Hello and welcome to sitcom gigs, I'm James Carey, hello I'm Doko and with us is our producer Katie and we are at the craft of comedy of writing festival thing in conference in Lando and it is very exciting to be here and so we are doing theoretically a podcast live in front of an audience and just to prove it, hooray hello audience! That was a good noise because it made them sound like they're more of them than they actually are so these are a great audience and this is very exciting and what is even more exciting is we have an absolute top-notch class A grade A guest in Ian Martin who will speak to you in a moment and we'll get on to that. Is there anything Dave, how are you having a nice time at this festival? Yeah it's been really interesting and I did this is kind of relevant to a lot of what we've been talking about recently.
I did a thing where I get people to come up with sketches and I did it last year on my own and this year I did it with Ruth Bratt of Todd and Bratt who Ruth recently was one of the winners of the Olivier Award for a showstoppers and Ruth's approach to sketch writing is completely different to our approach. We started, James and I started on shows week ending on Radio 4 and there's a very specific way that you write a sketch and it has a beginning and middle and end and the story and whereas people like Todd and Bratt and Showstoppers, everything starts with improvisation. This is kind of a change that's happening now as well in sitcom world where you get more sitcoms that are writer-performal, rather than writer-led and I went to the talk where they were talking about car share as well and car share was a sitcom that was partly improvised so that's kind of we were able to create sketches with using the writing formula for writing sketches but also having Ruth there to help people come up with ideas to how do you create sketches out of improvisation. So it's one of the times really.
It is a sign of the times and just an observation and what we can ask in about this in a moment is that for some reason if something's improvised it's automatically deemed to be better than if it's been written in advance beforehand and I don't know why that is because whenever anything is even quasi-improvised in my experience journalists and entertainment people always really magnify the improviseness of it and that's something that I think they've done with it quite a lot is that they love the idea of the actors just coming up with it and I don't know why. What is it about is it about our culture or our media or something that we almost require, it's part of the same thing where writer-performers, they don't really ever mention the writers and we just want, everyone wants Miranda to have been written by Miranda and it wasn't because other writers are credited on it including me and she's not trying to imply that there are no writers and she's mentioned other writers in interviews and those references have been subsequently removed by the suburbs or whatever because they like the idea that it's all her. Is it some form of hero worship or something? Well, what is this?
I suppose it is a problem because the point about an improvised show is when you go and see an improvised show there is a sort of there is that kind of element of excitement that the audience has which is or anything could happen and the fact is you've got a bunch of professional performers there but I mean when we started with the comedy store players originally and we would sort of learn how to do techniques for sort of getting improvisations to work and things. Paul Merton who was also one of the original people, he didn't do any of that stuff but he just didn't follow the rules, he didn't join in any of the sketches, he just stood at the back and we'd all be kind of working trying to come up with stuff and then Paul would just say something and that would be the funniest thing in the sketch and we'd go oh we're in the sketch there. No one's going to say anything funnier than that and so there is that and that kind of that was the element that was brought into Hawaii got news for you and how people were excited about the idea that it was it's all improvised and which is why there was such a fuss when Boris Johnson said oh it's not all improvised it's all scripted which of course isn't true it's just the chairman's script it's scripted but the rest of it was and it kind of tainted the show almost to suggest that it was that there were writers on it so there is that sort of danger element isn't it? And also so there are writers on it who can you mean the audience don't really get them up the week has lots of stuff written for it and obviously loads of the games so called are set up so that stand ups can be a bit of their material and if you're being really purist about it you can also say well that's not that cheating but you know what you audience don't care they just want to they're just tired they've been at work and they'd like to laugh now so let's have some really funny people think about it in advance and then do it I don't know it's a very it's a very old thing well I don't know it's a commissioning editor who would you rather be kind of sitting around with you stick around a bunch of writers oh yeah sure yeah or some big shot name performer who you know knows how to kind of feel good at all I'm in the room with this sort of guy yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah what it's to do with that well why don't we um crack stay into um talk to somebody who actually has experience of this um so uh we're going to introduce those gentlemen in Martin lots of the language policy language policy is fine it's uh it's not a BBC show so you can say whatever the hell do you like like so you can say fuck and it's fine my mum's not listening either so that's fine that was one of the bad things when Bluestay came out he's out of spend all that money on your education and you write something like that yeah it's not a sign of a waste of occasions it's too uh to write swearing I worked I think so I was interested in what you just said Dave about the about the notion that I got used was tainted somehow by the revelation that there were writers or something scripted you really feel that that was the case because I just I don't know how much we're in a bubble I think people are somehow more cynically aware than perhaps we give them credit for a lot of time I'm not sure I think I think people kind of mew I would rephrase it I think it was Boris felt that he would discredit the show by saying