Episode 102 - Insert Name Here

Hello, welcome to sitcom geeks, I'm James Carey and this week we've got more from our friends Paul Powell, Dan Gasta and Will Ng, who we spoke to in episode 94 about their sitcoms Zaps, which was on Dave, but they've had a very busy year and have also been making insert name here, their panel game for BBC2, so we move on to talk about that in this discussion. Hope you enjoy it. So, you know, it took you 20 years to get a version of Zaps on TV, you did your own TV show and that was whisked away. I mean, the thing that, I don't know what listeners are feeling right now, but they might be thinking that we're losers.

Well, that's, that you're still going and that you're actually extremely successful and yet your main experience of the industry is failure. Yeah, I think that is the inescapable factor. It is mainly failure. It really is.

I mean, we've pitched a huge number of shows and we've first formed Black Dog. We didn't really know what we were doing. We just wanted to have a bit more sort of say in the matter, but we were pitching ideas to people in there. But then what we were doing was we were going to other companies and it took us a long time to realise that in fact what we were, is we were one of someone else's 30 or 40 ideas that they were going into a meeting with.

And so we'd never hear from them again and we thought, oh, hang on, hang on. We should go into the meeting. For a start, we'll pitch them better than anyone else because we're more excited about our own ideas. And also we won't be on a list of 30.

We'll be on our list of 30. And if we only get one of those, a bit further than that, that'll be something. I think from a writing point of view, the whole reason to set up a company is just to try and skip some of the layers above you. Now, some of those layers are there for a reason and are quite useful because they can make your show better before anyone sees it.

But some of them aren't. And in a way, if you can, you know, there's nothing worse than someone else at a company pitching your idea to a commissioner and then saying, yeah, they didn't really go for it because I can't remember what they said, but good news, they went for one of our other ideas. That isn't good news. It's not good news.

I only give these for you. I can go, yeah, they're interested, but I've changed the casting. I could confuse it. And Bob without wrote, it's going to set in Spain.

And you're going to go, okay. Let's see if we can roll this. I still get paid, right? Yeah, yeah.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But you set up that independent company as it were because you'd already had track records of writing plenty of other material for other shows in terms of like working for Graham Norton and Shaw here and all these other sketches and stuff. We worked on a lot of particularly panel shows, but other shows as well.

But I think for all that, it took us a long time for Black Dog to get any traction at all, really. And then eventually we got a panel show away on Dave and I think that just helped us enormously. But being honest about it, one of the reasons why Black Dog was slow to grow is because we still keep going off from one of the shows. In a way, it's because it's nice to actually work on something that's going to happen.

So otherwise you get stuck in your end of it. The other thing is when you sell a production company, there's no income. So you just literally can't sit in a room. You can't even afford a room.

So the debate of the room, which I still can't believe how expensive a room is in London. You have to keep going and doing other things unless someone binds your company or invests in it or something like that. But also we've got those returning gigs. As long as our relationships are current on the last leg and we'll work a lot on things like cats and the like.

So you want to keep those relationships alive because they help pay the mortgage. But also the people that you're working with are also going to be people you're going to be pitching to in three or eight years time. So you're working with Phil Clark at one point and then you're pitching to it. Phil Clark was the first person I think they have a conditioner on the radio when we were on weekending the day.

So you know, and all those people kind of gradually move on to other jobs. And Thornton R. Exac at UKTV now. So we knew of Pete because we pitched up to him when he was at Comedy Central with it.

And we said we'd come across him several times. We said we had a bit of a relationship with him which was great. And then when he came on board as the Exac at Dave, we knew that was great. And it was great to make a really good fit.

Plus you get to make a relationship with the talent. So that's been useful. When we came through and we could pull in people from favours that we knew before. And indeed for the sitcom.

For Zapped we've pulled in people we know from other companies that we worked on. I was working with Rick Mail at the time. So that's how we ground beat him into that. I remember talking to him and he said I'm really worried because if this thing I was working on a silent comedy thing with him.

If that comes off and that comes off, how are we going to fit him all in? And I remember saying I wouldn't worry about it. That's across that bridge. Yes, that's right.

The idea that you haven't decided to make Mail don't worry one of these ideas. I've got a long track record of not getting things away. You're not worried about it. Yes.

So you've had my answer. He was looking at it from his point of view which is you're going to see and say this is what we want to do. They go great. And then you walk out again and go and sit up with a writing.

