As you all know
I just want to be on the telly, please let me be on the telly, cos I just want to be on the telly and apparently God has started listening to his plaintive prayer as I am getting on about once a month at the moment.
Today I made the short trip to TV Centre to appear on Dave Gorman's "Genius" alongside Celebrity Big Brother's Vanessa Feltz. As I arrived at the front door, with the fountain that Roy Castle tap-danced around in plain sight I bumped into Ali, who had been (I believe) a lowly 1st Assistant Director on Fist of Fun, but has risen through the ranks but was now one of the big cheeses on the show I was about to appear on. It was cool to see her again, but both of us were aware of just how much time had passed and so quickly. Back then I had been overexcited to be at TV Centre and to see Jeremy Paxman in the lift. Now there is still a bubble of emotion in my chest, but also some nostalgia and some regret that things didn't quite work out as I had hoped back then, but also hope that things might be moving in the right direction again.
And I was put in a super-smart modern dressing room with ensuite bathroom and a comfy leather sofa and a bowl full of Celebration chocolates. Surely not even Tom Cruise gets this kind of star treatment. There was also food laid on - some tarts and posh bread and ham and cheese and salads - which astonishingly had been given its own dressing room as well. It was one of the old rubbish dressing rooms that I was used to, with a chair that looked like it was from the 1970s and no toilet, about the size of large cupboard. The runner who had brought me here told me to help herself and when another of the crew looked in, jealously eying my ciabattas and parma ham. The runner told him that there would probably be enough food for him to have some as there was more than two people would be able to eat. "Not when the two people are me and Vanessa Feltz," I said.
"Save it for the show," said the runner, with maybe a hint of weariness.
I was though feeling pretty relaxed about the show. I have learned that for me, at least, that the technique with these panel shows is to look like you're having fun and to enjoy everyone else's contributions. Even if you are then rubbish, at least there are lots of shots of you laughing, but in reality by being relaxed and making everyone else feel appreciated you are more likely to come up with funnies and so are they. Of course you can't just laugh like a loon at every single comment or you will look strange and obsequious, but if the enjoyment is genuine then the show is going to tick along. When I first appeared on panel shows I was uptight and nervous and worried that I wasn't prepared, but now, although I have a good think about things I like to go into the recording without a big list of gags or with the intention of steering the conversation around to a piece of material I already have. It's much more natural and impressive in the circumstances to go with the flow and create comedy from what is going on in the room.
In any case there was very little to prepare for with this show as it is very free-flowing and genuinely random.
I did come up with a couple of genius ideas, including a switch on your phone which you could flick when a cold caller came through to you, which would transfer them to another line, which had a recording of your voice saying "Go on" or "I see" or "Tell me more" whenever there was a gap in conversation. It would be designed to keep the cold caller on the line as long as possible without ever buying what they were offering and thus prevent them from bothering anyone else. But also the line they get directed to would be a premium line which actually earned you money the longer they stayed on.
As it turned out I was never asked for an idea anyway, so even that prep was unnecessary.
Though the production team have prepared a few props and some of the large audience of potential geniuses are definitely going to get picked, most of them (and there was 50 or so potential people waiting to share their genius idea) are selected without any of the panel (including Dave) knowing what they are going to say. And unusually for a panel show we were primed about practically nothing, which is a much smarter way of doing things if you trust your guests to do their job. It means surprises and any tricks that might be played will get genuine reactions. I certainly hadn't expected Dave to put me in a pink blindfold and then ask me to spank myself, but as you'll see if you watch this (not sure when it's on, but it's definitely worth a look) he did end up doing that.
It was probably the most consistently funny and enjoyable panel show that I have done so far and I think I did a good job. Hopefully people are starting to realise that I am fairly adept at this kind of comedy. I think I always was (although the podcasts have certainly helped hone the skill) and had the sharpness and improvisational skills to appear on these shows years ago (when pretty much no one was employing me), but it's good to be given the chance to take part now. And as I sat in my luxury dressing room it did give me a chance to reflect on the fact that I was doing better with my career than I sometimes allow myself to realise. I was one of a dozen people to be selected to appear on this programme this series. Out of all the people vying for these jobs in a very competitive market. I can allow myself an occasional pat on the back. Though I know a lot of it is down to the relentless hard work of the last five years.
Vanessa had not only done her radio show this morning, but a 3 hour pilot for ITV this afternoon and now a 2 and a half hour recording in the evening. It seems success comes to those with the drive and ambition to work hard and push themselves.
Although tonight didn't feel like work.
And fellow comedians nights like this one do make all the slogging up and down the country, the tough gigs and the rejections of scripts seem to be worthwhile. Keep plugging away now.
Dave Gorman is a terrific host for this show, probably because like Charlie Brooker, he is much more than a man reading the autocue and is clearly involved with the production at every level. He is not egotistical or attention grabbing and allows the chat to flow, but is very witty himself. And he showed an admirable level of commitment and friendliness to the members of the public who had come to be on the show, spending a good 45 minutes after the show to talk to them all personally, whether their idea was used or not.
Good to see one of the good guys being successful and a programme that is much more about celebrating people and their sometimes idiocy and sometimes genius rather than mocking them or trying to make them feel small. TV comedy seems much too concerned with cruelty in the last decade and whilst that has its place it should only be a niche market. Let's hope the tide is turning.
Personally I would like to see the creative side of comedy taken out of the hands of executives and given back to creative people. There aren't many TV shows which like Fist of Fun are written and performed by a small team of people with a similar vision. From what I have experienced recently with script writing and seen with others around me, there are masses of producers and executives interfering and wanting to change things. I think they need to find funny people and let them be funny (and again with the Lee and Herring shows we were just pretty much allowed to do whatever we fancied, but this is not a luxury afforded to many new comics these days), because we're the ones who have spent years working out how to do this job and make people laugh. And it sometimes feels (or at least seems it from the kind of scripted shows that get commissioned) that execs work through a script and tick what they recognise as jokes, and if there are enough ticks they will commission the product. But the kind of jokes that the execs can spot are predictable and boring and thus unlikely to surprise anyone and make them laugh. Have a look at 30 Rock. I wonder how much of this would look funny on the page to someone with no background in comedy. It's packed with jokes that might conceivably get a tick from a smart exec, but most of the funniest stuff comes from the superb interpretation of these lines and the subtle and wonderful reactions of the actors. In a recent episode Jack talking of Don Geiss says, "He built GE into the best company on Earth and the Earth into one of the top three planets in the Universe." This is a funny enough line in itself, even if there is no explicit joke in it. It's ludicrous in itself and it's a lovely touch that the Earth is just in the top three planets in this impossible statistic, but it's humour comes from the Jack Baldwin's serious delivery. The real laugh though comes from a cutaway to Frank, pulling an expression which suggests he is both surprised but genuinely impressed by this feat. That stuff is about getting the funny people and letting them get on with their job. I wonder if 30 Rock would have been commissioned in Britain and if it was whether it would have got another series after the first six. It was a very slow burner in America as it was. It is now the best comedy on TV by some distance, despite some strong (mainly American) competition.
I have digressed a bit, but this is all stuff that I was thinking about in my posh dressing room. I was of course mainly thinking that I should be one of the funny people that the executives let get on with it. But still....
So what I am saying I suppose is "I just wanna be on telly, please let me be on the telly. I just want to be on the telly."
What a cock.
