Every Picture

Sometimes a writer knows exactly what he wants to say and puts down the words to say it. And then along comes a pesky member of the public and reads those innocent words all wrong and a whole different meaning gets applied.

I'm sure those good ol' folk over at Disney were quite happy to give this ad a big tick when it came out.

You wouldn't get it past them today.

At least it didn't run with a British milk slogan at the bottom Drink A Pint Of Milk A Day.

Whatever Happened To Watsisface?

When I was heading up the BBC TV Entertainment Department in Birmingham I was sitting in my office late one night, everyone else had gone home, and the phone rang. I pick it up.

"Hello", says a familiar voice but one I didn't immediately place. "Is that Richard Lewis?

"Yes", says I. "Who's this?"

"My name is ****** *****". It was a famous actor who'd had a huge success in the 60's and early 70's with a much loved BBC sitcom. An actor who I knew had fallen on hard times and was known to enjoy a drink early in the day and to keep going. Here he was, on the end of the phone, early evening, having spent a good portion of the day partaking. And it was obvious.

"Iwunnabeonyourshows", he slurred.

"Sorry?"

Pause.

"Wunnayourshows. Me. Be on. Your shows. One. "

What the hell do I say. As one of the two stars of the much loved sitcom he had the world at his feet but I'd heard the stories. The two of them didn't get on and after the show ended they weren't sending each other Christmas cards.

I said something about how much I'd enjoyed his performance on his famous show - which was true.

"Yes, yes" he says, "But thasnotdoinmeanyfuckingoodnow issit?"

Now what do I say.

"Look, I reckon the BBC owes me one,right. I wunnabeon Call My Bluff"

Now I'd brought  Call My Bluff back to TV after eight years off the air. It was a genteel BBC 2 word game previously hosted by Robert Robinson with team captains Frank Muir and Patrick Campbell, a man whose stutter could go on for a minute or more (try getting that one past a commissioner these days) and later with the most gentle of gentle gentlemen Arthur Marshall. My task was to find new faces for the roles of host and team captains and retool the thing for BBC 1.

I knew immediately I wanted Alan Coren for one captain, a comic genius whose writing I had devoured in Punch, Bob Holness was installed as host/referee and I didn't take much convincing that Sandi Toksvig should sit opposite the sainted Coren. Alongside the captains we found all kinds of wonderful people from television and radio, showbiz, writers, gardeners, scientists and sports people to come on and try and Bluff their way through definitions of obscure words. It was completely joyous, one of the most delightful shows you could ever be associated with and produced on a day to day basis by a lovely lady called Helena Taylor.

The only problem we had was the man who 'created' the show - at least he said he's created it and was in dispute with another company that said they owned the rights. After much legal to-ing and fro-ing we were lumbered with the man who claimed it to be his creation. He was a shit. A horrible, horrible man who revelled in his position as copyright owner. So much so that he insisted he have approval of all the guests. He wanted no actors, no comedians, no singers - to be honest it was a job to know what he wanted. If I'd suggested the Queen Mother I dare say he'd have been sniffy.


We tried to work with him but it wasn't to be, he was living in the past. We couldn't work like that so I took the decision to go our own way. We went ahead and booked those people we felt would work best on the show.

One day he arrived with his little dog, complaining that the hotel he'd been booked into wasn't happy having his pouch on the premises and started to have a go at Helena. He had her in tears, this was wrong, that was wrong, we shouldn't have people like this on the show or like that. He'd overstepped the mark and caught the full force of my anger. I told him to go away and never come back, he was not welcome at the BBC anymore. And that was the last we saw of him - but not the last we heard of him. Lawyers swapped letters for months. At least he was out of our hair.

The stupid thing was, the show was hugely popular and he was paid handsomely for every episode - and there were five episodes a week!

That aside Call My Bluff was a delight to be associated with - but I couldn't risk having the drunk actor, on the other end of my phone on the show. Not for our sake or his.

So that night, in my office, I fobbed him off. I thanked him for calling and promised I would discuss the possibility of him making an appearance with Helena.

I did. And three seconds after it was discussed we made the decision.

