“Yeah, you should definitely be a Copywriter. That’s a great way of meeting loads of people who work in television.”
That’s what I was told four years ago, late one stuffy September evening, in Mexico City by a fellow traveller. “Really?” I replied, wide eyed at the prospect of how simple it was to infiltrate the perceived fortress of the television industry. “Yeah, pretty much every decent television writer starts off as a copywriter”. It seemed a watertight argument.
Fast forward a few months and back on home soil, I’d managed to get myself some regular freelance copywriting work during the days and was balancing this with late shifts in a bar. Six months later, I was tired. Very tired.
Where were all the television producers? Where were the actors? The agents? The BAFTAS? Mexico City guy had led me down the garden path and the creeping vine weeds were closing all around me. Okay, I exaggerate but I did feel like I was heading in a direction I didn’t want to be and I just wasn’t interested in the things I was writing about. Then came the bolt out of the blue:“Have you seen this Liam?” said the lovely Sue (a PR Account Manager who shared the same office as the company I was freelancing for). “CBeebies are looking for scripts. I’ll send it over” –I’d made no secret of my desire to write for television.
I opened the email and up popped the aforementioned Writersroom opportunity. “Get A Squiggle On” I murmured as I squinted at the screen and read on. Lovely Sue hadn’t lied; CBeebies were indeed looking for scripts that contained “original stories, authentic voices and compelling characters rooted in identifiable places”.
This was the first moment I had ever considered writing for children’s television. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Mopping floors, pulling pints, writing copy about plumbing parts and forklift trucks – all I could think about was... what if? What if I entered this competition and somehow, something (anything!) happened as a result of it and I was responsible for making thousands of children laugh through something I had written? It was a miniscule crack in the huge oak door of Fortress TV Industry and I was determined to peek through it.
I scribbled down dozens of ideas (some of them well wide of the mark of what might be acceptable for broadcast on CBeebies) and after a couple of days, one of them stuck with me; the characters I had created for it began to really spring to life as I tried them in different situations. However, it had taken me so long to get to this point that the deadline for the competition was now looming. I cobbled together a 25 page script, screwed it up into a big paper ball, flung it in the direction of Writersroom and literally fled the country (I left for a holiday in Spain that same day).
Upon my return I had received several emails from Writersroom. The first, thanking me for my entry and confirming that there had been an overwhelming response to the competition. The second informing me that the readers had enjoyed the first 10 pages of my script and it would now be put through for a full read. Only 44 scripts had made it to this stage and I was baffled as to how mine was one of them. A few days later I received a third email, which as far as I was concerned would definitely be the end of the road for my script. I was wrong.
“We are delighted to invite you to the next stage masterclass/workshop”. My girlfriend’s cat nearly suffered a heart attack as I roared in celebration, as by this point in time, I had stopped the freelance copywriting and spent most of my days lying on the sofa and checking my emails for THIS exact message.
15 other writers were at the masterclass in London, where we met the creators and writers of the legendary Rastamouse. We took part in several group and individual writing tasks as well as a live script reading of a Rastamouse episode, during which I performed my role in what can only be described as a border line offensive ‘Caribbean’ accent.
^^^ I’m the one on the right contemplating the exit door behind me.
Thankfully, we would be judged not on our acting skills but on our writing tasks at the workshop as well as our original script and a five minute version of the same idea (which we had been asked to write beforehand). This was definitely, 100 per cent, the end of the road, thanks but no thanks and close the door on your way out for my script. Wasn’t it? Surely, I’d be found out?
Two weeks later I received an email inviting me to a weeklong residential with eight other writers at Bore Place in Kent.
The residential was an incredible experience. Isolated from the rest of humanity, we spent four days boarding with experienced CBeebies script editors and producers and attended workshops ran by guest speakers who came all the way out to speak to us about writing children’s television and hear our ideas. At the end of the week, we pitched our newly moulded ideas to a panel including - amongst others - Kay Benbow (Controller of CBeebies) and Kate Rowland (Creative Director of New Writing) which was a frightening but worthwhile experience.
After the residential we were asked to submit a second version of our script based on what we had pitched. None of us had any idea what might happen next. As far as we knew, the prize for the competition was the residential and anything else was a bonus.
After a long wait, and having pretty much giving up hope, I was contacted along with four other writers and invited to Media City in Salford to take part in an intensive development workshop on our ideas. We were able to spend more time individually with the excellent producers we had already met on the residential – namely Tony Reed, Barry Quinn and Katie Simmons - and we really honed in on the essence and core of our ideas.
A third version of our script based on this day was submitted and after two months I received confirmation of what I’d dreaded since the start. “...at this stage I’m afraid we won’t be taking it (the script) any further”. To say I was devastated is an understatement. I’d been found out. I wasn’t a ‘writer’. What an idiot I was to think I could make it! That was it; the end of the road for my script. I’d never felt lower in my entire life. Up until now, as a writer this was something I hadn’t experienced before, but it was something that every single writer ever to pick up a pen will have to face; rejection. And there’s a lot of it.
The most important thing a writer can learn is also one of the most frustrating things they will get told over and over again: get over it and don’t give up. But it’s true.
I could have given up at this point. I could have given up any number of times since this moment where I’ve experienced rejection literally dozens of time within a couple of years. Ideas have been knocked back, emails have gone completely unanswered and countless other competition entries have fallen at the first hurdle with no feedback as to why.
A year on and luckily to help soften the blow of all this rejection, I was now part of the BBC Northern Writers Group ran by Henry Swindell (Development Producer at Writersroom). A positive group, where aspiring writers were invited to attend various events, workshops and showcases in and around the BBC. Henry was always on hand to give out advice and make connections on behalf of anyone who asked for it. It was Henry who pointed out something painstakingly obvious to me; I hadn’t made any use whatsoever of any of the contacts I had made at CBeebies through the ‘Get A Squiggle On’ scheme.
“Send them an email and don’t say ‘giz us a job’. Ask them if they’ve got five minutes to spare to meet for a coffee”.
“I don’t even like coffee” I thought, but it couldn’t hurt. After all, I may not have broken down the door of Fortress Television Industry but I was sort of on their lawn and could probably shout through the letter box before they turned the sprinklers on.
I emailed Barry Quinn, who was now producing The Numtums and he was more than happy to meet up. He introduced me to his script editor Jo Allen and we chatted for an hour or so about all things CBeebies and what I was working on. By the end of this meeting Jo and Barry said they’d be open to me sending over ‘a couple’ of one-line ideas for potential Numtums storylines. I sent them 14.
From those 14 ideas, they liked two of them and asked if I could work them up into one-page outlines. These went back and forth and were tweaked several times before I was then commissioned to write a scene by scene treatment for one of the ideas. Finally after a couple of re-writes of this I was commissioned to write the full script for an episode of The Numtums. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Writersroom.
Over a year on and I’ve just watched this episode air on CBeebies. The feeling of pride I felt when I saw: ‘Written by Liam Farrell’ in the credits was something worth waiting four years for but it was also something that I always felt could happen one day if I worked hard, took opportunities, had a little bit of luck and most of all didn’t give up. After all, I’ve heard pretty much every decent television writer starts off as a copywriter.
BBC iPlayer: Watch The Numtums Series 3: 3. Larry Gets the Hiccups written by Liam Farrell
Watch out for Liam Farrell’s second episode of The Numtums on CBeebies, Wednesday 8th Oct at 4pm.
