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Up before my daughter even thought about waking up, to head across town for day one (of two) of Everything Happens (For No Reason) filming. London at 7am on a Sunday is like a ghost town, but the trains still run, even though some of them are nearly empty. Of course the way things are going people will start to argue that as they don’t travel at that time then why should they subsidise the cost. People travelling at 7am on a Sunday should clearly have to pay more for their tickets. I would have been right behind them, but today I had to travel at 7am on a Sunday and thought it was good that it cost the same. But that should obviously only apply on days when I am travelling. That’s how the world is now. Run on the whim of idiots.
I couldn’t complain about being up so early. This was an exciting day for me, but it did make me appreciate all the people working to get me to where I was going, who had to get up earlier than me and probably aren’t quite as excited about going to work as I was.
We were filming in a restaurant in Bank, which was for one day only the Armenian street food emporium “Yerevan Caravan”. And I had forgotten how much effort goes into making stuff when you’re doing TV (and this taster only has the most minimal of budgets). Menus had been made up, the beer bottles had Armenian labels and the huge crew were all diligently going about their work. I had thought the crew we’d had to film some of the AIOTM sketches had been big at about 10 strong, but today we had about three times that many crew, plus lots of background artists, being other customers, chefs and waiters. The main actors were running the script as I arrived. I had come in a bit late, mainly because I feel the Disgruntled Diner is the main part in this and thus I can play mind games with the other actors and pretend that I am better than them. There is a really great chemistry between this central trio already. Noel Fielding is playing, Ian, the mysterious figure who can cross between Universes, Jessica Knappett is Yvonne and Ben Bailey Smith is her boyfriend, Gary (Gary and Yvonne - where have we seen a couple with those names before?). And yes, the idea of casting Ben did come to me after I bumped into him jogging at the beginning of the month. Just as I hadn’t thought of casting Rebecca Front as Ms Jackson in Time Gentleman Please until I bumped into her in a bakers. Everything happens for a reason.
I didn’t mix with them though. As I am pretty sure that Channel 4 will want a series with the Disgruntled Diner as the major character and insist I drop all those losers.
We had an awful lot to get through, but we have a diligent director who wants to get everything looking beautiful, so nothing was rushed. Some people might think it’s a mistake to give Barry Shitpeas a shot at directing, but he turned out to be nothing like he is on TV.
As much as I like the autonomy of stand-up, I am not one of those comedians who has to be dictatorial and see everything done as he wants. I love collaboration and the great thing about a TV show (if you get the right cast and crew) is that you allow everyone to be creative in their old field and if you get the chemistry right you get something much better than what you started with. And luckily with this taster tape we get the chance to experiment a bit. Noel had worked hard with costume and make-up to come up with a look for his character, which turned out like a cross between Frank Zappa and an Eastern European shepherd. I certainly wouldn’t want to be sitting next to him at a communal table in a restaurant. Ben spent a couple of hours in make up so that he looked like he’d been battered to death and the result was terrifying and realistic. I am glad that I still can’t get over how much effort gets put in to putting my stupid ideas on to the screen. I was overwhelmed by it when we did Fist of Fun and it still delights me just as much now. Maybe more now. Because I really appreciate what an amazing opportunity it is.
Things went well. I fucked up both of my two lines, but only on the take where I was actually being filmed, and I felt that was in character for the disgruntled diner who takes no shit from anyone and doesn’t play by the rules.
It was a long day, made longer by filming over running and then me having to jump into a cab to go to do a radio interview and made weirder by checking the news to see the free world catching fire. Like we had entered an alternate Universe. Knowing my luck it’s also the Universe where we don’t get a series.
But I feel unusually positive about how things are going and we’re all full of ideas of where we could take this if we do get the green light. Whatever happens it’s a thrill and a privilege to even get this small section of a script professionally produced. Tomorrow is a slightly easier day and as my character has been cruelly left out of these scenes by the writer, I might leave everyone else to get on with it. It feels like it is in safe hands.