He was quite surprised. Of what it's actually like for most people who aren't comedy legends. That's your one of those stories. I can only give you 13 episodes.

We still managed to not get a show with Rick Mail on television. Isn't that incredible? I've got 15 minutes of footage somewhere that no one's ever seen. He was like Rick Mail does Mr Bean.

Okay. Nobody would want that. He's not a physical comedian. He's a hard-to-keep-make-mail.

He's a very much a pun-based guy. That stuff doesn't. Does it sell? So it must have been hard to keep going.

How do you, looking back, you must think, I don't know how I kept going out. You're getting just enough work to keep me in the game. We did have other gigs. There were other things that we could do.

And also it's tremendously useful sometimes. There are three of you. At some point someone is always down in the dumps. But the other two can rally around a bit.

Someone can pick up the baton and do a little bit of running. I think we might try this again. We did it internally to be down and out. I think we've got to give credit to George Richard at this point as well.

One of the things we've done is work on the life of Riley, which did three-seems. That was a really good experience. We'd sit with George and we'd work on punching up some of the storylines. She also put herself on the line and got us a script.

There's nothing better than that. You've got to get that first script and stuff like that. While we were getting the Black Dog stuff, we were developing, writing pilot scripts, other projects. There was a time.

I'm just trying to think. We had a year or two-year period where we had quite a lot of success in panel shows and things. We had a panel show away. After big ask.

We thought, if we want to be narrative writers, we've really, really got to knuckle down and get some written. We did spend a good two years, didn't we? We had a central thing that got quite far. We had a last in line at the beginning of the film.

Channel 4 script. Even though those things didn't all come off, I think they all made us better. How many scripts are we talking about here that you were writing between you and me? It's a year where we probably wrote about five to five or six scripts, and then we wrote about the second episodes of things, some first episodes of things.

When we came back to writing three episodes of that for the first series, it didn't seem too long to say. Let's talk about having gone through a lot of that. Talk about your other show, in certain name here. If we're honest, panel games are a big part of the comedy landscape now.

Earlier today, I was attending a Writers Guild meeting for the Comedy Committee, which, as you can imagine, will be sat around in Rainbow Colored Weeks and Big Shoes and Red Noses. I bet you laughed. It's not that you're laughing. It's about 40 if you get out of the same car.

We immediately fell apart. Excellent. We were talking about how the tyranny of the program associates, where they are writers, and you guys are writers and program associates, and how actually that's commoditized in a way that basically means you don't get any credit or pension or residuals or anything. Actually, you can make quite a good career as a writer and never be credited as a writer.

I guess that's true. Lots of Writers Guild members are technically writers and have never been credited. That's probably made quite a good living. Certainly, it's the backbone of certainly what I've learnt over the years.

It's interesting, isn't it? If you look at the Emmys in America and it would say Conan O'Brien or such, a chat show would have been nominated. The whole staff would be the writing staff. Because panel games are also about a brilliant in one way, because they do just keep people in the game.

They do keep people that have probably been kept. You paid your mortgages. Very long running series of shows like them on the buzzer. What would have been the biggest start of these years?

What disappeared? Especially, I think, Paul has been an expert in this area, that's disappeared, that was the bread butter, was the sketch shows. When we started Smith & Jones and Spitting Image, they were the panel games, and they would always be at least two series of Spitting Image. There would be one series of Smith & Jones, there might be Caitlin Pais or us Abbot or some such.

Actually, that was sort of the perfect bridge between Cincom, writing and Cincom. When you first start, it gives you away and it gives you only a wee all-star on a wee ending as well, sketch writing. Then it just sort of drives us and it came really exclusively almost like writer performance, and then there were only writers on I guess Little Britain or something like that. It's just done by there.

One or two people bunged their way on to Mitchell & Whelan. Yeah, yeah, something like Mark Evans. It's something about wanting to do more. It's a new marketing, and I think arms from a Miller writer sort of have more of a writer's room for the whole series.

I don't know how to manage, they became too expensive. I think that was one of the things. When you were setting something up, a whole new set for a two minute sketch, the budget's on Smith & Jones, you just could possibly do that now. You can't imagine that.

One of the most depressing things when you were in a sketch show, so when you watch One Go Out was good, and then the next week comes on and goes, ah, they're all the same characters, same setting with a little twist. I've basically seen this show. Yeah, and there we go. That's the only way to make them.

