It’s worth pointing out that Alastair has responded to my comments about saturday’s Doctor Who by explaining exactly what is wrong with the current series. I suspect he’s stolen many of the arguments from me, so read his blog, it’ll save me writing the same.
He doesn’t pull any punches, mind. Really harsh, actually.
I rather liked it.
Here’s a fun game you can play with friends if you’re slightly inebriated: if somebody famous comes up in conversation, why not write them a letter by committee, a word at a time each?
This evening, for example, four of us produced the following email for 90s child prodigies Hanson, after downloading their perrenial hit “Mmmbop” (that is how it’s spelt).
Subject: Your song is quite
Dear dear alarmingly high-pitched,
Having you tantalises our long alarmingly receptive eardrums. We mmmbop infinitely; however, under us your exceptionally dulcet vocal imaginative melody is quite quiveringly improvable. Particularly in the seventh bar whereupon inside our hearts, alarmingly almost, we lost absolute musical poise and sounded derectionlessly sorry.
Yours moistly, girlishly and James.
And ceaselessly, amen.
Now, it’s not the greatest email ever, but it does demonstrate quite how important it is to put somebody in charge of the punctuation.
It put me in mind of an occasion about a year ago when somebody called James made me a Nigella Lawson bread and butter pudding, except that instead of bread it recommended the use of stale pain au chocolat. In fact James admitted that he used fresh pain au chocolat, but it still tasted jolly good and inspired the following epistle:
Dear Nigella,
We both wish to write to tell you what fun we had with your absolutely positively good motherfucking recipe which we must tell you was frankly the tops. No mean achievement! What you have done must count among the top recipes ever written by human beings in our country. To begin – the “pain” was not only stale, but slightly hardened as was the cream. What we wanted to do was put our faces into your general face to tell you how much we enjoyed eating your face.
Believe us, dear Nigella, when we inform you of our undying desire to eat your face every minute of the day, we remain slightly inebriatedly insincere.
P.S. Eat “pain” and live long and prosperously.
Yours in Christo
James and James
xxxxxxx
P.P.S. You must remember to cook all night or else we’ll be round to put a big smile on your “pain” of “chocolat”. Ever in undying Cambridge affection, without any real trace of irony or insincerity or salubriousness or resentment and without proper care, except for the minute that we pit our wits to find the newest and biggest words to employ to express our devoted satisfaction,
Ever in infatuation,
Christo – only we joke, slightly, of spiritual overweeningness for we are frail and prone to fall into sin.
Sadly, in our word-at-a-time frenzy we omitted to put an address at the top of the letter, so have never discovered Nigella’s response. Let’s hope for better luck with Hanson.
I suppose it was as inevitable as it was predictable: for his “all hell breaks loose” Doctor Who season finale, Russell T Davies has pitted the series’ most popular monster against its second most popular monster. And all in a story which also has to tie up all the threads that have been unsubtly and rather illogically spread across the series, introduce the idea of his new spin-off drama Torchwood, bump off Billie Piper and – apparently – reintroduce the entirely undesirable character of Mickey (the sense of dread I felt when he appeared can’t have been intended by the production team, but it made up for the lack of the same when the Daleks finally appeared after a slow and obvious build-up).
On the upside, cramming too much into his story means that Russell T Davies hasn’t had any time for his trademark padding (at least so far), and although his ideas are still as underdeveloped as usual, it’s all too busy to be obvious. But it is also exactly the kind of story a six-year-old fan would probably write, just without the crayon drawings (that was last week). Pitting the Daleks against the Cybermen is the ultimate fan jerk-off, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In twenty-six years, the original series never once put the two together (unless you tenuously include The Five Doctors – and if there is a place for such silliness it’s once every twenty years in special anniversary stories); put a fan in charge and he does it within twenty-six episodes.
It all goes to show that Russell T Davies is more interested in spectacle than good stories. Alas, in spite of his not inconsiderable budget, his flying Daleks still look like cartoons and the whole thing takes on the look of cheap sci-fi, so the one thing the series (at its best) has (or had) going for it is completely missing.
Quite aside from the fact that it looks crap, using Daleks and Cybermen in a story which already has more than enough story shows a complete lack of restraint; if you’re going to use two such iconic baddies, why not put them in a story where there’s space to use them properly, rather than lazily chuck everything into a two-parter and hope that it will be exciting? What’s he going to do to end the next series?