He never appeared.

Tinker, Tailor, First World War Soldier, Butler

As I left the cinema on Saturday after seeing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy I heard two women behind me talking, one said to the other, "Sorry, I thought it was going to be more like Bond".

I am so glad she was wrong. And what did she need to be sorry about? This was so much more satisfying than any Bond film. But we know the depiction of spies on the big screen is usually one that owes more to comic book fantasy than reality.

Spies = fast cars, fast women, explosions. Just not in John Le Carre's world.

I first saw the 1979 BBC TV version when I was too young to appreciate it. The slow pace and the nation's fascination with Karla, passed me by.  A lot has happened in the intervening years and I the new film arrives at a time when I can fully appreciate the dense plotting and nuanced performances.

This latest movie has made me want to go back to both the book and the original screen version with Alec Guinness as George Smiley. I say this not because I believe either of the two will be in any way superior - the new film is in all respects magnificent - but because I want to look more closely at the structure of the two. How does Le Carre build the atmosphere in the book and what happened when it was adapted for television? And how does that compare to what we have here.

The pacing is not dissimilar to the Danish thriller The Killing. It is constantly pulling you in, never spoon feeding you plot points. To enjoy either you have to work hard at connecting the dots - and have the patience to wait until you have enough dots. For me, these are the most satisfying stories. As screenwriter Ernts Lubitsch said years ago "Let the audience add up two by two. They'll love you forever".

Compare this with the new series of Downton Abbey, which reached the UK TV screens on the same night that its creator and writer Julian Fellowes and his team were winning four Emmys for the first series.

If Bond is the comic book spy, Downton Abbey is surely the comic book story of Edwardian life. 

The new series opens two years on from where we left it, at the Battle of the Somme - the Great War was so much more than the Battle of the Somme but that's the one so often reached for. The heir to Downton Abbey races along the trenches - more about which later - to the comparative safety of his underground quarters which look remarkably like Blackadder's underground quarters. Having delivered a speech along the lines of war is hell, he then informed his batman he was off back to England for a few days. ?

Meanwhile the war has had an impact on life at the great house and everyone is doing their bit, including the butler who is cleaning the silver even though it's not strictly his job. He won't let the war with Germany  interfere with standards.

Downton Abbey is THE number one series on British TV - according to its publicity machine.  I suppose that would depend on what you think makes a number one drama. It could certainly lay claim to being the number one melodrama, the number one most often inaccurate period drama and the number one purveyor of the clunkiest lines on television.

Try this: "The war is reaching its long fingers into Downton and scattering our chicks".

The soap opera plotting and lines like that drove me away from the first series and having watched this opener I'm away to find other things to do.

Downton Abbey came in for stick during the first series for its inaccuracies. It didn't help this series opener that the scenes in the trenches were so obviously wrong. The trenches displayed here were barely deep enough to conceal a man, in fact they didn't. To walk along what was depicted here was to have your head on display for a sniper's  bullet - and one chap got just that, a bullet through the tin hat. For goodness sake, the trenches were twice as deep. They even had a man above the trench on 'lookout' - he would have lasted seconds!

But all the carping about inaccuracies is just dust because it will be swept away by the legion of fans who love this stuff. Fair enough. It's a comic book portrayal where Earls are friends with their valets and the trenches at the Somme were four feet deep. Pass the salt I feel in need of a bucket full. This isn't me swimming against the tide of infatuation for the programme just for the sake of it. Sorry, I may be in a very small minority but Downton Abbey is not for me, though I freely admit it is for millions of others. That's why the show is a Juggernaut for ITV.


Personally I can't wait to see the Heidi Thomas written Upstairs Downstairs which, for me, was far superior fare.

A Negative Force

"Good moaning"

 It seems like everywhere I work these days the staff are moaning - and it's usually about their boss who is
a) incompetent
b) incapable of rational thought
c) never listens and
d) all three.

I've certainly worked with some interesting people over the years, some who were brilliant and wildly inconsistent, some who were solid but strange and and some who left me wondering how they got past their tenth birthday without being strangled.

