What Were We Watching in 2012

The Olympic and Paralympic Games cloud my vision, I can barely see back before them, though my memory retains a vague recollection that a hot Spring had people from the Environment agency handing out hose-pipe bans and warning we'd need three months solid rain if the aquifers were to be replenished. 

Never grant these men their wishes again. 2012 was the year it poured. The aquifers are now overflowing and still it rains. 

Even most sceptics were won over by the summer of sport, not just by the quality of the achievements but also by the way in which the BBC managed to pull together and get it right. All the BBC, TV and Radio and those never to be left unmentioned web pages where we can get more information about the race we've just watched. What more can a web page add to Mo? 

This is the same BBC that got the Royal Flotilla coverage of the Queen's Jubilee year so wrong and later went on to turn a gun on itself with its treatment of the Jimmy Savile Newsnight story and later accusations leveled at a senior politician. One step forwards, two steps back.

The Olympics were about extraordinary athletic achievement and spectacle. I'm trying to forget Radio 1's Trevor Nelson, telling me during the opening ceremony, 'see that bloke in the crowd there? He's my mate!'. Dear god. Not content with his lame-brain inanities at the beginning of the Olympiad the Beeb had the temerity to wheel him out for the closing ceremony too. 

But oh that opening ceremony. Danny Boyle you made us proud to be British and we all thought we'd have to watch it from behind the sofa, like we used to Dr Who. Surely it would be one long cringe; how wrong could we be. Did I miss Danny's knighthood or is he a refusenik like Alan Bennett, "Thanks but no thanks, I'm ok as I am". 

Would you turn down a gong? As New Year's and Queen's Birthday Honours come around I find myself wondering why we perpetuate these arcane medals. Not that I'm ever likely to be called to the palace, but should the manila embossed envelope arrive I'd have to write back a pithy note saying, "I'll pick up mine when Danny Boyle picks up his". 

There was so much to look forward to twelve months ago. The world had it's eye on us and we  didn't disappoint.

On  the box Mrs Brown took hold as the new sit-com sensation - I remain to be convinced. Most big laugh still rely on the inclusion of the word 'fuck' to get the laugh.

A raft of American shows continued to hold my attention. Justified, Boardwalk Empire, Homeland - though the latter in its bid to become a franchise had some horribly clunky moments and may drift even further from the tension of the fine first series when it returns for series three. 

Game of Thrones was good rather than great but delivered a terrific series ending episode.  

 If you haven't been watching Treme it's time to catch up. New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina seemed a strange option for The Wire creator David Simon's next project but it's approach is a delightful weaving of human stories.


One actor who suddenly appeared from  nowhere was Bobby Cannavale who played the psychotic Gyp Rosetti in Boardwalk Empire and an only slightly less psychotic doctor in Nurse Jackie. The latter is a treat, a drama masquerading as a comedy. It delights with ever episode.

Finally, Mad Men remains a joy. Despite the show being off air for more than twelve months it returned with a confidence that only a show presided over so tightly by one mind can achieve. Mathew Weiner's compelling meditation of the shifting cultural tides of mid 20th century America is just extraordinary. It shows us what we were and what we now are without ever telling us. The best example of writing one could ask for - but then I'm biased. 

Minnion Meets his New Boss

The following conversation was recorded and sent to me by Michael Minnion, radio show presenter of many years who recently met his new boss.

New Boss: Hi, you must be Martin.

Minnion:    Michael.

New Boss: So...(avoiding eye contact) what did you want to see me about?

Minnion:    You asked to see me.

New Boss: Yes, it's good we get to know each other.

Minnion:    You've been here six weeks.

New Boss: I've been listening.

Minnion:    I hope you like what I do.

New Boss: I don't like, I love what you do.

Minnion:    (taken aback) Really.

New Boss: I haven't heard a whole show...

Minnion:    Oh.

New Boss: You're not the only show on the air.

Minnion:    No but...

New Boss: Tell me something, and be honest...do you think it's getting a bit stale?

Minnion:    The station?

New Boss: Your show.

Minnion:    I thought you said you loved what I do.

New Boss: You mustn't take these things literally. I was speaking generically.

Minnion:    Sorry, you've lost me.

New Boss: You're figures are very good. Figures are very, very important.

Minnion:    We've doubled the numbers of the previous guy.

New Boss: Numbers aren't everything. He wasn't very good was he.

Minnion:    He did the show for twelve years, the audience loved him.

New Boss: If he was that good why did he leave?

Minnion:    He was killed in a car accident with four other people.

New Boss: I want you to think about your show.

Minnion:   I hope I do that all the time. I work hard on the content.

New Boss: I'm not talking about the content, Martin, I'm talking about the texture.

Minnion:    O...K...so that's what...exactly?

New Boss: Pretty self-explanatory.

Minnion:   Actually I'm not sure I understand.

New Boss: Come on Martin, do I have to explain everything.

Minnion:    Michael.

New Boss: could you stop interrupting. Imagine I'm a listener.

Minnion:    You're a listener...