that it was written because because he got stitched up on the show it was him it was him fighting and yeah he did very well after the show at the same time he is you know he's a lot of his political career I'd say is down to him actually performing well on that show in his own bizarre grown-ups he is himself yeah the great artist isn't he he's a great sash wanker saying what you really think he's managed to sail through God knows how many scandals will he's tozat the nanny and somehow somehow come to the other side of mayor fucking under this incredible isn't it's fantastic I think you'll all agree the great great scene in outnumbered when they have the German exchange team comes to stay and he's talking to the kids and he says yes I love your i love your British comedy I love your British comedians I love that guy was a Ricky Gervais fantastic really and who's the other guy who's the other funny guy the blonde guy you know he's funny he's on the news program and he talks to the war Boris Boris Johnson now he's not a comedian yeah yeah he's comedian he's your funniest comedian oh no lovely that but do you feel um when they were when the when the press like to talk about how improvising think of it is yeah does that occasionally make because obviously you very much like and respect your cast and you don't want to weigh in and say do you know how much of that is actually really you don't have to be doing them down but how does that make you feel I mean I mean as I keep saying I am just I'm just a surfing the surfdom I am just I'm just clicking the clockwork here the process itself is much bigger and also I thought Armando Armando was always been very good about crediting writers and why would he not it's a right-of-led show and it was a standing joke you know that you just make it up I mean the cast will be endlessly revved you know what he got through this week yeah and he never failed to to credit the writers but on the other hand I mean you look at the takes that were on script you look the takes that made it into the cut and the ones where they roughed it up which is what it's all about it's not improvisation is it it's about roughing up the script that's there so it's free-flying and making it look real it's a whole purpose of that and with the give a sense it might actually really genuinely be happening yeah yeah it works it really does come across but it only only gets there because you've you've done all the scaffolding totally I was saying earlier I mean the hardest stuff to write is the stuff that feels like she's being thrown away and that's the stuff you end up writing and writing and then just getting someone to do it 18 times and you just pick the blue system one and boss yeah it's real yeah and when you're in the edit as well you can just look like well whatever's funny it's wins it you're not really keeping track of who did what it was interesting that somebody asked you a question in that session earlier which was sadly not recorded about um I would have been more discreet I didn't know it was a bit record can you remember maybe it was we wasn't recorded for us can you you know can you remember who wrote what and that kind of thing yeah and in one sense once you're in writing stuff I write you know wrote me some other guy and occasionally I would say I love that joke that's a really funny joke and Richard would say you wrote that joke yeah really I don't think I did know he definitely did and he but you can only have that once you've got collaboration and trust and actually some to be of affection as well of course because you spoke very highly of especially Jesse Armstrong Tony Rachian Simon Blackwell Simon Blackwell who was I think one of the nicest men in human history um what is it that so you just go back um so you were writing a you're writing for sort of architecture building magazines and also rang a little satirical website and we're writing a very swary version of Hansard yes um yeah and that was and that was do you know how many people were looking at that website we thought I was just trying to remember I'm just scuffling down in those days you've got you've got the visitor figures once a week from where was that clara so quaint clara net or home at home instead at one point as well and um yeah I'll just go down to the saddle we get 150 maybe 200 visitors this is around the turn of the century yeah so um and then as I was saying I mean then Armando have been sent the link and liked it liked what we were doing particularly like the Hansard late thing that the sweary Scottish bastard at the center um and yeah became a regular reader because that was before twitter he couldn't tweet no he really couldn't yeah I'm applying for the days I'm applying for the day I don't like everybody else I think everyone I know now it's just kind of asphyxiating themselves in their own twitter farts I mean I'm just thinking the whole thing now is just suffocatingly bad and I keep I keep I keep wanting permanently want to leave twitter because I think it's our state is welcome and you sort of have everybody has to have it for work now and I think the fact that everyone has to have it for work now is I think it's killing it yeah is the thing that makes it less but what's interesting so we're going back so you were writing funny satirical stuff you're also writing trade stuff as well and then you were invited to take part in some stuff Armando was doing gash at first on chapter exactly it was it was gash everyone was going to see him for the first time with David Tyler the producer in what the fuck was it that place um lucky no what was it it's a little basement yeah what was it called though what was the production company was it talked about course yeah um yeah and uh yeah did some online as for gash oh I'll tell you was it john what's it don't know what was he doing gash what's happened to that guy he was so he was doing a radio sitcom with him a long time ago yeah I heard from him since no no no it's only cool so then um so then you you were doing for one line isn't that kind of thing and then you got on to doing the similar sort of job for the thick of it's in terms of embellishing the scripts yeah it wasn't I didn't call myself a swearing consultant Armando and I think it was a part of the thing he wanted it as a kind of thing you know they had us they brought in a swearing consultant Which is a lovely hooky, it's a fantastic badge to wear, and while I wore with pride, although I have to say, as all the other writers were at pains to say, they two wrote swear.
