How To Write Comedy by Catherine Tate
Good news! Today's Guardian gave away a book by Catherine Tate, off the telly, called How To Write Comedy. It is a very good book. I have read it from cover to cover. But what's mainly good about it is the fact that Catherine Tate, off the telly, am I bovvered though etc., wrote it.
Here it is.
Hmmm. Hang on. If you look a bit more closely, you will discover that in actual fact, Catherine Tate, off the telly, how very dare you etc., didn't write it, despite the large picture of her at the top of the Guardian front page, and the huge typeface her name is in. In fact, she just wrote a short introduction. The actual book was written by ... hmmmm ...
... someone called Richard Herring. He's very good. Although not, it seems, sufficiently off the telly.
The Guardian has increased the cover price of its Saturday edition from £1.50 to £1.60, having increased the price of both the Saturday and the daily by 10p last September. The series of booklets began on Saturday.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 10:19 AM
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I think this is really quite poor form actually, and the same with the previous guide 'by' Robert Harris. Poor form on the Guardian's part that is, not on the part of the pseudo-authors.
That is quite poor, but surely the worst aspect is the idea Catherine Tate could (should) be telling people how to write comedy at all? Give me pirate history crows over lazy, catchphrase characters delievered in a gobby, ear-splitting tone any day of the week. Monday in this case.
Those wine "foldie" things they gave away over the past couple of weeks were good though. I had no idea that there were so many good Chilean reds available for under a tenner.
David, Liverpool
I'm surprised they didn't advertise the Wine foldies as written by Gavin and Stacey.
Posting this here because it’s more relevant to the topic but it started at the end of the Global Crisis thread. Sorry Andrew I think more guilty than most for posting tangent comments on threads.
I’m bitterly disappointed to read about MeeBox not being picked up by the BBC. I watched it with my 18 year old daughter and her 20 year old boyfriend (if you read Andrew’s link that information will make some sense) and we laughed our heads off. Literally. Our heads actually came off. Like I said it wasn’t the most original comedy I’ve ever seen but it was funny from start to finish. The Songs of Praise signing bit in particular was inspired (but, like I said, probably not that original).
I don’t want to launch into a list of stuff BBC 3 does show that isn’t funny by comparison but here’s one for you: Touch Me I’m Karen Taylor. It’s not terrible but it’s basically a comedy show about the size of KT’s bosom. So quite limited. MeeBox was Fawlty Towers meets The Office by way of The Day Today in comparison.
I suppose I should really post this over there eh?
You've not been paying attention, my Saturday Guardian was £1.60 two weeks ago...
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised by this little bit of marketing trickery, but it's still a bit dispiriting.
A good read though. In the introduction, Tate says 'I don't feel in a position to give advice about writing because, technically, I don't consider myself a writer'. Even she seems a bit skeptical about the whole thing.
I think they should have marketed it as 'written by TV's Percy the Shepherd'.
Hey, Oldnathan, if this were a forum, you could start a thread whenever you liked. Unfortunately, it's not, so you have to find a spare corner and sit in it. That's fine. Because Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor is made by Avalon, who make Banter and Not Going Out, I don't feel able to make an unbiased comment on it, but I am surprised by how many of the gags seem to revolve around her bust. (I could certainly imagine some of BBC3's target audience watching it for all the wrong reasons.) It's a shame that she so resembles Catherine Tate facially. It's hard enough for female performers to get their own comedy shows without that kind of unfortunate handicap. ("Oh, she's a northern Catherin Tate!")
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You're right, Martin, but the day it went up was the day the Wine booklets started, so my case is watertight. It's an old trick.
can't believe it - bloody guardian - almost didn't buy it, and almost assumed that RH was writing on another day! Luckily flicked to the guide to realise... (also notice that no mention of you Andrew on the intro piece - again shocking!)
on the wine guide stuff - started off buying them but then figured out that the cost of 12 newspapers for a guide and some liberal news reporting actually would come to quite a lot. Better off buying a book on wines... and then watching aljazzera english on the tele to get my free liberal fill of the news!
