Archives for September 2008

It's an idea to sit down for a dose of Cashzz or Enders with a trained counsellor at your side at the moment, or at the very least with your finger poised to dial the relevant helpline.

I had to reach for a helpline of the highest authority after watching the Casualty series openers a couple of weeks ago with my 10 year old. We sat down for an adrenalin filled Saturday evening ep penned by Mark Catley - I'm a huge fan of Mark's writing, it's clever, quirky and never fails to move me. They appeared to have thrown the entire Casualty budget at these first two episodes - heavy location and tons of gore. Tons of it.

Gore we can cope with, people impaled on spikes? No problem.

What affected my little one most was Zoe's patient - the tiny tot with cancer who died at the end of the ep, and Dixie behind the wheel sending the nasty girl into orbit.. a real shocker that.

My youngest believes all these things will happen to her at some time, possibly within the next few days. Infantile hypochondria? Or possibly simply getting to grips with the real world where bad things happen. Even before the end of the episode her big sister was commenting dryly 'Don't worry it won't happen to you..'

I was in Elstree the next week for a commissioning meeting and was able to collar John Yorke in the lift. I mentioned how fab Cashzz is at the moment and my daughter's subsequent sense of impending doom. 'You can tell her from me she's not going to get impaled on a spike or ploughed into by an ambulance..'

I relayed the reassuring words from the "Controller of BBC Drama Production" to my daughter over tea that night. She looked relieved.

My own Casualty episode (produced on a shoestring as it's not a series opener) is in the can! Not without its own drama - I was penning amendments to scenes that were to be shot the next day. There's a writer living on the edge for you. One storyline needed constant tweaking, once tweaked everyone was happy.

My episode was being filmed with a Baffle and this caused a few problems here and there. 'What is a Baffle?' I asked my editor, baffled.

A Baffle is a huge soundproofed wall that splits the Casualty set in half. One team films in one half whist another team can simultaneously film in the other half. The Baffle cuts the ED 'Staff Room' in half. I had quite a few scenes in the staff room. Damn.

They had to be played elsewhere. Also having been asked to write 70% of the episode on location outside of the ED for scheduling purposes - half way through, this decision was reversed and I had to rewrite some scenes back into the ED.

With a Baffle. And half a Staff Room.



So you see - the journey of a Continuing Drama episode can be less about the nuances of the story road travelled, and more about who's where and the studying of architectural ground plans.

The walls of my writing space are now more or less covered in ground plans for the hospital sets of Casualty and Holby - you'd think I was orchestrating some sort of NHS bank raid..

Presently awaiting notes - the Treatment for my next Holby ep is currently under scrutiny over in Elstree. So should be enough time to finish the raspberry knitted circular bolero, especially with this cold weather setting in..

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Trapped is an eight-part animated series about consequences that was written and developed by three young people in Knowsley, Liverpool working with Lucia Haynes, the BBC writersroom writer-in-residence with Action for Children (formerly NCH). What started out as a residency in a project for children in care, eventually became a partnership that also involved North West Vision and Media and animation students at Liverpool John Moore's University, and broadcasts on the BBC's Liverpool Capital of Culture website. Watch the animation here.

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Thanks to Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah at Monastic Productions we've got ahold of a script for archaeological action series Bonekickers for you to investigate.

You can read the script for episode one of Bonekickers by Matthew in our Script Archive.

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Chasing up a writer recently, I got the reply: I thought I'd already sent it to you.

This leapt immediately into my top 10 of writers' reasons for non-delivery, assuming, of course, that they respond. Some just screen their calls.

And the rest of the top 10:

My computer was stolen.

You won't believe this, but my new computer was stolen too, so I'm having to start writing it all again from scratch for a second time.

No, I never got the notes, I've been waiting for you. Yes, we talked about it, but I thought you'd write the notes down for me.

I couldn't find anywhere in Paris to plug my modem in.

Is it due today? I had next Tuesday in my diary.

I was going to call you, but my phone was nicked/I couldn't get reception.

Look, use the draft you've got. Trust me, it's funny.

The 'e' dropped off my typewriter. (One writer I worked with clung to his elderly Remington far into the age of computers).

I've got a bit of a cough.

More contributions welcome.

