I stayed in all day trying to sort out the scripts, with varying success. But even though writing an hour of comedy about history might seem like a tall order, it only takes one or two ideas to set alight and suddenly everything is a lot closer. A small idea about a meteor that missed the earth by 100,000 km in 1994 transformed into a plot for the entire episode, allowing me to move all of show 3's plot-line to show 4 and suddenly I wasn't that far off finishing! Of course it's impossible to know whether any of it is actually funny until we get it in front of a crowd, but it's quite exciting to try out brand new stuff (as well as a few bits that I have done before in other media) and with a day to rehearse on Monday I am sure we will knock off the rough edges. I really wish I could finally get to the point where I don't need to leave things to the last minute to get stuff done. But how many times have I said that over the last 5 years? Too many. I just have to start using my time more effectively. But will I?
No.
In one of my not infrequent breaks I was reading an interview with the marvellous Mighty Boosh, whose work I cannot recommend heartily enough. Julian Barratt was criticising the way news coverage has turned into this strange style over content monstrosity and asking, "Did they not see The Day Today?"
It is indeed ironic that the satire of news from the mid-1990s is now less ridiculous in many ways than the actual news coverage we have to contend with. For me it feels more like news teams everywhere did see the Day Today and responded to the mockery not by saying, "They're right - we must change our ways," but instead with "How dare they take the piss? Let's show them we are not to be trifled with, by pushing things even further! Ha ha ha." To be fair that's how I often respond to mockery myself.
Still it's rather worrying to think that the Day Today might have been watched by people thinking - actually that's not a bad idea. If anything it shows the total lack of power of satire. Because the satirised can always up the ante and make the satire itself seem weak. But still, hats off to the Day Today team for their predictive skills.
On The Hour was better though.
Ha ha ha.
Though I don't think either show was written almost entirely on the weekend before the recording. Maybe there's a lesson of some kind there.