Of course, there’s one more part to go, so we’ve yet to see the full extent of the folly. But for what it’s worth, here’s my prediction of what we’re in for next week:
The Daleks attack the Cybermen and all hell breaks loose; the Doctor, Rose, her Mother, Mickey and the whole of the Torchwood Institute are caught in the crossfire, but just as they are all about to be extermined and deleted with total deletion, Sarah Jane Smith blasts her way in with K9 and they escape into the TARDIS. The Doctor makes contact with previous incarnations Christopher Eccleston and Paul McGann, who argue with each other in a semi-comical manner.
Meanwhile, the Daleks and Cyberman break out of the Torchwood institute into Albert Square; the alien artefacts in the Institute are also freed and the cast of Eastenders find themselves terrorised by a menagerie of monsters, including the Slitheen and Peter Kay. As the three Doctors try to stop the chaos, the woman in charge of the Torchwood institute traps them in E-space, revealing that she is in fact the Master and engineered the whole thing all along.
However, in E-space the Doctors discover Romana, the Timelords and Gary Glitter, all of whom managed to escape the Time War by slipping into a parallel universe. They travel back to earth using the sonic screwdriver, then confront the emperor CyberDalek, who is revealed to be Davros.
Mickey sacrifices himself to destroy Davros. The three Doctors destroy the remaining Daleks and Cybermen with the sonic screwdriver. Rose realises that if she stares into the heart of the TARDIS the remaining Bad Wolf energy latent in her will open the eye of harmony and time will run backwards, bringing Mickey back to life. But when Mickey comes back to life he is revealed to be the Valeyard, who has tricked them all to try to gain control of the Hand of Omega and eternal life. But when he activates the trilithium raxamaxogelfiagogorian crystal which the Torchwood Institute stole from the Sycorax, he is absorbed into the sphere. Rassilon arrives and explains he arranged the whole thing and returns everything to normal.
Rose dies.
The Face of Bo turns up and tells the Doctor he’s sorry it all had to happen like that and gives him a mysterious message before disappearing. The Doctor is sad and wistful then suddenly returns to his bouncy self, embarking on his next adventure with a sense of wide-eyed discovery.
Some of you might recall my infamous Michael Howard song, which (as James Aylett gleefully observed last year) is no longer in any fit state to be performed purely because its subject has dropped out of the news in exactly the way we wished he would when he was still in it.
At the time I observed that, because the one joke in the song was that Michael Howard’s face looks like an arse, I could very easily replace his name with that of his successor and carry on singing the song.
But that doesn’t seem fair, somehow – I wrote it to make the very truthful satirical observation that Michael Howard’s face resembles a bottom – to apply that to David Cameron would be tenuous and unjust. In any case, there were Howard references like “something of the night about him” and so on – no, far better to move on.
The last time I attempted to sing the song was at the Friday Project launch party, when I was too inebriated to remember any of the words except “yes his face looks like a bottom…yes his face looks like a bottom…” But Paul Carr continued to laugh and cheer every time I sang it so I carried on singing it. Not the best ever swansong for a work of poetic genius.
But speaking of poetic genius, I’ve just uncovered from a pile on my desk a couple of new verses I penned at James Aylett’s birthday party, based on the fact that James has been compared to the new Tory leader:
When looking at the leader of the opposition
I find that I am in a rather difficult position
For though his big mouth’s something that we’d all quite like to hammer on
There’s someone else I know who looks a little like Dave Cameron…
(chorus)
Yes his face looks like James Aylett’s,
Yes James Aylett’s got his face,
To think that there could be such twins
Amongst the human race,
So if you’ve a complaint
And you’re not certain where to mail it
Be careful you get Cameron,
Don’t post it to James Aylett.
I fear it won’t be a hit at private parties because, lovely though he is, James Aylett is even less well known than Michael Howard. Also because it doesn’t use the word “arse”.
Copies of our book arrived at my doorstep today, which was very exciting for a while.
