Welcome to SickCongeats, I'm James Carey and this week and next time too we have an interview with the amazing Eric Chappell who is responsible for rising damp only when I laugh, duty free, the bounder, haggard, home to roost and Finland's three, most people will be satisfied with a quarter of his career but he has very kindly agreed to speak to me and here's how we got on. I'd love to start at the beginning because for you for you in a way the beginning wasn't the beginning these days you've got lots of people in their 20s who were studying comedy and leaving university and doing master's degrees in screenwriting and things like that. That didn't exist even 20 years ago when I was starting out but where it all began with the banana box you were in your 30s as you were rising late. Although I'm putting on some advantages with that are you glad that you maybe started a bit later?
No I'd have loved to have the money earlier but I'd have liked to start in the 20s when most screenwriters do but I was writing novels for the first time, trying to write novels for the first few years of my writing life very unsuccessfully and then it's one of those thoughts you had you know I was in the bathroom they think I'm not getting anywhere with this I've had two novels rejected and it took ages to write. I thought I know I'll write a play and he seemed so jokian at the same time casual that I thought yeah I'm doing something different and I started to write a play and it wasn't that good but funnily enough there was something about it that appealed to people who read it you know and my wife read it and she usually went to sleep when she read the novels you know but I could see instantly that there was something about the dialogue that attracted her and then I sent this rather poor play off and the agent loved it. You never got done but he took me on and he's enthusiasm helped me know and when people say how do you make it in the business and you say leave it to the script it just doesn't work like that I mean you've got somebody with enthusiasm and belief that really it's infectious you know if you can get that man or woman to say this is great somebody be eventually believes yeah yeah we often say that finding a producer or find someone who likes what you're trying to do even though it's yeah well and why did you why did you decide to write a play rather than a TV script straight away or a movie or I come from a serious end I mean I didn't write a script writer and most of the writers I know started writing gags and got the gags into sketches and the sketches into half hours and never ever wrote a play that was too much too long too difficult and there's a lot of sort of demands made on anyone who wants to write it to our play to continue that thrust through that energy and everything else is difficult. It's also different it's a different world as well isn't it?
Once you start to do a producing theatres and there are there's a whole network and it's different now to maybe how it was 50 years ago but as a moderately successful sitcom writer myself I wouldn't really know where to begin to get a play produced in a proper theatre I don't have any contacts there so it's you know you sort of have to work with the world that you're given but you went the play route and do you watch plays growing up? I do you have a fan of watch plays and when I started I second from the serious side it would be novelists so obviously the first thing I thought was a play I never thought of sketches I didn't think of half hours even and I wrote the book as a play to be done on the stage although when I was doing it I thought this would make television as well you know you just cross your mind and I was going to write plays and star in a garage that was my plan but then I got two small children she went to work for me and I went to got the job and so I thought yeah so everybody thought I was bonkers you know I mean quite frankly you go to post I'm gonna give up whatever job you're doing and then a writer say you're mad they won't say it to your face and say it to your wife or to your mother ask those questions how's he doing I was a total surprise and shop in the 70s all my friends were starting their own businesses and going off on their own doing their own thing that was a great phrase and do their own thing everyone of them failed but me and I was the one that should have failed yes failure is certainly not right once you went and why why did you why did you write the banana box in terms of what well you have one or two good ideas not many but when you get them you're gonna go with them that was my first sort of discovery I had I saw this in the paper I was about a black student who went to a hotel and pretended to be a prince very well treated the hotel was very sort of far back and very serious and and he would have hardly got through the door in those days and he'd gone in and played the prince and they've been treated really a great idea for a script but it has to go through your own creative juices work on this and of course I didn't know good hotels in those days so it became a lodging house and it became a seed in landlord it's all changed but the basic idea was still there of a black student posing as a prince and that's where it started from you know when you recognize a good idea don't be put off because it's so easy then to start I thought yeah it was a good idea but it's not so good now I've been working on it for a few weeks if it's a good idea to start with it's a good idea to finish with and that's really it's interesting because I'm obviously much more familiar with the sitcom where it hadn't occurred to me starting out that the black prince is a fraud I don't think I ever exposed him in the series the very end was he not exposed was that in the movie I think was also in the play but there was always mileage in it and of course as soon as you're exposing the rest mileage there is yeah I went off the idea of exposing him and basically you were not watching it you were always aware that he was that he was toying with Riggs Bay exactly and there was that mix of fact of fiction yes and he was controlling him and