audience would have no problem believing that Quakers don’t drink – partly because in my mind there seems to be some kind of overlap between Quakers, Puritans and the Amish, at least in terms of their public perception. In reality there are vast differences between these groups of Christian believers. The puritans in particular were a remarkable bunch of Christian folk who were nothing like the the adjective named after them - 'puritanical'.
Returning to the joke in question, we have to bear in min that this was a joke for 2008. So I chose Quaker. Even though the joke is set in 1941, when the vast majority would have been clear that Methodists don’t drink.
Add to the equation the fact that characters are the creations of writers – and do not represent the views of the writer, or share their factual knowledge. So Archie, Charles and the team, and especially Josh, say plenty of things that are wrong, or grammatically incorrect. They hold religious, social and political views that I do not. It seems obvious to point this out, but occasionally one needs to.
Incidentally, the Quaker website says:
So I wasn't that far off anyway, was I?
The tricky part is where joke reinforce stereotypes that are unfair, oppressive or nasty. There, my friends, we have to use a thing called judgement. And then your producer will probably thumb through the BBC Producers Handbook Guide (Vols 1-9) and then just delete the joke.
The difficulty in writing Hut 33 is always finding our characters things to do that the audience can understand, since they don't really have a hope of comprehending the actual codebreaking part of their work. I've read several books on the subject and I struggle to retain the necessary information in my head simultaneously to put it all together. The chance of doing this and getting laughs is almost impossible. Episodes about codebreaking in Hut 33 are fairly rare.
This is why the theme of Pigs and Spivs is shortages and hunger. It's something that we can all identify with and get our heads around. Food was in short supply for the whole war and an unpleasant reality for all but the wealthiest. World War Two ration were meagre. Most of us today could eat their weekly ration in a day. So it's good to keep coming back to that.
Quakers, Baptists and Jokes
There is one other point of minor interest on this episode. Hopefully my explanation of it will give a small insight into how you sometimes make a joke fit the context. I spotted a comment on someone’s blog about Hut 33. (Clearly during the original Radio 4 transmission of Hut 33, I’m regularly googled ‘Hut 33’ in order to find out what people think of it). This blogger, a wife of a Baptist minister, blogged about her irritation that the writer of Hut 33 seemed ignorant of certain religious groups and their drinking habits. This is particularly poignant as I am not ignorant of certain religious groups, since I cheerfully belong to one myself (yes, I'm a Christian. There. I've said it) and I studied theology at University, so I know a bit about all this stuff.
The joke in question is Archie’s joke in response to his discovery that the pub has completely run out of alcohol. He says “So we’re now standing in the world’s first teetotal pub. We expecting a bus-load of Quakers?”
The audience, as I hope, laughed at this joke. But, in a sense they were wrong to. The blog pointed out that it is Methodists that refrain from drinking, not Quakers. I knew that. Honestly, I did. But I chose Quakers for the joke because I knew it would work. Why?
Shared Knowledge
Comedy relies on shared knowledge and simplicity. If the audience have to think about a joke for too long, or are unsure about any part of it, they can’t laugh. And they don’t laugh. Simplicity and clarity is everything. This partly explains why people get upset about stereotypes. They are a reality in comedy because it relies about compressing information and leaving plenty of things unsaid. (eg. Cab drivers are racist. Builders are Polish. Rich people are dim. In fact, when one breaks a stereotype, that in itself can be the starting point for a sitcom eg. one of the first women vicars in The Vicar of Dibley. The joke was, at the start, 'it's a woman! And not a man! You know, like a normal vicar would be.' I over-simplify naturally. But that's stereotyping for you.)
In this case, I chose Quakers because I’m not sure how widely know it is that its Methodists don’t drink. It’s also the case that many Baptists don’t drink either. How widely known is that? Less so now than before. I judged that the audience would have no problem believing that Quakers don’t drink – partly because in my mind there seems to be some kind of overlap between Quakers, Puritans and the Amish, at least in terms of their public perception. In reality there are vast differences between these groups of Christian believers. The puritans in particular were a remarkable bunch of Christian folk who were nothing like the the adjective named after them - 'puritanical'.
