THE FIRST THING I DID WITH MY 2:1 IN DRAMA FROM BRISTOL UNIVERSITY…

… was, apparently, write time-wasting letters to the National Theatre. I recently found copies, which I leave here for the crows who feast on youthful hubris.

19th December 1995

The Chairman,

Royal National Theatre,

South Bank,

London,

SE1 9PX

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you to apply for the position of Richard Eyre advertised in The Guardian, Monday 18th December. As a recent graduate with a 2:1 BA (Hons) in Drama, I have a wide range of experience in all types of theatre, including front of house work. My current job of working in the Cash Office and on the Information Desk of a busy high street chemist has provided me with the administrative and problem-solving skills necessary to be Richard Eyre. I work well under pressure.

I have visited the Royal National Theatre several times, most recently to see ‘An Inspector Calls’ which was quite good, and this has provided me with a good working knowledge of what the job of Richard Eyre would entail. The current Richard Eyre is, I understand, quite old, but I feel a more youthful approach may bring a new slant to the position and I am younger than Sam Mendes. I also own a light cotton safari suit.

In my spare time I enjoy fencing, watching television and socialising. I have good communication skills and I work well both on my own and as part of a team. I was a prefect in my secondary school and was secretary of the University of Bristol Drama Society.

I am required to give my present employers, Boots the Chemists Ltd, one month’s notice but after that time I am available to work every day except Saturday. If I am accepted in the position of the new Richard Eyre I am willing to relocate to London so there will be no need for me to commute.

As I am aware that the Royal National Theatre funds are limited, I have enclosed an SSAE.

Yours faithfully,

Daniel Tetsell, BA(Hons) 

Fair play, they did send me a polite letter, including an application pack. Having nothing better to do than avoid moving back in with my parents, I replied.

29th January 1996

Dear Sir,

APPLICATION FOR APPOINTMENT AS SUCCESSOR TO RICHARD EYRE, DIRECTOR, ROYAL NATIONAL THEATRE

Following your letter of 4th January, I thought I should address each of the points outlined in the ‘Qualifications and Qualities’ section of your infobooklet in order.

1. A commitment to artistic excellence.

Yes, I have a commitment to artistic excellence.

2. A track record of success, preferably at first hand as a director, in the production of British and international drama.

I have first hand experience at directing British drama and have been in a play in Edinburgh written by an American.

3. A clear and distinctive vision of the National as a national theatre.

It is clear to my vision that the National should be distinctly national as indicated by the name. If it catered purely for a minority of London-based artists and critics it would not be held in such high regard by people in Hull or other such places.

4. The gift of communicating that vision, effectively and persuasively, to the staff of the National at every level and to the public.

Learning from my experience at Boots The Chemists Ltd, I would hold weekly ‘team meetings’ every Tuesday morning. This would necessitate opening later, probably about 9.30am but I would communicate the need for this effectively and persuasively to the general public who would be sure to be accommodating.

 5. The ability to be an effective team builder.

 I am an effective team builder.

6. The ability to motivate and to inspire.

I believe the appointment of a relatively inexperienced successor to Richard Eyre, Director, Royal National Theatre, would motivate and inspire the staff to achieve better things.

7. Experience, or understanding, of strategic management, including the management of financial resources (particularly at a time of constrained budgets), as well as project and staff management.

Once again my experience will stand me in good stead in meeting the requirement of this slightly longer paragraph. I am an unemployed Drama graduate and thus have ample experience in the management of financial resources (particularly at a time of constrained budgets).

8. An awareness of the major issues facing the National, British theatre and other major Arts companies.

I know, I know. Just do not talk to me about it. I blame the government. I have recently written an angry and pompous letter to The Guardian about it, which I got 39 of my friends to sign.

9. Practical experience of running a theatre would be highly desirable.

I have built and sold tickets from the Box Office of a busy Edinburgh Fringe venue.

I hope these points will clarify my application and make your choice a bit easier. 

