I slept badly and then had a weird dream in which one of the men working on my house was in my back garden (actually my parents' back garden) and then rode up to the house on a land based jetski device which he crashed. He was slightly injured and I rang 999 only to be told that they only operated from 9am-5pm now so couldn't help. It went on for some time and was quite frightening and horrible and I got more and more angry about people's refusal to help. Then my best man appeared and said, "Come into this room" and took me into a small cubby hole where he conspiratorially informed me that I didn't need to panic as all that had happened was a dream, but that I had to warn the manager of my building works that all that I had dreamt would come true.
Later when the team arrived to commence the work on the house I didn't pass on the warning. I mean, it seems unlikely that that will happen. But I am going to feel pretty bad if it does and I didn't say anything. Then again if I tell him and he acts on the warning it won't happen anyway, so we'll never know if I am able to see the future in dream. So this is for the best. Fingers crossed he tries the whole land jet ski thing out. If I see him turn up with one I might have to say something.
I didn't have time to hang around, because I was going to be spending the day in a cramped studio with the opera director Stewart Lee providing commentaries for the series 2 of Fist of Fun DVD. (
Surely you know that you can get series 1 here).
It is 16 years since we filmed the second series (exactly in fact, as episodes cover both Valentine's Day and Pancake Tuesday) and my memories of it were that it wasn't as good as the first series, as we struggled to cope with changes enforced by the BBC (which particularly aggrieved Stew at the time) as well as having to put it together without much warning. I was hopeful that our memories might prove to be wrong. A few comedy fans have said that they prefer series 2 (which includes some of the things that the double act were most famous for like "Moon on a Stick" and the false Rod Hull) and I had seen some sketches and outtakes on youtube recently that had really made me laugh. So maybe the problems were in our stupid and arrogant young heads.
It turned out that they weren't entirely.
I hadn't remembered much about series one, but series two was even more unfamiliar to me, with some bits I didn't recall us filming at all. And at times the double act seems more stilted and less original than before - though usually we provide an unexpected twist to the more obvious material and there are a few stronger routines. But basically the whole thing comes across as a bit of a mess. We seem to be struggling to find the right format and there is no cohesive theme or team to the series. This is partly down to the changes from on high, but I think also down to our own arrogance. Sketches that should have been chopped down to two minutes roll on for five or six and characters that should have been quick weekly fixtures crop up only once or twice. It's easy to say it in hindsight, but a minute of the driving instructor, the teachers, Simon Quinklank, Rod Hull, Peter, Ian news and the forgotten Seahand and Zemquist would have been much more effective in creating a cohesive show and garnering us a following. But the Fast Show was only just blazing that trail and we clearly stuck to our guns, wrongly sometimes, but gloriously correctly on others (the Shrewsbury Pie Pie is one of the best ever Lee and Herring sketches and should be in top 100 run downs, the Prodigal Son sketch is beautiful if lengthy, York City are magic is funny if lengthy and the Boy Who Cried Wolf is lengthy, but for once with very good reason). As I said - and Stew thought this should go on the cover - "There are usually two things in every episode that are worth watching". The failures are more clanking than in series one, but I think the highs are higher and Stew and me are the worst people to commentate on it, correctly embarrassed by some of the more rubbishy bits, but probably too close to it to spot the really good stuff too. Though we were forced to commentate on it, over three hours, as we watched every episode more or less back to back. We laughed, we cringed, we contemplated our careers.