Returning to the joke in question, we have to bear in min that this was a joke for 2008. So I chose Quaker. Even though the joke is set in 1941, when the vast majority would have been clear that Methodists don’t drink.
Add to the equation the fact that characters are the creations of writers – and do not represent the views of the writer, or share their factual knowledge. So Archie, Charles and the team, and especially Josh, say plenty of things that are wrong, or grammatically incorrect. They hold religious, social and political views that I do not. It seems obvious to point this out, but occasionally one needs to.
Incidentally, the Quaker website says:
One testimony that Quakers have had to give careful thought to is our testimony on moderation. In the nineteenth century Quakers saw the bad effects that drink and drunkenness had in society. Along with other Non-conformist Christians they campaigned against alcohol. Many Quakers were active in the Temperance Movement - a movement of people who "took the pledge" (promising that they would never drink alcohol) as a witness against the evils it caused.
So I wasn't that far off anyway, was I?
The tricky part is where joke reinforce stereotypes that are unfair, oppressive or nasty. There, my friends, we have to use a thing called judgement. And then your producer will probably thumb through the BBC Producers Handbook Guide (Vols 1-9) and then just delete the joke.
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, 8 November 2010
The Inspector Episode
For a while, I wrote a blog about my radio sitcom, Hut 33. There is an blog post on there that pertains to this week's episode of Hut 33 that was on BBC7 on Sunday (and on iPlayer here). Here it is (with a few tweaks and changes).
The Royal Visitor - the blurb for Episode 1 of Series 2 of Hut 33 is as follows:
A royal visitor is coming to inspect Bletchley Park, but the top brass are worried that this particular royal is a Nazi sympathiser. Hut 33 has to delay him and make sure he doesn't see any of the code-breaking machines.
Since this blog is about the boring mechanics of situation comedy, allow me to fill you in on how and why this episode came together without, hopefully, deconstructing the whole thing into a joyless series of components - although if I do that, so be it.
The Inspection Episode
The 'inspection' episode is common sit-com device and also a very useful one. Characters are sent rushing around getting things ready. Cleaning, polishing and tidying. In the process, skeletons can be found in cupboards, difficult tasks can be comically compressed and plenty of dirt can be swept under the carpet. See the effect of the Inspector in JB Priestley's An Inspector Calls in which the presence and prospect of an Inspector causes lives to unravel.
Another advantage of the 'Inspector' episode its simplicity. Simplicity is everything in comedy, especially in half-hour sit-com. If the audience is confused, even slightly, they can't laugh. In that sense, sit-com is contrived reality, over-simplified and sign-posted. The audience is normally happy with this because they understand the genre and that real life is more complicated. The trick is, within the contrived situation, to make the plot and events seem as organic and uncontrived as possible. We start with something believable, and through a series of believable steps end up somewhere original and bizarre, so we're left thinking 'How on earth did we get here?'!
Inspections are a reality of life - audits, royal visitors, tax men - so we have a believable, clear goal that we can all understand - everything has to be ready for the inspector or special visitor. It's a variation on 'The Boss Comes to Dinner' episode that's common to many domestic sitcoms.
The Twist
The trick of sitcom, then, is to take a familiar situation and push it further, into unfamiliar areas, involving characters that we are familiar with. As you would expect, World War Two threw up plenty of these. And so when I came to consider the inspection episode, I tried to think of what the twist would be. As the blurb of the show suggests (so I'm not spoiling it) what if the Royal visitor cannot be trusted?
This taps into the very real concerns during the war that some members of the aristocracy could not be trusted and were well-known for Fascist sympathies. It is a running theme of the series - partly embodied in the character of Professor Charles Gardiner. As a well-connected Oxford professor, he moves in elevated circles and was friendly before the war with high-ranking Nazis and sympathised with some of their views. Every episode, Archie normally makes jokes implying that Charles played some kind of sport with a prominent Nazi. And Charles has to concede that he was friendly with the Von Ribbentrops, the Rommels and even Mussolini.