And also, let's say that I wrote other things apart from swearing. It was unfair to them. On the other hand, they were hugely fated. And obviously some flaming wanker on the outside just putting in swearing.
I'm interested in terms of the people who listen to our podcast and who haven't been doing comedy since they were five years old necessarily. And so you came to this sort of world quite late. I did. I was fifty before I got a TV credit.
Really? Really? So when did you give up your day job then? I was a musician and I was a journalist, and various combinations of percentage shifts of doing this rather than that.
And so I was still doing my architectural column all the way through, I remember getting up at 3am in LA when I had to do it. It was an obsessive thing. I haven't missed a week in 26 years. So much is a silly little sarcastic column.
Were you ever in that sort of time in your 20s and 30s and 40s? And comedy was happening and comedy was becoming quite a big thing all through the 80s and 90s. Yes, it was. Watching stuff thinking...
I could do that. No, not really. I mean we used to go to comedy store and see all the guys, lag numbers there and all sorts of people there. The whole crew were there.
It's just great. This is great. But no, of course my mind. I was right here.
I was in a band. I mean, who needs the new rock and roll if you're already doing rock and roll. Exactly. So I'm interested going from the writing one-liners and consulting on scripts to, okay, you're going to write an episode.
Yeah, I was really excited. How, after you've changed your trousers, what did you then do? How did you go about, you know, what sort of lessons were you learning quickly? What was harder than you thought?
What was easier than you thought? Everything was harder. Every single thing was harder because it's tougher. The more responsibility you have.
You know, I mean, I don't... It's like a scap sort of cubs or whatever. I mean, I never made it past a sixer or whatever, fuck record. I was a whatever supervising producer.
That's as high as I got in the... As high as I wanted to go, I didn't want to be an exec producer. Because I've seen people after a few months and what it does to them. It kills people.
That stuff. Sorry, I've got the question. Sorry, I've got the question. It sounds like...
So you already knew Jesse and Tony and Simon as we mentioned. I learned everything from them. What did you learn from them? I just did the structure.
How... I was given these scripts. I'd never seen a comedy script until I saw the first script, a series one of the thick of it. And then we weren't even working in final draft, people at home.
It was all just whatever the fuck. It was all the words I got. Yeah, it was word-docking. RTF, was it?
They sent that a scroll on a horse. All the ads and notes were in that kind of track changes. So it all seems very primitive now. But it was a real crash course because you had these brilliant genius fucking writers.
And there you were seeing how it was done. Initially, I just remember the first two days really staring at the script. Having been asked to find places to improve this glittering thing. I don't know.
It's trying to get in edu-aids. It really puffed in the party. What do I... Jesse's script.
I think I am trying to think of a better joke than Jesse Armstrong. That's that. I'll tell you the point at which I got the idea of what script writing was. I can tell you the exact moment.
It was the yes-no moment. I think it was in a script by Tony Roach. And it was character, parenthesis, yes, dialogue, no. So we knew that he was lying.
I thought, do that. That's a really interesting thing to be able to do. Because that transcends what you would normally do in writing. So the yes-no thing for me.
That unlocked the whole idea of script writing. The contract you enter with the reader of the script. As opposed to the watcher of the thing. So you're in the little club.
You're in the writers club. That was the moment. That's important, isn't it? Because I think some people, especially in a world where trying to be a script writer is quite a big deal.