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours faithfully,

Daniel Tetsell, BA(Hons)

I didn’t get the job. Which is lucky as I would probably have passed on Warhorse.

LOW BUDGET INDIE FILM TITLES: A PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY

So, you want to make a low budget indie film.

You’ve booked Laura Linney and/or Mark Ruffalo; you’ve location scouted some really moody wheat fields; you found a Moldy Peaches CD in a bargain bin so the soundtrack’s sorted; you’ve arranged a screening at Sundance and Raindance and Riverdance and are mentally prepared for all the months of adulation and years of disappointment a indie film festival hit can bring. There’s just one problem – your low budget indie film doesn’t have a suitably low budget indie film title. Well, do what I do; take a walk down the street and steal one off a sign. Any street will do. Take for instance Dawes Road, Fulham. After just a ten-minute stroll I had enough low budget indie film titles to fill that snooty independent DVD rental place where all the film studies postgrads work.

How about…?

THE FISH BOWL: Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo excel in this intense drama about the breakdown of a marriage seen through the eyes of the people who live opposite.

HERITAGE LTD: Mark Ruffalo uncovers corruption in the corridors of the National Trust.

SAME DAY: Laura Linney stars as a jaded socialite, trapped in a loveless marriage. Across town her cleaner Rosario (a stunning Mark Ruffalo) tries to catch a bus.

THE FULHAM DENTIST: Chris O’Dowd, Chewitel Ejiofor, Catherine Tate, Bill Paterson and Gillian Anderson star alongside Laura Linney in Jez Butterworth’s darkly comic thriller.

SINGLE FILE TRAFFIC: Sally Hawkins gives an award-nominated performance as a traumatised Territorial Army quartermaster getting back on the dating scene in Bristol. (Dir: Mark Ruffalo)

CURTAINS & DUVETS: From Annie Griffin, director of ‘Festival’, this new ‘comedy’ takes place over one day in the stock room of a John Lewis. Stars Mark Wooton, Gillian Anderson and Jessica Stevenson Spaced Hynes. “Finally, a comedy for people who don’t like comedy” Time Out

Yeah, any of these would make a perfectly servicable indie film title. If NO LOADING was on at the Curzon they’d eat it up.

HOMESTEAD ROAD: In 1970s Arizona, dying farmer Ed Harris awaits the return of his estranged, gay, Vietnam veteran adopted son (Laura Linney). Contains scenes of mild family secret unearthing.

TEA WITH JESUS: Every  week for twenty years four black women meet at their church to talk about life, love, children and being a black woman. Stars Mark Ruffalo, Chris O’Dowd, Eddie Marsan and Gillian Anderson. “Deceptively racist” Time Out

SITTING PRETTY: Blah blah Mike Leigh blah blah heart-warming comedy blah blah stupid Cockney voice blah blah shocking rape scene blah blah Palm D’or.

LANNOY POINT: Twenty years after her daughter drowned on a family holiday, Laura Linney returns to Lannoy Point to confront her ghosts. Not real ghosts, unfortunately. Co-stars Tim Lovejoy in his first film role.

See you in Aspen!

IN OTHER NEWS…

If you’re the type who keeps up with these things, you may have heard that Newsjack, Radio 4 Extra’s premier open-door topical sketch show (formerly BBC 7’s premier open-door topical sketch show) is returning in a few weeks. I’m no longer involved but I have been thinking about my time as Newsjack script editor recently and, more specifically, my unwritten hit list. This was an ever evolving checklist of jokes and joke structures that I thought were too trad, hack or rubbish. If I came across them in the slush pile of submissions they’d automatically get a line through them.

You might be thinking ‘Too trad, hack or rubbish for Newsjack? Wow. What are these monsters?”, so I’m going to share one of them with you in an attempt to stamp it out forever.

Please, please, please can we read the last rites to the ‘And in other news, bears shit in the woods / Pope’s a Catholic’ trope?