Yes: after about a year of co-writing, criticising each others’ writing, criticising proposed cover designs, proofreading the copy editor’s work, proofreading the proofreader’s work, proofreading the designers’ work, criticising the designers’ work, proofreading each others’ criticisms of the designers’ work, and so on (and we’re VERY criticial people), there is actually a book which I can hold and touch and rub and take to bed.
I’ve done all of these things but haven’t actually read a word of it yet. Satisfying though it has been I hope that people who buy the book will also take advantage of the words we have written – whatever they turned out to be after all the criticising.
Anyway, I’m bored of it now. Oh, it’s very lovely to have a pile of books in my house with my name on the side, and it makes visitors say “ooh, is that IT?”
(Only, I can’t help wondering if they mean “oh, is that it?”)
But it’s not enough. I want to see my book in shops, being thumbed by hundreds of people; I want to see reviews, sales figures and Richard and Judy’s book club chatting excitedly about it. In my head crowds are surging into Waterstones and bringing London to a standstill because they need to have a copy.
So the visible reality – fifteen books stacked up on my mantlepiece – begins to look a little meagre.
As if sensing my end-of-the-evening ennouie with the work in question and deciding to deflate me even further, my last visitor of the day (I have many), Alastair, didn’t say “ooh, is that IT?”
He said, “are these off to be pulped?”
No doubt he feels that winning two rounds of the Neighbours board game justifies such rudeness towards a genuine author.
My own enthusiasm for being able to touch a book that I wrote having faded so quickly, I really need people like Alastair to show how impressed they are, so I interpreted his words as a sign of jealousy which is of course the highest form of praise, and am still feeling good as a result.
I have spent the day discovering just how fun samples can be.
Check out the only appropriate site I could find to stick it on and be part of the fun.
The was something quite sad about last night’s Doctor Who Confidential. Because the episode that preceded it was largely effects-free and actor-driven (i.e. cheap), the documentary decided a good comparison would be with the very first episode of Doctor Who – which only showed how deluded some of the current production team are.
As they were clearly aware (in a very camp, Welsh, enthusiastic way), the first episode of Doctor Who still stands up today as an edgy, tense and unusual slice of television drama worthy of our attention and analysis some forty three years later.
Will last night’s episode be worthy of analysis in 2049? Sadly, no. It wasn’t even worthy of much analysis at 20:49, a mere hour and four minutes after broadcast ended. Because it was badly scripted, undramatic, hammy, and – well, basically a bit pants all round.
Frustratingly, although there were basically too many ideas and a complete lack of development (or any real explanation), with a better script the basic story could have been REALLY good. Alas, next to 1963’s production team, the current lot look like a bunch of amateurs. The series has all been a bit hit and miss, with a couple of really good episodes (look for the ones with a good script) and a few absolute disasters, which seems to indicate that they don’t know what they’re doing right even when they manage it. I can’t imagine the Russell T’s big two-part finale is going to have many subtle nuances, but let’s hope it’s better than last year’s.
There was one high point last night, though, and it was thanks to possibly the best guest star the series has ever had: ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Huw Edwards.
As somebody who has often sat on stage improvising lines as Huw Edwards, I found it immensely satisfying to hear him last night and conclude that the director had basically told him to ad-lib his response to a whole stadium’s worth of spectators vanishing from in front of him – a task that even Derek Jacobi would have found taxing, and Huw was predictably awful.
However, he did manage to inject a note of pathos into the most ridiculous line in the episode, when they cut back to the commentary box to find it empty:
“Bob? Bob? Oh no…not you as well, Bob…”
If only they’d thought to develop that little subplot some more. I for one would like to know exactly why the creepy girl didn’t think Huw Edwards was worth abducting too.
It’s been one of those days when Microsoft Word insists on completing words for me whenever I hit enter, so that I keep looking up to find words (or just randomly inserted dates) that I had no intention of leaving there.
I know there is a way to turn off this feature, but I don’t have the time or patience to look for it. In fact, the time would probably be made up for by the time I’d save going back over my documents and deleting things, but for some reason I felt the time would be better used blogging about the problem instead.
At the moment I’m staying in the hilly and damp Cotswolds for the occasion of my brother’s wedding. The place I once called “home”.
