comedy writing

  • 17 Aug

    Hugo Dean and the Biscuit of Death

    In between my non-fiction writing, for a few years now I’ve been working on my first novel. A comedy spy adventure set in the early 1960s, we follow the drunken exploits of Hugo Dean, a secret agent for Her Majesty’s Government. Like James Bond, he enjoys the finer things in life. Unlike James Bond, Dean just can’t handle his booze and tends to find himself on the back foot, in hot water and in desperate need of the toilet.

    France 1964. After a potentially lethal monkey attack upon arrival in Paris, our eponymous hero finds himself in a mysterious and unnecessarily convoluted mission that takes him deep into the dark heart of Europe at the height of the Cold War – when all he really wants is a stiff drink and a sit down.

    It gets worse. A tragic assassination forces Dean to engage in a deadly confrontation with a mysterious assailant over the river Seine. After a small detour to Montmartre for answers, he flees through the Alps and across the border to Switzerland, in the company of the enigmatic Isabella Gadbois. By the waters of Lake Zug, he discovers the true nature of his mission, to win a brutal race and retrieve a mysterious artefact from Spanish military history that could dramatically change the course of the Cold War. From Switzerland, Dean and Gadbois take a night train south to Italy, with an on-board menu that includes unbridled passion, brutal violence and an incredibly well-stocked mini bar.

    Having reached Italian soil more or less unscathed, Dean and Gadbois get caught up in a climactic and explosive showdown between local militia and a secret terrorist organisation in a derelict fortress town high in the Tuscan hills. Who will win? Will anyone survive? Where IS the nearest toilet?

    I’m going to publish the first few chapters on here to give you a flavour of this wonderful piece of nonsense. It’s a thrill. It’s a romp. It’s a farce. Think classic James Bond meets Indiana Jones meets The Thin Man, all told through the eyes of a man who really shouldn’t be doing this for a living.

    Read Chapter One here

  • 20 Jan

    Lockdown 2: A New Hope

    If ever there was a year that’s under a lot of pressure to deliver, it’s 2021. Not fair really. There’s been this unspoken, unfounded but understood belief that last year’s horror show would somehow vanish as soon as the Town Hall clock struck midnight on January 1st. With each and every one of those chimes ringing across the soggy Copenhagen night air, we would bid good riddance to a year blighted by pandemic, and usher in a new dawn of viral-free freedom. Except it didn’t. Funny that.

    2021 has already caved under pressure. It’s told us we shouldn’t get our hopes up. Within only a week of its birth, this year delivered us an unbridled attack on the very seat of US democracy. The images of a failed coup ascending Capitol Hill was a sight to behold. A conflagration of jagged, angry flags, ludicrous facial hair, UFO abductees, Far Right nutjobs and extras from Deliverance. That wasn’t so funny.

    Last year was especially turbulent for me. January 2020 alone saw an unexpected and tragic death in the family, me blighted by a nasty bout of shingles and then both kids simultaneously struck down by chicken pox so aggressive, they resembled those doomed engineers ordered to cool down Reactor 4 at Chernobyl. And then, a few weeks later, just when things started to calm down for us and sickness had waned, the entire world caved in on itself. What a time to be alive. But I remain hopeful.

    Globally speaking, we are lucky to be living here in the time of corona. The UK crumbled. The British government proved even worse at handling a pandemic than Brexit. I remain largely disinterested by Danish politics – too much choice and not enough variety – but I do applaud the current government. Their relatively swift action enabled schools and nurseries to reopen and people to return to work in good time, albeit under different, strange conditions.

    As a parent, I was grateful my kids could continue to enjoy their own kind and we could preserve our sanity. As a performer, I know just how fortunate I was to spend a large chunk of last year doing stand-up comedy and improv to paying audiences all around this city, when so many overseas had their professions and employment crushed overnight by months of interminable lockdown. OK, so things have since gone backwards, but we turned it around before, I remain hopeful we can do it again.

    Now Brexit has happened, along with all other Brits living here, I must reapply for residency. I remain hopeful this will be just a formality and not a hurdle. I’ve lived here half a decade now, this is my home. It is my kids’ home. I want them to enjoy growing up here. Then in ten years’ time, we can visit the smoldering ruins of Daddy’s homeland and buy a Chelsea townhouse for five jellied eels and a pickled egg.

