Episode 60 - Pete Sinclair

Welcome to Sick Compsies. I'm Dave Kelly and I'm James Kerry. Joining us today is a comedy writing phenomenon who's written for everyone and everything. He's written sketches, songs, sitcoms and jokes, zillions of them.

Any time you've laughed at the host jokes on Ignify, have I got these for you that is, I think it's all over and never mind the buzz cocks. There's a 62% chance it was written by our guest and he's now best known for two sitcoms he's written with Jack Dee, the highly acclaimed Beloon and the currently being highly acclaimed and on ITV hit Bad Move please welcome Pete Sinclair. Hello Pete as well. I can tell you to go back a long way.

The three liars we've done like called the three liars. I believe that was our best joke. If we went on and didn't get a laugh of that, I didn't think we'd find something just like goodnight. Which did happen once or twice.

Yeah so Pete has worked for everybody and everything all the time. We met. We're saying that that's a good thing by the way because it's quite a mega ton of exchange. It's not a comedy task.

But it's worth making the point actually. I was thinking earlier that Pete, you are a successful comedy writer and yet it probably doesn't feel like you're a successful comedy writer and every year you're basically scrapping for the next thing. Absolutely. I mean Dave and I we probably were doing weekending.

It must be nearly 35 years ago. I was thinking that. That's coming in here and I honestly still think, oh I hope I'm going to make it. I honestly do still think that.

I think with this later, I think I'm not that. It was to become an absolute classic. That would be really really good and I'd feel like I made it. But as you say it is a question of getting by and in between Lebouloon which last went out in 2011 and now there have been times when I thought, oh my god, I'm on the tightrope.

Don't look down. What do I do if I don't get another sitcom commissioned? And as you get older, those gigs on the pal shows and what have you get fewer and further between people to get. So what happens if the next sitcom doesn't happen?

So it can be scary. Yeah, I do remember again for quite early on I was more doing standup at this time of you were doing writing it and any writing job that came along. People go, oh fantastic, here's a writing job on that big telething. And I think it was something like Ross Abbott or something came along and some such and I'm going to be saying, oh, they asked me to write it like I just thought it's not really my style.

I turned it down, I asked him it, Ross Abbott, I did. I accidentally got a sketch on there once when it was, it was a bit of a, I don't know what it was, it was a witty to Rory Bremba and it was entirely someone else's idea. I suspect it might have been Dick Vosborough, the old gag writer, and he had come up with an idea which I literally went, oh, that's funny. And he said, oh, why are you up with me, Pete?

And so we wrote it up for Rory. It didn't get on for Rory. He then said, you know that sketch we wrote? Can I submit it to Ross Abbott?

And I thought, if I say on principle, I'm not writing for Ross and it's his idea, I'm really looking like a dick. So I actually got like a dick Vosborough. So basically I ended up getting one sketch on Ross Abbott, but other than that, I was in those days. I was very like, you know, tough something.

I wouldn't write for the headlines. No, no, no, the headlines. I had to write for weekending, the political one, but we bring down the government. Yes, yes, yes.

Radio, yes. Radio, yes. Radio, yes. It's a man.

It's true that actually, I think I would say probably seven years after we started writing for a weekending, Margaret Thatcher was deposed. I was all I was doing. I was all I was doing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's interesting, it's going back, you'd say, a lot of people listening to the show thinking, how do I make it as a writer?

And yet here we are, we've all been doing this for 15, 20, 30 years. And we're all feeling like any minute now, you're going to basically get sent back to the factory where everybody else has to work. And it was fun while it lasted. It was found out.

It was found out. And that doesn't go away. And that is well worth knowing. Exactly.

But I guess it concentrates the mind. It focuses you. And you know, you do look back and think, well, yeah, but I haven't living in the last 35 years as a writer. So, you know, it is possible, even though it's always scary that it might not happen next year.

Can I ask them if we will start to about a bad move now? So in between let balloon and bad move, what did you, you were presumably picturing lots of other ideas? Yes, I had a few ideas and I had a few script commissions. I think one thing that happened after let balloon, I naively assumed, well, we've done four series of let balloon.

It was quite well received. Not back then. Well, this is the hilarious thing. We didn't win a single award.

We didn't. And there was one time I never intervened in forums, you know, just got things, but there was a comedy forum where there was a heated debate about whether let balloon deserved all the awards it got. And some were saying it did. And some were saying it didn't.

And I just wanted to go, wait a moment. We didn't win any bloody awards. Stop arguing over whether we deserve them. We were nominated a few times.

But we didn't actually win any. So I think we fell in that slot where we were neither a really mass success but despised by everyone's sitcom, you know, or one of those, no one really watches it. But it wins all the awards going and all the critics love it. So Lebouin was in that sort of, beat me to one of the half sort of area where we were kind of, hey, you're like this.

Hey, you're like this. Hey, you're like this. I'm scratching up the way I deal with it. So the critics generally were kind to me.

But what happened with after let balloon was I had sort of thought, well, Jack and I should write our next thing together and maybe maybe a sort of comedy drama thing or something like that. So I thought, well, we've got enough kind of credit in the bank to sort of be hopefully given the chance to do something like that, maybe a pilot or something. And then Jack just, you know, it's just an emotional thing. He thought, I'm going to do stand up again and fed up with this.

I'm fed up with nine months of kind of writing and filming and editing and promoting and then hoping you get a nice review in the papers. He thought, I want to get up, stand up, say a joke and hear a huge laugh from an audience. So he actually did go off to doing that. And even though I'm sort of slightly involved, I write some material with Jack for his sitcom stuff.

It's not a very stand up stuff. It's not like writing a sitcom where we are co writers. So that was actually quite a major kind of hiccup to my plan. And so I think that's a big thing.