yeah I was really had this sort of fear but also attraction to that primitive thing appealed to it yes it was yeah no it was the way and did you did you know Riggs Bay is he based on anyone people who say this and of course I did it was a guy I worked with lovely man and all the prejudices in the world but I still a lovely man and he was there weren't deep prejudice but there he wouldn't trust any other nationality or whatever and he said he gave me all this bias which I found funny and he was a nice man it's hard to say that he's a bigger than a nice man but he was nobody thinks nobody thinks they're the bad guy do they everyone thinks that what they're saying is common sense and yeah and so he was lovely and also he had that strength and the things that came out of Riggs Bay as well because when you're right a situation company you know the character tends to become the actor becomes like the fictional character because they actually start to tell you what the characters like and then was like that with me you know you could say things you know no I mean it's it's a multiple system of the word is and that's it well let's talk about that because to what extent did you think that Leonard was was right or wrong about the character once he inhabited the character where their times when you thought no he would say that but I'm not arguing again he put all his own jokes in which I didn't like right I could live in those actors as long as they put their own jokes right but but he did and of course with a sort of power he'd got and the sort of performance which was terrific I always I think I mean it was a great physical mover and the things he did that you could just suggest and he did them beautifully and so you took the rest yeah whatever you didn't like with a lot and towards the end he got very heavy because Len was a heavy actor to work you know I mean he took no prisoners and he was demanding and of course he spoke quickly he was a little puddling and they do speak quickly yes it's right I mean he's trying to think of him as a live-aparting actually because you don't think of him like that even though now you mention it you can slightly hear it yeah I could yeah but he's someone who's like he's a Riggsby in a sense that he's someone who's better to himself and doesn't want to doesn't want to go back to the land that he came from yeah he was very demanding and I was able to make me smile exactly what come on is that really looking forward to doing this show it's really terrific show I thought you have met him you have that 20 minutes when he said he was going to get everything in he would never cut anything right we felt we ought to cut this yeah it just increases speed yes when did I second third fourth it's what I make the editors the other days are at least I suppose doesn't it if you can do a 30 minute I would I was writing more in fact I think the other Simpson wrote for him once and they never come in short ever but they did with him we still overwriting and editing or did you pretty much I never wrote that's one thing and of course he did one tip to go but I wrote and rewrote at the time but once the script was done it became sacred text virtually I all the years I've been I wrote for 20 years situation company I did no cutting after well minor cuts but I know rewrites yeah after we got into the rehearsal really so you would make the line work like only really direct well that's quite that's that's that's a I mean it's great that you're a bright and script you can do that with but when I worked in America I noticed that when things weren't going well they they rewrote when we when in my rehearsal rooms when things they go well we rehearsed yeah before you know the actors gave us more and what you want set were you in rehearsals from beginning to end or did you start off and I didn't want to be too intrusive I came to the read through obviously on the Sunday on usually was or whatever and was there for the block that therefore the blocking up third block here but yeah and that day was very important to me that's when I put my three penalty and whatever and then I went away and came back on the Friday recording day and watched and said something like that which I never meant to happen like that or just now again you know usually got it right and then we watched it then I was at the dress and then the show itself and was it was was that a similar way which you did further shows like I got a bit bossy towards the end and tell them for the tech run the Wednesday I got one the issue will go on you don't you get less confident okay and you know I'm more concerned and more worried like a tennis player's played too long and starts to cheat but I also you have a reputation to think of now and you don't want it to be that's right you're worried that this is one's not gonna work very well and so I got a bit more demanding and everybody know that you didn't wave it from your policy of not rewriting one I never happened I honestly say that I mean I know writers have wrote to rewrite but send it in and then be ready with the type right to rewrite yeah I never did when it was done it was done I didn't really want to look at it much again right yeah and therefore that's interesting because I tend to never go back to stuff that I've done I've done quite a lot of radio and my kids and I started to listen to it they're nine and six or seven and they're listening to episodes of Milton Jones I wrote must be ten years ago and they're asking about various bits and moments and I've said to them girls I honestly can't remember anything about this episode because I was there for the recording yeah and then I left and I didn't hear it go out on the radio I've not heard it since yeah because by the time we're actually recording I'm sick to death of it I don't ever hear it's again I don't watch my old shows now although they're on the box or only because I would end up writing the same sort of things all over you know I just want to get I don't want to be too saturated yeah with those shows it's not that I don't like them I think they do them well and I enjoy them when I do actually watch them I avoid them