The Skinny

In The Loop

Caught this at the Electric on Friday and was very pleased with it. I heartily recommend the film, and no prior knowledge of The Thick of It is required.

Newswipe

I think this is half way through it's run now but as I always seem to promote Charlie Brooker's television exploits why break the habit now? Here he uses his razor sharp wit to cut right through the media flim-flam and get at the guts of how the News works. If you haven't been watching you can catch up here, for now at least...

Primeval

They're back, and they're making some brave changes to the set up. I'm a big fan of the show and series three continues to deliver. If you like Saturday night family drama then check it out.


Law & Order: UK

This has been fantastic, and has lost none of the pace or tone of the original in the transatlantic shift. I think we're in a mid-series break at the moment but you can see previous episodes here. Episode seven from the sixth of April has been the best of the bunch so far. I understand they made thirteen episodes for series one so hopefully it will be back soon. It can be strong stuff though, so be warned.

Waiting for Godot

My favourite Beckett, well it's everyone's favourite I suppose. Caught this in Malvern in March and was a bit blown away. The production hits London April 30th, you could do far worse than get yourself a ticket.

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I finally got around to buying Adrian Mead's Making It As A Screenwriter last month. Embarrassingly I hadn't bought it because I no longer have a paypal account (don't like or trust paypal after nearly getting badly burned a few years ago). I decided to open a new account just to get the book only to discover you didn't actually need one. D'oh!

Anyway if you haven't got it (and I'm pretty sure you have) then you really ought to snap it up. It's a bargain at £7.79 and the dosh goes to Childline.

I used to buy a lot of books about screenwriting but stopped because they all had more or less the same amount of useful advice in them. Also most were written by people whose names you never see on a screen, large or small, which says something, eh?

Mead's book is different. It's relevant, filled with example documents and clear, simple advice, it's witty and motivational. If you're serious about screenwriting this is the tool you need most urgently, click here to buy it.

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I've been having a go on Trigger Street at last. Response to my script has been encouraging, and there has been some very useful notes. Towards the end of the month I'll compile a list of points raised and get ready for a rewrite next month.

I didn't realise quite how the credit system works, which is my own fault, but it turns out it's quite a lot of work to get credits so that your script get's reviews. It is if you're going to put your full energy into reviewing someone's submission anyway (which is only fair if you're going to expect the same in return). I now know that it takes me a good hour or more to read a script (more if I'm not enjoying it), and probably the same again to write up some notes. That's two hours per script, and for me it's coming out of writing time (unless I pick up a netbook or something, then I can do it on the train). That's quite a drain on your time, though worth it for the feedback.

I don't think I'll be putting all my energies into TS. It's fairly rare for me to work on a feature anyway and they have no forum for television scripts. It has been very useful with this specific script, if you're after unbiased feedback I recommend it. Doing a lot of recommending today!

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Heartfelt congratulations to Jason, Dave, Oli and William for securing positions on the Red Planet workshop with Tony Jordan. Congrats also to Mark Wilkinson, the winner of Red Planet 2009.

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You may have noticed I'm updating this site less often. This is only because I'm being much stricter with myself as regards usage of time. All my energy is being put into writing at the moment.

When I sit in my nice shiny chair in my (Lamont Cranston-style) Sanctum I sit here to write, not to blog. Blogging isn't working, so it has to come second. In fact it's further down than that because it comes after planning too. Ahh, poor blogging.

Also a lot of this blog used to be television reviews, and me spouting off about telly in general. In fact that was initially how I intended to use it, I started blogging about my writing only when I saw others were doing it (No sheep jokes puh-leeease!). Since I read Making it as a Screenwriter I'm somehow less keen to do this. I should be building bridges here. It's not like I'd go into work at the day job and email the MD to tell him his latest idea is shit, is it? I don't want to piss him off.

I'll still update as and when I can, and trust me - if I have news I'll be here like a flash. In the mean time though, I'll see you when I see you.