You’ll be familiar with the basic structure, it goes something like this:

‘In a statement released today, glamour model Jordan has admitted having plastic surgery. In other news, bears admit to shitting in the woods’

Sometimes it’s the Scientist Variant, along the lines of:

‘After six years of research, scientists have released findings that prove chocolate and alcohol make you happy. Meanwhile, bear scientists say they are close to discovering who shits in all those woods’

You’d be amazed how often that cropped up amongst the Newsjack submissions. Or maybe you wouldn’t – perhaps you have a lower opinion of mankind than I do or perhaps you actually like that joke. Well, I hate it. It’s an annoying Joke-like Substance, the absence of wit masquerading as wit, it’s hooking a cadaver up to a car battery so that its lifeless features spasm into a rictus grin. At best it’s a socially lubricant noise that people might use if they’re having a post-work banter. It is not comedy writing that I would be willing to pay for. You might as well scrawl ‘Sumfin bowt da newz’ on a napkin for all the comedic insight you’re bringing to the table.

There is a place for Catholic Popes and shitting bears. In the mouth of a character, in a sitcom say, it’s perfectly acceptable for what it tells us about that character. The repeated ‘That’s what she said’ from The Office is a perfect example – it’s funny because of what it says about Michael Scott.  If you’re suggesting though that the Pope / Catholic / Bear / Woods thing is funny in and of itself then you need to give yourself a slap and try harder. Or maybe try advertising copywriting – they always need more people to churn out banal, unfunny ‘comedy’ dialogue.

Is this trope one of the laziest fallbacks for topical gag writing?

Are bears responsible for covering up years of systematic child abuse?

THE DICK RULE

This is a blog post about the business of being a writer. It contains no tips on formatting, or structure, or character development. It actually contains only one piece of advice and it is this:

Don’t be a dick.

There comes a time in every writer’s career where they move from sitting in a room on their own eating crisps, to sitting in a room with other people (crisps optional). Even J D Salinger had to come in for the odd meeting – and with J D they really were odd meetings. Aha ha ha. No? You didn’t like that? It was funny. No, it was. Look, let me explain it. J D Salinger, right, was this famous reclusive. So, right, he comes in for a meeting and it’s odd. But it’s also odd, as in occasional. Because he was a recluse. You know what? Fuck this. I’m giving you gold here and… Fine, fine, I get it. Dumbass.

And… scene.

That’s how NOT to handle your joke bombing in a writers’ room. Move on, pitch a different joke, if the first one died really badly maybe make a joke about that but what you must never do is take it personally. No screaming, shouting, crying or sulking. In fact, all writers’ room rules (which include turn up on time, respect your colleagues, buy your fair share of coffee and don’t smell of BO and/or semen) all boil down to…

Don’t be a dick.

A group of comedy writers throwing jokes around can be the most fun you can have with your clothes on (and in most writers’ room you really do want everyone to keep their clothes on) but if someone makes a scene it’s the worst place to be in the world. Yes, facetious internet comment, worse than Darfur. You’re a comedy writer; you’re allowed to be weird, socially awkward, nerdy, creepy, sneezy, bashful and Gimli but  what you must be, above all,  is nice to work with. Being good at your job will get you in the room but it won’t necessarily keep you there. No one is enough of a genius to get away with being a massive dick.

So don’t be a dick.

The Dick Rule is even more important when dealing with non-writers – those sometimes-wonderful, sometimes-infuriating people who stand between you and the finished product. Producers, actors, editors, directors, location managers, camera assistants, script supervisors, receptionists, security guards, drivers – don’t be a dick to any of these people. If any of them are dicks to you, rise above it. Start a ‘Dick List’, put their name on it and try to avoid working with them again. You may also want to think of a better name than ‘Dick List’, particularly if your Mum’s likely to come across it while cleaning your room.

