WHAT THE HECK ELSE AM I UP TO?

Hello Patrons!

Well, might as well shove my words where my other words are, and give you some sort of exclusive update.

I rarely talk about my day job on Digi. There are two reasons for this…. 1) I don’t think most of what I write for CBBC will be of much interest to you, and 2) In my experience, people sometimes get a bit funny that I write TV shows for a living. I’m not saying any of you would… but for reasons that I don’t entirely understand, I’ve often been on the receiving end of – for want of a better word – jealousy.

I mean, it baffles me a bit. I didn’t end up as a writer by chance; I worked really, really hard at it. It took me years to start making a living out of it – in which time I improved, and got rejected repeatedly – but I have encountered people, sometimes (sadly) family or friends, who seem to think it fell into my lap.

The reality is… it really is just a job. I feel lucky to have it – it beats working down a mine and all that – but I worked my buttocks off to get here, and I have to keep working at it to remain afloat. I mean, I’m freelance; work doesn’t always just magically appear (and neither, based upon current experience, does the payment for that work when I do have a job on). It’s a terribly insecure profession, and not as well paid as you might assume – to make any money out of writing for kids you have to write a lot, and it tends to be rather feast or famine.

Fortunately, kids TV tends to commission in blocks of 13, which means there are more eps up for grabs than the usual adult comedy run of six. However, to earn decent money this means I have to write more of them, which obviously means more work. I’m lucky in that I’m experienced and reliable, and – presumably – good at what I do, and CBBC has recently adopted a “Bigger, Better, Fewer” approach to commissioning. This means more flagship shows, less risks, but for me at least, it’s a policy that appears to be working in my benefit.

Currently, I’m working on two shows for CBBC as lead writer. The first of these is Series 8 of 4 O’Clock Club. Yes: Series 8! Not many shows reach that milestone, and next year we’ll be celebrating our 100th episode. 

I can’t take full credit. Though I helped develop the show, tend to write the series bible each year, and write the lion’s share of the eps (I gave up certain residual rights in order to get a guaranteed number of episodes every year), it’s very much a show led by the executive producer. 

Still, I’m up for a BAFTA on Sunday for best kid’s writer. I won’t win; also in the same category is the team behind Gumball, and that wins every single year. Not that I care either way really – and that isn’t false modesty, or me pretending – I really don’t. In fact, now that I think about it… I’d rather not have to get up on stage in front of a load of people. So; go, Gumball!

The other thing I’m working on is a brand new show, which is provisionally titled True Believers. The year before last, CBBC put out a tender asking independent production companies to pitch ideas for a show for CBBC that was being described as “S Club 7 meets Friends”. I was approached by a producer with a view to helping work up the rough sketch of an idea they had, and – over what proved to be a very long, slow, process – refined that idea until there were just two bids remaining; ours and an in-house CBBC pitch, headed up by my 4 O’Clock Club executive producer. Which, as you might imagine, was a tad awkward… and even more awkward when our idea won and his didn’t.

On this show I’ve got a lot more say; I properly feel like lead writer, steering the series and working more closely with the other writers. 

That doesn’t mean I’m going to do a Found Footage-type thing with it, but I am trying to get more of my personality in there, and I’m using it as a way to write the thing how I want to write, rather than having to work with a producer’s established way of working.

It’s a comedy-drama about a boy band – with a view that we’re actually going to launch a real boy band off the back of it, and they’ll exist in the real world, release records, and perform gigs. There are lots of issues around it, given that CBBC are meant to be a non-commercial entity, but we’ll likely be partnering with the team that introduced Busted and McFly into the world. A casting call went out the other day for the three leads, and they got over 4,000 applicants. So, that’s all interesting. Hopefully I’ll get paid for it one day…

I feel, at least for now, that I’ve turned my back on the world of grown-up comedy. I’ve worked on so many pilots and scripts over the years that have never made it – and that’s the case for most projects in development – that it got wearying. The last few I worked on were like pulling teeth, because my heart wasn’t in it. 

Some of those projects I was very proud of… others I kind of compromised myself too much in an attempt to get a commission. Neither approach brought rewards, and I don’t have it in me anymore to keep pitching things that I don’t believe in. I also had the extra challenge that I’m not a performer; most comedy departments favour writers who will also appear in their work, and have a track record as a stand-up or an actor.

It might be wrong of me to think this, but I was increasingly feeling like the comedy community in the UK had a bit of an “Exclusive Members’ Club” feel to it – and if you weren’t part of the clique you were never going to get your membership approved. Also, I’m not as young as I was, and though I think I’m a better writer than I’ve ever been, it gets depressing going in to meet people that are 20 years younger than me, and having to prostrate myself at their feet. Especially when the only thing they seem to want are either heartwarming, but ultimately toothless, prime-time BBC1 comedies, or edgy Millennial relationship comedies featuring plenty of sex and drugs.

It’s partly why it’s important to me to continue doing things which are – commercial or not – an honest reflection of my tastes and sense of humour, and the sort of things that I wouldn’t pitch to comedy commissioners in a million years, because there’d be no point. Maybe, eventually, it’ll have a benefit and I’ll be ready to do that again; certainly, as I’ve said elsewhere, Found Footage made me appreciate and enjoy my CBBC work all the more. Maybe the same will happen with my attitude to writing adult comedy for broadcasters. I ‘unno!

Right. There you go. How’s that for the sort of stream-of-consciousness outpouring I wouldn’t normally write on Digi?

Paul