Was this acknowledged in your, because I mean, how did you all, how do you end up writing with Jack Dee in the first place? Well, it's strange that I wrote for his Jack Dee's Happy Hour was the first thing that I was involved with, which myself and about three or four other writers were working on as sort of writers with Jack's show. And then he'd done, I think I was doing other sitcoms and stuff on and so he was writing with a couple of guys, he was writing his tour. And then at one point where I think he just needed an extra input, I received a call from the legendary Addison, another with us, but Addison saying, well, you're right for Jack, I'm not going to have to do that for the tour.

And Jack and I was in the room together for the first time. And I think we really sort of hit it off, partly a weird thing, but we both have twin boys, are almost exactly the same age, I'm like three weeks old than there's are. And I think there was, you know, a lot of the stuff we were talking about was, oh, well, book day, we have to dress your kids up as, oh, God, a bumblebee and gaffetape. So lots of routines that we were talking about, we were similar life experiences.

And we just got them well together. And then after a couple of days of writing that, Jack said, and I always say, it's the easiest question I've ever been asked in showbiz, which is, I've got an idea for a sitcom. Would you like to write it with me? And I thought, and this is relevant, I thought, that is about six hurdles jumped all at once there, because you always think, you've always got a sitcom idea.

I wonder if a star would do it. And here's a star who totally wants to do it. It's his idea. He's wanting someone to write it with.

And you've already got a connection about natural human connections. Because it's not as if you, sorry, I was deviating from Dave's Careful, you've heard questions here, but it's not as if that was the first sitcom we'd ever written. I mean, he would have asked you to do a sitcom because he'd done some sitcoms before. And you bear some scars and some weird things.

I mean, what, looking back on, and we talked about this on my blog, I used to be there, written interview for my blog, but, you know, what were you learning from those previous four days in the sitcom that you sort of took with you into this bravely world with Jack D? An awful lot, actually. My first two sitcoms were studio audience sitcoms. And this is fascinating.

This is the whole debate that's been going on at the moment. And with Ben Elton's comedy lecture speech. And so I had the first sitcom that I did was a thing called All Along Watch To Out, which was co-written with Trevallian Evans, and we did it for BBC Scotland. And it was, I think it was a score draw, actually.

We did quite well in today's terms. It did amazingly. I think we got very, very interesting. Really weird.

They put us in the last of the Summer Wine slot, having initially been, we were thinking we were as sort of evening, possibly even post-water shed things. And I said, oh, this is a nice scenery end and not much swearing. In fact, this is exactly what happened with Bad Move. So I must have a theme.

No real swearing in nice countries. But so we went out strangely in this last of the Summer Wine slot. And of course, last of the Summer Wine in those days was getting 9 million. So we only got 5 million for our first episode and then fell off to 4 million.

And sort of held there, actually. Now, in today's terms, I would be having a luion bringing on with a hit. But in those days, that was not quite enough. So there was about a year of having an eye and is it this and is it that.

And so we, if I'm going to get a series and then the second series was almost more relevant to what I learned because Trevelian and I then thought, OK, we kind of been ignored to death on that one. Like all over the watchtower, yeah, it was either. And Trevelian said, we need a big bold idea that people are going to either love or hate. Now they did one of those two things.

And it was Mr Charity, and starring Stephen Tomkinson. And it was essentially about a man who was in the world of charity, who really was in it for his own ends and just viewed Cancer and Diane Kidney's and everything as another opportunity. We can fundraise on this. We can make it into an opportunity.

And I think it could have worked. But the strangest thing was that initially it was going to be the BBC one and it was always going to be a studio audience sitcom. And it was, I suppose it's sort of in the world of Black Adder in terms of its evil central character and all that sort of stuff. And also Stephen Tomkinson had the, do you want me to see him talking to you?

Yeah, yeah. He had Damien Day in Drop the Dead. There's no more than a million miles away. So I've got to get my teddy bear and this kid of you have found him.

Oh, that's all. There was always a doll. It was a child. Exactly.

So all these sorts of things. So initially it was going to be BBC one. I don't know if it's pre-worship. Anyway, BBC one just said, no, what, what?

Cancer. He's no, no, no, he can't do this. Let's move it to BBC two. So it went out on BBC two at 10 o'clock.

And I think none of us had announced to say, okay, well, if it's going out on BBC two at 10 o'clock, we can't have an old fashioned studio audience sitcom with wobbly sets and what have you. And we didn't, we actually, and it was just around the time when I don't know if it predates the office, I don't know. But it was around the time when the Royal Family, which of course genius, we have the Royal Family's pieces and suddenly they'd proved that you could be funny in a sort of more sort of measured way without a studio audience and suddenly has a very old fashioned. So we almost, we were in the perfect storm that anyone who liked the content didn't like the form and everyone had formed the content.

So there's been quite a bad run, I think, of audience sitcom that coincided with the rise of the non-audience, like you say, Royal Family, touch over that. I think that by the time we got to the office and then my family came along slightly with the audience in the sitcom, but that was probably the one. Angry about this, Stephen Moffat showed what chalk. Yes.

I remember that. I remember saying, it was probably just before that. I think chalk was probably just before. I remember you saying about when coupling was a hit, the first thing he said was, thank God, at last I'm not going to be remembered as the man who wrote chalk.

Absolutely. Because I mean the vitriol you get, I do remember, you know, Mr Charity wasn't half a cartfony, the words are engraved on my heart. We never listened to critics, obviously, except I can still remember a pile of fossilized dinosaur poo from sickles, dog ages. This is what it was.

I had to cherry-carry around in your wallet. So the television is the box, they buried Morgan on my hand. He had that in his wallet pad. He's called career.