Before you get on set or into the studio there are, of course, lots of hoops to jump through and each one is a chance to practice not being a dick. A script editor might give you notes you disagree with – don’t be a dick about it. Take them on board, think about them, be honest, take what’s useful and be ready to defend (without being a dick) your decisions. A producer might suggest Jack Whitehall to play the part of Josef the Holocaust survivor – don’t be a dick. It’s their job to sell your project to their superiors, they don’t know the script as well as you, they don’t / can’t care about it as much. Tell them why you think they’re wrong but while you’re doing it…

Don’t be a dick.

Trust me, I’ve been a dick on occasion and it did me no good. There was a sitcom project that became mired in the sort of mire that always mires sitcoms. Several changes of personnel took place and I found myself in a situation where I was unable to work with our executive producer. Did I take my own advice, did I rise above it? No. I sulked and tutted every time he spoke and gave him the old crazy eyes. In short, I was a dick. Eventually I had to walk away from the whole project, just to save my sanity and my writing partner’s career.

When I was in Lab Rats, a short-lived BBC 2 sitcom, it was a dream come true. For various reasons the rehearsal and filming process was stressful and a little disorganised and I reacted badly – I seized up, I stopped listening, I became snappy. I thought at the time that my short temper was a valid response. It wasn’t. All it was doing was masking my fear and panic – I wasn’t being the type of actor or co-worker I would want on my own project. Here was a delicate, wonderful thing and in my desperation to hold on to it, I crushed it.

The best reason not to be a dick is that being a dick is easy. Writers and comedians live a toddler’s existence, paid to play and doodle – no wonder a tantrum comes so easily to us. It’s much harder to be calm and controlled and friendly, even when our guts are churning because some dick hasn’t read your script even though it’s been on his fucking desk for six months. Instead of a toddler we should be the toddler’s natural enemy – the swan. Regal above water, never letting on that deep down our big ugly legs are flailing.

Yours truly,

A Dick (Recovering)

PS. Leaving mean comments after a blog post is the ultimate in dick moves.

POV

This brief article in The Guardian today about Popular Orange Vegetables* (or tortuous synonyms used to avoid textual repetition) got me thinking about how POVs have been one of the central planks of sketch writing since at least the Pythons. The echoes of the Cheese Shop sketch and that one about some sort of lifeless bird can still be heard in a lot of sketches today. In fact, it’s a use of language probably limited entirely to journalists and humourists (groups that have little or no cross-over, as the existence of Sam Wollaston proves). What are we to do though? We’re writing a sketch about a carrot shop, if we keep saying carrot it’s going to be boring.

For sketch writing, particularly in radio, the use of POVs and elaborate language (and ostentatious intellectual reference or any other Pythonic residue) can lend our work a musty air; like the shop bell as Mr Normal walks into Crazy Man’s Carrot Shop, it’s something that only happens because that’s the way sketches have been written since time immemorial. I know a lot of people who hate radio sketch comedy for just that reason – it can be an unrecognisable, stilted world.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that trying to create dialogue that mirrors the way that people ‘really speak’ is any less of a contrivance. Have a look at some Hollyoaks or the staged to-and-from of The Only Way Is Essex – that’s dialogue as stripped of baroque decoration as possible but it’s still contrived, boring and unrealistic.

Essentially I am saying horses for courses. Not a very original stand-point but comedy writing often hinges on an Occam’s Razor approach. A character can speak in any way you decide but one of your jobs is to spot where that language becomes flabby, rambling and tedious. Dialogue doesn’t have to be naturalistic, but it has to be believable. It has to be efficient, but it mustn’t be on-the-nose. It should have a distinctive voice, but the characters mustn’t all sound the same. Sometimes saying carrot is funnier, sometimes you’ll want a popular orange vegetable.

I’ve been doing a bit of script editing on some Radio 4 shows recently (The Headset Set and Lucy Montgomery’s Variety Pack) and will hopefully be putting up some dispatches from the front line (with thoughts on brevity and punching up) in the near future.

*Gary Bainbridge on Twitter (@Gary_Bainbridge) has pointed out that the original quote was from The Liverpool Echo and referred to peas as ‘popular round vegetables’ – which is funnier.