Getting Saturday nights

I didn't like the look of Demons, the recent ITV series. I don't know if it was Mackenzie Crook's bird mask, the synopsis that made the show sound like it had been made ten years ago (probably after someone watched a bit too much Buffy) and slipped through a time hole, the idea of getting a Brit to play an American (I mean in this day and age!), or the fact that Phil Glenister appeared to be wearing his Gene Hunt costume.

Whatever it was I thought, "This looks dire, I'll give it a miss and if the reviews are good I'll catch up." It's a lazy technique but it's served me well before, and I don't have time to catch up on the shows that ARE worth watching never mind soiling my eyes with stuff I know I'm going to hate. I might as well watch The One Show, or paint drying, if there is a difference.

The reviews weren't good. They were scathing.

OK. So I made a good call. Go me! No down side. Except...

They were really scathing. So scathing that I hear they've postponed the third series of Primeval so people can forget about Demons first. You know, because the idiots that watch ITV programmes might not be able to tell the difference between two different TV shows. Or something.

This is proper, card carrying, hitting your own head with a mallet, nuts. Primeval is great. It's imaginative, original, exciting, varied, fresh, but most importantly of all it's the only Doctor Who stand in so far that actually gets Saturday Night/Family drama.

When I was a kid Saturday night TV was all about Doctor Who, Robin of Sherwood, The Tripods, The A team, Knight Rider, Manimal, Automan, etc., etc. Where is the variety now? It's no good just cloning shows about legendary characters or ripping off successful series from the nineties! We need some actual ideas.

Let's think about this for a second. Since Doctor Who did what they said couldn't be done and proved that British society hadn't slipped so far into some Anthony Burgess vision of the future that the whole family couldn't watch television together on a Saturday night without Graham Norton, Cilla Black, Noel Edmonds or Dale Winton staring dead-eyed back out at them there have been several further attempts at Saturday Night Family Drama.

Robin Hood. OK on the one hand this was the first effort, thrown into production as soon as Saturday night was resuscitated. On the other hand it was made by the BBC who might be expected to get it? In fairness I didn't mind Robin Hood. Most people though seemed to be a bit hung up on the non-period costumes and language but I liked it's Xena-ish tone and thought it was good enough fun. It's no substitute for Who though. The third series has been so long coming now that I wonder if anyone will even notice when they follow up killing Marion off by having Robin leave the show.

Primeval. We'll come back to this.


Merlin. Putting aside my previously mentioned issues with the retelling of the Merlin story (or rebooting of Arthurian legend), Merlin worries me for a number of reasons. It's another BBC effort. It's another period set show. It's another myth/legend poured onto our screens for family viewing. It's Robin Hood 2 isn't it? It's 'Here's what we learned from making Robin Hood by the BBC: We took out the anachronistic costumes'. Bit lazy isn't it? Isn't there any more imagination than this planning our TV schedules? What next? Beowulf? William Tell? Jack the Giant Killer? People in forests with swords volume 3?

Demons. I can't really comment on this as I didn't watch it. The fact that it appears to have failed says enough though. Clearly it didn't get Saturday nights.

What has Primeval got that these other shows haven't? I'll tell you. It mixes the every day with the fantastic. It has a different setting every week. It has a strong sense of humour. It doesn't take itself too seriously. Remind you of anything else?

But what this post is really about though is this; There are massive opportunities for people who do get it to create fresh, exciting family drama for Saturday nights. Just thinking of BBC1 and ITV there are 104 potential slots per year. At present only a fraction are occupied. The powers that be may not know this yet but if they get enough fresh, exciting ideas for family drama from talented new writers maybe they'll look at one and say, 'Hey, the eight million or so people who watch Doctor Who every Saturday night would watch this!"

Whatever you do don't tell any other writers though or they'll all be at it. Must dash, I've a family drama script to finish. You'd love it, it's period set...