Just don't let James started on me. No, no, no, but the thing is that I have to say that although quite agree with those critics, I do think there were some things which weren't quite right about the central premise of Mr Charity. I think there was a contrast between he was meant to be running this kind of global organisation and running big campaigns or anything. But we also had downstairs the little charity shop where they had all the ridiculous items to sell and he would get involved with that.

And I think that actually either one of those might have worked better. That's what I felt. Was it a little charity shop manager or was it a big guy? It was two music cons.

They didn't really gel and also I think there was slightly a conflict about what, or sorry, fuzziness about what our central character thought. Because I think really, if we're honest, Dravelian and myself really thought, no, he's a ship. He's a sheister who actually just uses charity for his own ends and won a terrible thing if you did that. And I think Stephen Tonkin's been playing brilliantly really, really well.

But Stephen sort of thought, no, he does think he's doing a good thing. He's kind of, and he was always justifying it. And it was part of us that fudge it and thought, well, Stephen thinks that, that's quite good. Because that's sort of what the character would say.

He would think, no, no, no, no, no. And I think we should have been clearer and said, look, is it that he's really doing it badly or not? But having said all that, the extraordinary thing about Mr Charity was that the studio audience recorded them nominally well. They went through the roof well to the extent that the late great Jeffrey Perkins actually commissioned a second series script on the strength of those studio audience recordings.

He said, I've never known studio audiences to love a sitcom so much when it hasn't gone out. They don't know these characters and then yet every joke is landing, everyone has it. Great, great, great. And it seemed, we really thought, oh, we've got to hit our hands until, suddenly when you watch it go out, and this is why I wrestle with the whole thing about studio audience sitcoms now, because when you watch it at home, somehow the laughter seemed a bit, oh, please, that's not that funny.

It really isn't that funny. And I think, you know, other writers have said this, but there's a lot of things to be said about studio audience laughter. First of all, I think that when people say canned laughter nowadays, I think they actually don't even mean this when you're added on. They just refer to studio audience laughter as canned laughter.

Well, I hate canned laughter because a lot of writers go, it's not canned laughter. I want to know people. Yeah, and I actually think that most people, most punters now, don't understand that distinction. They mean, when they say I hate canned laughter, they mean I hate studio audience laughter for a sitcom.

And I think also, as everyone says, the only thing we ever did on Mr Charity, and the only thing any writer I've ever heard say is we took it down whenever we could, because it's not that funny out of context, it's not. I think that's, I mean, the thing that I learned most from my family was exactly that, was that the magic that you see in a room. And it's the same with you going to stand up. Yeah.

The magic of being in the room and seeing the comedy, getting that magic to then transfer into people's living rooms. That's the point at which you lose it. I think that's a really interesting thing that Barry Cryer talked about how, when you've got, when the person, the main person talks to the camera, like Miranda did it and Gary Shandling did it and someone else did it and someone else person, I remember Barry Cryer saying, oh, I learned that off Arthur Askek. Yeah.

And it's going all the way back to that. So how do you get the magic to cross over without having your main character talk directly to the camera? I just don't know because some of my favorite sitcoms are, most of my favorite sitcoms are studio audience sitcoms, you know, 40 towers, bar the Ted, lap books, you know, Laurie, you know, Ligely lads, you know, Dad's army. Those are good sitcoms which have a studio audience.

And there's something weird that I've started to think now that generally I am getting to the point where I'm very pleased for studio audience sitcoms to exist. But my personal taste, I've been finding more and more that when I'm watching a new studio audience sitcom, I sort of go, oh, I'm finding out I laughed a slightly intrusive, not on the big jokes, but on the little jokes, the little ha ha ha. And I sort of get fed up with the rhythm. But weirdly, one that I watched recently, I didn't feel that at all, was Upstart Pro.

And I thought, now why is this? I feel really comfortable with this laugh that I like Upstart Pro. I think it's actually a return form. It's the myth, isn't it?

I think it's a tradition. It feels like you're watching a play. It's bigger and sillier. And of course they're expecting laughs.

They deliver it in a way where it sort of invites that kind of laugh rather than any pretense of naturalism. And so it's interesting, because coming back to the bad move, full circle, bad move, could be a studio audience sitcom. I think there are certain bits where you sort of think that's definitely, you know, corner response, laughs, gags, where you could, if you had a studio audience in there. I think you would get a reasonable amount of laughs.

But we took a decision early on that we didn't want to do that. And I was fascinated. I thought, is it possible to do an accessible mainstream sitcom with jokes in and yet not have a studio audience? Will you?

Will you even know what it is? And I think there's part of me that thinks that if it had had an audience, the critics would have hated it more. And maybe the core IT audience would have liked it slightly more. Maybe they would.

It seems a touch of what we're still for many viewers for the first three episodes viewing figures holding. All be it, that magnificent coronation street cushion. God bless coronation street for protecting new comedy. But so it's doing quite well.

But it's interesting. I just wonder what would have happened if it was studio audience. And whether we would have survived the levels of vitriol that we would have then got from the critics and daring to try to make people laugh. It's really interesting that I love how you're, when you talk about Mr.

Charity, and talk about moving the decisions that you're making, it's incredible maybe to people listening that actually having a script with characters and jokes and I'm, yeah, fine. That's not it. That's not enough. And it reminds me of everything I used to.

I still do love watching talk here. Richard Hammond driving Formula One car. He could, it's almost undrivalled because the brakes don't work. He could do it about 18 miles an hour.

Until he'd get enough heat in the wheels. You can't, and the idea that you just think, oh, I can have a go at that. I can drive, but actually, once you're really doing it to a high level, these other factors come into play like, oh, we should have been on this channel, we're on that channel. The zeitgeist was away from studio, but it felt too, and then there was a kind of, is it a charity shop or is it a charity, but all these other things, it's like on top of, does this seem, makes sense?