I bowed to the Guardianista's and bought a copy anyway - I had considered boycotting it when Richard mentioned the slight on Saturday, but reasoned that a protest by one person wouldn't make much difference... especially when said person hasn't bought the Guardian regularly for over a year. Ah, the power of the little man. It's crap.
Can't wait to read it on my journey home - was doubly pleased to find the "Changing Advertising" feature pull-out as well, which helped me put together several presentations I needed to do, oh how lazy I am.
Can I just ask people who apparently have taste:
Is The Catherine Tate Show funny?
Seriously. I don't get it, at all, I sit there and don't laugh more than maybe once an episode. I know I can't expect to like everything, and everyone has individual taste etc etc, but with something this popular, I'd expect to find it a little amusing.
It's not even bias against her, I actually like Catherine Tate a lot, I just don't find this show funny.
Is this just me?
(re: price rise/booklet *co-incidence*) Given the problems in the newspaper/magazine print publishing industry I say *Top Hats off* to the Guard for printing all these little add-on thingamojigs. They did all those nice posters of dinosaurs to appeal to tiny kids and teachers, which were nice. And which I recycled in the appropriate manner. The argument that you could buy a book is undoubtedly true, but if you wanted to, really wanted to buy a book, you would. Go and do it, mate.
As for the extra 10p. Petrol, probably. They don't have Murdoch to suck up the costs.
I for one feel the need to support the 1 of the 2 leftish newspaper on the news stands. And give them a bit of money. That the Guardian website is popular worldwide & this will get read worldwide - which can only advance and publicise RH's name & work. He is the Guy Chambers to Tate's Robbie Williams. The character that helped Hong Kong Fuey but never got any of the credit.
Obviously if I was him I'd be well disappointed, but I'm sure it'll bring more work in and he has now been appointed as the GO-TO GUY for comedy theory and has become one of the Elder Statesmen of British Comedy. Hats aloft all round. Arise Sir Richard of Cheddar....
Tate = annoying. Sorry, but a kid I loathe saying 'AmIbovvered?' repeatedly, every week, does not, for me, equal classic comedy.
I can just imagine some cold-eyed newspaper executive (sorry, kids, they exist even at left wing broadsheets) at the Guardian justifying the misleading cover tag.
I am brought to mind of the scene in Singing In the Rain where the Debbie Reynolds character lip-synchs for the tone deaf silent star.
Still, it's a great booklet -well done Mr H!
K
Catherine Tate isn't that bad, although her sketch show rapidly delivered deminishing returns and went on a good series too far.
The "Nan" was a good comedy character that got overused - and be fair, Tate is hardly the first comedy writer/performer to milk a character dry.
AC can't be too harsh on Tate as she is good chums with his mucker Lee Mack, and correct me if I'm wrong Andrew but wasn't she going to be in NGO originally?
Tate and Mack go way back and I saw them together in the second airing of Lee Mack's Bits at Edinburgh eight years or so ago. Both were brilliant then, and I have followed them both since.
So lay off the Tate - she ain't so bad.
Karen Taylor, though, is shit.
GY
PS - RH's guide to comedy writing is excellent, BTW. And the Guardian are a bit harsh promoting it as Tates.
Indie went up to a £1 on the day they started their sex booklets.
If Tate didn't write it maybe she should at least read it. fnah fnah.
Catherine Tate was indeed in the pilot episode of Not Going Out. It was nice to see her not playing a "character", but she couldn't do the series, which is why we found Megan Dodds, who brought a whole new aspect to the show, being American and everything.
Poor Richard. My heart sank when I saw the paper this morning.
Also, they've messed up the crossword at the back of G2 today: 10,11 & 12 across are simply not possible!
You know full well Andrew, having run magazines, that you put on your cover whatever you know is going to draw the crowds.
And with Catherine Tate being slightly more of a household name than Richard Herring, you can't really blame The Guardian for doing it.