New Boss: I'm driving along in my 7 series BMW, the one that pushes the boundaries with flowing lines and fabulous handling. (stares out the window)

(long pause)

Minnion:    (coughs) You're driving...

New Boss: Um? Yes. Driving. When I have you on in the car I want to be able to reach through the radio and touch you.

Minnion:    Metaphorically.

New Boss: Literally. What will I feel?

Minnion:    Feel?

New Boss: What do you feel like. Are you rough, smooth, sticky, porous. You need to consider the listener.

Minnion:    I do. Always. But what has...

New Boss: I'm not talking about those listeners who listen to you now. I'm talking about all the listeners who aren't listening to you. What are you providing for them?

Minnion:     How can I provide something for people who aren't listening to me?

New Boss: (hand up) Please, don't bring attitude into this office.

Minnion:    If they're not listening...

New Boss: ...if they're not listening it's because you're not giving them anything to listen to. Work on it. OK? (hits intercom) Emma, what time's my one o'clock?

Minnion gets up and awkwardly backs out of the office, his head reeling.

to be continued...

A Touch Of Police Squad

I remember the first time I saw Police Squad - not quite like remembering the moment when JFK was shot but I was too young for that, probably in the garden digging a hole - I don't know where I was beyond 'in front of a TV laughing like a drain'. If drains laughs. 

Police Squad was the invention of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (who all sounded to me like people ho had been round the table when they wrote the Bible) Pat Proft wrote episode three (another writer at that bible bash surely). It was a spoof of the police series on Tv in the 70's with a high preponderance of puns, sights gags and non-sequiturs, all gloriously delivered in dead-pan fashion, mostly by Leslie Nielsen playing Lt Frank Drebin. Hank Simms, who'd worked as a TV announcer of 60's and 70'd TV cop shows, announced the title of each episode, though his words never matched the caption on screen. From the tiles onwards the show was a non-stop gag-a-thon. 

It was glorious in its freshness, its surreal quality, its joke count. But even as I watched I was aware that I'd stopped laughing out loud and started smiling, then nodding knowingly and then internalizing the humour - my inner comedy man saying, yeah that's funny. It's so hard to keep laughing at this kind of stuff, even when it's hilarious. 

It was cancelled after just six episodes but spawned The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad  films. Those movies took millions, they were and are still loved. 

On Monday the grandson of Frank Drebin - in tone if not name - found his way onto Sky 1 in Charlie Brooker's Touch Of Cloth. A show that does exactly what Police Squad did in every way but a little more gruesomely. It spoofs crime drama beautifully, John Hannah and Suranne Jones gamely play characters not too dissimilar from ones they play in actual cop shows, and it hits you with a hail of jokes that are delivered with such regularity and speed that you have to stop, rewind and sometimes pause to get the full benefit - pause to read the signs, which are everywhere, and are hilarious.

It is relentless. It never stops with the gags, never for one moment are you presented with anything other than full-on jokes. I laughed out loud at much of the first episode but by episode two, shown the following night, I was smiling, nodding and not quite as enthralled as I had been. Maybe this was a fault of the scheduling. The shows run an hour with commercials with a high joke count to sustain, it's also a long time to keep laughing at the same kinds of gags. One a week would probably suffice. 

But well done Charlie for resurrecting the corpse of Police Squad, dusting it down and standing it up for a new audience.  

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


.

Cheer Up Ken

The BBC Writer's Festival in Leeds last week was fascinating on a number of levels. It's always good to talk to men and women on the same journey, it's good to learn from some of our more successful writers, it's good to shoot the breeze and it's good to hear what everyone else is going through.

BBC Writer's Festival Logo -erm, what exactly is it?

 

Doesn't matter what stage your writing career is at, you will have horrors that haunt your sleeping and waking moments. The series that never was - had a few of them - the episode that got rewritten because the director didn't like it - been there, the T shirt's a little old but still smells - the producers who loved your work so much they forgot to buy it, even though you'd told all your friends you'd had a series commissioned - don't want to even think about that, still shuddering now.
But amongst all that we had a good laugh and swapped some mighty good stories - those that weren't true had been written and rewritten in our heads to sound true. Stories at a writer's festival should be the best stories ever told!
In one of the sessions the question was posed, "Is the Grass Greener...? " It was aimed at dispelling the myth that writing in America for American series is better than knocking things out for British audiences. Everyone agreed on one point - whatever the pain - the money is much, much better. The American system demands a different kind of writer, one who will pool his or her plots in the writer's room as the series is mapped out, arcs found and stories 'broken'. Breaking a story is something I've learned to do even though British writers don't really write the same way as our better paid American counterparts. The 'breaking' is working out what happens just before the commercial break. Makes sense that you work out plot points so that there's a cliff hanger of sorts at the point at which our work cuts away to adverts for diarrhoea pills and sanitary towels - we have to provide an incentive to watch all the way through the break to find out what happens (at least for those people who still watch TV in real time).
In this session we got to hear from some guys who had experienced the best and worst of the American system and also from Swedish writer Lars Lundstrom who's had his work adapted over there although he's never written in the US. Lars being on the panel opened the door to talking about whether life is greener in Sweden. Turns out there's one TV station and not many writers or actors.
Even so, rcent Danish and Swedish series have become must watch TV for so many of us - The Killing, Borgen, The Bridge - have all exerted a mighty influence on the market. Commissioners now look at dramas set in Brighton and ask "Could you make it a bit more  Nordic?" - and with a straight face.