RAY GALTON: FISTS OF FURY

This story on Chortle made me so happy, I thought I should share some of my joy.

Firstly, I know! A story on Chortle that isn’t a snidey accusation of plagiarism or a regurgitated press release telling me that Joe Comic has got a – gasp! – commission… to write a treatment.  Truly we are living in the golden times.

Anyway, if you haven’t read the article or The Times interview it’s been lifted from, essentially Ray Galton took offence at the way he and Alan Simpson were depicted in the BBC4 biopic Hancock & Joan. Lord knows, I was mortally offended by the way they were depicted and, as anyone who’s seen my work will tell you, I’m definitely not them so  imagine how furious Mr Galton himself must have been. Well, you don’t have to imagine because he gave a clear physical example of his fury by punching Richard Cotton, the writer of Hancock & Joan in the face. Or right up the bracket, as Galton & Simpson might have had Hancock put it.

About time too.

If you didn’t see BBC4′s The Curse of Comedy season then don’t bother tracking them down. Allow me to give you a partisan précis, leaving out all the bits that don’t fit in with my agenda. That, after all, is how the season worked.

It all began, as so many things do, with Michael Sheen crying and masturbating in the bath. This was in ‘Boo Hoo, Matron’ or whatever it was called; the miserable, squalid, wasted life of Tony Blair, Brian Clough, Werewolf King, Tony Blair Again Kenneth Williams. They followed that with Phil Davis crying and masturbating in the toilet (Steptoe) and Ken Stott crying and shitting in the bath (Hancock). I gave up by the time they got round to David Walliams as Frankie Howard but I imagine it involved crying and maybe pissing in the shower. There was also one that tried to suggest that Hughie Green was somehow a comedy legend, rather than a presenter, which had lots of scenes of Trevor Eve getting drunk and waving his cock about – though those might have been a Waking The Dead blooper reel they used to pad out a boring 30 minute script. Thankfully they never did one about Dad’s Army where we find out that those much-loved actors really did like it up them.

The basic underlying message of all these films was, it seemed to me, the drama writer’s assumption that these men were failures because instead of doing something worthwhile and noble, like writing drama, they were wasting their talents entertaining and being loved by millions. I know, I can’t believe we lost the chance to see Harry H. Corbett’s Timon of Athens and all we got in return was hours of Steptoe & Son.  The tragedy of these wasted lives.

Now, I understand how drama works. You know, it needs drama. So as annoyed as I was by what I felt were pointless exercises in sensationalist corpse-fucking, I was willing to admit that one man’s pointless exercise in sensationalist corpse-fucking was another man’s quality drama. Until, that is, I saw The Road To Coronation Street. Suddenly, because the central figure is a drama writer in a drama written by a drama writer and made by drama makers about the making of a drama, we’re allowed to have a hagiography. No shitting in the bath for Tony Warren. He was allowed to make grandiose statements about the importance of his work without immediately crying and throwing a bottle of vodka at a man in a hat pretending to be Willie Rushton. Every other bit of dialogue was along the lines of -

‘It’s the most important, brilliant and true piece of work I’ve ever read, Tony – and I’m Lew Grade!’

Seriously, there was stuff in here that would have seemed clunky in a 1950s Hollywood biopic.

‘How’s that symphony coming along, Mr Schubert? Still unfinished?’

Now I realise I might be sounding like one of those men who write into Points of View and complain about the details on the uniforms in an adaptation of Vanity Fair. That’s because I basically am – I’m a comedy nerd, I take the minutiae seriously. I’m also a writer and I can spot lazy, badly researched arrogance when I see it. If I was Ray Galton (and I wrote some of According To Bex, so I really am not) I’d give Brian Fillis a bunch of fives as well for the way he depicted the writing process behind Steptoe & Son. The idea of a writing partnership seemed so laughable to the high-minded maverick dramatist that of course they come across as a pair of buffoons who only decide that the two rag-and-bone men are father and son after they’ve finished the script. Galton & Simpson wrote Hancock and Steptoe & Son, Brian, you wrote the Curse of Steptoe – show some bloody respect. I was talking to someone who knew Peter Cook the other day about the Rhys Ifans-starring film about him and Dudley Moore which he said got everything about Peter right except it missed that he was, above all, funny. My main problem was with the Alan Bennett portrayal. While he might not be absolutely dead central to the story, isn’t it a little lazy to just have him come on or twice and say -