And so as I was thinking about which Royal visitor, real or imagined, could visit Hut 33, I stumbled across Prince George, Duke of Kent. If you read up on the man, you will see that he was a very worrying figure for the British Establishment. Given the extraordinarily secret nature of the work at Bletchley Park, the Prince's visit would have to be frustrated in some way. If news of the breaking of Enigma was leaked back to Germany, it would have proved disastrous for the Allies.
German High Command had no idea that the British were reading their messages so a hint to that effect would have been catastrophic for Bletchley. 1941 was a difficult year for the Allies. Britain stood alone against Germany and was on the verge of starvation. The convoys in the Atlantic bringing food and supplies from America were a lifeline. This, then, gives an intensity to the story that hopefully makes it play and gives good motivations for our regular characters who are instrumental in keeping the prince away from the code-breaking machinery.
Hopefully, this creates a twist on the Inspection episode. Our characters frantically prepare for a Royal visitor, making easy-to-understand displays so that the inspection will explain exactly what they do at Bletchley Park, giving our characters a clear and comprehensible focus for their activities in which the comedy can play out. But when it is discovered which member of the Royal Family is coming, they have to frantic undo everthing and obscure that they are doing at Bletchley.
Guest Star
Fans of Radioactive, KYTV and Trevor's World of Sport will recognise the voice of the Prince. He is wonderfully played by Michael Fenton Stevens (who also played alongside Robert Bathurst (Charles) in My Dad's the Prime Minister).
The Royal Visitor - the blurb for Episode 1 of Series 2 of Hut 33 is as follows:
A royal visitor is coming to inspect Bletchley Park, but the top brass are worried that this particular royal is a Nazi sympathiser. Hut 33 has to delay him and make sure he doesn't see any of the code-breaking machines.
Since this blog is about the boring mechanics of situation comedy, allow me to fill you in on how and why this episode came together without, hopefully, deconstructing the whole thing into a joyless series of components - although if I do that, so be it.
The Inspection Episode
The 'inspection' episode is common sit-com device and also a very useful one. Characters are sent rushing around getting things ready. Cleaning, polishing and tidying. In the process, skeletons can be found in cupboards, difficult tasks can be comically compressed and plenty of dirt can be swept under the carpet. See the effect of the Inspector in JB Priestley's An Inspector Calls in which the presence and prospect of an Inspector causes lives to unravel.
Another advantage of the 'Inspector' episode its simplicity. Simplicity is everything in comedy, especially in half-hour sit-com. If the audience is confused, even slightly, they can't laugh. In that sense, sit-com is contrived reality, over-simplified and sign-posted. The audience is normally happy with this because they understand the genre and that real life is more complicated. The trick is, within the contrived situation, to make the plot and events seem as organic and uncontrived as possible. We start with something believable, and through a series of believable steps end up somewhere original and bizarre, so we're left thinking 'How on earth did we get here?'!
Inspections are a reality of life - audits, royal visitors, tax men - so we have a believable, clear goal that we can all understand - everything has to be ready for the inspector or special visitor. It's a variation on 'The Boss Comes to Dinner' episode that's common to many domestic sitcoms.
The Twist
The trick of sitcom, then, is to take a familiar situation and push it further, into unfamiliar areas, involving characters that we are familiar with. As you would expect, World War Two threw up plenty of these. And so when I came to consider the inspection episode, I tried to think of what the twist would be. As the blurb of the show suggests (so I'm not spoiling it) what if the Royal visitor cannot be trusted?
This taps into the very real concerns during the war that some members of the aristocracy could not be trusted and were well-known for Fascist sympathies. It is a running theme of the series - partly embodied in the character of Professor Charles Gardiner. As a well-connected Oxford professor, he moves in elevated circles and was friendly before the war with high-ranking Nazis and sympathised with some of their views. Every episode, Archie normally makes jokes implying that Charles played some kind of sport with a prominent Nazi. And Charles has to concede that he was friendly with the Von Ribbentrops, the Rommels and even Mussolini.
And so as I was thinking about which Royal visitor, real or imagined, could visit Hut 33, I stumbled across Prince George, Duke of Kent. If you read up on the man, you will see that he was a very worrying figure for the British Establishment. Given the extraordinarily secret nature of the work at Bletchley Park, the Prince's visit would have to be frustrated in some way. If news of the breaking of Enigma was leaked back to Germany, it would have proved disastrous for the Allies.
