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I was out on a date night with my wife, celebrating some good news she’s had. I allowed myself a third night of drinking in my 100 nights of not drinking (ends on Sunday, but I don’t think I am really heading back to alcoholic oblivion). It was fun, but my eye was on the clock and I had to rush home to catch Goodnight Sweetheart. Why had no one told me this was coming back?
I mean, it’s a bittersweet experience for me, because ideally I would have hoped that the BBC would have had the foresight and intelligence to screen Goodnight Goodnight Sweetheart Sweetheart instead. The story of a failed script writer who is obsessed with Goodnight Sweetheart finding a time-hole back to the set of Goodnight Sweetheart and then copying the scripts off his Goodnight Sweetheart DVD and selling them to the production company who makes the show is, without hyperbole, definite genius. I may have a crack at writing an episode for the additional audio podcast that will accompany the proper filmed podcast next weekend.
Actually as much as I love to criticise Goodnight Sweetheart (and I do love to do that), it was great to see it back (so I could criticise it more) and out of all the revamped BBC sitcoms I’ve seen I fancy it had the most right to be made into a series. It was especially good to see Ron again. And some jokes about how the show never really made sense. It was odd that Gary was surprised by gay men kissing (though he has lived in the 50s and 60s for a long time, so has maybe taken on an old-fashioned sensibility). Sure it made no sense that he wanted to meet himself as a baby (and see his mother’s clackerlackadackdack) or that by holding his baby self he would be projected into the future (more likely he would have destroyed the Universe, which would have been a much braver direction to go in for the BBC sitcom season). Also it didn’t make sense that once he’d been through the wall at Duckett’s Passage for one second, he returned to find a man had come through his locked toilet door and was halfway through a shit. But we can forgive Marks and Gran that, if we can forgive them Gary’s paucity of ambition. He has, true to character, learned nothing and is delighted to be able to skip between timezones causing merry mayhem with music copyright. And I admire his and his son’s musical ear. They both seem capable of carrying a tune after one listen (and in Gary’s case, also remember all the words too).
I would love more though, if only because it means on Goodnight Goodnight Sweetheart Sweetheart the failed writer will be able to visit the set of the current series of Goodnight Sweetheart in his present day time stream and the set of the original Goodnight Sweetheart in the past. It will be mind-blowing. But what will he do when the producers get in touch with him wanting new scripts and he has nothing to copy it from. This stuff writes itself. Literally. I mean if the guy has copied the scripts from old scripts and has the credit fro writing the old scripts, who wrote the scripts? That’s the kind of moral conundrum you get into with GGSS which GS never dared touch.
The RHLSTP Kickstarter has started with a bang, probably the best first day of any of the campaigns, getting over £12,000 in pledges (though none of the money is charged unless we hit the target). There’s still a very long way to go, but it’s looking hopeful that we get to film the next series and won’t go broke from preemptively filming the last series without funding. As always I have to point out that none of the money from this will come to me, it’s just to pay for the costs of filming. It’s the only realistic way we can afford to pay them and if we don’t make the target that’s our way of finding out that it’s time to stop! Also if you can’t afford to pay anything, that is not a problem. That’s why the podcasts are free, so everyone can get them. If you like the stuff and want to give a bit back to us (and get some pretty cool rewards (I think) then that’s great. Here are the brilliant Leon Edler designs that you can get as T shirts or post cards (you can choose which T shirt design you want). We’ve put up some more books with a hand-written, exclusive bonus question in them as those sold out super fast. And we’re thinking of putting the unexpurgated Sofie Hagen royal family conversation up on the exclusive badge channel AND the secret channel for this RHLSTP kickstarter (as long as you all promise not to post it anywhere else), so that is another incentive to give.