‘Ooh, somebody’s eaten all the ginger creams’

So good on Ray Galton for standing up for himself – and for all comedy writers. Too much harping on about the importance of comedy and I’ll start to sound as bad as biopic Tony Warren, but there’s nothing to be ashamed of in trying to make people laugh. In fact, the danger of the Curse of Comedy season’s way of thinking can be seen in some of today’s comedy commissions, particularly single camera shows like Whites. Peep Show and The Inbetweeners prove that you can do single camera and try to pack in as many laughs as a Hancock or Steptoe & Son (as do loads of the best American shows we see over here) but more and more single camera shows are drifting towards that grey area of comedy-drama. I like comedy dramas, Misfits is wonderful, The Beiderbecke Affair remains both funny and dramatic – if you haven’t seen it, do – but too often I get a whiff from these shows of self-importance. They’re saying -

‘We don’t need to be funny, we’re doing something more important, yeah?’.

That’s how they would talk, single camera sitcoms, if they were a person. Yeah?

I suppose, yes,  you could see comedy from a drama writer’s point of view. Where are the single plays, the chances to develop outside of Doctors or the Casualty sausage-factory(Meaning they churn them out, not that that they’re planning a new industrial spin-off)? Single dramas seem to be shuttled off to BBC4 and can only get on if they’re salacious biopics while Live At The Apollo and Mock the Week bestride the schedules and pump money away from sitcom and drama commissioning into the pockets of stand-ups whose only interest in the State of the Nation is whether you can make a public school bumming joke about Clegg and Cameron.

Oh, I seem to hate both sides equally. That’s madness, we’re all in TV together. The real enemy are film makers. They really are dicks.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I blogged last and I’m out of the habit of cogent reasoning so I will leave you with this.

RAY GALTON PUNCHED A MAN IN THE FACE.

That really made my week.

Cobwebby

Yeah, it’s all gone a bit quiet over here.

I’ll be back as soon as I can work out something more worthwhile than having a pop at innocent cafe owners.

Meanwhile I have been blogging over at the BBC Writersroom site – read my words of inverted-commas-wisdom here.

Oh do fuck off…

There’s a cafe near me. They have boards outside. I presume they’re there to lure the people of Hammersmith inside with their wit and quirky charm. In fact they’re just a terribly middle class version of the ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here…’ signs of yesteryear. Come on in, they seem to say, we’re funky, fun-loving and cool a nest of utter fucking twats.

Exhibit A.

Every time I walk past they have a new one…

And every one is worse than the last…

Are they copying them out of a shitty book?

Or is there some cut-price Purple Ronnie working behind the state-of-the-art espresso/yummy mummy bilking machine?

Exclamation! Marks! Now you know! It’s funny!

So, listen up, Lola & Simon (yes, this is the blog that names names), if you insist on putting these boards out then I’m going to keep taking photos of them and putting them on the internet and mocking them and, and… I think this is what a breakdown feels like.

It stands for ‘As Written Mother… you can guess the rest’

Hello.

This blog has partly been inspired by Richard Herring’s Warming Up, which began as an attempt to overcome writer’s block by spending some time at the beginning of each day writing about something that had happened to him on the previous day. Well, I’ve been suffering from my own variant of writer’s block so I thought, why don’t I do that? You know, spend some time each day writing about things that have happened to Richard Herring?

But, like Stampy the Mine Clearing Elephant, I don’t think it’s got legs.

Instead this will just be some things. Mostly pointless or of interest only to me. A blog basically.