German High Command had no idea that the British were reading their messages so a hint to that effect would have been catastrophic for Bletchley. 1941 was a difficult year for the Allies. Britain stood alone against Germany and was on the verge of starvation. The convoys in the Atlantic bringing food and supplies from America were a lifeline. This, then, gives an intensity to the story that hopefully makes it play and gives good motivations for our regular characters who are instrumental in keeping the prince away from the code-breaking machinery.
Hopefully, this creates a twist on the Inspection episode. Our characters frantically prepare for a Royal visitor, making easy-to-understand displays so that the inspection will explain exactly what they do at Bletchley Park, giving our characters a clear and comprehensible focus for their activities in which the comedy can play out. But when it is discovered which member of the Royal Family is coming, they have to frantic undo everthing and obscure that they are doing at Bletchley.
Guest Star
Fans of Radioactive, KYTV and Trevor's World of Sport will recognise the voice of the Prince. He is wonderfully played by Michael Fenton Stevens (who also played alongside Robert Bathurst (Charles) in My Dad's the Prime Minister).
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Escaping Our Certain Fates
I was in a meeting recently when someone who makes more money than me told me not to be cynical, and to hold fast to original ideas and not make my ideas fit into holes that I may have perceived commissioners and controllers think they have in their schedules. It is infuriating to be told this - not least because they were right and one needs to hear this now and then. Even though holding to an artistic vision or a central idea doesn't put shoes on the feet of your children, it is ultimately all writers really have.
I shouldn't have needed to be have been reminded of this since I'd just finished reading Stewart Lee's fascinating and splendid book, How I Escaped My Certain Fate. Lee is rightly held in high regard by comedians, writers and industry folk. He shames many of us by refusing to compromise on his artistic endeavours and the way he would like to do stand-up comedy. The problem is that the way he would like to do it is not the way it is conventionally done - and furthermore, it is not to everyone's taste.
The book is an encouraging story of how a comedian can build up a following and become commercially viable through creativity, persistence and bloody-mindedness. But this comes at a cost personally and financially. The big bucks are to be made in The Hammersmith Apollos all over the country. It seems unlikely that Lee would play the Apollo five nights in a row - or even one night. (He may be able to fill the place, but I'm not sure he would be interested in playing a space which lacks intimacy - unless he was in some way able to turn it into a big joke that ultimately the audience would have been better off not coming and waiting for the DVD, since that would probably feel more personal that sitting six hundred yards away from a man with a microphone.)
Despite his frosty on-stage persona, and air of pretention and disappointment - which he admits is a blurring of an onstage persona and an offstage personality (although I've met him a couple of times and found him to be thoroughly polite and courteous), the book shows the humanity of the man - and a comedian who thinks deeply about his act. He is not motivated by money, although is rightly peeved when he is treated unjustly in the realm of finance. Lee does not really crave the adulation of an audience - highlighting dry patches in his shows which are intentionally joke-free. No-one can accusing of being a crowd-pleaser. He seems, at best, uninterested in the opinions of critics, and sometimes sympathises with their frustrations at his material or shows. He doesn't even seem that bothered by the opinions of other comedians, by whom he is very well-respected (in turn pays homage to others he considers greater or more pure than he). What comes across is that the only person he is seeking to satisfy creatively is himself. And it turns out that he is very hard to please.
We can all learn from this. Stewart Lee keeps pushing himself to find new ways of performing, new routines, turns of phrase and ways of managing audience expectation. I regularly write - and watch - comedy that feels rough, drafty and, at best, sufficient.
We are all in awe of Stewart Lee because he has very high standards. And we know that if we were to have such standards, and cling to our original comic visions, we might be less popular or make less money. When this impacts on spouses and children, it can seem indulgent, but we have to find ways to keep going, keep writing and creating worlds that we want to inhabit, or else, why bother? We'd probably make more money doing something else.