    I also remain hopeful I can shed the lockdown weight and keep it off. I have no patience for diets. Now is not the time. We need all the comfort food we can get. So home exercise that doesn’t involved being screamed at by a lycra-clad YouTuber is the way forward. After years of being a proud member of gyms I won’t go to, the other week I stumped up for a rowing machine. A fancy one. I’ve already used it. I remain hopeful I will use it twice.

    Finally, I remain hopeful you will buy my book. It’s entitled Stan Lee: How Marvel Changed the World, out March 31st. It’s about the man who helped invent some of the world’s most famous comic-book superheroes. But I’ve cunningly written it so you don’t have to be a comic book fan to also find it interesting. It’s a joyous romp through a century of mainstream entertainment – stage, radio, TV, film and online – seen through the life of a man who was at the forefront of popular culture for over seventy years. It’s fun, funny, full of weird trivia, and I hope as fascinating to read as I found it to research and write. You can pre-order now directly from White Owl Books or via Amazon. It’s my first book, but I remain hopeful it won’t be my last.

  • 05 May

    Diary of a Lockdown Nobody

    Recently those delightful folks at The Copenhagen Post collected my social media ramblings during the Coronavirus lockdown for posterity. You can read the original article here, but I’ve also shared them below. Enjoy.

    March 11
    With Denmark now on lockdown, the mask of civilisation starts to slip. The happiest people on Earth turn and eat each other. The welfare state transforms into a police state. Strings of Danish flags will be replaced by barbed wire. Hygge becomes hazmat. Quarantine zones erupt with hideous violence, with once-decent folk ripping each other to pieces over a single pastry. The seas boil, the skies fall. Christiania becomes a huge prison – a deep, yawning chasm pulsing with broken, seething, angry, drug-fuelled Danes. Blood lust will be satisfied via live prime-time competitive entertainment, played out on stolen TV sets powered by rats. From this fallen city, heroes will rise who will lead us from this nightmarish Babylon to a place of sanctuary … That’s what I’m hoping anyway. 

    March 14
    As we begin two weeks in total lockdown, it’s vital to stay calm. Here are five top tips on how you and your family can make the enforced isolation more tolerable. 

    1. Read the dictionary out loud until the inevitable collapse into violence. Savour every punch. 
    2. Keep the kids occupied by signing them up to work multiple shifts at the supermarket. In Minsk.
    3. Hide in the fridge until your partner opens the door, then scream ‘OH CHRIST NOT YOU AGAIN. STOP TELLING ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE!’
    4. Recreate key scenes from ‘The Battle of Algiers’ using whatever food you have left in the cupboard.
    5. Teach yourself how to defeat a bear. Trust me, it WILL be useful.

    March 16
    Whatever happened to quicksand? It was a big deal in the ‘80s. People got stuck in it on TV all the time. Now not so much. 

    March 17
    Look on the bright side. Because all meetings now take place remotely via video, we can have a good old snoop into people’s homes. 

    March 18
    How hard is it working from home with kids? Put it this way. It’s taken me 48 minutes to listen to a song that lasts just over four. 

    March 19
    What I want to know is why are there so few cases in Russia and India, which border China for thousands of miles? And how can a country like China, with over a billion people, and traditionally underwhelming hygiene and food preparation records (relative to other developed countries), have contained this so quickly? Why has their economy now recovered suspiciously quickly while Europe is on its knees. Are the Chinese now rapidly buying up shares, assets and investments in Western stock while we’re busy staying inside? And why-oh-god-please-help-me-I’ve-been-stuck-inside-for-three-days-and-I-need-some-evidence-based-facts-before-my-addled-mind-lumbers-further-into-paranoid-conspiracy-theories. 

    March 20
    Six months of dark, grey Danish winter. Now glorious sunshine, we all have to pretend we’re in ‘The Shining’. 

    March 28
    With the world going to hell in a handcart, only a fool would try to sell their home, right? We’ll I’m that fool. If you know anyone interested in a piece of prime Copenhagen real estate so desirable and at such a bargain it would make Lex Luthor collapse with joy, then please share or recommend. 

    March 29
    A belated thank you to all who took the time out of your busy schedule to wish me a happy birthday. Those of you who know me will be aware I have trained my whole life for this lockdown. 

