Behind the Scenes Photo Diary Balaclava Shop

The balaclava shop is a shop that sells balaclavas. There's no way around it.. we're going to need a LOT of balaclavas. Hog has worked his magic. Easily the most brass necked member of the group, he saunters into an army surplus store and EXPECTS to be sold 20 plus balaclavas. That's enough to get you on some sort of a list.

Things you could need twenty balaclavas for:

1. Setting up a paramalitary organisation

2. Robbing a bank/Post office/Large farm

3. Kidnapping

4. Skiing with terrorists

Hog has done VERY well, he's not only managed to pick up a tonne of balaclavas, but also a number of busts (steady on) and torsos from a local workwear shop. The things that man can get out of people. 

This is the first Diary entry I've done after the fact, so all of my hopes and dreams have been replaced by a crude reality. The dopamine hit of the first hour of replying to your comments has evaporated and we've moved on to the task of compiling next weeks sketch. SHOWBIZNUSS BABY. 

My immediate reaction is...I wish we'd added more jokes and taken others out. Sometimes when we adapt something, we are very close to the script that we performed, for good reason too. Those jokes have survived the Edinburgh fringe, years of touring -they are battle hardened, wrinkled old and wise...(think old scottish highland man). The problem is, that you can't get your brain to see beyond them, to see what else could be written, improved or taken in a new direction. 

"Tha jook is tha jook laddie" - Old Scottish Proverb

In fairness, with this week it was also time, time kills comedy, improvisation and creativity. HOWEVER, i'm really happy with all of the new bits, with Dierdre and Holly's performance and I'm pleased that we tried something that had a very different feel to it. learning is the key!

Here's a joke I wanted to add, but we didn't have the guts to...

MARY: How's business Mark?

SHOP ASSISTANT: Not as good as before, we used to get a lot of orders from up North, but not so much anymore

MARY: Obviously

SHOP ASSISTANT: Brexit yeah..

When we started making youtube videos we had the expressed goal of trying to be funnier on film. Duh right? We would experiment with styles, camera and acting, editing, music, colour  - so that if we ever got a bigger show, with a higher budget, we would know what we liked and what worked on camera. We would be able to manage it ourselves, and hold our own with experienced directors and editors. You don't know powerlessness until you're on a tv production set and they are rushing you pointing cameras at you, or getting you to do stuff you don't find funny. Your lack of knowledge, that void, is filled by someone else - it has to be as you'll never get the thing done on time. Time is money in TV.

In today's sketch we had the wonderful Deirdre O'Kane, who comes from that TV world. If you don't know Dierdre, I suggest you check out some of her movies, 'Intermission' being my one of my favourite movies of all time. I'd really love to write something like that. She was an absolute pro, and to be honest, we could have used her first take, it was that good. Holly was great too, we wanted a teenage voice and she nailed it - I believe it's her first acting gig, so that's cool. 

I'm really not sure if we would ever make a leap to television, it does seem like such a foreign world. Sometimes the grass can be an awful lot greener on the other side. It does feel like a connection with all of you would be lost, not to mention that homemade feel, the slapdash costumes and props. Some comedy when scaled up, really loses its charm.

"Tv is pure shyte pal" - Old Scottish proverb

As I finish up the comments for this morning and head into the office, having just three of us (with the occasional guest star), is a very comforting feeling. A tad too comforting perhaps, but that's okay for now.