I am hoping to get the Meaning of Life script finalised by Wednesday so I can spend a few days learning it, but only made a small amount of progress today. But it all seemed a little bit more real when I got sent a logo for the show from illustrator Chay Hawes who is working on the title sequence. It's like a proper thing! I can't wait to see how the opening titles work out (I also have Christian Reilly working away putting my lyrics to music - go and see him at the Leicester Square Theatre on Saturday). It won't be ready for Sunday alas, but it's great to have a little taster. I am not sure when we will start putting these up online as we want to get them as good as possible and we have the luxury of being able to have another go at certain bits in future records. So if you want to be the first to see the new material then you'll have to come along to watch the recording. It's only £10 and will include an interview with physicist Marcus Chown. Get your tickets here. It'd be great to have a full theatre, both for atmosphere and to help offset the costs (though even if we sold every ticket for the run that would only pay about a quarter of the budget). You will get an experience that won't be available to those who watch or listen to the final show. I am not sure it will be a better experience. But it will be different. It's going to be scary as Hell for me, but slightly historic (in comedy terms) and your laughing or disgruntled face might appear in the finished article.
What I like about this way of doing things is that a massive weight of pressure is removed because there is no one looking over my shoulder, judging it, working out if it is worthy of being on TV or getting another series. In the past whenever I've been working on a TV show there has been a cloud of fear enveloping me as I worried, "Will the executives and focus groups like this? Will we get another series?" But by doing it ourselves that is gone. It's unlikely we will get it totally right straight away, but we have no fear that the show will be cancelled, because we're in control of it.
If you watch Fist of Fun series 2, the sense of confusion and fear is palpable. There are loads of great ideas and some of the funniest Lee and Herring stuff in there, but the format is all over the place and it's because everyone was dipping their oar in, telling us what we should and shouldn't do. And we were aware that possibly our entire futures depended on everything working and the suits upstairs being happy (regardless of what the audience felt). But we have time to make this thing work and make it right and to learn as we're going. On the downside I am not getting paid and it's costing me money and it's going to eat up a lot of time which means I can't do paid work. But as I was going for my run today I realised I didn't really care about any of that. The utter freedom to do what I want is worth so much more. You know, in the short term. Because I can't eat freedom.
This is an interesting development for all comedians. We can return to the days when the acts were left to get on with creating their own stuff and cut out the committees and the interference from people who are working with a different agenda and do it ourselves. And the entire budget for this series is not that much more than many comedians are spending on going to the Edinburgh Fringe (and I am doing six shows, not just one). With a £10K loss a comedian can't even guarantee that anyone will see them and even if they sell out they are only going to be seen by maybe 1000 people. Why not spend that money on creating your own TV show which will be seen by people worldwide and which you can send to journalists and producers who can watch it at their leisure. Even if they aren't interested if it's good and it's free people will share the link and your audience will build.
At the moment TV can still make a massive difference to a comedian's career, but it's commercial value comes from putting bums on seats for tours. So suddenly you can be getting thousands of people a night coming to see you and filling stadia. The TV show has become, in a sense, just an advert for the act's live work. Whatever TV is paying, it will be nothing compared to a night at the O2. Even someone like Stewart Lee who is playing more intimate venues will make far more money from the work in progress shows he is doing to prepare for his new series than he'll get from the BBC. And then the series can only attract more people to his live shows.
But things are changing and TV is just one of many outlets and one that will contract rather than expand (even if it was only facing competition from the ever-expanding number of other TV channels). Your internet project is just another TV channel and if you can produce something that people like then more people will watch it and then more people will come to watch you live. And it's not just there for a month, it's there forever. If you've got £10K to spend then it seems to me that making your own internet stuff is a far better investment than the Fringe. I guess all I am saying is that you have the £10K to risk then why not risk it on something like this?
You may call me a dreamer and maybe I am. And maybe this model only suits me as I am in a strange hinterland where I am well-known enough for people to know who I am, but not well-known enough to be offered a TV show. And maybe it's better to build up to this gradually (as I have) by doing some audio podcasts first and finding your audience. And maybe it's best to wait and see how this all works out for me. It may crash and burn. At the very least I think it's going to be interesting. And it's going to be mine. And it's going to exist for its own sake. What could be more exciting than this?
Everyone's talking about Russell Brand's theorectical revolution. There's an actual one going on right here. Nothing can possibly go wrong....
Ah well, better stop wasting time writing about it and actually write it, don't you think?
