Episode 98 - Neil Forsyth

Hello and welcome to Sitcom Geek's I'm James Kerry and as we get closer towards Christmas our thoughts begin to turn to the secret texts which if you're a comedy writer are the stories around Morgan and Wise who essentially were christmas for a large part of the 1970s and beyond for lots of people in the UK. In the summer at the Craft of Comedy Festival in Clannadano I spoke to Neil Forsyth about his TV special Eric Ernie and me about the role of comedy writer Eddie Brayman who arguably turned Morgan and Wise from Stars into Super Stars. Here we go. So it'd be worth just asking first how did this project come about?

So this is a comedy drama but I would say comedy about Eddie Brayman sort of kind of really helping Eric and Ernie out of a bit of a hole if he was taking them on to the next level. How did this come about? Did you come up with the idea? Were you approached or right it?

How did it work? No it came about through my usual festive period part of the festive period where I started to panic and think I've not got enough ideas to get me through the next year. At which point I usually start spending huge amount of Wikipedia and ordering a huge amount of second hand books from Amazon. One of them was Eddie Brayman's memoir so it was the book I wrote which I greatly recommend it.

It's just very funny. It was obviously very funny but in less obvious ways than that Eddie would often just describe things that were so obviously seen. Even the first time he met Eric and Ernie that would be a four page scene that he would just describe in the book in this very visual manner and very funny manner. And there were moments like that throughout it and I thought what an interesting story on its own rights and what a pragmatic sense, a useful way to look at Morgan and Wise and even more dramatically I'm sure that they'd be interested in obviously having all the material.

So it was Eddie's entire memoirs but the kind of section that I got the natural parameters where he was working on Wise Years. He got brought in in 1969 when Erika had his first heart attack and during his convalescence they lost the original writers. It was a green move door and it didn't look like it would potentially work again and it was certainly a serious question Mark Morgan continuing and then he got better and Bill Cotton at BBC put them together with Eddie and it's from there to the 1978 Christmas show that kind of famous last one So when were you so you had this idea what did you do? You wrote a treatment you wrote a thing you found somebody how did that work?

Yes I went to Ben Farrell producer in January and I was just reading the book on the train on the way in and chatting to my friend and he'd read it for you previously and we both sort of immediately thought well this was a really interesting way to look at Mark and Wise and story and set it again steady breathing within the comedy world to be very famous but it was a general public you know a lot of the public frankly wouldn't think they had a writer at all let alone be able to name him. So we just both immediately thought that there was something in this picture to the BBC the commissioner treatment. So when were you pitching out the BBC? Was it at a time when I'd seem to remember relatively recently they said we specifically don't want any comedies or comedy dramas about comedians or because they did quite a few and I'm a pitching one about Benny Hill who I think would be very interested because he was a very strange man.

I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are. Not the BBC are very likely to be doing that. So I pitched one and I remember thinking oh they're not doing those now and then I heard they were and I heard they weren't and actually ultimately they had to do it if they want to do it.

I think the last one they did was I don't know was it the Hachat one maybe I can't remember that. Yeah just on Dave so that was it that was in in in process already but this wasn't I don't think this was seen as necessarily an extension of that strand I think because originally this was going to be BBC one as I think it was a very separate thing and it was much more about building it into the Christmas programming than an extension of those biobics and then we slipped from one to four along the way so I think. Why? Why was it the shooting on BBC one?

It's a huge star. It's a really funny show about really famous people played by really good comedy actors. I wouldn't entirely disagree with you but I have to say I think that being on BBC four actually lets me to the best version of the show but I'm honest I think editorial it's a light of touch I think you don't have to do certain things which you might have to do on BBC one. I think casting you've probably got a little bit more leeway and I think for me as the writer what was interesting was I wrote the first draft when it was going to be on BBC one.

And then we got the news, it's looking positive but it's going to be for it and there's obviously quite some of them budgetary and resulted in that. I saw the measurements. Yeah well it wouldn't be creating the preference here but I honestly think creatively it was really useful it was a really nice pressure to have for me because I just took the script and stripped out any of their bells and whistles and the first draft I did have little snatches of recreated some of the famous things which was stupid really because I mean why would you try and recreate them? You're only going to do a worse job and you're going to spend three days on the set everyone sat on a die pad just trying to work out reference arms around things.