I shouldn't have needed to be have been reminded of this since I'd just finished reading Stewart Lee's fascinating and splendid book, How I Escaped My Certain Fate. Lee is rightly held in high regard by comedians, writers and industry folk. He shames many of us by refusing to compromise on his artistic endeavours and the way he would like to do stand-up comedy. The problem is that the way he would like to do it is not the way it is conventionally done - and furthermore, it is not to everyone's taste.The book is an encouraging story of how a comedian can build up a following and become commercially viable through creativity, persistence and bloody-mindedness. But this comes at a cost personally and financially. The big bucks are to be made in The Hammersmith Apollos all over the country. It seems unlikely that Lee would play the Apollo five nights in a row - or even one night. (He may be able to fill the place, but I'm not sure he would be interested in playing a space which lacks intimacy - unless he was in some way able to turn it into a big joke that ultimately the audience would have been better off not coming and waiting for the DVD, since that would probably feel more personal that sitting six hundred yards away from a man with a microphone.)
Despite his frosty on-stage persona, and air of pretention and disappointment - which he admits is a blurring of an onstage persona and an offstage personality (although I've met him a couple of times and found him to be thoroughly polite and courteous), the book shows the humanity of the man - and a comedian who thinks deeply about his act. He is not motivated by money, although is rightly peeved when he is treated unjustly in the realm of finance. Lee does not really crave the adulation of an audience - highlighting dry patches in his shows which are intentionally joke-free. No-one can accusing of being a crowd-pleaser. He seems, at best, uninterested in the opinions of critics, and sometimes sympathises with their frustrations at his material or shows. He doesn't even seem that bothered by the opinions of other comedians, by whom he is very well-respected (in turn pays homage to others he considers greater or more pure than he). What comes across is that the only person he is seeking to satisfy creatively is himself. And it turns out that he is very hard to please.
We can all learn from this. Stewart Lee keeps pushing himself to find new ways of performing, new routines, turns of phrase and ways of managing audience expectation. I regularly write - and watch - comedy that feels rough, drafty and, at best, sufficient.
We are all in awe of Stewart Lee because he has very high standards. And we know that if we were to have such standards, and cling to our original comic visions, we might be less popular or make less money. When this impacts on spouses and children, it can seem indulgent, but we have to find ways to keep going, keep writing and creating worlds that we want to inhabit, or else, why bother? We'd probably make more money doing something else.
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Strange Times for BBC
We live in strange times.
Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a long speech about various austerity mesaures, cuts and savings that the government was making. In it, he announced that the Licence Fee would be frozen for six years. What a curious thing to do. Lumping in the cost of a TV Licence with this Spending Review is a serious category error and demonstrates how utterly muddled the thinking is in government about the BBC, government, broadcasting and what the whole thing is for.
Undoubtedly, the TV Licence is a weird anomaly that's a throwback to a past age - like MCC or John McCrirrick. But, unlike John McCrirrick, it is a nice anomaly that most people are prepared to live with.
Comedy writers have to pay close attention to the fortunes of BBC, sadly, since it spends more on comedy than all of the other channels combined. (I've just made this statistic up. I'm not a journalist so that's okay.) It's good to see that Sky are spending serious money on comedy, but when BBC sneezes, we all catch a cold, and then whine about it, although to be fair, we were probably whining already. So I merely mention all of this since it should be of interest to all of us.
Let us leave aside threats about paying for the free licences for the over 75s aside (the irony being that the over 75s are the greatest consumers of TV. And yet are least served by the BBC who, like all the media, are obsessed with the under 30s.)
It seems particularly odd that BBC is now expected to fund the World Service itself. All £340 million of it. No-one outside of Britain pays a licence fee. BBC has no contract with the people of Uganda or Java. There is no doubt that the World Service is a truly wonderful thing that that undoubtedly makes the world a better place. I regularly download their documentaries as podcasts. But BBC itself has no incentive to provide this service. If I were Mark Thompson, I would simply announce that on Jan 1st, The World Service Will End. He won't do this, of course. But he should.
In order to save that money, BBC will probably insist on making the same number of programmes for slightly less money. The good programmes and the bad ones. Already underpaid broadcast assistants and runners will get even less. Creativity will be curbed. Ambition for interesting television will be tempered. And anyone earning over £250,000 a year will no doubt take a long hard look at whether they should really collect their whole bonus this year.