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Russell T Davies (Doctor Who, Queer as Folk, The Second Coming, Bob & Rose... it's possible that you may have heard of him) will be appearing at the Cornerhouse in Manchester on 20th October 2008 to talk about his work.

The event is happening from 6pm to 7:30pm, and there's a maximum of two tickets per person - but if you don't pick up your tickets by 5:30pm on the day, we'll have to pass them to someone else, so make sure you get there early!

The box office opens tomorrow morning (18th September), and we're expecting tickets to go fast, so if you'd like a chance to ask one of the best writers today some questions, or just listen to him speak, go here to find out more.

ETA: Sorry, but all of the tickets to this event have now gone.

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The work I'd done on my Casualty ep last week was paying off. The guest stories were clearer, the serial was coherent, the pace was good, the exec producer was happy.

I glanced at the clock; my lunch date would be around in 20 minutes - a girlfriend I hadn't caught up with in ages.

My editor was still on the phone so I tentatively mentioned my lunch date - he cautioned that the script had to be published that afternoon around 4pm and there were still a few amends - I imagined tweaking a few lines between desert and coffee.

'We need to cut around 10 pages..' my editor was explaining as the doorbell rang.

Sods law.

You wait and wait by the phone, putting off going out, putting off mixing a bucket of wallpaper paste just in case. And nothing happens. Just when I thought the coast was clear I get to wipe 10 minutes off my overlong script. Couldn't the BBC simply schedule a one off 60 minute casualty episode instead?

We did it though, my editor had some suggestions for cuts which helped. Nothing too painful, excess dialogue and scenes that although worked well, could feasibly go and not hinder the telling of the tale. I noted all this down then dashed for the Caribbean lunch and jazz with my patient friend.

Cycled to school to pick up my daughter at 3pm, threw her in front of the telly with a snack, threw the (previously prepared that morning) Jamie Oliver number into the oven, fired up the Mac and got to work. Cut, snip and trim and by 4.30pm I was hitting the send button. Done.

I sauntered back indoors to dish up dinner when the phone rang .. my editor hadn't received my script, could I re-send it? There then followed 90 minutes of my nipping out to my writing space to resend the darn thing to various different email address around the BBC building - and still my script refused to land in anyone's in tray.

I fed the family, supervised homework, put on some glad rags and was ready to go out for 'Academy Drinks' when I sent the script one last time for luck.

By 6pm the BBC email system had finished its strop and my poor editor had my episode on his screen.

I was talking with other Academy Writers last night at our yearly get together, we were pondering on the ability to Multi-task - is it predominantly a female skill? Discuss.

It was great to meet up with old faces - not all 3 years worth of Academy Writers could make it to the get together of course, there have been babies, weddings, successful TV pitches, continuation of Continuing Drama commissions, heartbreak, knock backs, new horizons.

I think the new Academy lot start next week - it'll be a fantastic time for them.

I couldn't have coped with the intense 3 month 'classroom work' at Elstree without the support of my man back at the homestead whose Multi-tasking skills are equal to mine.

'Another Goodfellas day,' he'd tell me wearily as I'd come home from Elstree.

Ah, what fond memories we have of those scenes with Ray Liotta a nervous wreck co-ordinating his complicated Mafia career, dope sellers, sleazy customers, useless babysitters all whilst cooking a meal for his family..

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The tragic and untimely death of Geoffrey Perkins has cast an air of gloom over the comedy world, and is still being talked about nearly two weeks after the event. It's as if none of us can accept that he isn't here any more because, for many of us, our lives in comedy have been related in one way or another to his.

Comedy is a small world, and can be quite a bitchy one but, as many of the tributes to Geoffrey have pointed out, he was a man universally liked and admired, and by many people, loved.

I knew him first by name from the credits of radio comedy, then from TV credits, and then in person when he became head of comedy at the BBC in 1995, four years after I went to work for Alomo. Although he was a very significant figure, and I was nervous about meeting him and discussing scripts, I learned immediately that Geoffrey was the most aproachable man, extremely funny in quite a wry way, and a formidable analyst of comedy.

Watching him making notes during a read-through, and discussing them with him afterwards, was as much of an education as working with Marks and Gran. I think they would agree that they were quite resistant to notes, but they listened to and generally took Geoffrey's.

