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The good news is I finished the final draft of script 5 today. The bad news is that I am still only about 10 pages into script 4 and 0 pages into script 6. Time is running out, but hopefully my brain will respond to the deadline. I did make script 5 A LOT better (I think).
My producer remains admirably cool about the slow progress. She’s worked on the other two series (and with other writers) so she is aware that I usually pull it out of the bag at the last minute. I have spent the last four months being pretty convinced that I didn’t have time (or ideas) to get this series done. I have surprised myself with how far I have come and yet I still don’t have several of the ideas that I require to drive this baby home.
And yet, like my producer, I mainly feel relaxed about it. It will come, in some form or other and as slightly scared as I should be, I do already have four scripts that I am not ashamed of. And that’s four more than I was expecting.
I am going to be so happy when this is over though. The writing part anyway. The recording is usually so much fun that I will feel slightly sad when that’s done. I have a great team and I am sure together we can knock off any rough edges. If it came to it I’d trust them to be able to ad-lib their way through the sixth episode. We will get there.
It reminds me of how trapped I felt revising for my A levels. I hope I get the same sense of release when it’s over.
And also I get to be 18 again and have a year off. And this time I won’t end that year off a virgin.
Another drive into central London this evening and I have been surprised how quickly you can get in at this time over the last couple of days. I get caught in a bit of rush hour traffic near to the A1 (though found a sneaky way to avoid most of that today) but then it was plain sailing, We left at 5.20pm and arrived in Soho Square at 6.35pm and were able to park for free in a spot that was no more than two minutes walk from Soho Theatre. It felt like a miracle.
We were going to see Jessica Fostekew doing her Edinburgh award nominated show
“Henchâ€. We had found it hard to see many shows at the Fringe due to our stupidity in having children, so we’re trying to catch up with a few things now. And Jess did not disappoint. She has a horrifying birth story and some honest bits about parenting and great stuff about body image and the redundancy of dieting. Although the audience was majority female, a lot of this show resonated with me and my own life experiences and Jessica is an engaging performer with funny bones, able to bring the laughs out of horror with ease.
It was strange being back at the Soho Theatre. This was a regular hang out in the Noughties, as well as a place where I did some of my own stand up and it felt weird to realise that some of the cool young people milling around in the bar might not have been born when I was first drinking here. There used to be an excellent Indian restaurant in the basement, which none of these idiots would even know about (it’s been replaced by the venue we saw Jessica in, so maybe that’s a good thing). To be fair it feels like a billion years since those days, but perversely in my head I am 25, which is younger than I actually was when I first came here.
It’s a brilliant theatre and I am sure still a fun place to hang out and get pissed, but within ten minutes of the show ending, we were in our car and on the way home. Though feeling that a weekly trip into town to see a show was something that was eminently achievable.
We’re actually coming back in on Friday to see another show. Three nights out in a week? I’ve still got it.
