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 | You and Yours - Transcript BBC Radio 4 |
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| TX: 08.09.06 - I'm with Stupid PRESENTER: JOHN WAITE |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WAITE At the recent Edinburgh television festival there were calls for more disabled characters to appear in regular drama programmes and for a reduction in so-called shock docs - documentaries which feature only people with extraordinary and highly unusual disabilities. Well after a critically acclaimed pilot show Sunday sees the start of a new BBC Three comedy series called I'm With Stupid . It's part of the BBC's commitment to using more actors with disabilities and of giving disabled people a greater presence within drama and comedy shows. Our disability affairs reporter Carolyn Atkinson has been speaking to the sitcom's writer Danny Peak, to one of its stars Holby City actor Paul Henshall who's a wheelchair user and to student Peter Keeley, who has cerebral palsy and first came up with the concept. KEELEY It's about Paul who is living in a residential home and he finds a homeless person called Sheldon and it's just what the two of them get up to really. ATKINSON So you had this brainwave, Danny then sort of took up the baton, now ... PEAK I basically stole Peter's idea and passed it off as my own. KEELEY And I've never forgiven him. CLIP FROM I'M WITH STUPID ATKINSON In the past one could argue that people with disabilities have been tragic or brave. PEAK Yeah I think often disabled characters in sitcoms have been there as a foil, as a straight man if you like, to non-disabled characters. You'll often see the non-disabled character say something insensitive or political incorrect and become embarrassed about it. And I think sometimes disabled characters are just there to roll their eyes. Whereas in here it's just as likely to be the disabled characters themselves who say something foolish or insensitive. KEELEY From the way I've looked at it because there is this big kind of politically correct angle on everything like disability and being gay and black and whatever there's always a worry when dealing with those kind of issues that you have - you end up having more of the issue than actually quality comedy/drama. And I think to me the characters are more important than any disability or any other issue in it. CLIP FROM I'M WITH STUPID ATKINSON There are the two main characters, aren't there, Sheldon played by Mark Benton and Paul played by Paul Henshall. PEAK I see their relationship as an odd couple friendship really in the style of lots of other sitcoms - Hancock and Sid James or Men Behaving Badly or the Likely Lads. ATKINSON It's quite love/hate isn't it. HENSHALL Absolutely but that's what a lot of comedy's about. Basil Fawlty and Sybil, Mannering and Wilson, all those characters kind of have a love/hate relationship which is sometimes based on jealously and those kind of things. But that's important in comedy. CLIP FROM I'M WITH STUPID PEAK We have four regular main characters who are disabled, Paul is the main one, there's also Graham who I hope are fairly different characters from each other. Graham communicates with a voice communication aid and one of the running jokes of the show is that he's kind of more articulate than anybody else and that he always has an answer for everything, even though it's programmed into his communication aid. ATKINSON The BBC are promoting this as a commitment to actors with disabilities and portrayal of people with disabilities. Do you think you're in danger of stereotyping people by having to have people with disabilities in a sitcom? PEAK No, personally from my point of view I just got on and wrote it. ATKINSON Do you feel though if the characters hadn't been disabled it would have been made? PEAK I don't doubt that the fact that it's representing people with disability helped it to get made but if that's all that it takes to get a show commissioned then I would expect there to be a lot more disabled people on TV and lots of other disabled sitcoms. KEELEY The viewers aren't stupid, they know if you're spinning them something that's a politically motivated thing rather than good comedy. CLIP FROM I'M WITH STUPID WAITE It doesn't work like that. I love that Mark Benton. The characters there of Sheldon and Paul from I'm With Stupid which is being shown on BBC Three at 10.00 p.m. on Sunday. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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