7254/19774
Can’t believe he tricked Liz Truss into those stupid policies. Now she’s back in charge I am sure it will be plain sailing.
It’s been about a year since I wrote the (possibly) final series of Relativity and a few months since we recorded it and thanks to my middle-aged memory nearly all of it is as much a surprise to me as it is to you. I am not sure if Radio 4 want any more, but in any case this very much felt like the last episode, with it’s echoes of the first and leaving the family in a place where they have more or less found an unsteady equilibrium. Even the one with only one ball. I find it extremely difficult and time consuming to write and I wonder if my writing time might be better placed into something else, but I absolutely adore the recording part and acting alongside the impossibly brilliant cast. This one made me cry quite a lot, but they all do a little bit. After a series where the family is fractured in many different ways and can’t spend time together, they finally get to meet up. And I hope it captures the sense of tentative relief we all felt when the lockdowns appeared to be finally over. Plus it’s very nice to let the much maligned Ken be a bit of a hero and get a touch of acknowledgment after all the teasing. Something, however that I will never afford to my own dad. Not directly anyway. Only on the radio.
I am proud and surprised about how well the series has come out (mainly because I’ve forgotten writing and to some extent recording it). Thanks to those of you who have let me know that it meant something to you. It feels like it’s been going out in a bit of a vacuum, but then that’s usually the way. It makes a change from all those unproduced scripts that never got made. Never say never, but if that’s the end of it, then it wasn’t a bad finale. Also managed to get my characters take the piss out of me and my wife, which is quite some achievement. Thanks to my amazing producer Polly Thomas and the exceptional cast, some of whom had to take a bit of a back seat to my bollock this series, for which I apologise.
You can listen to the final ep (and a few others from this series - the BBC like to make it difficult for you to catch up on this show)
here
I took it easy today, followed the news, made a few notes for my interview with Richard Osman tomorrow and after a PT session had a long bath. And then my wife and I had an actual date. It feels like ages since we had one. We went to the cinema to watch “Don’t Worry Darling” which was quite harrowing and tense, but also featured Gemma Chan AND Olivia Wilde so that’s some bang for your buck. I fell asleep for 15 minutes in the middle, but that wasn’t the fault of the film. That hasn’t happened since the kids were young (though I closed my eyes for a couple of minutes during Mary Poppins the other week) and is either a sign that I am overdoing it or that I am getting old or both.
We went for a Thai meal afterwards in a new place in Welwyn but it was a bit loud and bright and overpacked and the food wasn’t so great. But I got to look at my beautiful wife (who unlike Gemma and Olivia didn’t send me to sleep) and it was fun to catch up. It’s easy to not find the time when work and kids get in the way.
A RHLSTP Book Club that I recorded a few months ago, but I remember it being a cracker. It’s with actual comedy genius Richard Ayoade and it’s about his highly entertaining and philosophical kids’ book The Book That No One Wanted To Read. If you only buy one book that comes out this October
make it this one.
