Have a nice six months at the office, dear
Not Going In
Lee Mack and I first stepped foot in Room 405, Gainsborough House on London's busy Oxford Street on Tuesday 3 January, 2006. We left yesterday, Tuesday 20 June, 2006, 24 working weeks later. We were there to write five episodes of Not Going Out, a sitcom commissioned by Peter Fincham, controller of BBC1. We have, to all intents and purposes, barring a few uncrossed "t"s and undotted "i"s, achieved that thing. Yesterday, along with Paul Kerensa, a writer drafted in full-time to work with us on the final episode, we bid Room 405 farewell, as it was handed back to the company who run the building (interestingly, not the company who ran it when the lease started, as they went into administration last week).
During those 24 weeks - which can be measured out, Prufrock style, in post-it notes, coffee cups, cans of Coke (him), mugs of mint tea (me), glasses of water, takeaway organic camargue and wild rice salads with mint and raw broccoli (me), sushi trays (him) - we roadtested a number of different working methods. The first two episodes were written entirely within those cream walls, Monday to Friday. This was tough going, especially for those of us with a radio show to do every Saturday and Sunday, and those of us on tour (which Lee was for six week in January and February). The next episode, we experimented with taking occasional "writing days" away from each other, me at home, he in the office alone. But however we did it, all roads led back to Room 405, where the storylines were thrashed out, sometimes for days on end, until we had the post-it note murals up, and scenes were finally "nailed", as we always liked to call it. (Then Lee would have a brainwave overnight and we would "nail" them again the next day.) One episode spiralled out of control and, after a BBC read-through, had to undergo major surgery, which took a week in itself, and was our lowest ebb. An intensive working method, but this is a sitcom with a punishing gag-rate, and although we won't know until these episodes are rehearsed, blocked and filmed, the finished scripts came out in pretty good shape. Both Lee and I had days where we would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else. Some days, he was somewhere else, doing something else. Some days, I was. On points (which I'm not), we have been living the sitcom for six months. But we've fucking done it.
Here is the nice calendar I made in February, when we decided to map out what needed writing by when:
And here it is at the end of May, when we had realised, the hard way, that we hadn't given ourselves enough time:
As the hot weather moved in, we bought a desk fan, which kept us cool but also irritatingly rustled the post-it notes as it revolved. The office started to stink, which I put down to the smell of men at work, but turned out to be the remnants of an unloved latte Lee had left inside a Starbucks cup on the top of the filing cabinet in March. I finally traced the smell to the source and threw the cup out yesterday, our last day. A symbolic cleansing. I learned many things about sitcom-writing in that room. I will keep those back for when it's actually in the can at the end of August, ready for apparent transmission on BBC1 in September, but that could change. After all, Top Of The Pops was a long-running TV programme on Monday; not any more. Likewise, They Think It's All Over (it is now!) was cancelled yesterday, something which impacts on Lee rather more than it does me. He's OK about it. But it does go to show what an unpredictable world the BBC can be. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the work we have done gets turned into a fantastic six-part series by all concerned, that it goes out and it gets another series and that nobody even thinks about booking Room 405 again.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 8:41 AM
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24 Comments:
Congratulations on getting it done! I look forward to watching it in September.
Love the pictures of the calender! Glad to know that other people's carefully laid plans go the same way as mine!
This is going to sound rubbish but I promise you I'm not an idiot....here goes.
How hard is it getting a sitcom commissioned? My friend and I have a belting idea for one and have sketched out all of the characters and started writing the first episode.
Silly question, it's obviously very hard but how does one go about it and for 2 blokes with no "form" is it practically impossible?
Difficult as it may be we've been spurred on by the fact that there's some crap that does get taken up so surely a good one is in with a chance?
That's it, embarassing moment over.
Glad you got it finished, offices are dreadful I can vouch for that but bad ones that smell must really be the pits...
Congrats Andrew on finishing the sitcom. I look forward to watching it!
Lyman (good name), in answer to your question: not impossible, but not easy. You're going to need to approach a production company with a good record for getting comedies on television, like Baby Cow, Steve Coogan's company. You'll have to do your research and find out who to specifically addresss stuff to by calling their receptionist up and asking (bad idea just to send it to "Baby Cow", with no recipient's name - it'll get filed in the bin), but it costs nothing other than the price the registered post to send in your A4 envelope. They're more likely to read a two page treatment and go on from there than read an entire script from two unknowns. So make sure your idea can be sold in one line, then in one paragraph, and then over two pages with more detail of characters and storylines. Then just punt it around. You don't need an agent to do this, but an agent can help to get you an introduction.
Remember, we got this one commissioned because LEE MACK is in it, and writing it (it was long in development at Avalon, the production company, before I came onboard to make it better!). Get a star attached and you're through the door. If the pilot we wrote had been shit, or the finished filmed pilot had been shit, it wouldn't have been commissioned. You're right, they do put some rubbish on, but somewhere along the line, somebody in telly thought it would get an audience, or a good review, or an award, or all three. It may seem like rubbish to you and I, but we're not commissioning editors and THEY ARE!
Hope that helps.
That's great, thanks for taking the time to respond. When we win our first BAFTA I'll thank you in my speech....