This character's behavior consistently about any jokes and well, it seems incredible because I don't know what the, some sort of cliché about success, love, something loves success and something else doesn't love anything. But when something doesn't work, we all know, we've all worked on shows, and we spend a lot of time, we sit there, I've only done it that way, maybe that, and there's always so many what-is. One show is it, there are really equally so many kind of things, you couldn't have known at the time. Was it, sorry, David Renwick, who said that you have to have a perfect script, perfect character, perfect everything, and then you still need a bit of sort of fair, it's something, actually, this is greater than the sum of the parts, it's taken a life of its own, everything seems to be working well.

And to come back to the question you asked about, what did I learn from my first two sitcoms, particularly Mr Charity, which was the one which was definitely perceived as a failure. And that was really to be very, very hard on myself and the whole process at every stage. And with Led Balloon, that came down to casting because with Mr Charity, I think there was, and there's another problem with Studio Audiences, that some performers who made you a great when you audition them, they do something slightly different when they're in front of an audience. Now someone, a pro like Stephen Talkinson, can absolutely do that and doesn't brilliantly to the audience, and it works, both for the audience and it works for people at home.

But some actors, they just tend to hand it up a little bit more and you go, oh no, you're a good in rehearsal now, it's done a little bit big. With non-camerasic films, you sort of know what you're going to get, you do an audition thing, right? This is the performance I'm getting and all that. So the casting is very, very important.

And it's so happened that in the first ever read-through of Led Balloon, there was someone who had been cast in the provisional sort of thing where they just weren't right, not even going to give them the gender, they just weren't right. And it wasn't their fault, they were a good actor, actress, and they just knew, this isn't the tone, the tone is kind of old-fashioned sitcom, and it's going to be, and in the past I'd have sat there and I thought that read-through, oh well, everyone else is really right for it. I mean, you know, I suppose I'll make all these excuses to myself in. I just throw forward a year of your life and you're going to get Mr Charity Star reviews again.

They're going to go, that person's really terrible, and this is that, and I just thought, life is too short, I can't make this mistake again. So I talked to the director and we talked to Jack and it was decided to recast. Had it turned out you'd all had a similar thought? Yeah, the director did think the same, and I think Jack was difficult because Jack had always had this person in mind.

So it was just sort of like, but then he was correctly able to say, I'm sorry, the director and you know, just think, no, not right. I don't think it was done, they're many favours either because they wouldn't be right for it. And so, but what I learned was just, just be hard to be, don't please, please, don't think it will probably be all right if I'm having doubts, if I'm thinking this isn't right, God knows what a critic who wants to stab every new sitcom to death is going to make him him think. They're going to think it's a weak point and go for it.

So at every level, I've just sort of thought you'd just have to be kind of really, really hard. And just to finish off your, Mr Charity thing, you were saying that in the studio they went absolutely mad for it was amazing. But I remember you telling me on another occasion that when I actually went out on TV, you weren't so sure. And then you got a phone call from your brother or something.

Was it that time? This is what was, there was one scene in particular which we played that said in the charity show itself. And it went so well, it was been one of the first recordings that we thought, wow, we'll show this to the audience as a warm up. So we showed the scene to the audience when they come into a new thing.

Oh, this is the sort of thing you're in for. And my brother wasn't the audience actually, and he sat with 300 people, whatever it was in the studio audience and watched this, which remember now is TV effectively watching on screens. It's not the actors, it's just watching there. And everybody laughed and it was just, you know, every week it would get such big laughs and tea everyone up and you think, right, this is fantastic.

And then my brother watched it when he went out on telly at home on his own with his family. He went, ah, it's funny because all the shrieking laughter, everything really annoyed me. And he said, and I realised that that's the story that is a collective experience from our studio audience. And when you're all watching on a big screen like that, you actually do think, well, actually, this is funny, we're all laughing, we're all in on it.

And sometimes when you're at home, it doesn't always happen, but sometimes when you're at home you just think, oh, I'm not sure this is as funny as that silly audience. Well, that seems to think, again, it's the thing like when you've got an audience of basically comedy fans, which is a studio audience or a stand up show. And so, and they've all come out for the night to come and watch something funny. And then when you think about shows that get for 10, 12 million people watching them, you know, it's like people are sitting down to watch telly, they're not comedy fans are such, so they just think, oh, I like that, I like more can't wise, I like I Claudia or whatever, they're not thinking, oh, I'm going to watch comedy now.

There is a series as well that takes over with the studio audience because you're trying to whip them up, you have a warm up person on there, you have an actor's aunt stupid, it's literally the third time or something like that, they go, watch out for when I say knee, that's going to be really funny. And then they say something on my knee and it gets a big laugh for everyone. And you think, oh, dear you know, now that's an inexplicable laugh, which only makes sense if you were there. And I actually thought it was funny, it was one line on bad move when we were recording it, which of course is single camera.

And I remember thinking, now that's a case in point for me of where a studio audience would have laughed and it would have annoyed me as a viewer. And it's interesting because it's in the first episode where Philip Jackson's character, the dad, first arrives and he announces himself on the door and says, oh, we'll run, but you know what your landline is like, more crackling than a Sunday roast. Now that would have got that, it's only got that time 300 from a studio audience, we're going to put her like that. But of course in reality, it's not meant to be a funny line, it's meant to be a character line, which shows he thinks he's funny and witty and he's done a line, which is probably not his anyway.

And so you're actually meant to sort of unlock for it and go, oh yeah, yeah, here he is, Mr. No, all dad. And yet I don't know how you could ever say to the studio and say, no, I don't want you to laugh at that line, I don't want you to laugh at that. And it is a bit of a problem.

And I wonder, you know, the Americans seem to be able to do it. I don't know if they do a different sound bounce or a different, but the laugh that does seem to be less intrusive. Well, again, I don't think of the good Americans that went to think about American shows where we're gone. Oh my goodness.

