So little happens in Gregory's Girl, yet it's such an enjoyable film. I couldn't see anyone making that nowadays, but its simplicity is its genius. It's just about sweet characters that you care about and nothing awful happens and no one is bad. There is a scene where you think that the slightly dubious games teacher might end up trying it on with Dee Hepburn, but that just becomes a funny little vignette where a football move turns into a dance. Take that "Lesbian Vampire Killers" and all your Guy Ritchie style gangster crap and "Gregory's Two Girls". This is what people want.
In fact it's so simple and so cheap that with today's technology a film like that could be made to a similar quality by almost anyone with the time and the talent for next to nothing.
Well, it's something to think about.
My editor seems to like the first draft of my book, though acknowledges that there is still some way to go before it's finished. Gratifyingly his criticisms of it are the same as my own, but he has also made some excellent suggestions of ways to improve it. The fear was that he'd come back and tell me it was all completely wrong and then I'd have two weeks to write a whole new book, but with some superhuman graft I might be able to deliver the finished version (or at least the second draft) by the end of the month, which is my deadline. But it's pleasing to know that my "Ben Elton Final Draft" (which is what we in the book business call the extraordinarily rough, hastily compiled first draft that has been written in one go and which no one has yet even read through just once to check it isn't complete fucking shit) is not too bad.
But unlike Ben Elton I have no laurels to rest on and can't just put out anything knowing that my feckless and stupid fans will buy it whatever actually quality it is. My fans, alas have some feck and a limited amount of intelligence and expect more of me.
It would be nice to have some laurels to rest on, in some respects, though I have to say the laurels I've seen don't look all that comfy. I've never seen them up close though and they've got to be better than the cold, stone floor which is all I have to rest on at the moment. I genuinely feel increasingly lucky to have got to this age without having accrued any laurels. Everything I've done has been all right and nearly everything has got a reasonable sort of reaction, enough for me to keep going onwards at least. But absolutely nothing I have done has given me the kind of laurel-garnering recognition that would allow me to take my foot off the gas.
Whilst some people (naming no names - other than Ben Elton obviously) have some past triumph in their back pocket that they know will mean that everything they write will be published and then bought by those of no or little feck, I know that I am still at a point where I am only as good as the last thing I've done. I need this book to be the best it can possibly be, to give it the best chance in a competitive market place and to increase my chances of being asked to do another one.
Of course the flip side of that is that because of my lack of laurels there is every chance that I could produce a great book and no one would really notice. But I think I would now almost prefer that to producing a half-arsed book that does really well.
Almost.
I am sticking to my guns, in the face of all the contrary evidence, that if one keeps producing interesting and challenging work that eventually people will recognise it. Despite the fact that so many people produce consistently shoddy stuff and still do well and despite the fact that many of my favourite comedians and writers get nowhere, I still have to believe that it's worth persevering.
So much shit has been thrown at the wall that the wall is now pretty much just made of shit. But if you throw enough good stuff at that wall of shit, then surely eventually one of the good things will stick into the fecal bulwark eventually. Won't it? Though the good thing will undoubtedly be tainted by the effluent that surround it, at least it will be there. And someone might put a laurel on it. The laurel will inevitably get a bit of the shit on it tends to take away a bit of the majesty if you're wearing a shit-smeared laurel - you look less like a Caesar and more like a mad person who has found a laurel in a bin and decided that it would look cool to wear it, despite the excrement. But at least no one would want to rest on a shit smeared laurel. Unless the rumours of Oliver Hardy's homosexual coprophilia (that I have just made up for the purposes of this joke) are true.
Though it seems that once you've got a bit of success you don't care if your laurels are tainted with ordure. You just rest on the bit without the shit on it. So when the next laurel comes with a bit more shit attached to it, you are philosophical and rest on the clean bit - at least it's a laurel. The next laurel is impeded in a big turd but if you put it under the other two laurels you can make a serviceable resting area. Soon there is more shit than laurel, but you can convince yourself it's still a laurel and thus still validates you. But before too long you are lying on a chaise longue made entirely of excreta and if you don't check yourself you will find yourself drowning in a lagoon of cack of your own making, slipping down into it like it's quick sand and you're up to your neck and there's no escape. But at least you won't die as long as you can keep your foot on Ben Elton's shoulder.
So like I say, pleased at the moment to not be able to rest on my laurels and glad I have to work at this and that I know if this and my next Edinburgh show is rubbish that no one is going to make any concessions for me.
So you know, maybe I should do that, rather than writing scatological diatribes.
And many thanks to all those of you who have so far donated to
The Hitler Moustache programme fund. It's an amazing total already, but it is NOT ENOUGH. So please give something if at all possible. I will promise to stop writing about shit/write more about shit (delete according to your preference).