as much as possible because you can't go back you've got to keep going forward I think that is a struggle isn't it you look and also you're maybe what you're seeing or a bit you think I never quite got that bit right or there's no zero no I can't change you one word to some I mean I said I don't read it but now and again somebody's come up and says I can I say this or that and I'll say yeah and then I'll say yeah and I'll say that yeah because it's never any better right that's interesting and to go back to that for Leonard Roster does famously have a tricky reputation but I mean he was an astonishing performer at the time even at the time thinking if you were able to be Riggsby and Reggie Perry in the same way that Ronnie Barker was able to be Arkwright and Fletcher yeah right and mostly plenty of it once that's right but it's really great still it more than once but you mean you've worked with the likes of Leonard Roster James Boland Peter Bold John Thor I mean this is a great old list of yeah of actors not naturally funny men in the sense all good actors that's interesting all good actors we went for actors in those days now one tends to look at stand up comedians who have high-jacked comedy because they do observational comedy which is what we were doing and we were doing more expensive but more expensive because they're dear enough but we were doing shows with actors and the comedy was observational and real hopefully yeah based on real life situations and in those days lots of comics were also like red nose comics you know they were sort of told a few funny guys and they could act yeah most comics now can act pretty well yeah if I took the best shows I think that I've seen those lead balloon with them Jackie Jack D and Dan Good actor and comedy actor and the man you've just mentioned Lee Mac the man he too is a good actor in fact he didn't something now isn't he I don't think they're getting the best of reviews because I don't think they did you know the writers I'm talking about did enough with it yeah but in terms of but you're working with people who are commanding also very big audiences you know and so actually they're very even at the time John thought was a very well named yeah but John was going through a twilight period because he wasn't doing more right at that time and he had just slightly we got him you know yeah easily and he wouldn't we wouldn't have done had even doing more so no other shows yeah so it was that in between periods which it was the nicest one I've ever worked with really yeah it seems like I guess it that seems the least of all the people you work with you it seems like it's unlikely that he would be the nicest one I've worked with yeah very very good so what do you think these guys and also my writing partner at my podcast partner Dave Cohen rightly points out how evil of key Faran is is a fantastic company actor which I know you've worked with yeah as well but all of these comedy actors or actors who do who are doing your good or companies what do they tend to bring what do you think that they do well that other people maybe don't do so well well they do because I'm impressed because I just think they're good actors and for instance Keith had almost drifted away from work from the theater he'd take a hotel I know a restaurant down in the West Country was his wife and friends and they were doing that and he'd drifted out of the business a little bit and I asked for him I asked for him because I knew he could play that part well right the diffident who suddenly becomes involved in something else yeah you've got seen a play before right and so I knew he'd play well and he caused he did he was amazing yeah no GT3 was a really big family favorite for us yeah just because also that that of all the things that as well as rising down that feels very play like in terms of opening and closing doors and hiding in cupboards and those things yeah that's right yeah which is why you know which was delightful it was it was it was that sort of a piece and when I was a player okay so they need to play first right and that's Gwen you mentioned yeah astonishing really good and still working and still very busy in yeah well she did we did a tour of duty for the other year and she was in it of course and I'd like her to do something else I've written a play that she loves called um was it called now I've written so many plays come to me in a minute summer end yeah yeah when she's got an age up for that and she doesn't mind and she wants to play it but it's very interesting she wants to play it I want to see it done we can't anybody interested or I couldn't anyway so it's still hard work to get anything I mean you're because because to me the the sitcom is closer to a play a rep play really than anything else yeah and now we've got much more of a movie tradition as well coming in with a single camera companies like Led balloon and those things so it seems to me that a play will be a playwright is a very obvious way into writing situation company and yet actually it seems to be not that many people find their way in that well I'm saying is a few script writers I know didn't write plays in fact even now I think of Richard Harris who wrote outside age and those stepping out it's a good playwright but he's the one I can think of the most of the script writers don't do it probably it's too laborious for them or something money's pretty bad as well I imagine the money's not very good no if you're lucky unless you have a huge hit that runs for you yeah that's right I mean you can't do very well but I mean script writing is very well paid well what when I started I was getting about equal to a top cameraman I wasn't doing any better than the cameraman and I had to write a lot to make any money I was writing two shows a year you know well even let's go back to the exam at the start you I hadn't quite realized until very recently how the squirrels show was pretty much commissioned at the same time so I had that same time it was yeah my agent said that I said suppose they both want to be both of these and never happens so that's always my fault I say you know I've not been wrong so