Oh, there are shows, other than Frisigio and friends, I don't know. Yes, they were quite a way. But I wonder if sometimes you hear that they record them sort of like, you know, twice over and they treat the audience as cattle fodder. I wonder if the audience are so depressed that they don't laugh unless he's really funny or less.

I think they just, you know, having You have to sit through recently, thanks to my daughter, for some truly, truly awful American-steen sitcoms. They're just kind of up for it a bit more, I think. And it's as much about the cheerleader mentality, I think there's anything else. Anytime anyone comes into the room, they get cheerleader.

Every single time, every new character. You're watching a scene and five people have come into this. I tell them fifth person goes, oh my God, say, what's going on here? And there's definitely something that is not about, we're here because we're big comedy fans.

There's definitely some American, I don't want to be racist. I don't like it. I do agree with the thing. I think there is a snobbishness.

I think the sort of things that Ben Arton was saying in his lecture, it is true that a studio audience sitcom seems to be a lot less welcome. My critics are definitely in this new world of Twitter. That is the thing that people jump on and hate with a passion. Whereas if it's kind of cool and edgy, and maybe isn't that funny, but it's dark, and then it's given more time and it's not well, we'll see how this goes.

Whereas that thing, if you say, this is definitely meant to be funny, here it is, and here's a laugh, and the audience is laughing, and the critics think, I don't think this is funny, then there's so much quicker to jump on it. And that's not really fair because, you know, obviously there is a demand for things. You know, Mrs. Brown's voice, I'm not a fan of it, other than the fact that it gets big viewing figures, and I'm a fan of comedy, it's getting big viewing figures, because it reminds people if you get it right, then, there is an audience.

I also do think that it would be foolish just to dismiss it out of hand and think, oh, that's right, it's because there's a lot of other people who tried to do that and didn't succeed, so he's clearly has something right here. Hard to make. Well, if you look at the last few successes, I mean, upstart pro, as we say, it's a very sort of stylized theatrical thing. So that allows an audience, that allows you the rhythms of the Shakespearean, subject-bearing poetry of the script.

Then you've got Miranda, Mrs. Brown's voice, not going out. They're all basically white to perform a fronted, you know, talking to camera, not so much, not going out, but you know, Lee Mack is just a figure that everybody likes to watch on TV. So that seems to be, if you want to make an audience sitcom now, you have to be making it, you know, that there has to be a very strong performance element, either in the plot itself or in the fact of who is the main person in that.

Yeah, yeah. So it feels like you have to think of some gimical device so you can get away with it rather than just saying, no, no, this sort of thing would work better in front of the studio audience. And that seems a shame to me, because it's not as if the studio audience is a throwback, because the, from some weeks, the biggest sitcom on TV, amazingly, is Big Bang Theory, which is a new show being still made and it's incredibly popular. So it's not as if kids are watching studio sitcoms going, why is this, why can I hear a lot of the front of it?

Yeah, it's largely so. The show that is the most popular comedy show on BBC, about 40 weeks every year, that's all. It's still wins, BBC two, every week, every week. So that's interesting to talk about moving the sitcom stuff, but we get to talk about your work on panel games and that kind of thing.

I wonder if we've got a few questions haven't we? From our Facebook, Facebook, like us. Do any of those relate to? Well, actually, we might as well, because there's still quite a lot about Badmoo.

And for instance, so if you follow us on Facebook, for example, if you look up to see on Facebook, you can be part of this kind of discussion in the future, even more so if you follow up, if you're a Patreon subscriber, but maybe I'll talk about that in a moment. So, yeah, so a question to, I'll get all the questions for you anyway, about Badmoo and you can sort of composite I suppose. Michael Lindwood says, don't mention the football, so I won't. That's a bit of a reference.

It's part of my accent and the Brown Scott. Or is that an embarrassed Scott? Griff Phillips, you've sort of answered this to some extent, where he said, did they know Badmoo was planned for an 8pm time slot, if so, how did that affect the writing? Paul Lamb asks, when do you decide you've written enough?

Rewrites, which made me laugh a lot because I'm having written with Peter Lott, I know Pete likes a rewrite. They're even during the editing process. John Hamilton says, when working with Jack Dee, who types and who looks out the window? Great, OK, well to answer them in order, the first one about the APM, it was interesting actually because, and I think this is very relevant, we didn't intend it to be pre-water shed.

We just wrote something that Jack and I liked and made us laugh, and we then, when there was a read through a table read and a foot for ITV with the cast, and afterwards they said, ooh, take out about half a dozen swear words, and that could be pre-water shed. And we went, ooh, and brought it. You know, we went, we went, we went, we went, we went, oh, that's interesting, yeah, OK. Why not?

No, don't look at Jack's at all. Level in was, funnily enough, Level in never had the F word in, there's something where, you know, I like the thick of it, it's great, it's an art form, but I also think it's the thing that once you start doing that, in a normal comedy when you're doing everything this, and it's kind of funny so you have to do it again, whereas if you never do it, it's like that. So we didn't mind that, and so we actually then said, yeah, OK, let's go for it, pre-water shed. So I think we're aware when we were writing it, that obviously you couldn't go into sort of subject and that's where anything that was not suitable for pre-water shed.

But other than that, the only thing I think we would say that we in any way let it affect our writing was we were aware of the need maybe to have slightly bigger events happen, even though I like to think and hope that the reactions of the characters of the big events were naturalistic. But actually, it's just a question which is sort of relevant to that as well, which is from a head writer. He said, how did the premise and story lines develop as a result of that? Yeah, exactly, well that was, so, so, so, but as I say that, so Jack and I, you know, the idea of some people, because you shouldn't pay too much attention to what people say on Twitter, but lots of people, but one of the things I love is that the lead bluens now officially become the funniest sitcom ever, the most classic sitcom in order to use it as a stick to beat about a move with, how got that people who wrote the classic lead balloon think they swiss by the end?