So I mentioned to cut all that stuff and it definitely made it better and it became much more stripped back and it was much more about dressing rooms and corridors. It just felt focused. Exactly. It's more of a character stuff.

Brilliant. So roughly how long was this process taking? Very quick for TV. I mean it was last January I met Ben.

I got a treatment commission. The treatment I because I hadn't written drama before in terms of scripts. I rather than do a traditional treatment thing I just took that money and wrote a fool out of the hour. So a proper big sort of template I got like so I wanted to show that I saw this as a drama and I could hopefully do it as a drama and I just show what the story was.

So there was lines in the area but it wasn't a funny document. It was just showing that this was much more than just me creating that movement. So did that and then I got a strict mission and then it got to say what the first draft when it was supposed to be one and then it moved to be before a bit stayed on the track. Was it always 16 minutes?

It felt like it could have gone longer. It felt like it could have easily been 75. Yeah it's definitely a challenge but you know again maybe not a bad challenge to have to condense it. I mean it's a long old script you know and you know I watched a few of them.

They probably done a bit of a dozen of them now and traditionally historically it would have been 90 minutes. That's just what that sort was and then budget pressures and things. I don't know a couple of them I thought were going to be 90 minutes. I thought you could have probably taken it a little bit and pieced up.

Yeah interesting. What are we going to click? Yes that would be fun wouldn't it? So the first one I thought I showed a clip with a writing conference that tried to do the clips on more about the writing and the first one is that kind of formative period where he was working with Mark and Wise.

He was trying to kind of hammer their voice. Before Eddie they were obviously successful and they had the ITV show and so on but it was a much more traditional sort of two-hand erring was very much the straight man didn't have much to do and it was just Eddie just trying to find that voice trying to find the chemistry between them. The biggest thing was he was trying to get the chemistry he saw from them off-screen just in social situations into their kind of relationship on-screen and how they don't actually work within them. So this is him sort of working out.

All you've missed is them being put together working wisely on the right so Eddie falling out with Ken Dodds if you can believe it over money. It's been recorded so much. Yeah. Man of the people.

So being available and coming together so that's some percentage work for the first time. There are so many things to talk about there aren't there. I mean firstly well I'd love to firstly bring in the reaction to a line as interesting and funny often in the line itself you know but firstly what is to what extent did that happen and to what extent did you feel bound to really tell the truth and what about the actual kind of compressing of information and telling the story in a way that has the rhythm of a comedy and what kind of stuff. I think just as long as you're dealing with the essence of truth which we definitely wear there and talk specifically about that realization that Eric can knock him at no one else.

And I think that that was definitely a switch that Eddie made in the writing and a conversation that three of them had with John Adams the producer. So I think layering that I just thought it's a little way to layering that on and it's asking so much to the actors the same sketch and playing that realization in the middle and really it's a testament to the acting that that could have gone horribly wrong. That's even if the second version was equally equally as far as the first thing I lose the whole effect of it but just seeing that warmth start to install itself and see that protectiveness from Eric and it's very well documented that was definitely an element that I didn't. So as you were to what extent were you given the blessing of the Brayman family and all that kind of stuff in terms of.

Very significantly and by the demands really of the BBC we couldn't really have gone forward if we didn't have the premium support. So it was pretty it was a bit of a high wire act really because didn't really want to go too early just with this slightly nebulous thing of wanting to look at Eddie's life because I think it's easy for people then to think of the worst-case scenario so I thought well let's go with the script Ben and I agreed so I wrote the script and then Ben and I and she which she's got it she can't be here she just lives long at Pithwelly. It's only about half an hour we were standing in so we went up with the script Ben spoke to a full hands spooker at all so she knew what Dean you were coming and came up gave her the script and then went for a two-hour walk Ben and I along the beach in Pithwelly and it's pretty nerve-wracking because it's a sort of yes no really and it was very similar long sandy beach like that and we just gonna walk down and the wind growing increasingly delirious remember dear this lovely house with a big balcony at the top over looking at the beach and I was I kept imagining we turned around and she'd just be systematically ripping the page. Peejay tied the script scattering them over the beach from the spark we could just head home but she we went back at two hours and and she said I like it I've got some thoughts and you know that's about it's good to be good to fall down.