    I grew up glued to the TV. I don’t much care for being outdoors. I enjoy my own company. I know how to keep myself amused for weeks on end without leaving the house and I have no great itch to do anything physical other than pour a fifth gin. I could have ridden this out without breaking a sweat. 

    In fact, when the pandemic lifts, I’d probably be the one person asking for another couple of days to prepare myself for interacting with society.  

    March 31
    Just sent my finished book to the publishers. Thanks to all who made it possible. Am now going to stay in and get wrecked. 

    April 3
    Right now I’d happily start an aggressive and destructive drugs habit just for the stint in rehab #lockdownwithkids. 

    April 9
    I went for a run today. An actual run. I actually ran. And I was bad at it. Just terrible. Caught a glimpse of myself as I wheezed past a shop window. I looked like an overweight bear standing on its hind legs for the first time. How can this be? How can someone be bad at running? It’s a basic human ability. We evolved to run. Fight or flight. I can’t do either. Here I stand, a miracle of evolution. They should make a Netflix documentary about me. About my shocking inability to rapidly move my limbs. And I wasn’t even wearing heavy tweed or holding a sherry. So I shall continue this endeavour until I have mastered the art of swift movement. Wish me luck. Donations welcome. 

    Easter Sunday
    It’s so important to remember why we celebrate Easter. How, two thousand years ago, Jesus was sent to prison by a military court for a crime he didn’t commit. This man promptly escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Lost Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire … Jesus. 

    April 15
    Here’s a thought. If you’re feeling anxious, stressed or scared. Stop watching the news. Stop reading articles about coronavirus. It’s not helping. It really isn’t. It doesn’t make us feel good. The press don’t thrive on making us feel good. Never have. Never will. 

    Currently there are too many stories floating around about how terrible things could be – rolling-news padding that serves as filler in between what scarce real news there truly is. And by ‘real news’, I mean information that will move things forward. And trust me. We’re so plugged in, anything productive that we need to know, we WILL hear about. Vaccines, antibody tests, the dead rising from the grave, you’ll be notified. In the meantime, absorbing endless charts of death or journalists and politicians politicising a pandemic will only trigger and fuel anxiety, anger and blame. 

    Truth is we’re all still in stasis right now. That’s about it. Nothing has changed. The virus is here. It’s not going away. Many people are getting it. Some are dying. It’s horrible. We must be vigilant. So it goes. Anything else is purely emotive click-bait. So while we wait for things to progress, let’s just keep talking, stay in touch, and find the funny side wherever we can. So here’s the fish-slapping dance. 

    April 19
    You know you need to exercise when you see a ‘before/after’ gym ad and think: “I’d just be happy with the ‘before’ pic.” 

  • 19 Oct

    Get Brexit Done? Not On Your Life.

    People now pushing Brexit simply because ‘it’s been dragging on too long’. Fuck you. So sorry you’re bored of all this. How tedious that it’s always on the news. Must be a real drag to be part of one of the most significant flash points in modern European history.  Must put you right off your dinner. 

    Of course it’s tedious. Most socio-political and economic things that matter are. This is incredibly dry and complicated, no matter how Whitehall and its tabloid patrons would have it spun. 

    Of course it’s irritating. It’s being managed by a drunken clown convention straight out of a Hogarth print. If you were being forced to watch your kid’s incredibly important birthday party being planned every stage by scores of narcissistic rabid baboons, you’d have every right to be irritated. There’s only so much shit being flung across the room one can stomach.

    But that doesn’t mean anyone should be dismissing this seismic calamity, nor the way it came to fruition, as some trifling inconvenience that simply needs to be over and done with, like it’s the weekly big shop. What a shallow collection of self-absorbed skin bags we really are. 

    Maybe a major reason it’s still dragging on is because it’s incredibly important that we get it right. That maybe there is NO WAY to get it right. That maybe, just maybe, we should have left this sort of thing to those with relevant knowledge, skills, experience and qualifications. Not the current gaggle of self-serving politicians and certainly not ‘The People’.

    I’m not saying ‘The People’ are thick. This isn’t some smug middle-class anti-Brexit tirade. My point is that when it comes to issues like this, people are, at best, completely indifferent. We’re more interested in going down the pub with friends, binging Netflix, having a nice lunch or seeing who wins Strictly. And that’s absolutely fine. Point is, we shouldn’t need to be involved in this. 

