7777/20718
My seven thousand seven hundred and seventy seventh consecutive blog. Better make it a good one. You don't just throw away number 7777. That means something.
Final Ball Back preview before the Easter holidays and I still haven't really had time to sit down and work on it due to other commitments. Even today I was too weary and Phoebe was off school and I had to watch Beyond Paradise so I had to do the work on stage. This is my preferred way of working anyway, but nowadays I can't do a huge run of previews on consecutive days, which is the best way to write a show without doing any writing.
It's coming together OK though and we tried it with some slides for the first time today, which really helped and tour manager James had put together some ball based music for audience walk-in and had found an incredible array of songs about bollocks. I drove him home afterwards in a topsy turvy inversion of the tour manager/comedian relationship and he had some thoughts about the show. I am hoping I can do this one for a couple of years at least and want to keep building it up and thinking about theatricality, though we had an interesting chat about whether letting the raw emotion through, rather than using lighting or music to make it less stand-uppy.
Talking of Beyond Paradise (as usual it was just on whilst I was in the room - I don't know what actually happened) I see that they are looking for a new detective for Death in Paradise. I don't think any other candidate will be able to claim to have been in the room whilst every episode of this series played (including Beyond Paradise), so I think the job will be mine. I can't really spend six months of the year away from home though, so if they choose me then my detective will have to be based in the UK and solving all the cases via zoom. Can't see that being a problem - it will cut down on costs.
It was suggested on Twitter that I should just turn up on the first day of filming and insist I was given the part. Which might actually make quite a good comedy drama series in itself about a deluded failed actor who thinks he deserves to helm the BBC's flagship drama and refuses to go home and ruins all the shots. The good thing is we can make this idea in conjunction with Death in Paradise and we don't even have to write any scripts. It could all just be ad-libbed. Are you listening BBC?
It's a remarkable show and I genuinely love it and am impressed that they've managed to make the exact same format of show work across so many series and spawned another whole series which does exactly the same thing without being in the Caribbean. I did tweet the creator of the show saying I was ready to take any part in the show at any time, though he said I wouldn't be believable as a murderer or as someone who was murdered, because I am too loveable. Which is just a writer's way of saying I am shit at acting. He might change his mind about me being too loveable to be murdered if I keep pestering him about this. In fact he might write an episode where a creator of a hit TV show set on the island is pestered by a hasbeen comedian who thinks he's good enough to be on the drama, but isn't. The sad thing is I wouldn't even get that part.