It's really good. But we're brilliant after that and the Briebenson Dean and her daughters and the the reds each draft and and chipped in a lot of a lot of material which I then worked in just that colour and kind of validity to the family life and then. Yeah um oh man my brain is locked down to there with questions about about all the stuff I mean because that's one thing I think the show not only does well in terms of you know it shows us how a writer can make something good great in terms of like you know more than white and perfectly serviceable career and they could have been cannonball yes who were good yeah but actually they were great you know and it's a writer really who who unlocked that magic. What sort of lessons as you were reading about Brieben and what writing can do were you changed as a writer by by what you were writing other than I've got to get this done by then second enemy in terms of drama.

I think the biggest thing that he did was was to put in the relationship between them and I think that it's recognizing that with the two characters the three things you should be thinking about is the individual characters and then the relationship and he probably elevated the relationship part of their show I'd say and that's kind of what made the difference I think for them but I thought it was it was really interesting I mean I think I found Eddie's story heroic you know in lots of ways but I think what I find particularly heroic about it was he heated writing Edie Brieben likes I think I'm quite fortunate that I'm a writer quite enjoyed writing largely he heated it and then he got to write for his favorite television show in the world and he hated it even more at that point because then he felt this enormous pressure on top of just not liking writer you know so so and then the pressure went even higher when basically it was you could ruin Britain's Christmas if this shows that. Yeah it was people were judging the Christmas by how much they enjoyed the show and I would tell him that from about me yeah you know so he was uh he definitely had the most successful got the more pressure they got he also just physically did a huge amount of work he you know they did have other writers by trying John John can in lots of others but Eddie did the vast amount of the heavy lifting and it was you know these were long shores I mean there were 50 minutes I think yeah the show was and and sketch writing so you know you're all writing very significantly so the volume of work he was doing and as you look back on those Christmas specials because recently they they get so chopped up and kind of and then sort of served up in clip shows and stuff because they've been clip showed to death sometimes if you see an original you know 1974 Christmas special something you see this amazing show stopping sketch and you realize that wasn't even the show stuff but there was another thing. It's so much there and long I mean long and you do they do feel long I mean it's that's just a sort of generational thing in terms of comedy and writing with peace because somebody's got a lot of ear and I mean it's a well it's like I mean I'll be talking in fact possibly in this room the other day with Haley McKenzie yesterday about the four candles two running skits yeah do you know how long that's it so it's about seven minutes yeah well that's short from what I mean there's some of my voice gets yeah there's one to a bag and they're very much in keeping with the show and the voices and yeah I mean now that show would be a brutally kind of trimmed out necessarily for the better. No well no that is true um it was only were there any bits in the research as you were going through and reading the book and then talking to the family that really did surprise you that maybe changed your view of of that stuff or was it a fairly straightforward voyage of discovery or what I find interesting was how little has actually changed and how to be made you know that the seguru show in a minute you know he was getting driven by notes you know he was up to the wire for getting things made there was and I got all the access to the kind of archive at the BBC and I got not only the original scripts but the kind of schedule of the day and producers know what some things all this stuff exists somewhere doesn't it I mean they've liked episodes of dad's army but they kept the paperwork.

Oh yeah I mean it's classic BBC isn't it? Oh no we reused the cassette the videos. I'm in safe. That's what we're going to do but it was uh yeah but no I think he was um he was just very contemporary story really.

Well let's look at another clip and there were a few more questions and maybe a few questions and we've got time we'll do the third clip as well but I'm sure people have got that question. So what's the second clip? Let's show the second one which is he's not as far as preeked on and he's coming he's come back and one of the things with Eddie when he came back was again it was the sheer volume of the work and Ammons left and Ernest Maxine came in and what Maxine really pushed was the big musical numbers and that was um you know an absolutely delightful Eddie because it was less that he had to write so we'll show the arrival of Maxine and how that kind of shifted thing through to the second well the second sort of break then. Second break down.

