Monday 8th June 2009, 17:27
On the (warm-)up
Done a TV warm-up last week, for a new studio audience sitcom. Well obviously a studio audience, otherwise it's just me warming up the crew, and obviously a sitcom, because TV dramas don't have a laughter track. Maybe an 'ooh' and 'aah' track, but not just yet.
What was nice was that although I turned up not knowing anyone involved in it, when I arrived I realised I knew quite a few...
- Sitting behind me in the dress rehearsal was Andrew Collins, of Not Going Out and top podcasting fame.
- The production manager it turns out I worked with on a previous show too.
- The director has his kids tutored by the fella I'm writing a sitcom with.
- One of the main parts in the sitcom is filled by Jarred Christmas from off of from the comedy circuit.
- Two of the other main parts are filled by Iain Lee and Adam Buxton, who I don't know (apart from gigging once with Adam), but whose podcasts I listen to. In fact if a bomb went off in that TV studio, 99% of British podcasting would be out the window - and I include my own Movie Banter, of course...
- And the producer is the same chap who, 17 years ago, when I was a wee schoolboy, responded to some comedy sketches that me and three schoolchums wrote and sent to the BBC, with a letter saying basically, "Thanks but no thanks - you really can't justify words like 'pantcacking' and 'felching' on Radio 4 except in very special circumstances." He did pick out one sketch he liked, which I'm happy to say was written by the 13 year-old me. And now, years later, I've done some writing work for him last year and I'm in a TV studio with him, me warming up an audience and he overseeing the show.
Warm-up is one thing of course, but naturally as a writer I'm looking at the sitcom being recorded with a touch of envy. Must work harder, must write harder. Bumping into the various people mentioned above suddenly makes you realise how close this world is. And yet I lack a recordable sitcom right now. So to work. I shall stop this blog-post and go and write my very own magnum opus. If I spent as much time sitcom-writing as I did blogging and podcasting... well let's just say that technology has given procrastination an acceptable face. But I love it.