And the only power you have is over the script rather than the finished product. There's no real prospect of the thing being made in one sense. People are telling me very perfectionist about scripts. But actually you were thrown in the deep end with scripts that were being made.
And this is just a document so that everyone knows what to say next. And how to say it. And also it would be much more exposed because as I say everything was track changes. So everybody knew who said what.
You'd see. Hold up. Jesse's done. You sign on them.
Yeah. Tony. And so when it comes to approaching a script, I mean either back then or even now. Are you someone who tends to go towards the character?
Are you a story person? Do you think of events? Or do you think of some killer jokes and how to get to them? And just as a starting point, even though those jokes often end up.
You know, because it's a very, I think your show in particular really turns through draft, draft, draft, draft. But also think of it. It sounds like you were making a ton of stuff. Yeah.
Just chucking away. I remember script. And it was a series three. And she was keeping notes of all the amendments of all the aunts.
And that's thick. And we're halfway through. But you'd be two eps on and you don't offer a joke and you'd send it to the farm. And you'd be, you'd expect this is like 12 hours of your life reading all these aunts and you'd say, you're producing a new B story or whatever you're doing.
And he just goes, right, I swear. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. And you'd say, fuck, that's like a firework going off. You know what I mean?
It's all that twisting and packing and you know, bang, it's gone. But, um, oh, I forgot. No, not at all. I was going to say, I have actually forgotten what I was going to say.
We're thinking about whether you're thinking about the jokes and the amount of script that he was keeping all the aunts and stuff. Yes, yes. The point is the point is that one thing that he's got, a natural gift that he has, is memory. Right.
So two episodes on, you would write a joke or a story. I'm going to say joke, just a silly joke. He said, no, we can't do that because we did that in episode three, scene four. And so on.
And he would remember all the stuff. And I looked at that thing like that. I think he knows every fucking line. That's mad.
And also, I mean, because we often refer to a no joke left behind policy where sometimes you think, oh, that's a really good joke and we've chucked it here. Oh, we could do that joke here. Again. Oh, you never cut away.
You just got away. Yeah. It's more kind of stuff that we've had in the scene that now we no longer need and we think, oh, there's a good joke in there. Let's just keep an eye.
Let's just have that. It's sort of one or two jokes per series. You know, it's not a regular thing. But if it's, if it's, but for you going back to the original question, do you tend to think in terms of what's happening this week or I want to do an episode about, you know, this kind of thing or in all in all in the outcome of it.
The outline of the story, the outline of the whole series story everybody is set before, obviously, before we start writing episodes. For example, it can, it changes and evolves. For example, in season, in series four, in series four, I had, I had X three. Now I had this guy, I thought I'd have this guy in a tent with Mr.
Tickle. Oh yeah. Armando wants to call him Mr. Tickle was a funny name.
But it was, it was a storyline about PFI buying up and then disposing of publicly owned assets, which obviously is tearing along now. And that's because we're doing V at the same time, we're doing the first series of V at the same time. So that story, that story was quite good. But then it was, it was, it suddenly became the story for, you know, that story spread across the, the series.
So that's changed the shape of everything. And then everything, I mean, everything changes from week to week anyway. Your question specifically was about the starting point. So the starting point is you're in the grid, the starting point is you're in the grid.
You've got to get made to be in that episode. And sometimes it works that you, just because it's so, so much going on that you have to anchor yourself by saying, okay, well in this episode, it's essentially with slinging around three sit-downs with Nicola. Okay. So Nicola's sitting down with the headmaster, she's sitting down with a mountain tuck, she's sitting down with a manion.
Those three things. And these are key points where the plot shifting. So if you keep in your head, that's got to happen. And by then she's got to have done this and you know all that kind of stuff.
So sometimes you do that, sometimes it's just knocking out, you know, A to B to C to B. The story run depends. Yeah. And I guess that's an unusual one in that it is quite serialised in that sense.
Yeah. It's probably more like writing soap, actually, in that sense, rather than you have six episodes and your prize clown character has to fail in a different way than how's he going to do it. Yeah. Well, it's interesting how with doing shows that are topical.
I mean, when you're writing for a show like, have I got news or not in the week or whatever, you're reading the newspapers, here's this story and here is this joke about that story. The show like, think of it. And it's interesting because I was rereading the Yes Minister Diaries recently and chapter one of the Yes Minister Diaries where he becomes Prime Minister. Yeah.