I don't think I've ever seen better writing about writing um it's because writing is almost because the only time you ever see a writer for some sort of writing in a screenplay about writing they're always at a time writer and then there's going really well and there's a great race paper and so that vehicle of the looking at the TV drawn on the wall is that that's a brain. How did you thank you very much and it's an Eddie's book so I wish I could take I wish I could take a lot more credit than I had but he drew a TV on the wall of his office when he was really stuck and he said he particularly that you know the Augie sketch with the big huge puppet over his nice puppet um he said he got that from from that thing so again that was something where you know you read a spook and you think that's just clearly clearly a scene and um and I had it and again I had to give away a little bit more credit again unfortunately because I had it in the script a couple of times and it was been filed with the producers said you should just use that yeah across the hall because as you said it's a way to get out of just writer but right of a tape right over yeah so thank you very much it was great yeah it's great but also what's great so a couple of things I mean one is the sort of the play-like quality especially of the eric and only scene where they're having an argument come back to that and say um the question before that um is oh man I can't there's so many questions well one is you know I think writers do feel that his breakdown does is a heightened version of what writers do feel yes and I watched so I watched that when it came out I watched it with my wife and my wife watched it and just sort of just that oh right yeah that's what it's like being married to a writer you know she really did feel that um I mean exactly do you identify much with that experience as well you mean you sort of were able to pull that in yeah of course I mean you know it had lots and lots of developments and some better than others definitely some where you know you kind of send off the script initially feel nauseous about the next conversation you're gonna have to have multiple occasions and uh but it was uh it was a it was a kind of condensing of you know that Johnny had he went on in the journey a lot of writers go on and obviously I say I say I say hi to reality I mean the first breakdown was that we did this Dan Zephyrd so did a beautiful montage where it was John Ammons calling um the boys just feel that's how he said that he said it was just something with sync but he had this he was always a Liverpool he'd get the full coffee mind then it would be hello Eddie and the boys just feel and then he would just know that it was uh a long call and he'd be back to the beginning so we know we know we know we know living well there is an email version of that where you know you know you know that's a voice just feel well you just scan it the size of the email before you read any of it yes it's right or just got an attachment that we get to the yeah yeah no no I think you know the breakdown thing was obviously something in writing it you have to be very careful and obviously talk to the family about it I think it was really exhaustion I think but um both in terms of that and actually the Eric and Ernie kind of arguments scene yeah the challenges there where you know there needs to be some conflict in the show and there's no baddies there's no natural baddies the baddies were all to succeed yeah you know they're all they're all very nice blokes and the baddies were sort of the pressure really yeah and it was how to show that while making sure you weren't you know you still had that kind of essence of truth and what I battled it against was the sort of uh first of all Eric and Ernie had a sort of rule that they never ever taught negatively or ever argued in front of other people ever right so you know you didn't have these other people's thoughts about face with it's talking about some big kind of argument and also a generational thing that just wasn't really done in terms of their memoirs at the time their contemporary memoirs they weren't you know it wasn't sort of gossipy or anything of that it was a sort of celebration of the journey yes it wasn't the record yeah so but the one thing sort of cross referencing little scraps that time where Eric and Ernie tried and not entirely feel but sort of feel to break America it was clearly an area of kind of tension Ernie was always driven by Hollywood I think when it speaks was still still heading for Hollywood to talk about it but and whereas Eric was very much just British arguably English yeah comedian and end of the period yeah and despite a season of black book no no in a celebratory that's what you aimed for and that's what you love doing and then and then we're in Ernie's booth the one sentence it has any element of tension he talks about America and then at any just says it's the one time I grew a little impatient with Eric and that's it and the power of that sentence in such a relentlessly positive booth it's like god the subtext of that yeah that's right so that yeah extrapolate to plan. Hope you're enjoying this interview with Neil we're very grateful to him and to Steve Doherty who runs the craft of comedy conference and has allowed us to make the session available to those who are unable to make it to sunny, flanded, know in North Wales where this conference takes place do get along next year if you can it's really quite something of course patreon subscribers have had access to this interview for some time and enjoy lots of other bonus content including the prospect of a forthcoming series Dave and I are doing in which we create a sitcom before your very years in what we're calling sitcom super to nuts we also do patreon only podcasts including ones about the first 10 pages of your script if you want to make use of that you can send us the first 10 pages of your script if you're a patreon subscriber we'll have a look at it and do a little podcast for just for patreon only subscribers have a good opportunity on page for more information and you can find us on twitter at sitcomgeeks and also on facebook we've not made it instagram yet it's partly because Dave and I are not 17 and don't forget Dave's new book the complete comedy writer is out now in ebook form and the paperback version is not far behind go and check out his website at Davecoen.org.uk and you can also find that information about various comedy courses that he is running that I know will be excellent the update for my end is that I've got a book coming out on Blue Monday in January called The Sacred Art of Joking if you're in the UK you can pre-wool it as signed copy from me personally if you want to go to my website jamescary.uk, kary is spelled C-A-R-Y there's no Ian Carey, James Carey.co.uk and follow the link to the Sacred Art of Joking or you can of course find it in the other usual places enough back to Eddie, Eric, Annie, Neil and me. There was a lovely little joke in there when Eric Morkham says, oh it's March, oh I'm going to take the Christmas tree though, putting words into the mouth of Eric Morkham would be, I mean one thing I do, I'm a Christian and I'm a Christian and I can't put words into the mouth of Jesus but he didn't say to me that's a problematic thing but comedically this is as close as it gets to that you know you're putting jokes into the mouth of Eric Morkham were you using lines and jokes that he'd done in other things or were some of them original or?

