Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedy script writer best known for co-creating the award-winning sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey.
On the island
Eight records
The personal story behind this is I've always felt a lot of resentment towards Paul Robeson because I've always felt That he got the voice that God should have given me. And I sing Old Man River in the shower almost every day
I just love Tom Leara. I particularly love his patter between the songs. ... and I like this song'cause it's an attack on on marketing.
Sloop John BFavourite
This is maybe a bizarre choice for someone who can't swim and has never been to California and has never even held a surfboard, but for some reason I've always identified with the Beach Boys.
Can I just apologise to the nation before you play this, because this is an awful song. ... I decided I had to go for this because I'm genetically afflicted with being a Chelsea fan.
this I've chosen uh purely'cause I I just love her voice.
it's a song that I associate, funnily enough, with working on primarily on on Who Dares Wins because I shared an office with Denise O'Donoghue and I have a very irritating habit of singing the opening snatches of songs. And I sang this one constantly for about three years and drove her to the point of insanity.
Number seven is a Scottish song and I've chosen this because my wife's family, my wife's father was from Scotland.
Marvin Gaye, William "Mickey" Stevenson, Ivy Jo Hunter
I'm one of those reluctant dancers, you know, who who lolls around on the margins of a dance floor. Waiting for the song that you can get up and and thrash around to and generally look a bit stupid. And this is a song that I've found usually gets me on my feet.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:16Is making comedy actually a serious and arduous business?
It's hard work sometimes, but I'm sure it's not as hard work as uh working down a mine or in a paint factory.
Presenter asks
6:18Do you remember how the idea [for Drop the Dead Donkey] first surfaced?
Well, neither me nor Guy Jenkin, my partner, can remember who had the idea. We certainly had been talking about for a while doing an office comedy that we felt captured uh office life a bit more.
Presenter asks
10:28Were you always going to be a writer or a funny man or both? Could it have been spotted early on in your life, do you think?
I I did, you know, I I was encouraged to write at my at my secondary school, uh, Westminster City, and there were teachers there. particularly in the English department. ... But I didn't do much performing. ... I didn't really have a perception of um of that being a a chosen career.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Frank J. Tipler
the book I'd take probably is a book I've never finished. called The Physics of Immortality by a a scientist called Tipler. … I've started this book many times now and it seems to me that if I was on a desert island that you know I'd probably have nothing else to do but finish it.
The luxury
I'll take a ball. … Probably a football, so that while I'm waiting to starve to death I can at least have a bit of a kickabout and sort of keep myself amused.
How did you get your break into radio and Week Ending?
The opportunity was provided for me by um a man called Jeffrey Perkins, who is now head of comedy at uh BBC Television. And he saw a show that we'd taken up to Edinburgh, which I'd written a lot of the material for. And he came sort of backstage afterwards and said, why didn't I go along and attend the the big meetings they have
Presenter asks
23:52Why has Hat Trick been so successful?
I mean I'm sure it's a synthesis of of all sorts of reasons, but I think the fundamental misconception that some people have about Hat-Trick is that it's a thrusting place full of dynamic people, you know, i i in in sharp suits. In fact, it's the opposite. ... There's a culture of people strolling in and out of each other's offices and chatting about ideas and stuff like that.
“a lot of the sadness in life comes out in those small comic moments.”
“I think a lot of the m the most interesting comic ideas that excited us most operate in the sort of grey area that you you enter into as you approach the margins.”
“comedy is delicate, that's the trouble. It's a really delicate flower. If a writer writes a drama about a very worthy serious subject. The most violent response they'll get is hmm, it was a bit long, it was a bit dull. ... But of course with a comedy, the response that people get is if it fails is well, it's just not funny. ... It means total failure.”