And it was just around the time of the Labour leadership and the parallels were absolutely spot on. And then chapter two was about they were replacing Polaris with Trident. Yes, I remember. Chapter two was just written in 1986.
I couldn't believe that I was just reading the stuff that was just all in the papers. But I'm just thinking how when you're kind of coming up with something for a topical show that's not going to go out for another six months gear or whatever, how you kind of. Well, there was a lot. Yeah.
I mean, in the last series, it was incredible. I don't know if you remember, but we were hitting out the park every week, every week. There'd be a story in the thick of it, which we've written. I mean, we've written.
And then, yeah, that was my bank. And then, and then Buddy Vince Cable stole it from me in his sleep. Yeah, it was incredible. That was incredible.
It came out on every time, because he went out on a Saturday night and there'd be a story on the Observer following morning. I mean, just not just like every now and then six weeks on the spin. Right. It was incredible.
Absolutely incredible. Breakfast club stuff. It's not that incredible because you've got essentially the same process going on in two separate rooms. There's a writers room here and a wonky room here for the policymakers.
And they're both thinking, OK, what could a government do that's got no fucking money to make itself look as though it's doing something. It's busy and useful, but without any capital implications whatsoever. And they're coming to exactly the same conclusions as we. Well, it's the same process because they're all the same universities and same education and read the same books and listen to the same radio and what same TV.
And I suppose that's a, you know, I'm not part of that elitist fucking crew, thank you very much. I am proud to say, I remember this, there was dinner in New York when we were all sitting around and Frank Rich, the producer was asking all that, you know, where everyone went after school and it was going around the writers and it was, you know, PPE Oxford and English Oxford and History and English Cambridge. I only got to me and it was Porter in a hospital. And I was really proud of that.
Thanks very much. I tried chiming and then it was like, well, shit, thanks. Okay, Porter, which college were you? Yeah, Porter College.
We probably got, in a moment, we've got time for questions if you want to think of a question that you can ask. But the other thing I was going to ask, sorry, is a bit of a side, was there stuff growing up that you particularly admired when you were watching or were you ever aware of stuff on TV that was written or were you just consuming? You mean when I was like very young? Well, 10, 15, you know, like kind of stuff.
Love Paris. Love Paris. It's like a Jim will fix it. That was a lot of stuff.
Or as you, I mean, you know, I know they've got a bad rep now, but they didn't have to make your laugh. They were entertaining. Family entertained. I mean, I'm just mumbling to have a little one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were great. Sports spectrum. Larry Sanders.
I mean, you know, life changed. And, you know, I'm always said that the kind of the pitch for ticket was, yes, Minister, me because Larry Sanders was still, for me, what it feels like. It does. Larry Sanders changed, just rewired us, I think, the day to day rewired us.
Those two, those two for me. Yeah. And I wasn't, you know, I'd grown out of Rob Harris. I was old, you know.
And you were less interesting to him by then as well. I'm never been interested to anybody. He was a child. I'm happy to say.
Yeah, no, I think that Larry Sanders thing is really, obviously, you know, very sensitive. And kind of a Gary Shambling show before it. Yeah, yeah. Subverting of the, you know, comedy about comedy, kind of thing, which hadn't really been done.
I saw just Simon Evans over Twitter actually the other day. And he was blown away by Larry Sanders. It really kind of disturbed him and upset him because he thought he couldn't disengage his brain from thinking the backstage stuff was actually happening. He knew at an intellectual level that he was watching fiction, but all his senses were telling him that he was real.
I love that. It was very skillful. Yeah. Have you got any more questions while we see if anyone here has a question?
Do anyone here have a question? Yeah. Or is there going to be a stunt silence? I find it hard to be the judge questions.
I like stunt silence. I like stunt silence. Let's feel the embarrassment seeping in. Yeah, it's a good question.
I'll ask my generic question. What would, what advice would you give to aspiring writers starting off now? What would you give to aspiring artists starting off now for the benefit of the take? You have to be, I know it sounds, I know it sounds facile, but you have to be writing since you stop writing, you're no longer a writer.
Until you start writing, you cannot become a writer. You have to be writing every day. I mean, every fucking day, if you, if you're serious about being a writer, because you only get better, you can't get worse. If you write every day, you cannot possibly get worse.