No I mean I wrote that, Eddie as well I mean even some of Eddie there was a bed sketch, shall we show the first bed in the bed, we just needed that for feelings reasons sketch to play out, I wrote Reben Aesk, you know a lot of humility, probably pure mads have been necessarily but you know gags just to get that bed sketch out and then things like that so you're right you know all their voices but you just immerse yourself with the shows and interviews and that's a real part of it. But yeah I think what's interesting isn't it that sometimes we, so the just go back to the play-like quality and then think about questioning and we'll do some questions we've got about 10 minutes, is essentially we always just assume there's never enough money and if you're doing it on BBC One there still wouldn't be enough money but the idea that you sort of had to strip it back, it just felt weirdly much more like a play but a play based on life performance which is what they were it just feels so suited to that relationship and I think the rehearsal room as well that's very theatrical I mean you could certainly see that being a sort of three man play and that was where we got our performance in the loop. Have you written much theatre? Never.

Okay would this sort of thing push you into that or is it like? Potentially. Yeah I mean you could certainly see that. It's sweet theatre money, oh yeah that becomes rolling it.

But I think it was very theatrical with that and I would point to anyone interested for this fantastic I'm sure a lot you know this is a great homymus documentary called Fools Rush in which is I think it's 74 potentially and it was a it was a mark in the wise episode from Eddy's typewriter in Liverpool to the screen and the rehearsal room. It's absolutely brilliant it's on YouTube. Okay shouldn't be but great no one's not at that. So yeah so I mean a wide hapley city for a couple of days and talk but let's have some questions a few.

Thank you very much. Oh amazing yeah I mean there just so many of those scenes you know that I mean that argument scene is I find that really kind of emotional and it was a great argument in terms of just getting looking for really really good actors and not getting caught up with physical resemblances you know which just doesn't get you through the hour of largely your hand that just doesn't get you there you know. Mark Bonner he said himself that he just had a feeling that he could maybe do it but he couldn't feel right he was aware of it not feeling right and he came in and auditioned and marked someone that a huge admirer of but again it was a slight thing of car company Marlonus coming to read for it but then a slight niggle of is it the great actor and maybe the wrong part and then again he was just brilliant and he's not going to imagine anyone else doing it now. No I think he was great and Steven obviously brilliant Liz White's his wife got so much out of a role which I think arguably I'd slightly underwritten and I think you're masculine I mean I think that almost is the hardest part there anyway because Ernie's really interesting character Ernie White's offstage it's a real moving target you know you look at it on YouTube interviews and he's voiced it will just change you know I think it's going to be on stage you'll do pebble mill and sound start from Erenkin you know and then you'll find a Parkinson when it's once he's talking about his childhood that leads him comes very Yorkshire and he's a wee bit of a blank canvas whereas I think Erick there's so many little things that I can hang that on physically in terms of the glasses and the pipe but just a little tixier than ever so.

And he sort of seems to know who he was maybe or sorry Erick yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Whereas Ernie was I'll be whoever you want me to be he's someone I can be famous. Yes I think so I think Ernie was a consummate performer and Ernie sorry I think maybe yeah it's not so much of me. And therefore one wanted a needed Hollywood and the other ones are like no it's not not frustrating.