 Lars wrote on the Swedish series Wallander, the character Kenneth Brannagh plays in the BBC series. Both are based on books by Henning Mankell (I read two last summer and they drove me mad. Hated them, which surprised me because they've sold well and provided Swedish TV and the BBC both with series. It could have been the translation - but I hated the structure and the repetitious  procedural, however..) Lars take on the British Wallander was "It's a bit glum, slower than the Swedish version and devoid of jokes". I'm  with you, Lars. Having sat through two episodes of the new BBC Wallander I feel ready to slash my wrists. The gloomy skies, the washed-out pallet, the moments when old Ken looks off into the distance whilst the director holds the shot forever and a day. I swear he was dribbling in the last episode. The plots aren't great, the characters aren't compulsive, the music drones, the dialogues clunks along - you'd never believe that this is getting a sizeable audience. 
Brannagh is such a watchable actor, so inventive and yet here he'd bringing us a character so desperately down beat you want to scream at the telly.  Comparing it with Swedish and Danish series it doesn't come out well. The stroytelling in the Swedish and Danish series may be slow but the pace of the episodes isn't. It's not MTV, whip-pans and cut, cut, cut but they keep going forward. The Beeb's Wallander clumps along in lead boots. But for me the most telling difference is that series like The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge have compelling caharcters that draw you into the story whilst Wallander seems hell bent on concentrating on one character hell bent on pushing you away.

Spidey v The Batman

I know, I know, it's been a while. So many distractions to keep a man away from his blog.

The new Spiderman film is out there. Fantastic! Brilliant! Astonishing!  Oh, I haven't seen it and won't be queueing and paying, the reason is simple.The constant re-invention of comic book titles has now got to the point where I couldn't care less how good it is - I'm bored with the genre. Bored, bored, bored. I hear it's very good. Great. Loads of kids - dads, mums and the odd Grannie - will have a fabulous time enjoying it. But it's going back to the origins again, to reinvent the character again. Fire up the franchise motors, break out the MacDonalds tie-in merchandising, dust off the spidey duvets; ladies and gentlemen it's Spidey time again.

But not for me. No siree.

Last comic book caper I saw was The Avengers. It was good, a bit talky for some but i quite liked that aspect of it. Coming away from the cinema we talked about it as we always do, good, bad or indifferent. Love 'em or hate 'em there always something to discuss. To learn from.

But..

Ask me to describe my favourite scene right now - in fact any scene right now - and...sorry, that was me looking off into the middle distance desperately trying to remember anything that happened. Nope, nothing has stayed with me. Not one moment. 

These movies cost as much as the Greek national debt yet have no lasting effect on me at all. They're bubble gum, comic capers, that re-invent themselves with such regularity now that I can't be bothered any more. They've become the new westerns.

Except...

The Batman 'triology' is different (it was never meant to be a trilogy, it just happened when the first one and then the second one went stallar). What Christopher Nolan shaped in the first two films is something far more interesting than anything else out there that features men in capes. Even more interesting than the Watchmen movie. But then Nolan's cv is unlike the directors of other comic book films - with the exception of Kenneth Brannagh who helmed Thor. Nolan has been exploring extraordinary stories and structures since he first got to sit in the director's chair.

Momento - a story told backwards about a man who has no long term, medium term memory.

The Prestige, two rival magicians vie for the ultimate illusion, tricking each other and the audience.

Inception, a film so dense and layered no one could possibly follow it - or at least that would be the feeling of most studios. However Inception was so clever, so absorbing, so intriguing that it found a huge audience and made those dumb-ass execs sit up and realise we want more from science fiction than cgi monsters and endless explosions (Michael Bay take note).

2008's The Dark Knight wasn't a comic book film at all, it was a proper drama, wrapped up in a thriller. Yes, it had the added edge of Heath Ledger's penultimate performance but this was an astonishing piece of work. So many scenes stay with me, even though I've only seen it once.

Every movie can't resonate like that. I like fluff and balderdash in amongst the great tales but too many sweets make your teeth fall out and I'm of an age where I'd like to hang on to what I've got. So, I'm choosing my goodie bags carefully. I'll catch Spidey on the box - maybe - but the Batman I'll be out there queueing for.

A Televison Tale

This delicious little story comes compliments of Claire Cotton-May who was sensible enough to step away from her television career and step into the real world. However, once a telly gal, always a telly gal....

A man in a hot air balloon realised he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The woman below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be a production manager," said the balloonist.
"I am." replied the woman, "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is, I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far."
The woman below responded, "You must be a producer."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "But how did you know?"
"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault!"