And relax. May looked rough. Is the fella with the bow tie significant?
And did you GET PISSED on June 16?
Graham, we were working, on the final scene of the final episode, until the very end. We repaired to pub at 5.30, drank a pint each, and went home. (Big news for me. But I stopped drinking almost immediately and drank mint tea and water for the rest of the football-viewing evening. The evil Al K. O'Hol will never get me in his grasp.
Simon, May was rought. Lee drew the man with the bow tie. I think he's supposed to be a comedian. He's in the bin now, with all the rest of the post-it notes and calendar pages. (Part of me wanted to keep them all, in some kind of archive, but part of me has too much shit already.)
I once had to make Lee Mack a cup of tea whilst on work experience at some place. I had to use a plastic spoon and it broke when I was stirring, I didn't even know if he wanted sugar - it was a disaster. I hope he took more than a sip of it though, anything less would have been two fingers up at all my efforts...
Congratulations on finishing, looking forward to seeing it on the telly.
But, what are you going to do now you've got some 'spare' time?
Well done for finishing!
But the one thing you haven't said is, did you enjoy the experience?
Ian
PS About time you went back on Radcliffe's show. I see Mr Maconie made a very enjoyable apperance last night.
Can't wait till "it's a wrap"! Well done to you both. Katie, my daughter, and I are champing at the bit to see it! Also hoping to be able to be in the audience when it's being filmed. I imagine you are very different personalities, mint tea v. latte mould and all that! So, we are keen to see the melange of two talents. Can't you cajole Lee into writing a blog too? Oh, and by the way, HOW DO YOU FIND TIME TO PULL IN ALL THE THINGS YOU DO? It must account for your lithe figure.
BBC's loss dropping They Think It's All Over - Nick Hancock was good, but Lee was on the button. Katie's in America at the moment and your blog is one of our main e-mailing topics! We're both hooked!
Off to watch Argentina v. Holland now, and look forward to your take tomorrow morning!
Gill
Well done on completing the sit-com. I look forward to seeing it.
What's your view on the end of TOTP? I feel a bit lost, in spite of not having watched it for a few years (TOTP2 instead), didn't like the new format and thought it had moved too far away from its original brief, which caused its demise.
TOTP had to go. I know Mark Cooper, who's been in charge of it since it went to BBC2 and I appreciate the difficult job he had in trying to make it work. The exclusive gigs, like the Chili Peppers and Green Day, were great BBC events, but, I would argue, not what TOTP is there for. It should be about what's in the charts, not what's coming out next week, not exclusives, not even album tracks, and not a gig by a shit American rock band. It can't be that any more, as nobody cares about the singles chart, so it had to go. At least it was better when it ended than under Andi Peters, with his plethora of "items". I like Fearne Cotton.
. . . And, Gill, I find the time to do everything I do, by doing too much. It has to stop. Working seven days a week is a mug's game, and I walked into it, signing up for the sitcom in the full knowledge that I would be doing that and a weekend radio commitment for six months. It was daft. Also, I had to squeeze in my Radio Times and Word commitments. A lot of squeezing has taken place. And my book had to go on ice. I'm looking forward to doing less for the next few months, and getting back to my book. Like an MP I want to spend more time with my family. (That's the only way I'm like an MP, I can promise you. Scum.)
Grandstand, TOTP and They Think It's All Over. All Gone.
Good.
Grandstand was only there latterly to fill in the space between Football Focus and Final Score.
TOTP was very much "of it's time", and that time ended about 1994. Although I still treasure the Simon Mayo fronted show that had Elvis Costello, Morrissey and Evan Dando's solo version of Big Gay Heart on it. And Kirsty MacColl singing with the Happy Mondays. Ah well, happy days.
And with regards to They Think...
Lee Mack is a great stand up, wasted on this quiz. Mind you, I may be biased against this having shared too many railway journeys from Cambridge to Kings Cross with Rory McGrath. And Norman Lamont. Grumpy hung over gits.
I am also looking forward to it seeing it, sounds like the creation and refining process was interesting enough to make a sitcom in itself. [/Charlie Kaufman idea]
There's a handy section on the BBC website dealing with Comedy submissions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/submissions.shtml
Thanks for that Ed.
Much appreciated.
I can't tell you how comforting it is as 'someone who is trying' to see 'someone is doing' paste the wall with post-it notes, scribbles and highlighter pen!
Looking forward to seeing it!
which of those two American bands were you thinking of as shit then, Andrew? I noticed that you played the Red Hot Chili Peppers track a few times on your Sunday show a while ago, not much to choose between them as far as I'm concerned. By the way, when you say a six month contract for the radio, that doesn't mean that you're going to retire from 6Music does it? I've only just adjusted to the not every afternoon change. I'll pine!
reggie perrin blog post headline alert.
good luck on the grown up channel sir.
Beth, I meant taking on six months' worth of sitcom in tandem with the existing 6 Music commitment. I'm contracted until March 2007. I don't think by telling you that I'm breaking the Official Secrets Act, although in a way I do work for the civil service. (Many BBC radio contracts run for a year, and the network began in March 2002, hence that's the beginning and the end of our contractual year. I look no further into the future than that.)
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