The fact is that BBC could make some very easy cuts that no-one would miss - and do a deal with the private sector at the same time. BBC's daytime schedule, and some of the evening schedule that resemble daytime programmes, is almost totally pointless. A couple of days ago, BBC broadcast the following gems on one day: Cash in the Attic; Bargain Hunt; Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is; Flog it; Escape to the Country; Instant Restaurant; Cowboy Trap; Animal Park; Snog Marry Avoid; Don’t Tell the Bride; Traffic Cops; Homes Under the Hammer. This is six hours of television that do not education, inform or entertain. Why does BBC make them? Given that it's almost impossible to legally make an hour of broadcast television for less than £50k an hour, there's £300k right there spend on lousy TV that is cheerfully produced by the private sector on other channels. In one day. Over one year, that's approximately £109 million or 203JBs (JB = Jana Bennetts). And we've not even touched Doctors or the importing of Diagnosis Murder.
Would we really be so impoverished as a nation if we did not have all these cheaply-made, hopelessly contrived, idiotically conceived, falsely-jeopardied moving pictures? Especially given that they are available on commercial channels, and therefore being paid for by advertisers?
If you really can’t live without Homes Under the Hammer, why not just sit in a branch of Foxtons for half an hour at no expense to the licence fee or the taxpayer? The characters are much more amusingly grotesque, better looking and they might even give you a bottle of mineral water. You may be talked buying a three-bed semi in Deptford but that’s all part of the interactive element.
Instead of these programmes, BBC could broadcast the wonderfully educational, informative and entertaining programmes that it does make and systematically hides on BBC4. Or documentaries by David Attenborough. Or costume dramas. Or just dramas (remember them?). Six hours of decent TV from the millions of hours of archives stretching back decades
If repeat fees were too high, pages of Ceefax could be broadcast. Or BBC Online. Or a picture of Tess Daly. Or simply a succession of suggestions like 'Have you tried reading a book by PG Wodehouse? They're an easy read. Go on.' or 'Isn't it time you put up those shelves?' or 'Have you thought about watching Channel 4? It's where we got half our daytime formats anyway.'
Or they could leave the screens blank and broadcast the truly wonderful, rich and cost-effective BBC World Service. Made for us. And then shared with the world. Just a thought.
Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a long speech about various austerity mesaures, cuts and savings that the government was making. In it, he announced that the Licence Fee would be frozen for six years. What a curious thing to do. Lumping in the cost of a TV Licence with this Spending Review is a serious category error and demonstrates how utterly muddled the thinking is in government about the BBC, government, broadcasting and what the whole thing is for.
Undoubtedly, the TV Licence is a weird anomaly that's a throwback to a past age - like MCC or John McCrirrick. But, unlike John McCrirrick, it is a nice anomaly that most people are prepared to live with.
Comedy writers have to pay close attention to the fortunes of BBC, sadly, since it spends more on comedy than all of the other channels combined. (I've just made this statistic up. I'm not a journalist so that's okay.) It's good to see that Sky are spending serious money on comedy, but when BBC sneezes, we all catch a cold, and then whine about it, although to be fair, we were probably whining already. So I merely mention all of this since it should be of interest to all of us.
Let us leave aside threats about paying for the free licences for the over 75s aside (the irony being that the over 75s are the greatest consumers of TV. And yet are least served by the BBC who, like all the media, are obsessed with the under 30s.)
It seems particularly odd that BBC is now expected to fund the World Service itself. All £340 million of it. No-one outside of Britain pays a licence fee. BBC has no contract with the people of Uganda or Java. There is no doubt that the World Service is a truly wonderful thing that that undoubtedly makes the world a better place. I regularly download their documentaries as podcasts. But BBC itself has no incentive to provide this service. If I were Mark Thompson, I would simply announce that on Jan 1st, The World Service Will End. He won't do this, of course. But he should.