    Back in 2016, Cameron probably thought he could quietly slip this through, appease the euro-sceptic back benchers, declare a decisive ‘Remain’ victory and no one would even notice. Talk about not reading the room. People were annoyed for wealth of reasons, most of them nothing of them to do with Europe. I doubt the way Europe and the United Kingdom interact on any level was really even on our radar in any meaningful way. Most of us are just trying to get through the fucking day.

    But we all got whipped up by opportunists and money lenders into having an opinion, into a froth of polarisation that shattered the gossamer-thin facade of class and societal unity. While some no doubt had informed convictions either way, for the most part, those of us happy to keep the status quo because everything seemed to be working fine ticked ‘Remain’, while the disaffected, fearful and the ignored channelled their ire and frustration into the ‘Leave’ checkbox.

    Now we’ve got the Bumbling Prince of Thieves in No 10 and he is no more equipped to or interested in securing the best deal for the British people than a shark is bothered that its throat might be a tad rough when it swallows your leg.

    Can’t we just ‘get it over with?’ Can’t we get back to how things were? what is that exactly? A continually grim struggle amidst the shackles of austerity? Some mythic version of Britain so bucolic and fantastical you’d think Downton Abbey was up the road and the local pub was run by a fucking hobbit? Perhaps somewhere in between.

    Fact is, we are a mongrel nation. A stew of cultures, cross pollination, traditions, races, classes and creeds. Even in the Brexit heartlands, that you only have to travel mere minutes to stumble upon a different regional dialect shows just how many different tribes are so densely packed in to such a small collection of islands. This tribalism goes back centuries. You don’t really want to pull at that threat. Inviting us to make such an ill-informed binary choice and pick a side was always going to be a catastrophe. 

    No, we should not ‘just get on with it’. Not if it’s a bad idea – which all research and evidence would suggest it is. however you voted in 2016, no one voted for this. No one. Because ‘this’ wasn’t on the ballot box. 

    Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I’m not going to forget my principles, standards nor considered and reasoned research that led me to make what I hoped was an impartial and informed choice. But hey, I’m no expert. We’ve had enough of those so probably just as well. 

  • 01 Jul

    No Sex Please, We’re Creating: Gender and Equality in the Writers’ Room

    There was a bit of a hoo-ha recently when it was reported that ITV’s Head Of Comedy, Saskia Schuster has banned all-male comedy writing teams.

    Monty Python (L-R: Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese)

    Monty Python (less Terry G) 1969: arguably the most famous comedy writing team ever. The Oxbridge graduates used to meet regularly upstairs at Soho’s famous Nellie Dean pub in Soho. Women need not apply.

    This lead to all sorts of misguided and unhelpful online outrage about men being marginalised so women could be fast-tracked into the British comedy industry, regardless of merit.

    Now, as anyone with even a Trump-sized brain knows, this is not discriminating against men. It’s a laudable attempt to redress the balance in what has historically been a male-dominated space.

    The Simpsons writers room

    The Simpsons writers’ room, early 90s. Note: the only female present is cardboard. And a baby.

    Writer and performer Brona C Titley offered this excellent response in The Guardian, which compelled me share my own experience of working in a comedy writers’ room.

    My sole experience is an odd one, and not much fun.

    I worked on a (thankfully) failed attempt to replicate a US late-night talk show for UK audiences. I spent several weeks trapped in a braying sausage fest, all white men, leftovers from Loaded magazine.

    My overriding memory is just how exhausting it was. All the banter about ‘fit birds’ and ‘’aving it large’ (whatever the fuck that means) turning to tedious white noise.

    Funny thing is, I was completely marginalised and ignored throughout the process even among ‘my own kind’, because I was the only one in the room who knew nothing about football and wasn’t a lad, thereby somehow invalidating my input.

    This wasn’t an awful experience because they were all white men, but because they were monstrous arseholes who happened to be white men. But the fact there was no diversity didn’t help.

    You gather together one type of ANYBODY in a room and the experience will nosedive pretty fast.

    I’ve had incredibly satisfying creative collaborations exclusively with white men, exclusively with white women, and with a diverse mix of talented people.

    Crucially, I’ve also had awful experiences working with all of the above.

