Spent most of the day struggling over the script for TWTTIN with Dan, Danny and occasionally TV's Emma Kennedy. We had been given a big desk in the Celador offices (they are making the show, probably hoping its inevitable success will off-set the financial losses they have made with that "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" turkey) and were surrounded by other people (almost exclusively women interestingly) working on other Celador shows.
The women at the desk next to us were brain-storming about some new quiz or other, which sounded like it was going to take place over a period of days, with teams being whittled down in the process. Although the public were going to be involved they were also trying to come up with celebrities who could take part. This was a slightly depressing window into how the world of TV works and how arbitrary casting can be. They seemed to be flicking through the Radio Times and reading out the names they saw, occasionally word associating to other celebrities with similar names. Tthus Richard Hammond who neither woman had really heard of reminded one of the women of Richard Bacon, who she liked. The other one thought she'd said Richard Blackwood, who she didn't like and upon whom she commented, "anyone who has had a colonic irrigation on TV should never be allowed to work again." Phew! Thank God I didn't do the extreme health farm thing. It might have precluded me from working on rubbish prime time quizzes with Richard Bacon.
It seemed slightly tragic how these people who at least in some small way are in charge of people's careers and destinies, were so unimaginative in their choices and so judgemental about the people they were mentioning. Despite having worked in this business for 15 years, there's a part of me that still naively believes that the people in charge are fair and informed and know what they are doing. The truth is that most things are decided in a similar way to this. Apparently Cat Deeley would be too lightweight for this show, though Gaby Logan wouldn't be. Based on what I can't really say. For a start the show sounded about as lightweight as you can get without actually floating away. And Cat seems as heavyweight as any of the other names that were being randomly bandied about.
A middle-aged woman in the next office called Su introduced herself, saying that we should get to know each other if we were working so closely. I said that actually we were only going to be at this desk today and tomorrow and next week we'd be upstairs. She'd thought we were working on the same programme as her. We agreed that there was no need for us to bother getting to know each other then. It's a shame. I think me and Su could have been great friends and maybe gone to watch classical music together or something. But it was not to be.
By 6pm the show seemed a long way off being ready. The day before a first night everything always seems rubbish and unfunny and we did a pretty turgid run-through of what we'd got.
We were all tired (though I don't know why the others were. Had they driven to Plymouth and back in the last two days? No they hadn't) and nervous. An ominous atmosphere of doom hung palpably in the air.
I headed home to do some hasty re-writes (and in fact "writes" as much of the stuff I came up with was new) and went to bed at 1am. Knowing that I'd have to get up at 8 am to do even more.
One of these days I will learn to prepare in advance. Hopefully the show won't be terrible. But who can say for sure?