It's award winning. Yes, there is a part of you that thinks, well, do you know what, you should really think about that because we do think it's funny. And that might just be something that we're seeing that you're missing, it may not, but I do think that there's an assumption from some people that, oh, Jack and Pete knew they were writing inter-clock ITV, so they just couldn't care less. Oh, anything, just make fun of the audience and, you know, yeah, yeah, because that's how you work in terms of this, isn't it?

You know, we won't bother. Let's patronise them. And there was not a bit of that. I say that we stand by everything that we wrote.

We wrote it for ourselves. We like what we wrote, and I'm very proud what we wrote. And I think if you look hard enough and carefully, I think you'll find a lot of the things that were in lead balloon are also in bad move in terms of plotting a character and a general kind of depressed attitude. Yeah, there's only that.

I'm kind of quite pleased that we managed to get formally in people watching that. But so that's what the premise and how that came. That was very much Jack was the one who we were thinking of ideas between us. And Jack said at one point, well, what about just moving to the country?

And actually, weirdly, we've been thinking about, how about if Jack saw me or Jack's character suddenly found himself inheriting a business, and he had to run a business, and he didn't really know anything about it, and then we were sort of saying, well, what could it be? Maybe it's a sort of rental, cottage rental place out of the country or something. And then Jack just said, well, what about just they moved to the country and they hate it? And I thought, yeah, well, that's a really good one.

Because Jack has genuinely watched lots of escape to the country. And his wife keeps following for it and going, Jack, we should really go to the country. And they did at one point. They did actually make a move to, like, we're going to move out from London.

We're actually going to move down there. And they hated it. They absolutely hated it. And thought, oh, no, what have we done?

And luckily, they hadn't actually sold all their places in London, so they did a quick about turn. And that was the end of it. But Jack just thought, what about moving to the country? And then one of the first decisions we made was it shouldn't be London as moving to the West country, which would be the obvious thing.

Because there's a bit of a danger then that it becomes sort of partial Londoners and sort of yoke calls. And we really didn't want that. Jack always describes it as town, house, and country, now. So it's just some people find the country right for them, some of them find the town right for them.

And that's why we made it that they've been living in Leeds before, and that Nikki, which is played by Kerry Goldman, that she came from Leeds. And Jack had met her at the second marriage, which often is on these escape to the country things. So the second marriage, they've been living happily in Leeds. Not quite happily, because they thought what they really needed to do was to move to a beautiful place in the countryside, which is remote.

And only when they get there and live there, and they think, but we can't just find out for a curry. Oh, no, no, we can't get this. We can't get that in the houses, flooding and what have you. But I think, actually, Santa was just some something else described as Jack being grumpy in the countryside, which is kind of like the best.

So you know, it's an absolutely going on. Things were upsetting. And that's what we had to see. So what else was the, who types, pretty much it's I type, and Jack is the Windows there, combination.

And don't do the sign for the rewrites. The rewrites, well, as I know, yes, I am a big fan of rewriting. I completely agree with that thing that the art of writing is rewriting. And they also think that the art of writing is writing anything first.

That's my one tip. If anyone asks about how do I write it, say, just write it. If you think that you've got an idea, then instead of just having it in your head, get it on paper or on screen, and then you've got something to look at, you can go, oh well, and you can show music, what do you think? And then you'll learn something, and then you can go and do another draft, or you can even go, actually, that idea doesn't work, and it'd be easier to write something else.

But if you don't actually write it, you won't have anything to rewrite or to learn from. But then, yes, in terms of the writing process, we'll write it, and then we'll definitely do a second draft and a third draft. Then there's a table read, and at that, you can find certain things that aren't particularly working. And then even then, we, again, we did this in their balloon, and we had the luxury of doing it on bad move.

We did have rehearsals with the actors when you get the actors in. And just, you know, rehearsal when it seems, goes through it. It really does, it really does, when you're out there. You just sort of think we've done this, we know what we're going.

And even occasionally, because I was always on set, I must admit, I really, really practically insist on being on set, because then you're just there. And there's a couple of times when you can just go, oh, do you remember in rehearsal? You did it that way. And they go, oh, yeah, I did.

You've done it before, so you're not trying to articulate it. And also, there's always an unexpected problem on the day. That's about what you expected. Oh, you have to be inside because it's now raining.

It's like, we now need a line to acknowledge that. You're the writer, aren't there? Then they'll come up with one. And it's not so much that, because they can't up when they're idiots, so it'll be rubbish.

It's not a job to go up, basically. And so they, you know, the writer needs it. It was stupid enough to set a party scene where the whole thing was, gosh, what do you know? It's completely sunny.

And what do you know? In Yorkshire, it may be. It wasn't completely sunny. So it was exactly that.

Let's get all references to the weather. We'll go and tell this. We'll have that scene. And so, yes, you are the user.

In terms of just a quick one, who writes these days out the window, there's an extension which I was obviously a power imbalance with regard to, which I'm sure is, having a work with Miranda and Milton Jones. There's an element of, it's your show, it's your face. And if you don't want to say the line, then you're not going to say it. And I can't make you say it.

So there's an extension which they sort of have to cast in vote. Well, this is the extraordinary thing about Jack, is he has such a lack of ego that he, honestly, I would say, is a genuine 50-50 thing, which is quite extraordinary. And it's not the case when we're working on his standup. When we're working on his standup, he types.

And myself and Martin and another writer come in for the old session. And you often say, like, you know, I hear laughing, but I don't hear any time. So that's great. Not going in though, is it?