Only comedy writers think that. Do you think? Most other people who just had a long day at work who like laughing just go, ah, hooray! It's the characters I know and love, and they're doing the funny things together.

I guess a bit of both, but they were, you know, bread and butter. Yeah. So the new bread and butter became, Topgags, palgains. Which in a way, Dave Cohen has the theory which, you know, he's managed to sort of convince me that basically panel games are class, warfare, you know, kind of sitcom in terms of like, the dynamic, kind of relationship.

The one with Harry Thompson is it? Yeah. You know, effectively the genius of how I got these for you is, oh, you've got Phil Burton with his iron work, CSE, and level against, you know, public school boy. And Angus Browning on them both.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's none of that always, yeah. So in one sense, there's a kind of a, a bit of a story to it, but overall, you know, you've now had a chance to create your own panel game, called Insert Name Here. How has that been, again, running it from the other side rather than, you know, again, they gave you the keys to a panel game, which basically they only let you know that they did.

And again, as far as they're not, it's a co-production. So, you know, we were partnered up with, with 12-yarder. We were offering a couple of possibilities, but we knew Paul McEtigan, and, you know, we ended up with 12-yard, but you don't quite know how it's going to pan out. And again, you don't know how receptive they're going to be to letting you, you know, have your say about things.

Again, we were quite lucky. Paul's very, he's been able, he's very easy to work with. He's very good. Yeah, and he's very good.

And he's great, he's actually. I think it sounds like he should be in a limerick. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Again, we throw so much Insert Name Here. There's so much Insert Name Here. There's so much work that goes on that's kind of the iceberg on that show. Not least in terms of the amount we don't even record, which is a bit of a sort of way for me.

So, you know, we write so much for that show. We cut stuff in the rehearsal, we cut stuff after rehearsal, we cut stuff on the night, and we cut stuff in the edit. It's just trimming and trimming and trimming. How long are you recording for?

Two and a half hours. It's a two and a half hour. Yeah, for a third two. And usually then we've had to junk stuff along the way.

So, you're... During a recording, just skip stuff, skip that, skip that. And you're... So, you've really got a little bit of it.

But they've admitted to what you say. Surely, surely we can all manage to say one thing in five that's funny, to make it funny half hours. Surely that's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's so much of Insert Name Here is the scaffolded. You know, you have to put the stuff in place for them to go off. Yeah, structure. And you have to have that safety net to move on to another metaphor.

You know, you have to have that security net to know that... No, I think you can have safety net. I think that's a lot of it. I think that's one hat of bricks.

Yeah, that's a lot of it. So, I mean, if all else fails, you can produce 30 minutes of Sue asking questions and then answering them. You know, you've got 30 minutes there. If they want to start talking about how they once had a cabbage allergy, then great.

You know, they're more off. And as soon as they start doing that, you're junking all the stuff you've prepared. Because really what you want to do is just structure a funny conversation. You're just kind of putting out stuff.

You're putting stuff in front of the panelists for them to react to until they create. And they create their own funny jokes, running jokes that you haven't created. And that's sort of much more spur of the moment. And that's what stays.

But the other thing is, and it's to do with being credited as writers on panel shows, is there are just lots, like sitcoms, there are lots of different ways to do a panel show. So, like, Mock the Week is a sort of, you know, has much less construction from the producing end. You know, Dara can be funny, and he can be funny off the cuff. So really what he has to do is say, you know, what about the G8 Summit this week?

And do we know that all the panelists know that the G8 Summit is going to come up and have had a think about what funny things might be? So they can write at that end. And then, totally the other would be, would I lie to you, or probably in certain name here, where you kind of go, the panelists don't do any prep. We just ask them to turn up, turn up on the date and have fun.

And Sue will keep throwing stuff at you until you find something that you worry about. So you can either produce it from the hosts end, or you can produce it from the panel. But there's a lot of different techniques. We're very proud of the fact that in certain name here is a spontaneous panel show.

It's not written. You know, the only thing that's written is Sue's script. And everything else is there off. So as a writer, you are writing the written end of the show.

You're not pretending. But, you know, but, you know, but, you know, but yes, I mean, if you look at, you know, I'm sorry, I'm a, a clue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's obviously, you know, instructed and there's, you know, it's delightful.