But does moaning about your boss help the creative process? We know that drama needs conflict, without something to push against there's no story - no drama, no comedy. But if your boss is a bully,  incapable of understanding what you're trying to get at, it's inevitable that frustration will set in and moaning will take over.

At that point it's really, really hard to put that to one side and concentrate on what you're trying to create. Office politics take over. The moaners go off to mumble and plot in dark corridors and behind pillars, juices stop flowing. Moaning is the death of creativity because it is negative. There is no such thing as good moaning.

Arguments are something different.  I push my point, you counter with yours - something new can come out of argument, it can be a huge creative force - as long as everyone knows what they're trying to do is make things better. However, if I push my point and you push yours with a closed mind that says I'm right, he's wrong we're just going to argue about this until he gives in and I get my way, that's negative. When a colleague or your boss takes that kind of stance in an argument you may as well punch him in the face and walk out the door. The creative process is never served by anyone who sets their early thoughts in concrete.

That's why we rewrite.

When the first draft is done it's a FIRST draft. That first draft - the one I send out into the world - may be my third, fourth, fifth or tenth draft but when it leaves me it's The First Draft. But however many times I've tinkered, rewritten and tweaked I know that draft is going to attract notes and thoughts and opinions and suggestions that will lead to a second draft and on and on. If I'm arrogant enough to believe my first draft is perfect I'm going to react badly to notes. I'm going to moan about how the producer or director is an idiot and wouldn't know a script if it fell out of Aaron Sorkin's overcoat pocket. And - at the point at which moaning takes over - I'm dead. Moaning is a negative force and nowhere in Star Wars did I hear the line 'let the negative force be with you'.

That doesn't stop me occassionally moaning - but I've come to recognise it's a waste of time. If you're working for an idiot, work around him. If you're successful they'll be happy to take the credit. If the weight gets too heavy move on.

A Funny Thing Happened In The Theatre

The early 60’s set Dirty Dancing settled into its run at the Bristol Hippodrome with a pink carpet premier to celebrate the start of it's UK touring production. It is a coup for the theatre and they pulled out all the stops to ensure it was a night to remember; it’s certainly a night I'll not forget for quite some time. I can honestly say I've never experienced anything quite like it - nothing to do with what was happening on the stage, it was what was happening in the audience.

Imagine the X-Factor studio audience, hyped beyond reason by a warm up team - if you don't whoop you'll be Tasered. Now imagine that audience in a theatre, whipped up to the same level but not by a warm-up man but by some strange common bond, a fanaticism that transcends mere love and dedication to a movie; a movie they know inside out and backwards. In some cases they know it so well the anticipation, as they sense moments coming, can be felt like a strange physical presence in the auditorium. I swear the woman sitting next to me had a two hour orgasm. Such was the anticipation that the tiniest, the flimsiest of moments was met with something approaching hysteria. I’ve never experienced anything like it in years of theatre going – it was more akin to the reaction you get at megastar pop concerts.

Clearly this was an audience out to enjoy themselves and boy did they. But it was a bit like a Mexican wave travelling around a sports stadium when there's a lull in the action on the pitch. You can come away from certain events thinking you’ve had a great day out but how much of it was to do with what you were watching?

Dirty Dancing attempts to transpose the film to the stage without the ruthless editing necessary for something made in one medium to work in another. Dirty Dancing started life as a film with music, as apposed to a Musical. 60’s records are used in the stage production like they would be on screen, there are some sung numbers, more would have been better – the show comes to life when someone on stage actually sings something. But here's the thing, by trying to include so many recognisable moments from the movie the show lumbers itself with things that may be satisfying for the Uberfans but don’t make much sense in terms of the story, or go anywhere, or add anything to the production. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those moments get trimmed along the way. If they keep them in they're crazy.

What all we writer are told over and over again is Kill Your Darlings. No matter how much you love them, the scenes that don't work have to go.