No, OK, OK, OK. He does really well. But honestly, I can't tell that. So with the sitcom, I think as Jack and I work together, we really do trust each other.

But also Jack annoyingly is an extraordinarily good writer. He really is a writer. He is, some people think, oh, you probably write it all in most of it, and he just puts his name to it. No, it is 50-50.

And he's a really, really good writer in his own core. But the thing is, he doesn't put right by that. Just occasionally, in a level of just occasionally, when I guess Leblin was even more about him, because I think this sitcom is very much about Steve Annicki. It's a couple of movies.

And a version of it's comedian in the level of just like that. So it was a less successful version, Jack. So it was nearer to his experience. And just occasionally, there would be things where, if we were trying to think of, OK, what's the basic idea for these episodes, we've got a new series, what we do?

And there's somewhere I think, I really like that. I just think, I don't see Jack's eyes lighting up. I just go, there's no point really. He's in food by this one.

And I like it as well. Let's go there. But in terms of the actual day-to-day writing, I think I never get the sense of Jack pulling rank. It's a genuinely equal partnership.

And I'm going to be messing with that. It's incredible. I don't know, I presume you probably have work with people for whom that has been a big more of an issue. And you've got a second half of a girl with it?

Yes. I mean, certainly when you sort of, I mean, there are jobs where you're servicing someone, where it's like on Mark Seals in Town, the radio thing, which I write additional material. And it isn't a very definition of additional material, because Mark does all the hard work, all the research reads, all the books goes and visits the place, then does the first draft of the script. And I literally, it's almost a script editing job of looking through it and thinking, oh, I didn't quite understand that.

Would that be better here? And a few places where it's like, either there's a gag missing, so we try and think of one between us, or there could be a better gag there. But it's absolutely totally Mark's voice. Mark's show.

And there's really, you know, there's, and then all the way around panel shows, even more so Mark, Mark, Mark, you just have a lovely face on BuzzCops, where occasionally when I like to stand my ground, that's a really good joke Mark. So really good joke you're doing. You just go, get your own pop quiz. That's a lovely way of going, listen, pal.

You may think so. Are you going to say it? You know, that's fair enough. You're breaking your pop quiz.

I don't know if you find this, but generally, I think the more, the bigger and more successful, by and large, with the panel shows where there's always a good like, have I got a news where it's a well known person, by and large, the more successful and the more kind of secure person. Tends, they're slightly easier. It is than maybe somebody who's not quite so secure, somebody who's newly a star or something, or is on the way up. And my limited experience of that was that they were the more difficult people.

Yeah, they don't really know who they are. And they didn't quite know in a way, because the future of working with Milton, he really knows what works for him. And so occasionally, I'll, you know, if I'm writing up a scene or something, and then I notice that on the next draft, a joke is missing. I'll go, I might just go, oh, I thought there was a joke here about something.

Maybe because I think it was a different scene, I can't remember, because I'd read it or something. And Milton might just go, yeah, it didn't really quite. And I go, I mean, what's the price? I'm just going, oh, because it's sort of quite a similar construction to this other joke that we've done that works really well.

And he's just like, yeah, I know. Yeah. And sometimes the joke that we sort of want to go on to the talk back and just go, say the joke. You know what I mean?

It's back to it. And then what I respect is the reason that they've got their own show, is they know what works for them. And you want to respect that and order it and work with it, rather than just thinking that you know better and actually, you know, you probably don't. Exactly.

I always say that my own experience as a failed stand-up actually helps me as a writer in two ways. First of all, it really, really taught me the danger of saying something that you think is funny, but isn't. It has a real consequence. When you're on stage and you go and you tell a joke and there is no laughter, it's a terrible, terrible feeling.

And I always think when you're writing something, even if it doesn't have an audience, you should remember that. Oh, we thought that was funny. And that's a bad thing. So you should question yourself very harshly and say, is that really funny?

I really get an actual laugh from people, or is it just half funny? Will it do? And that's the thing. And the other thing is that because I tried and failed, this is in the early 80s around the time when I first met Dave, not just as the three liars.

I failed as the one Shars and whatever. I was on my own. But the frustrating thing was I did some good gigs and it would do the same set the next time that it would fail. And so I didn't have those skills, those performance skills, that good stand-ups do.

And therefore, when I see them getting laughs, instead of being jealous, I think, oh, good. Because I just proved that joke up. They have them. So they have that skill.

And I don't. There's another jealousy. There's not a sort of, oh, I wish I was trying to write myself into parts, but I'm like really happy being a writer. And when I first went from stand-up to weekending, I thought, I seem to be able to do this naturally well, in a way.

And also to be objective about it, where I couldn't be with comedy, I'm sort of like, a stand-up. I'm like, oh, no, why? This is all a personal agony. Whereas if a producer didn't mind my jokes on weekends, I think, oh, that's interesting.

I wonder if they're right or I am. And I'd go away and I'd think. But it never felt personally just like an intellectual exercising. Is this funny?

Are they right? Could I learn something? It's interesting because I had the sort of reverse problem to that because I found I did quite a lot of work on a lot of panel shows over a period of years. And it took me quite a long time to not feel bad when I'd say something, which I'd sort of, and the room would sit in silence, as I said this day.

I would think, if I did that on stage, I might get a lot. Or if you didn't get a lot of I'd be able to deal with it, maybe I could try it again and change a word or something and get a lot. And there is definitely something missing in this kind of writer versus writer-performer thing. When you're writing for a show and there is a performer there, even if you have performing abilities, you have to park the performer out of the room.

You have to just be the writer when you're in there. Reminds of how people say, when I go and do the Shake With a Mugs and tell, and I write it by Martin Luther, and I go and see it every eight or ten shows on the tour when it's near my house roughly. And I laugh when I'm watching it. And once you meet with me, you know, I'm the writer, and I go, laugh with you by the way, don't.