You know, the brilliant writing there. But also, yeah, you have to have all this scaffolding in place, because to use another analogy, you have to have, you can't go into battle with no plan. No, no. But as they famously say, there's probably Eisenhower said, no, no battle plan survives.

It's actually fantastic. It's perfect. Good to say have a plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can junk it. So you're going to go in and score men, isn't it? Yeah, we're going to talk about historical figure. So we're going to have Elizabeth I.

And like, here's a funny picture. Did you know this about her? Here's another funny fact. Here's another funny picture.

They won't react to them all. They'll react to some. Someone will say something. Or I'll score it.

Excuse me. Sorry. That's really where our sort of our comedy skills over the years have sort of made us content producers, if you like, because we sort of, we know we've worked out what it is that's going to be the historical figure, whoever it is. And then we think, oh, wouldn't it be funny to have a picture of this here?

Oh, that's a funny picture. Oh, would it be funny if we got onto this bit here? You know, we're sort of, we're aware of now the sort of things that you need to make up for Richard and Joey reacting to. And then Sue will have jokes along the way.

And if so, if no one says anything, something funny will happen. But if they say a lot of funny stuff, sometimes you can't get a joke in and that's fine too. So you have to have a slightly flagmatic. It's completely opposite for sitcom.

You kind of think we're responsible for sort of every word on the screen and everything that happens. And then on a panel show, we're just trying to be responsible for a funny half hour. But we aren't. We're not responsible for the concept.

We're, as you say, we're the scaffolding with the backbone of it. I mean, another analogy time, James. Oh my God. The backbone is then.

Yeah. So what you also do with the panel shows, you're creating a child and you send them out into the world. So you know, you raise them, you bring them up and you correct them and you discipline them. But then ultimately what you do is you put them in the recording studio and you're off.

I think that's the worst analogy. You like that? No. Yeah, because we don't discipline them.

How does that mean? We cut. We physically harm them. Oh, I say physically.

I would puncture up. Yeah, yeah, that is very fix. Yeah, we sit back and go, good luck, everybody, because over the next two last hours, I've got no idea if they're going to laugh at this or it was going to send anything fun out, but they're on their own. They'll be like, six or six years.

Yeah, we'll have twitches now. But yeah, that's the other thing about, you lose the control of the panel show. You go back and get it. I think that's, I think zapped has made us older.

We know it's, it's worn us out more cause it's exhausting. It's exhausting. You've not only, you've not only written every word and you've agonized about that for four to five months, then it's gone to filming. And you've been there.

That's incredibly stressful. You're there for two hours a day. Every set, every prop, every costume is a choice, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Everything has to, you've got to be on it all the time and then it's an edit. We're also across the edit massively and actually. But because it's filmic, then the soundtrack, then there's VFX, then there's all that. By the time you find it different, it's mad.

It's taken a ton of months. It's all over the years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, and it is exhausting.

So, so actually, I think it's a name here is sort of a blessing. It's nice about the change of pace isn't it? Yeah. It's a slightly different, more robust kind of comedy.

Hope you're enjoying this chat with Dan Paul and Will, who really know their stuff. And also incredibly good fun to be with, which is also a determining factor, I would say, in how much work you get. Just wanted to give you a heads up that soon will be switching back to being a fortnightly podcast. It's been fun being weekly, but a lot of work, as you can imagine.

But if you think that you just can't go on with that more audio sitcom geekery, then do join us on Patreon and you'll get access to literally hours and hours of extra interviews and content, and Patreon-only podcasts, including our forthcoming How to Write a sitcom series, we're calling Soup to Nuts. Now, if you want more sitcom geekery in person, you can come and see us at the Chortle Funny Book Festival at the British Library on the 13th of January, where we'll be talking to author Jonathan Ko, and he's a proper author as well. He writes proper books, and he'll be talking about his favorite sitcoms. I'm currently reading his novel, The Rotters Club, and really enjoying it.

You can also see us live in Leicester on the 14th of February for the Leicester Comedy Festival. Do come and join us there, where we'll be outside London. And we're also looking to do more recordings and meetups outside London this year. If you have any ideas how we could achieve that, then do let us know, because we'd like to get out and about.