In order to save that money, BBC will probably insist on making the same number of programmes for slightly less money. The good programmes and the bad ones. Already underpaid broadcast assistants and runners will get even less. Creativity will be curbed. Ambition for interesting television will be tempered. And anyone earning over £250,000 a year will no doubt take a long hard look at whether they should really collect their whole bonus this year.
The fact is that BBC could make some very easy cuts that no-one would miss - and do a deal with the private sector at the same time. BBC's daytime schedule, and some of the evening schedule that resemble daytime programmes, is almost totally pointless. A couple of days ago, BBC broadcast the following gems on one day: Cash in the Attic; Bargain Hunt; Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is; Flog it; Escape to the Country; Instant Restaurant; Cowboy Trap; Animal Park; Snog Marry Avoid; Don’t Tell the Bride; Traffic Cops; Homes Under the Hammer. This is six hours of television that do not education, inform or entertain. Why does BBC make them? Given that it's almost impossible to legally make an hour of broadcast television for less than £50k an hour, there's £300k right there spend on lousy TV that is cheerfully produced by the private sector on other channels. In one day. Over one year, that's approximately £109 million or 203JBs (JB = Jana Bennetts). And we've not even touched Doctors or the importing of Diagnosis Murder.
Would we really be so impoverished as a nation if we did not have all these cheaply-made, hopelessly contrived, idiotically conceived, falsely-jeopardied moving pictures? Especially given that they are available on commercial channels, and therefore being paid for by advertisers?
If you really can’t live without Homes Under the Hammer, why not just sit in a branch of Foxtons for half an hour at no expense to the licence fee or the taxpayer? The characters are much more amusingly grotesque, better looking and they might even give you a bottle of mineral water. You may be talked buying a three-bed semi in Deptford but that’s all part of the interactive element.
Instead of these programmes, BBC could broadcast the wonderfully educational, informative and entertaining programmes that it does make and systematically hides on BBC4. Or documentaries by David Attenborough. Or costume dramas. Or just dramas (remember them?). Six hours of decent TV from the millions of hours of archives stretching back decades
If repeat fees were too high, pages of Ceefax could be broadcast. Or BBC Online. Or a picture of Tess Daly. Or simply a succession of suggestions like 'Have you tried reading a book by PG Wodehouse? They're an easy read. Go on.' or 'Isn't it time you put up those shelves?' or 'Have you thought about watching Channel 4? It's where we got half our daytime formats anyway.'
Or they could leave the screens blank and broadcast the truly wonderful, rich and cost-effective BBC World Service. Made for us. And then shared with the world. Just a thought.
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Whites
Last night I got round to watching another episode of Whites. I watched the first episode a while ago. Then downloaded another on iPlayer which expired before I got a chance to see it. Then last night I watched Episode 4.
What I like about Whites is that I believe it. It feels like a real kitchen and that the characters really are who they say they are - even though they are all very familiar faces. One could argue they are too familiar. But then who wouldn't want Alan Davies, Darren Boyd and Katherine Parkinson in their sitcom? They are fine comedy actors - as are the others. But let's be honest: it's a non-audience show, shot on location, so there's no excuse for it not being believable, although it does happen occasionally.
If you read the last post on this blog, it wouldn't surprise you to learn that overall, I didn't really go for Whites. It didn't make my wife laugh at all, although I chuckled on a number of occasions. But Whites is part of this enormous raft of non-audience comedy programmes that have been broadcast recently - Rev, Him and Her, Grandma's House, Roger and Val and now Whites. All of these shows are all good in their way, although not all to my taste.
But the fact that they are non-audience seems to provide some kind of safety net. Because they are well-shot and directed, filmed on locations and played out like dramas, with jokes in them at various intervals (you be the judge of how often), they don't make one cringe in a way that an audience comedy can. If one took the last five audience comedies and compared them, the failure rate would be much higher, certainly in the opinion of our beloved critics. But the hits would also register higher too, I think.
