No Fun

A small, possibly erroneous, observation about comedy writing...

Quick story. A couple of months ago I submitted some bits and pieces for the ‘open submission’ satirical comedy Newsjack (on Radio 7). Each week, I did more than necessary and had them scrutinized by a writer friend who told me what worked, what didn’t and how to snazz up those that nearly worked... I then submitted the best. In total, over the 6 weeks, I submitted 15 sketches and 25 one-liners... and not a single solitary one made the grade! This was disappointing. I’d rather like to get on the score-board and radio is a ‘good thing’*. Personally, I prefer Radio 3 but they do very little sketch-based comedy... doesn’t work well between Stockhausen’s greatest hits and Mongolian nose-flute orchestras.

Anyway, this dismal failure got me thinking the simple question- why? Why?!?!?As in ‘why have I failed in such a pusillanimous way?’. I listened to the show each week; I have, contrary to popular rumour, a sense of humour, how could I fail? I think I have an answer- may be wrong, may be right- I think it has a ring of truth.

I listened to the show each week and, while I smirked, I didn’t find it laugh-out loud funny; certainly not as much as the studio audience. However, this is NOT the sour grapes thing of ‘they didn’t pick me therefore they and/or the programme are wrong’. I believe this is a case of I did not find it especially funny therefore I couldn’t write adequately in the idiom required. I love satire- Bremner, Bird & Fortune, Yes Minister, Brass-eye, The Day Today, etc. but Newsjack’s satire was not the type of satire to which I’m acclimatized.

There are two genres (technically three**) which are far more subjective than others presumably because they operate on a very deep primal level: comedy and horror. I find the Marx Brothers funny but can’t stand Laurel & Hardy or Chaplin (mawkish sentimental bilge); I find Mitchell & Webb, Blackadder, Black Books, The IT Crowd and Spaced hilarious while I find Little Britain, Russell Brand and The Catherine Tate Show about as funny as the average knee-capping. I love Blazing Saddles but the farting cowboy scene is the only bit I skip to the end; I know others with the complete opposite view. Could Eddie Braben write successfully for Lucas & Walliams? Could Chris Morris write successfully for Morecambe & Wise? And the same surely follows for horror: some find the supernatural terrifying and are bored by slashers; others think knife-wielding psychos scary while ghost stories leave them cold.

And so to the quite simple conclusion: if you don’t find the show funny, you probably won’t be able to do funny for the show; if you don’t find the monster scary, you probably won’t be able to do the monster scarily. It’s not the fault of the show or the poor beleaguered monster... it’s just that you’re not hard-wired that way. Find your ‘funny’ or ‘scary’ and do that instead.

Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it... it’s either that or I really am just a miserable old git.

*As they put it in 1066 and All That.
**The third would be Porn... the person who loves the plastic-clad dom' may not find the idea of 'plushies' too enticing... or the flying helmet and the wet celery...

The Facts Of Life

Today you’ll just have to put up with a random unfocused musing. My leg went numb in my sleep and this morning when I was got up I tried to put some weight on it, fell ass-over-tip and, of course, my hand went out to break the fall. Minor wrist sprain, no great shakes... I'm more concerned about the landing on my ribs, given that I broke three of them many years ago since when they've never stopped hurting, particularly when I do that whole breathing in thing... So, what you’re getting is spell-checked but not especially brain-checked! (The bulk of this post was actually written yesterday though- so not much of an excuse really!)

So, on Sunday those good people at the BBC showed the enjoyable comedy How To Murder Your Wife (1965, Richard Quine*)^ starring the ever dependable Jack Lemmon and, surprisingly, Terry-Thomas. The basic story is of Stanley Ford (Jack Lemmon), a newspaper cartoon strip writer-artist who lives a happy well-ordered playboy bachelor life aided by his British manservant and general factotum, Charles (Terry-Thomas). The cartoon strip chronicles the travails of a super-spy named Bash Brannigan. Stanley tests out the basics of his stories for the character in real life before inking them up. Then, after a drunken party Stanley wakes to discover he’s married to the Italian Miss Galaxy contestant who wants to change pretty much everything about his well-ordered life and Charles quits his employ. So, Stanley writes this marriage development into the Brannigan strip (and doubles his audience) but as he vents his (humorous) frustrations through the strip his thoughts turn to murder: he rehearses Brannigan’s wife-killing murder plot in reality (though without wifely participation) then inks it up and publishes. Of course, his wife leaves him and he’s promptly arrested for her murder… the evidence is damning and his confession witnessed by 80 million readers of his syndicated cartoon strip…