But also I will be out and about to because I will be touring doing my show based on my book called The Sacred Art of Joking. So, for example, I will be in Bath on the 19th of January. I will be in Carlisle in Doulston in Carlisle on the 25th of January in Edinburgh on the 26th and in Dumfries on the 27th of January and also in Leicester on the 13th of February. And so I'll be doing my Sacred Art of Joking thing, which is sort of a bit bibley and Christian-ish.

If that's of any interest to you about why comedy and religion often don't mix very well. So if you want more on that, go to jamescarry.co.uk, careysbarkcary.co.uk, jamescarry.co.uk and click Sacred Art of Joking. And you can also get a signed copy of the book, which will be shipped at the moment, which is available to you on about the 19th of January, or you can just get it via Amazon, like I'm sure everybody else will. You can also go to DaveCohen.org.uk and order The Complete Comedy Writer, which is his new book, and also find details of the comedy courses, comedy writing courses that he is doing in February and March of 2019.

Right, that's me done back to a few more minutes of me, Dave, Dan, Paul and Will. Oh, we sound like a band from the 17th century. Here we go. Lots of people listening to the show will then respond to that and go, well, lucky old you.

You get to do a sitcom, you know, and then only for these last two years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They come to sex here. We'll all come crashing down.

Let's be absolutely honest about where we are. So in certain here, the one we've just recorded, we'll go out January February. That was the second series in a two-year deal. So that's done.

That's the fourth overall. But we're not guaranteed anymore. Sam, the third series is going out. Very boring, few figures today.

But no commitment at the moment for the channel. If they want us to record it, when we recorded it last year, they're going to have to get us started on something pretty soon. But no word. I don't know how...

So right now we've got nothing with... But seriously though, we are and I'm back on the last leg. So there you go. I've accrued no capital to late around on.

Yeah, yeah. And so great. First of all, you burst around bubble. Brilliant.

But secondly, to people who were thinking, how do I get into this? What could Dan Gaster today say to the young Dan Gaster? Or that would have been helpful? Or what do you wish you found out?

Don't stand up. What are the bits of advice that we can give to round off on? I think that there's something about working with other people that is tremendously useful because you're not on your own. You're always playing someone else.

You can always play someone else. And also, you can always take half an idea and they might have half an idea and together those things. They're quite a big idea. They're very rarely even just with me and Richard Hurst when we run together.

We're very rarely both up or both down at the same time. You do sort of take it in terms of it's rather miraculous actually. And I think it's very, very hard to be a single person writing on your own into a voice. You have to keep hitting yourself up and making yourself sell stuff.

You've got to get other people involved in that process to buy into your own idea. So my advice would be, and I look back on what it's taken us a long time to learn. And this is where I think your podcast and other things that are around now tremendously useful. And can't it just make you sound so old when you say, and we didn't have them when I was starting out.

But, so me also, you know, I've written with different people over the years. So one of the people I wrote with for a while was Colin Swash, who's a longtime writer on a bike used for you and was at times a producer of it. So we, through a weird spec script that ended up in the right place for a couple of episodes of Prampface on BBC Three. Do you remember that show?

So quite a nice little show and we got to write one episode. So Lucy Robinson, that's how I know it was the producer of that show. And she said, oh, I recommend you read this book on sitcom writing called Elephant Bucks. And we were King Incandescent with Rage that she would tell us to read a book on sitcom writing.

Well, us in our 30s were writing a sitcom episode for her. So we bought it. It was really useful. So it's just very basic in terms of how it's not all totally applicable, but in terms of how you might structure a classic American 22 minute plot.

You know, and an example of a freeser episode that is a spec script. We've also read John York's book into the woods. These books are, they're useful to give you, so you don't have to take all of it. I was running on calls writing comedy by Ronald Wolf.

But it might stop you from making some very elementary mistakes. So, you know, that's a good thing. And then just back yourself to get better. I think you do get better.

The other thing I would say is you have to try and create as many roots as you can. Try and find as many ways as you can to get known. So we did our panel show stuff. I did worked on quite a few kid shows.

We worked to stand up back in the day. We had a sketch show. So there were lots of different ways that people could hear about us. And I think the more ways you can do that, the better.

Because you cut through the noise. And now you can add blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Twitter, Facebook. Twitter feeds and character. Look at modern British problems.

That's what it's called. That's someone thinking here's a vehicle for some comedy for me. That ended up with a TV series. You would have done a podcast or something.