The believability issue is crucial. Sometimes audience comedies shot in studios with contructed sets just aren't believable, parodied rather brutally (and unfairly) in When the Whistle Blows (why does Gervais do this? Anyone?) But, as I often point out, if the jokes are there and done in the right way by the right character, the audience don't care. They know that the IT department in the IT Crowd isn't real. But they don't care because they love Moss and Roy and Jen. When they do believe the situation and premise and you have great characters and jokes like in the Office, you have the makings of a real hit on your hands. When the jokes misfire and we don't take the characters to our hearts, it's like watching a car crash. Strangely, it's hard to spot this in the studio, where there is a closeness and a bonhomie that gives you little indication of whether you have a hit on your hands or not. It's only when you sit down at home, and the show starts up and you watch your work that you have any indication of whether the show will be a success.
The fact that the show was non-audience meant they could get away with the fact that Episode 4 was the 'Health and Safety Inspector' episode. It's surprising that given the characters and calibre of actor that the Inspector Card needs to be played quite so early in the game. I have to admit I was disappointed by this - even though cleanliness is obviously a critical facet of the kitchen's operation. But in this instance, there was a decent pay-off, in someone pretending to have Parkinson's in front of someone who's dad has actually Parkinson's is pleasingly morbidly funny.
My final comment is on the creative choice of the show at the start with the central character. Kitchens are famously hot and angry places. Celebrity chefs are famously monstrous. I understand why Whites has decided to subvert this in order to be creatively more interesting and surprising. But it may have been funnier to have had a total monster since they are funnier and can be very interesting. (See also Gordon Ramsay, Gregory House MD and Brian Clough...)
I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this show.
What I like about Whites is that I believe it. It feels like a real kitchen and that the characters really are who they say they are - even though they are all very familiar faces. One could argue they are too familiar. But then who wouldn't want Alan Davies, Darren Boyd and Katherine Parkinson in their sitcom? They are fine comedy actors - as are the others. But let's be honest: it's a non-audience show, shot on location, so there's no excuse for it not being believable, although it does happen occasionally.
If you read the last post on this blog, it wouldn't surprise you to learn that overall, I didn't really go for Whites. It didn't make my wife laugh at all, although I chuckled on a number of occasions. But Whites is part of this enormous raft of non-audience comedy programmes that have been broadcast recently - Rev, Him and Her, Grandma's House, Roger and Val and now Whites. All of these shows are all good in their way, although not all to my taste.
But the fact that they are non-audience seems to provide some kind of safety net. Because they are well-shot and directed, filmed on locations and played out like dramas, with jokes in them at various intervals (you be the judge of how often), they don't make one cringe in a way that an audience comedy can. If one took the last five audience comedies and compared them, the failure rate would be much higher, certainly in the opinion of our beloved critics. But the hits would also register higher too, I think.
The believability issue is crucial. Sometimes audience comedies shot in studios with contructed sets just aren't believable, parodied rather brutally (and unfairly) in When the Whistle Blows (why does Gervais do this? Anyone?) But, as I often point out, if the jokes are there and done in the right way by the right character, the audience don't care. They know that the IT department in the IT Crowd isn't real. But they don't care because they love Moss and Roy and Jen. When they do believe the situation and premise and you have great characters and jokes like in the Office, you have the makings of a real hit on your hands. When the jokes misfire and we don't take the characters to our hearts, it's like watching a car crash. Strangely, it's hard to spot this in the studio, where there is a closeness and a bonhomie that gives you little indication of whether you have a hit on your hands or not. It's only when you sit down at home, and the show starts up and you watch your work that you have any indication of whether the show will be a success.
The fact that the show was non-audience meant they could get away with the fact that Episode 4 was the 'Health and Safety Inspector' episode. It's surprising that given the characters and calibre of actor that the Inspector Card needs to be played quite so early in the game. I have to admit I was disappointed by this - even though cleanliness is obviously a critical facet of the kitchen's operation. But in this instance, there was a decent pay-off, in someone pretending to have Parkinson's in front of someone who's dad has actually Parkinson's is pleasingly morbidly funny.
My final comment is on the creative choice of the show at the start with the central character. Kitchens are famously hot and angry places. Celebrity chefs are famously monstrous. I understand why Whites has decided to subvert this in order to be creatively more interesting and surprising. But it may have been funnier to have had a total monster since they are funnier and can be very interesting. (See also Gordon Ramsay, Gregory House MD and Brian Clough...)
I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this show.
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