I don't know what else. And just, just resilience and stamina, really. You just got to keep going. Some flooky, some flooky chance of just falling to your lap and you'll be, it'll be brilliant.
But you have to keep going. I'll be, I mean, could you imagine working, trying to work on shows being a sort of gag writer on shows that you're, you know, like part of a team or would you want to do that kind of thing? I don't, you know, I, since since we all stepped off, you know, it's sort of weird things. I noticed it going round as gossip.
I was supposed to be quiet. I was supposed to have weird gigs. Yeah, you do. Yeah.
I mean, I do. You know, I can, I'm perfectly capable of doing horror-ish things if the, if the fees right, because why the fuck wouldn't you? I'm a writer. Not a bloody saint.
Yeah. But also, you don't, you don't carry the can for the final product of what you're writing for. You're all doing it. Keep your name off it.
Keep your name off it. Get an agent, mate. You know, there's all sorts of shit I don't know about. Except apparently the craft of comedy, comedy, did you?
I mean, I think just writing, I think just keeping writing and improving your craft as a writer is something that isn't, I don't think ever emphasised enough, because I think people still think of you writer's script and that is effectively your lottery ticket. And then you get to be a writer. And actually, it's just, it's a career. It's not a, it's not a competition.
If you, if you write something and just, and you're so pleased with it, you cannot possibly comprehend giving it to someone and they'll just wipe their ass with it because it is just rubbish. Then I don't think you're cut out to be a writer. You've got to be prepared really to write, to, to, to, to, to, to, to just keep writing until you become un-ignorable, until someone, until someone has to give you a gig, because you're, you're too good, you're too good not to, not to, not to get the gig. But you can only do, I mean, I just, I keep saying it's a facile, isn't it?
You can only do that if you keep writing. You have to write every day. That's a big thing. And you can also only keep writing because you are a writer and you have to write and you want to write.
And I think, in one's, I think again, people like the idea of being a writer. I think I might give that a go. Yeah. I could do, I might have a go.
But that's, I think, was it 60% of people in that survey? That's a survey. They referred to a writer. Yeah.
Because they've got a novel up them. Presumably. We know exactly where that novel is. We've all been there.
Yeah. Where the novel is. Yes, I've already written mine. It's already failed to say I've got that.
My system at least fluffed through. I mean, one thing actually, I did want to ask it because I tell you from what I know of your writing, you come from it. You've got a very sort of individualistic worldview, which not, not many writers happen. It's not something that necessarily fits into the world of comedy writing.
Right. Do have people who just walk into a, a week or buzzcock show or something and they'll be like, okay, here's his 10 funny gags about Kenya West. Here's 10 funny gags about David Cameron, Tax Aver, whatever. I mean, does that, do you talk about it as whoring, but does it kind of come easier to you or?
Is it easier for me because I have an individualistic? Well, I sort of think more, you know, you can be fit into that sort of environment. Do you find that sort of fairly straightforward then or? Yeah, I mean, if, if, if for whatever reason someone would just say Ian and he 10 gags about Kenya West by five o'clock, I would do them.
I could come up with them and, you know, I would have to believe that they're better than yours. Otherwise, what's the, you know, we both do that. We both think that we could come up with and we could pitch it to the room and we, we just think, yeah, they're going to, mind's going to be better. I think what it is is more and more shows, you know, as less as it comes to being made and more right to perform a panel type things are being made.
So, you know, I suppose it's more about, you know, could you do 10 jokes from Mickey Flanagan about getting up in the morning? I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I could do that. I don't have a bash time.
I don't have a watch. I'll go. You know, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't feel it was beneath me or anything. That's what you mean.
Not that it's beneath you, but just the idea that you have a view that that's, you know, as I say, when you get individual performers who have a view, occasionally you get an individual writer who, you know, you get, you get Simon Blackwell. Simon Blackwell's script has, has his personality. Exactly. So I'm struggling to, you know, I, I, I, the question you're asking me seems to be the question you would ask any writer.
I mean, not, not, not because every writer has to be individualistic to that extent. You have to be able to say, and arms, you know, we, we can't tell who's written what by the end. But I'm always prides himself on knowing who's, you know, if he's got a script that's gone round, you reckon you could tell who's done what. I bet he can.
