Nobody Knows Anything

The William Goldman maxim that 'Nobody Knows Anything' in Hollywood extends way beyond California. Whilst those of us who scribble obviously know everything, other less fortunate mortals - those who hire us/fire us, those who are on the staff of broadcasting companies that pay us the money that allow us to buy shoes for our children and bread for our tables - struggle to understand anything.

Patently this isn't true.

I've worked with and for inspiring producers who could spot things that others (me included) couldn't see for looking. Men and women whose judgement, wise words  and light touch is and was to be cherished. They know who they are.

I've also worked for and with men and women who should never have been allowed in any door of any broadcasting company in any known universe. They have no idea who they are.

None of us gets it right everytime, even the mighty beasts - have you seen Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom?

The pilot was almost unwatchable. I never made it beyond fifteen minutes of episode two. And this is a writer I love. But the whole thing is out of kilter. The idealism that sat so well in the West Wing seems so out of place in a Newsroom. Believe me, I worked in one as a kid and I've walked through them as an adult. Okay, so my experience is British and he's writing an American newsroom where many dynamics are different but even so, they are not populated by young idealists. The idealistic journalist is a thing of the past. Or Hollywood legend.

Young idealists last about a week. Then they become young cynics. Then disillusioned young cynics. If they grow old in the newsroom they become disillusioned old cynical has-beens - and frankly they are a million times more interesting as people and characters than the ones Sorkin has chosen to populate his latest show with.

I heard him say he mis-wrote Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip - a show I had a lot of time for, not just me, there was a sizeable crowd sorry to see that one bite the dust. But Sorkin knows his stuff and when he says he knows what he did wrong you have to believe him. So, when The Newsroom trailers hit the air, like Pavlovs pooch, I began salivating. I didn't realise what I was about to be served was a dog's breakfast. This show feels under researched, under powered; a hark back to a kind of show I thought had disappeared from our screens - and nowhere near as good as Studio 60.

So Goldman's maxim stands. Nobody Knows Anything. Even Sorkin, who has a brain the size of a of planet, can get it wrong. But I'm sure he's working on getting it right.

Someone who got it sooooo wrong that it leaves your mouth gaping was script editor called Ian Maine. Mr Main worked for the BBC at the time a show called Fawlty Towers was being proposed. You may have heard of Fawlty Towers, I doubt you've heard of Ian Main.

He really didn't know anything - what's more, he put it in writing


.