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I’ve been slowly working my way through the writing I need to do for AIOTM. At the moment I am concentrating on the filmed sketches, though I am aware that the next studio date is looming. It’s a stupid amount of work to be doing for no money and no sensible person would do it. BUT it’s actually awesome to be writing something that is definitely going to be made (true I have a radio 4 sitcom to do of which that is also true). I am trying to turn my robot sex obsession into a six part running sketch, which I think might actually cut together quite well as a long short film. We’ve pretty much got the first episode in the can and I finished a first draft of the fourth one today. I keep forgetting that whatever I write will be committed to film because I’ve become so used to writing stuff that nothing happens to, so every now and again I get a lovely and terrifying jolt of, “Oh right, I am actually going to have to do this scene where I make out with a toaster robot.” I mean if that really was a fantasy of mine, to make love with a toaster robot whilst being filmed, then this whole AIOTM kickstarter thing would have been a glorious way to make other people pay for my sexual fantasies to come true (especially if I also got off on people paying to watch me have sex with a robot). But it isn’t really.. honestly.
And anyone who says it is is lying.
We are spending a relatively large chunk of our budget on making the toaster robot. I don’t know what will happen to it afterwards. I guess I’ll just have to keep it up in my office. But it’ll take up some space… no, no, it’s all right. I will take one for the team. But I think the cost will be worth it, not just so that all my fantasies come true, but because spread over five or six sketches the toaster robot will pay for itself. Also free toast for the crew.
We will keep pushing onwards until we run out of money and I am slightly nervous about if we’ve got time to do all these quite ambitious ideas. But the show comes out when it is ready (probably in February or March 2017 - although I am tempted to see if we can get episode one out in time for Christmas).
Today, with the RHLSTP kickstarter staggering towards the finishing line and requiring its brother to prop it up for the home stretch and writing my own show on my own terms I realised how incredibly lucky I am to be in this position. Some things are more important than getting paid. The robot sex dilemma is leading me to some quite thoughtful, yet disgusting places.
And a bit of a curve ball thrown into my marriage this evening. I got a call from a desperate sounding producer of Pointless Celebrities asking if I could come in to record a show tomorrow afternoon. I presume I am the first choice and it just took them ages to line up the other contestants. Of course I will always drop everything to go and be humiliated on that show. I love it. It’s better than creating a toaster robot. But the added twist is that it was a family edition and they wanted Catie to be my partner. Now firstly, Catie is not a fan of Pointless, secondly she is an alien with very little understanding or knowledge of earth trivia and thirdly tomorrow is meant to be our date night. Could I convince her that going on Pointless and risking humiliation for us both was a date? And would our marriage survive if she gave a wrong answer and sent us crashing out in the first round?
Yes and no, as it turns out. She reluctantly agreed to do it.
Will it be third time lucky? I doubt it very much. My memory is shot to pieces due to age, tiredness and fatherhood. Catie’s frame of reference is so odd that it might actually help us win Pointless - we watched an episode and she tended to know the much more obscure answers, though be confused by the obvious ones. I know it’s inevitable that either she will propel us to victory and win a Pointless trophy on actually the only time she’s ever really tried to play the game or I will screw up and cause us to go our early.
But I am relaxed about it. Like when I was called up to do Just A Minute at the last second, hungover and without having had any time to worry about it, I did the best I’d ever done. I haven’t had time to work useful up into a frenzy of knowing nothing about anything.
I don’t know when it will be on. Hopefully my marriage will survive at least until the broadcast.
RHLSTP with Tom Parry now up in all the usual places.