It made the mote fall from my eyes a little bit as I had always harboured the belief that Fist of Fun had been unfairly canned, but it suffers from a very scrappy first episode (which is the one that all the execs would have seen) in which too much material was hacked down in a not particularly effective way - losing the entire pay off to the show (you'll be able to see the unedited studio footage and maybe then edit your own more satisfying version of the programme) and from a lack of direction and I fully understand now why the BBC lost interest - even if their interference was partly to blame for the problems. There are simultaneously too many ideas, yet they're allowed to run for too long usually. It was actually quite fascinating to watch - for most of the people involved it was a first crack at TV and the inexperience perhaps shows. It's good to know that we're both much better comedians and writers now, whilst still interesting to see the genesis of both of our styles (and when we are allowed to have fun and relax the double act dynamic reappears). There's a lesson in there somewhere, though I am not quite sure what it is. It's easier for us to dwell on the failures, but the successes do show promise and inventive skill. There may actually be about five great different shows in there, ready to burst out and it's annoying that something like Ian News only gets two showings, when it is clearly something that would only grab people's attention after three or four.
I think these are issues we addressed in TMWRNJ, probably most successfully just before we were finally properly canned by the BBC. I also think you'll enjoy watching them, laughing and wincing with us and our honest assessments of where we went wrong. Hopefully we will record a video interview soon, in which we can give it a fitting post mortem. I think Stew was more unhappy in the end than I was, but that was also the case at the time. I am a man who is happy to post my failures up with my successes and this is a prime example of something nearly getting it right, but ultimately probably getting it slightly wrong. And yet in that, being an important step in the progression of the double act and us as individuals. It says a lot that the best bit of banter between us occurs with me messing around in a retake, but then being told off via the floor manager and being penned back. Too much pulling in different directions and not enough joy. But weirdly most of the more memorable of Lee and Herring tropes and ideas.
My favourite thing though, was spotting the future comedian Katy Brand in an audience shot, allowing me to ruefully comment that even our audience had gone on to be more famous and successful than me. So many of the performers in the Lee and Herring shows have gone on to much bigger and better things, but it hurts when just someone sitting in the crowd has beaten me too!
So for me a bit depressing that time has passed so quickly and that my career did not go in the direction it might have done if things had gone differently, but also some pride at the good ideas poking through the soil, even after executives had pissed on the ground around us and also some liberation from the nagging idea that I had been hard done by in the past. And quite exhilarating trying to work out why the vehicle had stalled.... ha ha, they stalled. They can't even drive.
Chris Evans.. not that one... represents the fans though, mainly because he is one and he thought we were too hard on ourselves and that the show still stands up. And after Stew had gone I recorded some fun stuff with the actor Kevin Eldon, reliving old triumphs and disasters, reading out some sketches that had failed and doing a commentary of the last episode with various of his characters chipping in. There are also even more cut out bits and sketches than the first series in the new package. I think you fans will like it. I am kind of glad that I didn't love it. We did laugh though. Look at us in the photo, still laughing after all these years.
Ultimately, if nothing else, I think this glorious and terrible project proves that when it comes to comedy snapping up young talent is not the best thing to do. Both Stew and I have matured (though only as comedians) and managed to improve at what we're doing, because we've been allowed to get on and do it. It might have been better for us both in the long run if we'd knocked off the rough edges before getting our break. And Stew at least has been given the chance to show what he can do now on that national stage (whilst I have been able to do the same on loads of national stages). TV still picks the apples from the bough before they have ripened. It's not such a good idea for anyone involved.
I still can't believe that that young man is me, or that we were somehow given these opportunities or how much I took them for granted at the time. I understand better why the nation didn't take us to their hearts at the time, though am grateful to the band of dedicated idiots who got it then and still get it now. In an alternate universe perhaps Peter Dibdin and Nixon and Harris and the false Rod Hull and Ian Ketterman and Seahand and Zemquist are the comedy icons that they nearly deserved to be.
Actually even if the universe is infinite, I think it might remain a constant that Seahand and Zemquist remain unrecognised and unremembered even by the people who created them.
It might just be that I am all right at what I do, but nothing more. Which is a fine thing to be in many ways. I am glad to be forced to look back in this Clockwork Orange style way and to consider all these things.
But I am also glad that after all this time if I am stuck in a room with Stewart Lee, even if we're watching ourselves being cringeworthy, we're still laughing together.
You can't control your future and you can't control your past. You can have a little crack at controlling what you're doing now, but it probably won't make much difference.
