I hadn't posted this video before, as it's been around the internet a bit already. Then my literary agent (I'm doing another big rewrite on my children's book) sent me a link, and I still didn't put it up, and then last night I got to tell David Mitchell about it at a thing (he was very pleased, as the show had gone out over a year ago, and it was nice to think of small bits of it taking on a life of their own and whizzing around the internet) so I'm posting it now.
That's the 'Robert Webb working with' David Mitchell, not the other one who gets prizes for books by the way. I wouldn't talk to the other one about YouTube videos. He's in Japan, it would cost loads, and I don't know him. Also, he was a bit rude to my friend PP once.
I was a 'huzzah for writers' party thrown by Hartswood Productions, run by The Family Vertue, a name you will know well if you have watched the credits for a number of comedy shows in the last, ooh, forty years? It really is forty years as well (sorry B), just looked it up, crikey. And to show just how crazy, out of the loop and generally unusual the concept of a 'huzzah for writers' (they didn't call it that, but that's what it was) thing was, I should say in all honesty that when the brightly coloured invite turned up depicting a glass of wine, a time and a place, my first thought was 'It's a trap!'.
It wasn't a trap though, and it's a further sign of Hartswood's general good-heartedness and determination to actually look out for future twinkling stars of the writosphere (eurgh sorry) that amongst the 'about to do films with S. Spielberg and P. Jackson' writers and quite well known Scottish sketch show from the Eighties writers, and David Mitchell style 'performers and' writers were plenty of people who'd just started out and still had day jobs and had been given their first ever paying gig by Hartswood, which is lovely, and should be mentioned.
In case your sick of the name-dropping and unstoppable glamour of my life, I should add that a) tough titties beyatch, that's just how I roll, and b) the script I'd written for Hartswood was a project that can now be placed in the folder marked 'Didn't quite work out'.
I'm going to talk about that now.
UPDATE: no I'm not.
I haven't been oppressed by The Man or anything, there just might be life in the project yet. GOD my life is exciting.
6 comments:
"Family Vertue" as in Beryl Vertue, who started as a secretary for Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes in the 50's when they formed Associated Scripts?
Well, some of us just know her as 'B'.
Aha! I knew that logging on and reading random blogs when I can't sleep at 5am in the morning would pay off sometime...
I liked the hitman idea...
ps I would pay good money to see you being oppressed by The Man. Could you put it on a webcam?
Oo, did you happen to see "Timeshift: Gagging For it" the other night? It was all about radio comedy transferring to television. Featured interviews with various bods including the delectable Ian Greaves. Yum. They featured a sketch in readthrough and production from Mitchell and Webb that, (we were later to find out was certainly accidental), bore an incredible similarity to this sketch. I nearly dropped my kebab.
I saw that programme - it was good.
Ohhh a children's book - obviously you're in competition with your friend who was published not that long ago. If you need the re-write tested out, I have an 11 or 8 year old who can oblige for a pack of Yu-Gi-Ho cards.
Darn, I didn't know about Timeshift, which I certainly would have watched for a sighting of the ever-gorgeous Greavesy.
jayne: so do. It might return in a different form. If I ever am opressed by The Man, I'll try and do it in the apple store, just to get it out there asap.
I am in competition with my mate Alex, it's just that he's winning. Thanks for the focus group offer, although the person who really needs to read it is me, about three years ago, to see if it's come out how he planned, because I can't really remember what I wanted to do now.
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