Right, so what’s actually happened is a bloke researches and rehearses a plot for a fiction which is then mistaken for reality. A slightly more obscure film, the comedy Please Turn Over (1959, Gerald Thomas), from the writer that brought us the early more gentle black and white Carry On films, Norman Hudis, tells of a small 50’s English village that gets fired up over the publication of steamy novel written by the Headmaster’s over-imaginative teenage daughter who has clearly drawn all the characters from life but precisely none of the situations that she puts them in. Reputations are all in this village and so, for example, the imaginary revelations of womanizing by the local doctor are damaging. But what is so wrong, all this young woman has done is draw her characters from life and that’s what writers are meant to do, isn’t it?

So, here’s where I’m going. Where does fiction end and life begin or, alternatively, where does life end and fiction begin. In doing the research for a project these days you run the risk of breaking the law without knowing it: if you research methods of poisoning or bomb-making you could be unwittingly breaching one of the myriad recent Terrorism Acts. (Fight Club and Spooks both require- and give- information that could be material in the 'preparation of an act of terrorism'.) If you write your murder plot story in the wrong way it may end up looking like you’ve been plotting to kill your nearest and dearest.

For veracity’s sake you should research things but if you draw too shady a character from life you could end up indicting them and end up with both criminal and police on your back. (And how are you really meant to get in touch with these various nefarious characters in the first place?) If you delve too effectively into the underworld you may end up looking like you have been enjoying a bit of a double-life yourself! And if you just ground your characters too closely in people you know you may end up losing all your research subjects!

I’ve realised that the artist, writers in particular, is effectively committing themselves to a lifelong public Rorschach test, exposing their inner self on a regular basis for little remuneration. So, you’re meant to do the research without getting arrested, draw some characters from life without getting a ‘contract’ taken out on you or losing your friends then weld these to some original ideas and characters and situations. No matter how many times I’m told to the contrary I have never believed anything other than that the writer’s personality and stance seep in: they’re cutting their cloth from their imagination they can’t help but add some of themselves. A diamond may no longer be coal but its raw stuff is still carbon; such is the case with the writer. So now, the writer’s trying to avoid arrest, being the subject of a hit and worrying about giving too much away… such as their dark desires to invade Antarctica or ride off into the sunset with Skippy the Bush Kangaroo…

Now, if a writer puts the same characters, themes and situations in repeatedly there must be some reason, from trauma to obsession to deeply held belief, even if this doesn’t manifest itself in the most obvious of manners it will still be there. If you continually show shots of bare feet there may just be something going on; if there’s always a character plummeting from the heights the author may just have vertigo… There was an anecdote on The Culture Show the other week while Cronenberg was discussing his new film Eastern Promises. Cronenberg said that in the early 80’s he was at some event and saw Scorsese across the way. The two men finally spoke to each other and Scorsese confided that he’d been nervous about meeting someone he’d assumed to be disturbing given the nature of his films. Cronenberg thought this was amusing coming from the man who brought us Taxi Driver! But if a Scorsese can make such an assumption what hope for the rest of us…

I’d love to think I can keep myself covered and make sure I give nothing away but I’m sure as my body of specs are (when completed and) read in concentration they’ll give me away with every word on the page!

So to my conclusion… er, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t! So, I suppose you just have to get on with it and be damnd... or do nothing! I don't know... why you looking at me?

*Script by George Axelrod who also wrote the wonderful Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
^apologies for my continued use of the pro-director, anti-writer format but it’s how I was taught on my aborted Ba. and is the usual way these things are done.