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I was kept away from my computer by loads of meetings today, but all very inspiring and exciting and hopefully they will prompt me to pull my finger out (of 1940s Germany where I am poking Hitler) and get on with the huge mountain of stuff that I have to do.
I met a couple of potential producers for the forthcoming Radio 4 series Relativity. It made me realise how tough it was going to be to write a radio sitcom with ten or so main characters, but also that this is a rare and important opportunity. It’s been a good while since I have had a script that has gone beyond the commission stage to be produced.
Then I whizzed across town to see a young set designer who is going to be working on AIOTM and show her the space we’re working with. Again, that brought home the fact that this is actually happening, very soon, and how much work there is to do to make it happen. But like the potential producers she was full of ideas and it dawned on me how exciting this project is as well.
And then I met a guy who is going to have a go at building a toaster sex robot for us. It’s not for the show, I just thought I should get something out of the AIOTM kickstarter. He had ambitious plans for the toaster robot, which again was quite inspirational, giving me some ideas for how the running sketch (it is for AIOTM really, I was kidding, but I will get to keep it afterwards) might progress. We filmed the first part already and I have a feeling that if we do this right we might have made a 30 minute feature film over the course of the series. About what happens when a man attempts to go against God and nature by building a sex robot out of toasters. It’s a story as old as time.
So although, as usual, most of my work is self-generated, it feels like I am entering an intense, interesting and potentially important few months in my career. If I can make these shows work as I wish then I think it should give things a big boost. I have been reluctant to get on with the job of being a writer in the last few years, or at least found it hard to apply my arse to the chair to do the necessary hard work. But I am an idiot for being so useless. And I hope having too much to do will actually invigorate me and make me work harder. I have heard fairly positive whispers coming back from Channel 4 about my Alternative Universe script. It will be just my luck if that suddenly gets green lit too. Just my luck because that would be extremely jammy (which I think is my default setting) but also another huge pile of work to add on to what I’ve got, when I’ve just had a decade of relative disinterest.
Ha!
Meanwhile I am starting to try and book people for the rapidly approaching 10th series of RHLSTP, only to be presented with Adam Buxton getting not only Bill Hader, but Michael Palin too. Whyyyyyy! I am hoping I can bring you some names that are as exciting as this, but at the moment I am just sitting back, looking at 18 vacant slots and crying into my porridge. As I like to call it.
Winner of the monthly prize draw for monthly subscribers is London’s James Knight
RHLSTP with Sofie Hagen has now gone up on audio
Listen here.
and video youtube
vimeo
itunes
And remember if you come to see the show lives you get to hear all the libellous stuff that we can’t possible broadcast!
The video should be up on Friday.
We’ve launched another ambitious kickstarter campaign, this time to pay for filming the 34 episodes of RHLSTP we will be doing this year. As we’ve already filmed 16 of these we will be slightly up shit’s creek if this one fails, but also I am more than aware that we’ve asked for a lot this year, so if you haven’t given before please consider chucking in a couple of quid and I think we’ve come up with some really good value rewards if you want to give a bit more. Thanks to top cartoonist Leon Edler for agreeing to help us out and design some T-shirts. I think the book of emergency questions will be really good value. Loads of people have said they have livened up a social gathering (or indeed life-threatening situation) by asking the ones they could remember. And there’s some high end stuff there too which is pretty exciting. Jump on board if you can.
The September newsletter is now out with news of RHLSTP kickstarter, AIOTM and Osama Bin Laden