The performances from the young and mostly unknown cast are okay - but lets not get carried away like that audience - they're okay, nothing to write home about. Nobody woke up the following morning with a star on their door. Some of the dance sequences were energetic but the show I saw a few weeks back 'Midnight Tango' - an out and out dance show -  knocked spots off it.
It's not a disaster by any means but it's not the 'Best Live Theatre Event Ever!" as the poster proclaim. Jeeze, they didn't even put that on the posters for Cats. It looks great; the production design is contemporary whilst harking back cleverly to resort hotels in the Catskill Mountains that provided summer holiday experiences for so many urban families in the early 1960’s - and is the backdrop to the story, which I'm not going to detail because we've all seen the film. But I'm sitting there, listening as the audience react to every tiny moment it can, thinking this needs somebody to stand back and look at it with a cold eye. There was a bit where Baby and Johnny have just been having some afternoon delight and the audience went bananas when he puts his trouser BACK ON.

So what was going on? Obviously the film has built an enormous fan base over the years but I would have thought you'd need a few higher wattage stars to merit that kind of audience reaction. Apparently not. And it shows a show doesn't have to dazzle.

What that audience wanted was for the show to be THE SAME. To this crowd the young actors merely inhabited the bodies of Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey - and that's who they saw up there.  I've seen dozens of much better shows that didn't get anything like the reaction. 

I tell you, it was weird.

One last thing - two last things - the iconic moments from the film are the line ‘Nobody puts Baby in the corner’ and Baby completing a lift that she’d ducked out of earlier.

The former got a huge reception, even though she patently wasn't IN A CORNER - Duh. But when the leading man lifted Baby above his head, his biceps were trembling like a palm tree in a hurricane. If I was the actress playing Baby I'd make sure he was in the gym, lifting weights every day of the tour.

Forget about putting her in the corner, nobody is going to forgive him for putting Baby on the floor. 

Justified - A Fan Writes

Those who regularly read this blog will know the esteem I hold TV shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men in. If Star Trek fans are Trekkers (apparently they hate the term Trekkie, but every time I read about an obsessed fan that's the way they're described0 oops, just took a tangent and ruined the rhythm of my joke, I'll start again. If Star Trek fans are Trekkies what's a Sopranos fan, a Soppy? Are Mad Men fans Maddies or Addies? Who knows, who cares.

The two show that are holding my attention to the point of obsession at the moment are The Killing - being a fan does that make me a Killer? - and Justified.

I'm now on episode thirteen of The Killing and watching the episodes count down is already making me nervous. What will fill the yawning gap?

What's worse is that I picked up the box set of the first season of Justified after reading how good it was and now I'm onto the second series set and counting down towards the finale. I'm watching the show like a civilian, loving the whole thing. But I'm heading towards a double whammy of quality drama deprivation.

Timothy Olyphant as Deputy Marshall Raylan Given

I think Justified pops up on one of the UK satellite channels somewhere but if you, like me. enjoy the Southern take the great Elmore Leonard brings to crime fiction this show is a must, so forget trying to catch up on TV, go out and buy the box.

Justified tells the tale of Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) , a Deputy Federal Marshall in the good old wild west sense of being a Marshall. He's a man in a cowboy hat who's quick on the draw, quick on the quip and no slouch with the ladies, m'am.


In the first moments of the first series,  Raylan kills a Miami fugitive in a ‘justified’ shooting, and gets shipped out - and back home - to rural Kentucky. Once there, he's reacquainted with people from his past - his shady childhood friend Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) and old flame and Boyd’s sister-in-law Ava (Joelle Carter). He's faced with the task of tracking down a modern-day mix of white supremacists and drug runners, whilst managing to exude a laid back, effortless cool with the promise of a gun in his holster that he's not afraid to reach for.


What the series does is constantly surprise. Just when you think you know where any scene or conversation is heading it veers away and heads off into new territory. Most importantly watching the show feels like reading an Elmore Leonard book.  Leonard's style is conversational, laid back, you hardly see the plot points for the humour but when something big happens men die, things explode, ends are tied up.

And series two is even better.

Does any of this rub off onto my writing? Well, the subject matter of the two shows doesn't but stylistically there are things to learn from both. I just need to work out how I can introduce a man in a stetson as a lead character in a British series  - and get away with it.