far I said no that won't happen because he did and I was writing two ships yeah I'm not getting out and what and so what was the genesis of the squirrels of the show which people don't remember so well but round the three series and was a well that we made a huge mistake we brought in other writers right so I didn't have a great power in those only authority and they said to me very we like the idea it's working well we did something I did seven we'll make it a massive show you know we'll bring in six or seven writers we'll do a lot of shows like the Americans do well they didn't realize was in America they were very talented writers they could bring in very good writers to a series and so they went out the writers room about 10 or 15 very talented writers we haven't got that we haven't got the background so the scripts weren't that good weren't that good and is that why you think it didn't run for me yeah listen I did some more yeah and I was quite seeing the point was I was close to it I could write them they all just came in as sort of volunteers you know they came in and they did their best but they weren't close to the subject were you were you involved in in their scripts were you having final scripts I was referred to as a script editor I never saw them but I did see some of the shows and I thought they were appalling right that must be really hard to see something because also to get a show on I mean even back then when there were more sitcoms on but it's a really hard thing to get a show and especially because it was almost your first show with that chronologically was it did he come we were going out on us together and at the same time roughly around that period I was and I got I sort of got to the stage where I couldn't write anymore because I was used to it and I was having to work hard to come up you know to do it and in the end I threw the pen down I said to my wife I said I'm not I'm not going on with this I can't do anymore I got four scripts writing four weeks or something like it was ludicrous and I didn't get much sympathy from anybody at their quarters that they'd television you'll be alright everything I was so no my cries were ignored in the end I just threw the pen down right and I wasn't you see and they went to then and said we'll bring other writers and then said no he saved my career in a very early stage yeah he said no I've got very I like every scripts I want to do them but I'm not doing other people's right and I know they would have done that to me so it gave him some holiday money and sent away for a month yeah it's interesting because it feels like it feels like it took the star of the show to infin agent was when I because I just couldn't do it physically it was money because I was having to work so much yes that's right you would have said no to one if it was they thought I was just going on strike to the baby I'm very interested in where did he so the squirrels is a more of a workplace sitcom yeah based on my office so that's where it's almost directly comes from that as opposed to what you thought I heard for and I think just go back to what we were saying before when I come across younger writers especially writers in their 21-track sitcoms my own helpful advice to them is usually be older because I think it's very hard to write different voices within a situation comedy yeah or any 20s when you don't necessarily have as much experience I felt I remember the first time that took my scripts were taken up I said to my I'm not an intellectual I felt I've gotten the education rights you know because that's another interesting thing is that the universities have taken over comedy I mean the most of the writers have come from university so you get the intellectual aspect when I started the directors came from the bandsmen trumpet players people that had worked in sound you know people that come up through the shop floor and they were directors and Duncan Wood I mean he didn't have any background like that and Ron Baxter didn't and no I don't know I don't know it was one university man on any of the shows at all so you had a working-class humor you know which is pretty good yeah it's pretty good actually and actually pretty universal yeah it works on if you don't need any levels that's right now now it's very interesting that these intellectual references that Python did and feel like that philosophers and classics and Ibs and little jokes about them and that appeal to the middle classes and people that have better education so that sort of comedy was yeah for anyone who's actually watched Python didn't they there were very small audiences yeah there were intellectuals letting their hair down yeah which I know everybody thought was great and that people I went to see Spamalov and there was a group there that were hooked on the jokes that were played 20 years before that were introduced into the yeah it's almost like one up the ship like this is a crowd yeah yeah no I can't say no I can't say no I can't say no because another sort of working hypothesis I've had is because I'm a big fan of the 830 BBC 1 ITB mainstream sitcom and it seems to be that's the hardest one to get oh it isn't I think what you're saying they try to the fact that the other source of comedy of the mainstream has been through entertaining the troops so much and but and but in the band leaders things what made me think of it so Perian Croft and all of those shows that came out of out of that sort of stable yeah are all heavily informed I think by entertaining people holiday camps that's what which makes it sound a bit broad but there's sometimes it's a good humor comes through there yeah because it's universal it's not it's time it's I mean how many undergraduates make good inside forwards yeah it's timing and you've got it you haven't got it when people talk about teaching comedy it's almost impossible because you've got to time when I started writing scripts I could get one good line or two or three good lines in my mind I thought these are good I have to wait to use them and then they gave off other vibrations and I could write other companies mainly three of all good lines to start