But then that's your point, isn't it?
I know exactly what they were doing, F-C, which is why I thought it worth pointing out the transparency of it. Let's none of us imagine that anyone gives away a free gift out of the goodness of their hearts. (Still, it's a really nice product, as their giveaways usually are. I notice the recent Times DVDs are in nicer packets too. They all spoil us.)
Yeah, but no, but yeah, but...surely to write comedy you have actually to be funny? It's not like baking a carrot cake, where you follow a recipe and, 25 minutes in a fan-assisted oven at 160 degrees later, you have a delicious tea-time snack. Most of the pieces seemed to be written by rather well-known people taking the opportunity to show how very funny they could be be writing about how to be funny. No help whatsoever.
Then again, perhaps I'm suffering from a sense of humour failure.
Hi Wowser, the G2 crossword sometimes splits words up that can be used as a standalone word ("part" and "ridge" in this case). Hope that helps. Back on message, I would have thought that Richard would be relatively well-known, and, dare I say it, more appealing, to a Guardian type audience in any case. But then maybe that's why I don't work in marketing.
I'M BLOODY FURIOUS!. How deceitful is this?
and who the hell is Richard Herring anyway??
...Let's none of us imagine that anyone gives away a free gift out of the goodness of their hearts.
So what do you and Richy Hez do the podcast for?
HMMMMM????
We are different.
Pablo, thank you! I feel foolish now. Today's crossword is a tricky one, however.
Re papers - there's a depressing interview with the Indy's new editor. For a long time a bad paper, it only looks to get worse (and the ink runs over your hands!).
And I thought that was his first lesson! A writer does all that work only for a performer to come along and takes all the credit.
Anyway, with so little money left in the world, you can read Herring's words for free on this Catherine Tate-less Guardian web page:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/richardherring
Although say what you like about Tate, she was better than Billie Piper!
Having seen Saturday's Guardian had a guide to writing fiction by Robert Harris, and seen that he'd only written the introduction, I was wary of Richard's guide to comedy. I said to my wife that Herring probably only wrote the introduction and some 'non-entity' would have written the guide. My heart sank when I saw the paper, though of course I was happy that there was much more by Rich than I was anticipating.
(The implication of this anecdote isn't that Rich is a non-entity by the way. I was just irritated toi see RKH sidelined in that way.)
I like to think that Guardian readers would be impressed by Herring on the front page of the paper. Maybe I'm too imersed in my own little world. Does Catherine Tate really hold such sway?
Doing the podcasts for free: it is very nice that people can actually enjoy themselves and entertain others without always having to make money from it. Not to be different would be a loss, to fans anyway.
It's not really comparable to a paper giveaway though, the Guardian are selling papers and giving a freebie in order to sell more. Free podcasts aren't incentives, they're a thing on their own. However, they create good feeling and loyal fans so it's not madness either.
I've had about 85 attempts to write this so it sounds less naive and actually says what I mean it to, but I can't.
"I've had about 85 attempts to write this so it sounds less naive and actually says what I mean it to, but I can't."
Watch out for The Guardian on Friday when there is a free booklet on How To Write Blog Comments.
Herring should have written the Daily Express guide to comedy - he would have been all over the front page in his pants.
is it wrong that i find Catherine Tate quite attractive?
i'm not a huge fan of her show, but actually find her very funny in interviews, a great example being the 'girls how do comedy' programme hosted by dawn french [that you can find on youtube if you wish]
backtoblack
This is rubbish. I was going to buy the Guardian on Monday for the guide RH wrote, but didn't once I saw in Saturday's Guardian that it was Catherine Tate and not RH.
That backfired for them and is bad news for me.
I bought Monday's paper on the strength of the free booklet and I was looking forward to reading how the hell CT justified her lowest common denominator catchphrase based comedy, then pulling it apart with my superior knowledge and wit. How disappointed I was to discover the excellent and informative guide to comedy writing by Richard Herring. There was almost nothing to slag off. Grrr.
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