As the year draws to a close things seem to be really picking up for me and the promise of 2006 being a good year for me increases. I am planning a tour of my yoghurt show in March or April next year (preferrably in stand up venues that seat about 150-200 people so if you are a promoter and want to book me then get in touch with the Avalon Live Department or if you are a punter and want to see me in your crappy town then pester your local promoter) and the BBC seem keen on the script that I finally managed to get done last month. This morning I got a call from my manager saying that there has been some interest in the TV version of "Warming Up" or "Blog" as the project is currently called and we've been asked to make a taster tape (a 10 minute segment to show how it would work) in the new year. If they like that then apparently we would go to series pretty quickly. So that's quite exciting.
This got me thinking today about how weird it will be to relive my life from three years ago and recreate the things I did then. But weirder, if the series lasted for long enough (unlikely I know given that I am in it and have never had a project go beyond its second series) then I would presumably get to the point where some of the Warming Ups are about the filming of the show and thus in three years time I will be forced to recreate the filming of the early series. Perhaps to save time I should film the series for three years time at the same time as shooting this series and then we won't have to go to all the trouble of matching up my hair and clothes and weight.
Well maybe not. All that is a long time away, but it was a bit of a jolt to find myself on the phone discussing who I would like to direct and produce the show and when I would be able to deliver scripts if the series comes off (rather marvellously a lot of the work is of course already done - not that the show is just a verbatim reading out of the entries, but at least I won't be scratching my head trying to think up plots).
I have been in this business long enough not to get too giddy about anything, because executives can change at the drop of a hat and things that looked certain can often end up at the bottom of a drawer at the bottom of a cellar at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, with a booby trap device on them that will blow up the world if anyone attempts to look at them. I mean that literally. This has literally happened to at least one of my projects and I think it's a shame as the cost of building the cellar in the deepest part of the ocean and then constructing a Doomsday device far exceeded the relatively modest budget for the sit-com/panel show that I had pitched. The extent to which the TV exectutives went to prevent me from getting on TV seems slightly rude when couched in these terms.
But unusually I have a good feeling about this project. And at the very least it will save any of you johnny come latelys having to read the early entries that you've missed, from the days when Warming Up was actually good.
But the universe must remain balanced and later on I found out that pokerzone will not be commissioning a second series of "Heads Up With Richard Herring" - a general decision about their output rather than a judgement on the show (which I think is enjoyable enough, especially if you like poker, which I know many of you don't). Cancelled after one series? That's a trend I don't care for.
But let's accentuate the positive and hope that the next year will see at least one of my new projects come to fruition, or at the very least let you see me talking about yoghurt in a room above a pub in a town near to your house.