with that were in there nestling in there and to hit it at the right time when you've got maximum don't waste it on the first two lines and maximum impact and from that I've developed line you know the whole sequences but usually started off with one or two good observations yeah I was interested I read something about how you especially again early on having written a play you don't realize you had to write episodes and episodes and how you learned that a couple of things got laughs no one actually said anything or done anything yeah how that was a learning curve for you absolutely so how do you just explain a bit more about that what you meant by that well a situation is not having someone's trying to impress someone and going to do something and you can imagine something going wrong and gradually that builds you know I mean I can't it's hard for me to say that how that developed but it was just one of those things I guess it's an accumulation as well isn't it because once people know a show I would say that you get your first your first series every episode is almost like a pilot you can't really assume that people have seen it before no actually by series three of Rising Down I'm just picturing sort of watching it and thinking I can picture Ricksby walking into their into their room standing there hovering saying nothing yeah I can hear the audience tituring yeah that inherited laughter which you've got because oh yeah he comes you know what he's going to do the recognition laughter it's like in the old days of West End of the club they have to come here before it's nothing I knew with rising down but I mean I knew the scripts would work with him and when they told me that I knew we were on the winner but that would be a winner for me and we didn't have to get the audiences I mean we could go into a pub I could go with Len and no one would have know it not after a couple of shows we would know everywhere now would you like a table by the window it's something well that's interesting thing I did it kind to me that as far as the very modern era is concerned it appears that every new show is under intense scrutiny yeah even though it's only being you know BBC once it comes in being watched by four five million people yeah and and I left it a rising down by series three or four might have been being watched by 1618 million people I remember when I saw Len I think it was the first show and I was writing the prejudice but which I didn't particularly want to do but Duncan would say very that black boy works and you know you're gonna get the prejudice thing you know you've got to have that reaction by Len and all this so I got it and he came on when he first been introduced or Len Donna derived I think that was it and he came in and he gave the boy and the Richard Beggs a world weary Lord and he was so I know fell about the episode of where he's yeah we go yeah and I thought if you can do that yeah I'm really we're on to a good thing but but but but in terms of it I wonder if you felt interesting he was saying he felt the pressure as your career went on and that you had something to live up to it would seem that now if you're writing a show that's getting 18 million viewers you would feel under incredible pressure because there was so many sitcoms on at that point and television was I wonder if it felt like there was more there were bigger audiences but somehow slightly less pressure when I started I think I'm right in saying there was seven sitcoms in the top 20 seven sitcoms in the top 20 when I finished you can get one of the top 30 that's the difference fashion's changed just as a short story and review went out so sitcom went out as regards a major winner you know next important still not in the way it was I mean there was a although these two three decent sitcoms every company said that yeah because if you look in broadcast magazine and you look at the top 100 rated programs of the previous week you might get two sitcoms maximum you probably won't get one the ITV particularly lost faith in the genre they found they could make more so get more views with Australian soaps which weren't particularly good but they could get without spending the money yeah well I have a sitcom when you get more people watching the soap yeah and that the soaps were nothing in my day so they became very important audiences grew more patience they can watch crime shows now which takes half an hour for everybody to get out the car and they sit there patiently watching them I mean nothing's happening and nobody's saying anything it's all filled yeah you think but people sit and watch them yeah and so if they do that and they pay their money it is interesting I wonder if your TV has completely lost faith in comedy they they periodically say they haven't and at the full disclosure I have a comedy in development with ITV at the moment but they certainly didn't make much comedy for about 20 years for 20 a period after fillers three there was you know they had this they had a new statesman was a huge show for them and obviously it's fitting image which was like different but it feels like they stopped making much comedy yeah and I and you think it is just because you thought other comedies other forms entertainment are just cheaper we'll just do that there was no real commitment there's not so many factors like a lot of federal energy as well when the ITV took over all the companies it became one with the old day she could send these scripts to one and then to another and to a third now just once yeah and I think all that that federal energy we had at Yorkshire in Leeds which is now a place to whether just do Emmettale farm yeah Emmettale it's not far anymore yeah we'll exclude people by saying farm it is a really interesting system that the operators and I think it is something that we haven't quite still recovered from because although I'm thinking well if I had an idea for a script I could take it to BBC but I could also take it to to 15 independent production companies yeah but as far as ITV are concerned ITV are either going to buy it or they're not no answer they went whereas Yorkshire TV could buy sitcom they