But it's a very strange mix of writers. I think the collaboration process is something that, again, people who are starting out tend to feel a little bit threatened by as well because it is, you are, effectively having to give away everything that you're, that you're writing and being rewritten. And you're saying, I think, yeah, just a sheer amount of rewriting, you were saying on V particularly the episode that we've just watched had a whole different opening. The whole thing was massively massively.
We went into a read through with that, because arm was Chris, Chris was, was mostly in charge of the. So Chris, what's the director of that episode? Yeah. Yeah.
So we went into a read through and it was 86 pages long. And there was no way, no way that that wouldn't be driven off the cliff because you can't, you can't, they're driving something off the cliff, watching it burn and smash to a million pieces and then work out what to do next. It's the kind of drive that makes makes people geniuses. You know what I mean?
The air crash investigation of comedy. Why did this fail? Yeah. We've got to have one last question.
If anybody's got one, there's a stun. I'm not completely dead. They're dead. There's no ideas that they're at all.
They've got no interest in fucking comedy. I don't know why they're in the room. Oh, here we go. It's going to be good.
You've been going into a question. So what new comedy are you excited about? I wish I knew how to respond to that. I mean, I wish I knew how to respond to that because I can't my memory now is so bad that if I say, if I'm turning to that, like my grandfather, like, I'm turning to grandfather.
I say things. Who's that black girl on radio for extra? Who does the, you know, wouldn't you? Not Dr.
Smith. She's great. Justin. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. She's really funny. I mean, in terms of people, she made me laugh, which names I can't remember. But also, I don't want to be loved at the moment.
Do you watch much comedy at home? Or do you watch movies? Or do you watch read books? I'm just working.
I'm just working and sleeping. I get up at 4, 4.30 work. I mean, bed by 9. I'm just a boring old grandpa.
I'm just working. You could go to bed later and get up later. Do you have no interruptions? If you're up early, no one's going to ring you or anything like that.
Yeah, totally. Yeah. I get several. I judge now the success of work.
You know how much I've got done by 9am. If I've got a whack done by 9am, I mean, so what, you know, it's my day. It must have been my day. No, but it's really interesting because also, Twitter's pretty quiet at four in the morning.
So you're not pretends to check that either. No. Do you have to turn off social media and stuff to get any work done? No, because I need Wikipedia every 20 minutes.
Or Google or something. When we're starting, you know, when we're starting actually dying. In 1953, I do have to know that. I am doing it.
I'll be working on something. Okay. Starling the sitcom. Yeah.
That was a great question. And it was maybe a bit stupid. Well done. There's a final question.
You couldn't stop that. The black lady on radio for extra. I like his name. I can't remember.
Lots of stuff. Bits and bobs on the internet. I kind of, it feels like it's something really exciting is going to happen now. Because when you go into pitching meetings now, I mean, like Amazon's Sony Netflix, all those people, they're not looking for like serial sitcoms anymore.
Because they know how people, if you release five hours worth of material, then people are going to watch that in two or three lumps. That seems quite exciting to me. It's writing something that's funny that isn't necessarily half an hour long or an hour. It's probably like, I don't know, possibly 47 minutes long while you're having TV with your misses and then you go to bed or whatever.
That's really, I tell you what, that is a really interesting thought because these go, because actually the sort of sitcoms that I tend to like and admire are the sitcoms where you watch one. It's basically the same as last week and it'll be the same next week. And then not the kind of shows where you want to watch six of them in a row. And actually, if we're moving towards a medium where you've got big companies dumping huge loads of content and they want you to sit there for five hours and watch it, you're going to need a pretty flipping brilliant story to get them all the way through there.
And actually, therefore, you're not going to want to watch more than family for three hours. Please don't even, don't know, they basically end it's free. It's a funny show, but you wouldn't want to watch. Is it?
We finally got that. We finally got I don't know. But it's a new blacks. The other thing I'm watching and really loving at the moment is the new season of Trader Puck Boys.
I don't know if you watch Trader Puck Boys on Netflix now. Season 10. And it's the best, it's like one of the best seasons I've ever. I absolutely love Trader Puck Boys.
Trader Puck Boys, never heard of it. What a great recommendation. You never heard of season 10? Yeah.
I don't have Netflix. Okay, I don't have Netflix. We'll have to finish now. Thank you very much for our fantastic guests.
Thank you to Ian Martin. I just let that sink in. I don't have Netflix. Okay.
Okay. Thank you guys for coming. Thank you for your work on producing the show and thank you very much. Goodbye.
I think you don't.