Or we would have put our sketches on YouTube or something. We would have tried to find a platform so people can see your stuff. Because the worst thing is a script is nothing. It's nothing until someone can read it.

And even then it's very hard. It's just a blueprint. It's nothing. One of the things I think is good for working for me is I think you learn not to be precious.

That's my advice. Don't be precious. There was a great line from Phil Clark when we started out. And that's a good thing.

When you look at your script and you can ask someone to laugh and say it's not good enough, fine. Come up with a better joke. We write it. Do it again.

I think that's what we do is we generate loads. I would say to anyone who wants to get into this, just write and write and write. Just turn it out. But you can't just write to a vacuum.

You can just sit at home like a mentalist writing sitcoms. I think Paul's point is about not being precious about it. But the roots. If you combine the roots with writing and writing, try a lot of good things.

Don't write six episodes of your... No, no, no. Don't write and then put it in a drawer and then write another thing. Also try and get other people to see it.

Involve people. Go and do different things. So interesting. I think you touched on something earlier, which I remember hearing at a talk, I think by someone from QDOS or something, which is very unlikely that they were talking about drama.

The script and outline for your series that you've thought up that you send into QDOS will be on tele. So it might be, or it might be your second thing or whatever, but it might just be a way in. So that is an argument for sometimes not getting too bogged down even if you're trying to break in with worrying about no one wants a historical sitcom. Because if it can show you're funny, then they can say, well, not this, but you're clearly there's something about it.

What else have you got? And that, you know, weirdly, our obsession with trying to get zapped on is sort of slightly odd really because... It was partly... One of the reasons it never died I think was just that people always quite liked the script.

People didn't read it and say, it's no good. They always said this really made me laugh. And then they were, I don't think there's any cool products. So it was possibly slightly sloped in a way and got us in places, didn't it?

Yeah, and it was really our calling card for a long time on other things. And the thing, for example, that me and Colin, when we got the pram face gig, so we had written a script for a producer who very excitedly said to us, look, I've been speaking to BBC One, they want a really smart, funny sitcom to go out after I've got news for you, for people that, you know, like I've got news for you. And you both work on if I've got news for you. So let's come up with something.

So we wrote something and then by the time we'd handed it in, we don't want that. And then that was that. But we had written something which somehow ended up on the desk at Lucy Robinson when she was looking for a pram face and we wrote two episodes of pram face. So that's great.

So you never know what needs to work, right? Absolutely. And again, you increase your chances by having more roots, by writing more. And I've noticed that recently from my own thing, I've been a little bit gloomy recently about stuff and then you just think, actually, I need to have written more and had more meetings because so often you have a meeting about a script and they basically do say, well, not this.

But actually, we've had real problems with this other show. You don't have to know anything about dairy farming, do you? Well, actually my dad was a bit stronger. To which everyone should say that.

I'm not interested in that. But it's also the net, isn't it? And it's in parties. But that brings us back to the week.

So there are lots of people in the week that sort of have and haven't written on the week because what they've done is they've written some jokes for one of the panelists on the week, sort of paid for directly by the panelists. So, but if you can find a way of making a connection like that with a standup, say you were writing for Romesh, now Romesh is doing a sitcom, you know, you make a connection to someone. I mean, certainly, when we haven't even talked about casting and star power and how useful all that is in getting stuff on, you know, having super- Come on to all of the projects that we got off the ground. We had Alexander Armstrong for Big Ask, our first panel show on Dave.

He was absolutely instrumental in getting that away. Superkins was completely instrumental. James Hartley signing up to his abs, basically, that over the edge. So, you know, those things are, of course, very, very important to me.

As you say, we haven't had time to chat about other areas. No, wait, the longer you're in the industry and the longer you keep going, the more contact you make and so that you can say. Fail or get. Fail higher.

Yeah, fail or better. But also, the other thing is fail on your own terms. Fail, trying to do the thing that you want to do rather than what you have a suspicion that they think you might want them to think that they want to do. Which is on both our shows, that's a lesson because for a long time, that was, according to the people we pitched, to not what they wanted.

And then we found, we just eventually the stars lined up and for a long time, in certain name here, was not what BBC2 wanted until they did want it. So, they only have to want it once. They cannot want it loads and loads of times, so they only have to want it once. Yes, there's a slide, Brexit.

Let's spend the next hour on that.