    30 Rock starring Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin

    Tina Fey‘s brilliant 30 Rock, based on her own experiences as Head Writer in SNL.

    Equality and diversity should be encouraged in every endeavour; Titley’s article is bang on. It’s tragic we still even have to say this. But what irks me is that such dialogue in the public space often rapidly descends into identity politics. Which is a cop out.

    Monty Python, a lot of whose output has dated horribly, will always be a profound influence. As is Peter Cook and Peter Sellers. As is Jerry Seinfeld and Robin Williams. But I don’t admire them because they are all white men. But because their comedic brains resonate with me. Still do.

    The greatest thing about the greatest comedy is that it transcends class, race and gender.

    Alternatively, Fleabag, the best comedy I’ve seen in a long time, isn’t superb because Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a woman, it’s because she’s a phenomenal writer, actor and director. But thank God we live in times where she was given the opportunities to gift the world her brilliantly warped mind.

    Because, as Titley correctly asserts, everyone who works in the creative industry does so because they were given an opportunity.

    Fleabag on BBC Comedy

    Fleabag. Created and written by a hugely talented human. Who happens to be a woman.

    There is no doubt that diversity tends to birth infinitely more interesting work – IF the chemistry is there. And I think that’s crucial for me. That’s how you create your best work and ultimately, it’s the work that counts.

    Bottom line, I don’t really give a shit who is in the room with me as long as they bring something to the table.

  • 02 Jan

    Hooray for Hollywood

    Hello world,

    2012 is here. This year will prove very interesting, not least if the Mayans are right. Still if they were that good at pinpointing the apocalypse, surely they would have foreseen their own demise…?

    Sadly astral charts and ancient predictions are less likely to bring about the downfall of modern civilization than the current economic meltdown which shows no sign of abating, but I know precious little about the ins and outs of it all so I shall say no more.

    What I will say, is that last year ended for me on a career high when a sitcom script I co created and co-wrote with dear friend James Devonshire is being sold to a major Hollywood studio. As several people have asked me to explain further on Facebook or Twitter I thought here would be a better place to do so.

    The idea was simple enough – a recession comedy about a man who has everything, loses everything and has to return to where he grew up and start again. Not particularly original I’ll admit but what me and James wanted to do is recreate that fast-paced, zingy dialogue that those Yanks have been doing so well for decades, but which is somewhat lacking from British comedies. Think Howard Hawks over Roy Clarke and you’re on the right lines.

    It seems the script had proved a bit too much a storng flavour for the British producers we’d so far shown it to, but on reflection it makes sense it would appeal more to the US market. Sure enough we gave it to a producer now working over in California (who also happens to be a gloriously wonderful, kind, thoughtful woman – a rare thing in this game) who read it, liked it and felt her boss would like it too.

    We’d never heard of her boss, but a quick google search revealed him to be the former President of a major US TV studio. This is when it all got very exciting. further probing revealed that during his tenure, he had a hand in developing and sustaining, among others, Cheers, Frasier, Seinfeld, Friends, ER and The West Wing. This is when it all got VERY exciting. Talk about a proven track record.

    This man did like our work and talks began with a view to develop a US version of our script which, despite the aforementioned dialogue style, was very much a British beast, picking apart and subverting the traditional view of rural English village life. More The Wicker Man than The Vicar of Dibley but without the surreal grotesque overtones of the former that inspired the brilliant League of Gentlemen. In short, village life can be pretty grisly and that’s what we wanted to capture.

    Fortunately for us, America has hundreds of equally grisly rural backwaters and so our script struck a chord over the Pond and as we move into the new year, with any luck we’ll see a pilot being filmed. At the moment I am keeping everything crossed and touching an enormous amount of wood. I ask you please to do the same.

    Hopefully this blog entry won’t have jinxed development, but I always believe that if I had the power to negatively affect the outcome of a future event by merely vocalising my desire for everything to go well then this must make me some sort of demi-urge. Rest assured, I know from my tussle with a minor stomach bug over the festive period I am not a god. Merely a frail, overly-delicate mortal, flesh and blood and full of wind.

    So that’s it. Forgive the vagaries – I felt it best not to mention names (apart from James of course) and I’ll keep this site updates with more news as and when it breaks. If, on the other hand, the Mayans turn out to be right about 2012 then I suggest we all stock up on the ham in the tin and start building that bunker in the garden.