Since I left “home”, my parents appear to have invested in a whole load of technology I really would have quite liked when I lived here. The most recent acquisition is a DVD recorder/player, something I have in common with Jane Espenson (aside from the fact that I’ve taken to blogging about writing using my own work as examples, to which this entry will be no exception). So I have finally been able to transfer my deteriorating home videos onto DVD where they will last for considerably longer, barring accidents or deliberate sabotage.
By “home videos” I don’t mean hours of holiday footage and my sister cleaning out the rabbit. There was some of that, but from the moment I left the womb I have wanted to make movies and when I bought a camcorder after years of saving up pennies (literally), movies is what I started making. Beginning with the lovely but oddly-named Children of Blibble (my surrealist homage to Toy Story), moving through various Robin Hood, Star Wars and James Bond parodies filmed with my younger cousins, and onto an extremely pretentious hour-long film made on holiday with my A-level friends (wait for it…As the Outside Temperature Rises), I painstakingly put together about fifteen hours’ worth of films, each one edited mostly in-camera then lovingly scored and mixed as far as was possible with a VCR. (I even wrote and recorded theme songs for the Bond films…even for a teenager, I must have had a lot of spare time on my hands.)
None of them are exactly masterpieces, but I swear I learned a hell of a lot about making films – the ambitious sequel to my first opus, Blibble 2000, seems remarkably pacey and well shot given my lack of equipment. And…er…the fact that it was shot entirely in my bedroom with a load of worn toys. No really – it even has a Back to the Future-esque time paradox, all the more impressive given that they were all made up as I went along. It is clear to me that even six or seven years ago, improvising nonsense before I knew anything about improvising, I still knew more about structuring stories than Russell T Davies does now.
Which probably says more about him than it does about me.
Being something of a completist, I have also spent many hours searching through old videos for other unique material I might rescue, knowing that even before I bought a camcorder, I very occasionally managed to borrow one. And this has yielded some fascinating footage. Mostly just plain bizarre, like a video of a fourteen-year-old James Lark miming to a recording of “Christopher Robin is saying his prayers” in an astonishingly weird parody of Kylie. But particularly interesting is half an hour of sketches I recorded at the tender age of fifteen with my friend Matthew.
The sketches are mostly very dull. There are a few moments of enjoyable visual humour, like a sped up video of two puppets fighting (oddly amusing) and a “public information video” about how to make your camera angles interesting, which is clearly copied directly from a Monty Python sketch. And lots of falling off deck chairs, for no apparent reason.
But on the whole, what it reminds me of is an episode of A Bit of Fry and Laurie. By which I don’t mean for a minute that Fry and Laurie are mostly very dull – they’re not – and it is clear that three of the things they had which we didn’t were Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and a script.
But in format it’s very similar, which is hardly surprising because back then A Bit of Fry and Laurie was the sketch show I had seen most often and most enjoyed. And I think I’m right in saying that this was before the short-sketch-short-attention-span format of The Fast Show had made its impact. Certainly it hadn’t on me. So apart from a few brief flashes of randomness, my youthful offering is a series of sketches which all last for about six minutes. As I say, without scripts or any discernable talent for improvisation, the result is far from entertaining.
But what the sketches do have – and this again I think is very Fry and Laurie – is some sort of basic concept, or idea, which is the reason for the sketch and occasionally makes their openings quite funny. There’s a scene in which a German tries to mug a Frenchman and because neither speak the other’s language they try to conduct the mugging in patchy English. There’s one where I march towards the house in a bowler hat and ring the doorbell; Matthew answers it.
Me: (angrily) I understand you wish to marry my daughter!
Matthew: (bemused) Er…no.
Me: (pause) Oh, right. (pause) She’s very nice…
If only we’d had the presence of mind to end it there, it would have worked.
And we probably should have been able to see that’s what it needed, not least because the best moment is a twenty second sketch: we’re eating breakfast, I say “pass the cereal, will you?”, Matthew picks up the cereal, does a rugby pass, I catch it, run down the garden and score a try. Again, it’s hardly comedy genius, but it’s unexpected and even made me chuckle.
If I was Jane Espenson I’d try to turn all this into a piece of advice, so I suppose my conclusion is this: if you can’t write, keep your sketches short and you might get away with it.
Or more usefully, I suppose it comes back to the golden rule of narrative improv which is to finish your scene when you’ve made your point and not drag it out for another four minutes.
Talk To Rex 