could make it they could broadcast it yeah and it wouldn't be networks necessarily wouldn't have to be networks they used to go in them because it was Paul Fox in those days they're at the bank the table and say I want my show on networked yeah and they'd all put in their six three pentas and say yeah I want my show now and you'd win at the battle and the good ones will be done I went out on the weekend quite often that sort of thing that people went with the flow yeah so it wasn't unusual there to write a sitcom I mean I think all of you was on network is that right yes yes but it was possible to write shows which which were only on I don't think I honestly think that everything was made to for network right I mean I don't think the company could afford to make shows that were just local right there would be too expensive although they could probably pilot something would they make a pilot with their own money or would they be asking for ITV for money no I think it was made with their own companies are rich in those days you thought you got all them rich yeah because this is because now even very even vegetable we even richer independent production companies they never make a studio audience pilot with their own money no I mean just wouldn't well I went to America there was a monopolist bill you know I mean you anti-monopoly in other words they didn't allow the studios to make shows or not many and so they all these private companies came out I was in Los Angeles working for one and they they made shows and they were financially covered by the studio but the studio didn't make them right studio wasn't allowed to because they said they're monopolistic yeah I mean they would control the whole network yeah so the three big companies ABC and CD yes yes the three big companies had to employ studios I was with Taft and they were a private company and they made their money out of out of the minor what do they call it I've forgotten they're for word now they sold them on to the small companies indication yes indication so what's your 65 episodes or 110 or something they're money from yeah yeah that's only the writers yeah and I know when I had a show on the guy rang me up from I said what it feel like to be rich I thought I'm not rich I don't lose my kid the money but it's not me yeah and so you went over there to do was it the American version of Entreuse that's it you've got a jacklin yes so that never quite made enough to be syndicated is that right or it didn't we did two series more than most people do yes because things they cancelled off yeah it was just I don't think they quite got to it I mean they use my scripts I didn't get much more than this my scripts ten on the least in the first series and and it took off and not enough and then they had nothing after the second series it was canceled you know what did you handle how much time did you spend in America was that when did you do other things they're apart from oh no I was I was home boy I've got things going here I'm still writing here so I didn't want to be out there too I was there a few weeks okay and just yeah out of blindness on your part and their part well they like my scripts yeah and they were nice to me except what my scripts but they sat their writer in front of me really yeah I mean I realized what cut this wrote thing it was when John Clubman was talking to their dry to do it well I'd be starting to get there and then he looked at the script he didn't like that and they were talking said well I'm sorry we you know that we're not going to be working for as any more sort of thing and the other guy was accepting it and that was it he was out out the door and so that was and then they brought other writers in I mean that's how ruthless it was that's one of those things I never quite done you see it I kept saying look you know I'm not a rewrite man you know I'm not gonna sit there throwing jokes at each other I do it and that's it yeah I wasn't quite in tune with their style yeah no it can't be yeah it's an interesting it's again that's not so much the one way in terms of we're sort of endlessly changing things right up until the last minute do they do that now yeah yes I think so yeah I think you said that I don't know how because at the moment you've got people who are my age or younger writing stuff and our expectation is that your a there's an awful lot more shot on sets it's right on location it's a lot of single camera stuff and so you can get multiple takes of stuff you can try things different way we know without the studio yeah we had the lighting cameraman love me because I wrote long scenes you see I was you've got to remember I was frustrated today to play like yeah and that's what I continued to do in short scenes that's what I was doing no one noticed or guess that's what I was doing except that we had to realize that we didn't move anywhere but I think that's a really interesting point because long scenes are something which I think in general people are very frightened of so is Jack London unless you're a unless you're from a from a theatrical tradition but from a company position with a long scene you're building energy in a room in the moment the scenes are gone yeah you've got to start you've got to build it again well yeah I when I wrote I wrote in some pages some pages moving the story along the first and page would be the development scenes what we're going to do the second seven would be doing it but not in a dramatic way and then the third seven which of the second half would be a real climactic point you know big curtain race of the curtain lives and then the payoff at the end yeah so I didn't conscious sort of say to all that but that's how it works and you can hear the rest of that interview next time in the meantime if you want to get in touch with us find us on Facebook and like us and you can tweet at us as well I'm at sitcom geek and David's at skondave and you can buy our books and generally get involved as much as you like ask us some questions that we can talk about in future podcast that'd be pretty good you can email us on Gmail at zikongeeksattagmail.com okay speech you next time bye bye