As time went by, Geoffrey encouraged me to think about working for the BBC,which I joined in 2001 as head of the script development unit and, as it turned out, Geoffrey's second-opinion reader. We had a great many discussions about scripts both good and bad, but each discussion taught me to see more clearly how to remove flab and enhance comedy.

Of course there were things about Geoffrey which drove people mad. His meetings over-ran. He stockpiled scripts that he had promised to read but found it hard to get round to. He was too kind to cull projects which should have been put out of their misery long before, and sometimes too loyal to lost causes.

But that was just Geoffrey, and what would have been irritating in someone else was endearing or at least forgiveable because he was Geoffrey, an inspiring, warm, funny and human man who was always the same smiling, welcoming and cherishable figure.

At a comedy drinks party last night nobody could quite believe that he had gone, and some still cried. He was, in his quietish way, a part of many people's lives, not least mine.

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Good news - we've managed to get ahold of a script for BBC Scotland's River City.

River City is a continuing drama set in Shieldinch, a fictional suburb of Glasgow, which airs every Tuesday at 8:00pm on BBC One Scotland. It's been running since 2002, and gets an average of half-a-million viewers each week.

Sadly it doesn't air south of the border, so unless you live in Scotland, you may have not seen it before - but thanks to the miracles of modern technology you can now watch it on the BBC's iPlayer.

Episode 622, written by Louise Ironside, is now available for your reading pleasure and education in our script archive.

As ever, you may need to download Acrobat Reader, as the script is in PDF format.

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Last time I looked it was the beginning of the summer holidays. Tomorrow the kids go back to school. Where did the time go?

During the wind and the rain I've managed to notch up a couple of drafts of my current Casualty episode, been to a Holby planning meeting for my next episode, didn't manage to sew my summer frock, or wallpaper the bathroom - oh, but I did manage a week away in Ireland.

I was determined not to have to take my iBook away with me, I wanted a clear window of holiday time so I started the negotiations a few months back. Once the commissioning process for Casualty was underway I had to email and memo in triplicate that there would be one week at the end of August when I would be away, non contactable, unavailable for script amends.

After most note sessions and phone calls, I'd remind the team about the week I would be away. I almost adopted ... Remember end of August - holiday time! as my email signature.

They don't mind writers going away, having time off unshackled from the garret, but they do like to know in advance. It's understandable - all those deadlines, all that scheduling beautifully engineered to a nanosecond, god forbid I cock it up by disappearing just as my production draft needs amending.

Which is exactly the time I did disappear.

Spontaneously going away is rare and I find I cannot commit to anything. It drives friends to distraction. I appear to come over all wishy washy - 'I may be free next week, there's a possibility I may have some time at the weekend, all depends how things are going..'

At the Academy we were reminded to hit our script deadlines on time, a missed deadline can throw a huge spanner in the works and producers don't like writers who cannot get stuff in on time. Fair point.

But deadlines move like shifting sands - editors go away on holidays, substitute editors are drafted in, draft 4's languish on someone's desk for a week or there were too many notes to compile and the promised phone meeting moves from Tuesday morning to Tuesday afternoon, to Weds morning with an email promising contact by Thursday teatime honest.

These days I have stopped sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring, I do tend to go out now, do stuff and pick up calls later. It takes a long time to erase the feeling that you are somehow skiving.

My editor and I did manage to synchronise everything so that I could fly out to Ireland and not have to think about the script. It was brilliant.

My only dip into the sea of Continuing Drama was to watch two episodes of Fair City - RTE's answer to Eastenders (not to be confused with River City, which is a Scottish soap I believe, or indeed Holby City .. )

Now I am home and facing my production draft notes - quite a chunk of them too. Hopefully by production draft you'd want to be tweaking as opposed to re-writing, but this episode is proving tricky. 'Shifting serial' this time as opposed to shifting deadlines. And my guest stories are proving a little complex - overwritten. I have a sign on the wall that says 'Keep It Simple' (one sign of many, my writing space resembling some sort of Writer's 12 Step haven).

So with juggling and dovetailing all happening this week - I am commissioning for Holby on Thursday - my iBook is once more plugged in and purring sweetly and I am ensconced, looking out at the rain.

No word on the title yet (see previous post).

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