And actually, the bits are not laughing at the way they're doing it. They're sort of a better way of doing it than I thought, or I just find the way they do that line really funny. The joke's fine, but it's actually enjoying other people's gifts. I think it's really important.

And it does take a long time to tune into that. You want to take into a bit more about growing up and knowing who you are to some extent. But it is hard. It's hard to take a bit about 35 years, but I'm just not there.

Well done. Yeah. One thing I did want to ask, it seems like a small point. It does, you know, titles, bad mood, leg balloon.

You do, I'm guessing that this is Jack, not you. It's both of us. And that's definitely bringing it on. I must admit, I did love someone who actually on the social media went bad move.

Anyone's thought they already? And I thought, listen, mate, we not only wrote leg balloon, but the first episode of ever of leg balloon was called Rubbish. Do you think, do you not thought they already have you thinking that we saw how loose the bad mood could be? Just it very much fits Jack's downbeat, you know, shit will happen to the personality.

So I like that. I mean, I love leg ballooners, the title and the great bad move. I thought, well, funnily enough, actually bad move had a working title for a long time, which would have been very confusing. It was wrong.

And that was escape from the country. That was what it was. And it was kind of like, yeah, it sort of says what you're trying to do, which is you've dumped the country and now you hate it and you've watched the property shows. But also everyone would have thought it was a property show.

So it was an early stage, ITV, it's an audience, researching it. You're not calling it. I was going ahead, you're gonna think of a title, but I think of a title. I love this is about tragic assist in poverty history.

We're looking at others by thinking anything, just brainstorming, saying the thing and I went and went, hmm, good move. And Jack went, well, bad move. Yeah, I found that title that doesn't have to be said, but was sarcastic in flexion so it was getting sense. But it was just I thought, I want an idiot to think of good move and leave him to tap in.

Bad move. Okay, I'll take that. I'm taking a sis. So I wanted to talk a little bit about gag writing really because it it seems that there's a very small number of people who actually do make a living out of gag writing, I mean minuscule number isn't it, it's barely into double figures and do you think it is something that you can learn or that can be taught?

I would have imagined it is. I mean I'm sort of feeling out of the loop to a certain extent with the gag writing now because the only one I still do is having a lot of news for you, there was a time when I did think it's all over, never mind the bus cocks and I've got news for you and so I'm not really aware of how big a pool of people there are but to me it does seem almost cynically like an exercise. I sometimes say it's almost like completing a crossword, that's news story A, comedy stereotype B equals gag C and you can occasionally, you do have people on totally separate shows come up with exactly the same gag and you think yeah that's not plagiarism, that's the gag, it's like the answer to a puzzle, it's an algebra equation and that's at the most cynical, now of course what is brilliant is when whoever it is in the room suddenly doesn't do that at all and says something completely there, fear where you go oh wow and that's always the funniest gag that's the middle, but I always think on and off day you can fall back on all those years of training go okay what's the one that's the things that people laugh about, about that person, what has it pertained to this particular thing and so I'm surprised that there is a small pool if that's true because it does seem to me that there is a kind of process to it, I think probably easier if I was a ball of everyone's set as you know staff if you want to write a sitcom start off writing one-liners or small sketches and then build up because the principles are the same even within a one-liner we do spend a lot of time having got news for you honing the actual phrasing of the one-liner to you know that although with those words in that order it would get a really big laugh as opposed to a slightly big laugh and I think that's definitely the same as a sitcom but so yeah I mean I think I think one-liners are something that people should practice but people do get it on Twitter people out there sadly is a problem I think for the topical shows that out there on Twitter there are you know the pool of people up and down the country you know there has to be 10,000 people who can write the old good gag and everyone's got any new story breaks there's 20 good gats on there where you go yeah actually they're all perfectly certain some gags whether the same person could do them week after week after week go but um yes I've got a question from Maxine Jones from the Patreon site, Patreon which James mentioned earlier it's the website you can you can become a sitcom geeks angel you can invest in us find out more go to the Patreon website and that's and I can sit com geeks on your find out all that Maxine Jones says I notice that all the writers on the vagueravirus video are male. The vast majority are there are some genetic thing?

I don't think so is it Christine Rose she writes for having got news for you sometimes I'm sure it's a sera writer, a sera, well all I can say is on newsoids which I wrote for the puppet sketch show there were a lot of female writers there can be Hutchison Crouch, Sarah Morgan, Breton Cuddles, right now there are more female writers coming pretty bad yeah it is interesting that somehow one of my new's is still a little bit male isn't it? Yeah I think it is and that's that's sad I think certainly I don't employ the writers and I very much enjoy it I did genuinely think it was a breath of fresh air on newsoids to be sometimes actually in the minority as a man and he just had a different some news stories you would just have a different perspective on it which I'm not saying every man thinks one way and every woman thinks one way but there was certain sketches where I think one of the women writers thought something I thought that's not an angle I would ever fall off but your life experience is different and so you do and that's very funny yeah but um so yeah that's there's no reason no genetically-wired reason not like not like Scotland losing to Slovenia which according to Gordon Stratton was genetics there's no reason that there would be a part of our own news video. At that point we didn't gather in so long we realized we had to give up the room in which we were recording kindly provided by PBG management our thanks go to the delightful and passionate pizza player and you can read an interview with him on my blog at sitcomgeekatplot.com that I did a few years ago I'll be able to link up to that on our Facebook page to find us on Facebook and also our new podcast Twitter handle at sitcomgeeks so I do please consider giving in to help fund the show via patreon there are a few levels where you can get stuck in including secret to subscriber only podcasts and more besides so have a look at that but in the meantime thank you for listening and speak to you again next time.