I'm a dual member of Stormy being though I talk to you once and Tony wrote Holy Flying Circus and which is a really good treatment really interesting imaginative treatment of life with Brian Aftermath and they had Charles Edwards playing Michael Palin and he's actually dead ringing for him in every possible way and I said to Tony I might be lying on the other hand and you think with Charles Edwards he just said yeah we just didn't know whether he was right for it we saw him quite a few times we just were just like how what but you know what I mean it's like you just don't see it and then we walk into the polished product and just go up there you get of course it's gonna be Mark Bonner yeah you know even if you said who could pay him you would go oh I mean I definitely grew into it because you know there's only so much work you can ask an actor to do for an edition and then you know once they know the goth is really properly emerged and it only turns up there and the costume and the hair and everything really sold that way. The costume I thought the designer she was a colour of fantastic as well I know right now I'm talking about colours it's just like wow that's something that you say you find yourself grasping for when you didn't enjoy it. A lot of the studio stuff was a win with BBC Weals down in Cardiff and it hasn't been touched since the 70s so a lot of that was you know we didn't necessarily get in. Great and any other questions yes you and then Lisa yes.

I try to remember it's probably about Europe and I we did the edit but I think the I actually think lengthwise we were probably not far off largely because we didn't have the budget to go too much over. Yeah you know we didn't obviously it was I think it was 11 days maybe for an hour which is not bad but with its peers and it's all the fiddly setups you know like it's not like we had a really long first cut and brought it down and I think Dan is there for director of the fantastic job as a montage seen in the middle after the first break there which is just brilliant so I kind of know I think things we can't be probably all good for for peers. It's amazing what seems indispensable that in the edit you just go you know we don't need that I mean I remember we on Bluestone there was a whole scene where we got to a fine cut and then we just went why is that seen that it's not doing anything and we slightly over it took us nine three outlines nine drafts shooting at it before we just went if you took that out nothing would change you know that's gone it's a but you can't see it yes sorry I'm kind of pretty hands on without hopefully being too annoying but it's kind of it's a he Dan's very good very collaborative so Dan is sorry Dan's there for director he also did the Hatty Jack one and he's done all the stuff he's doing Holly Walsh's new show I think the series and he you know it's as you know Lucy's that's so Alan's so you kind of but we live with the story for so long I think when it's a one-off it's obviously the more collaborative like other characters going crisis this week's gonna be like for 10 weeks you know it's more like you know it's more like you know it's a real we've got 10 days to do this one story and any help I can pull in on just condensing that process and quick bit background it's probably helpful so there I was there for the whole shoot but he what I find interesting with it being much more of a drama than I've done since but probably the first probably drama or to what drama I've done was that you've definitely got less to do in the set as the later than comedy you know comedy just constantly pitching lines and trying little holes here and there but removing distractions as well I find a lot of it is just like that is very if they now if you do that or that prop there it's gonna make you think the joke's gonna be about that and it's not yeah and I'm what Dan's very good and great advice he gave me he said just you said let me just see what he does with this scene it was not particularly clear what the actor's position was with the scene dungs always interested in seeing that first couple which I find really helpful as well yeah any more questions because I've got one more for you my questions are fairly obvious on which is what's next have you been tempted to do another this kind of thing or you just rather go fresh original I don't have to use the sky playhoses which are broadly the same area of this sort of true story ish and so do you do you feel that sometimes you know the BBC they don't make a lot of comedy about how funny the BBC used to be and you know they televised a bellowton lecture you know that the body barke lecture because I'm sure we're already barkelled of nothing more than to televised people talking about comedy rather than an actual show and comedy so you know there is a bit of a danger that we're kind of I think it depends as long as you feel you're creating something new in the story and you know I think Eddie Braden's story was largely untooled yeah and I think it was a worthwhile story to tell and interest in storytelling it's all right and the playhoses and sky you know there's like difference there's like more twist of reality yeah I've got a couple of things I've been offered quite few in this area and I've tried to not take on too many but I've got one or two of them I've got quite less than any of them probably not then I've got hopefully a new show which is possibly great great brilliant well I think we're done here thank you very much thank you very much Neil thank you for coming thank you for coming