Clik here to view.
How to edit your script and not be invisible at the Edinburgh Fringe (etc)
To be pompous… and, if I can’t be pompous here, then where can I be?… If you fancy yourself as a wordsmith on stage or screen, my advice is to write as little dialogue as possible. If your work of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Edinburgh Fringe Day 1: Good shows, a questionable director and a late disaster
Mark Borkowski is looking for originality In the afternoon, with Kate Copstick, I recorded the first in a revived series of Grouchy Club Podcasts with stunt-loving PR guru Mark Borkowski who is up here...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Not often you stumble on a Romanian stand-up with a humdinger musical act
Dragoş in London’s Soho earlier today Earlier in the week, I saw a Romanian act at Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award winner Becky Fury’s always-interesting Democratik Republik of Kabaret gig in London. She...
View ArticleClik here to view.
PR Max Clifford and celebrities’ secrets
‘Disgraced PR man’ Max Clifford died in prison yesterday, serving a sentence for sex crimes. But I doubt if we have heard the last of him, because people can tell their stories now. And there is a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Douglas Adams talks. Part 4: Science fiction, comedy, re-writes and ambitions
After Parts One, Two and Three, the final part of my 1980 interview with Douglas Adams… Concept by Jim Francis for a Vogon demolition ship in BBC TV’s Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “…virtually...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Actress Jacqueline Pearce RIP: from convent to Hammer horror to Blake’s 7
Actress Jacqueline Pearce’s death was announced yesterday. So it goes. Aged 74, she died at her home in Lancashire, a couple of weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer. She was possibly best...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The late Jacqueline Pearce on the Actors Studio, Blake’s 7 &“crying and crying”
Actress Jacqueline Pearce died two days ago. So it goes. She is remembered, among other roles, for being the iconic main villain Servalan in BBC TV’s science fiction series Blake’s 7. Yesterday’s blog...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Political Correctness has not gone far enough! – Ban Baldism and Beardism!
We have lived long enough in a world where women are constantly undermined in favour of men. For hundreds of years, women have been seen as ‘not as important’ or ‘not as good’ as men. Recently, it was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ricky Gervais –“I haven’t really watched comedy for two years”
“Live long enough to punish the world…” A couple of nights ago, I went to a preview of the first two episodes of After Life, Ricky Gervais’ new series for Netflix – available from next Friday (March...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Life on a cult TV show – Paul Darrow on “Blake’s 7” scripts, squabbles and...
Yesterday’s blog was the first part of a 1980 interview with actor Paul Darrow, whose death was announced this week. In August 1980, I interviewed him for Marvel Comics’ Starburst magazine. He was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Paul Darrow on cult SciFi show “Blake’s 7” – its fans, scripts and BBC cutbacks
In the third, concluding extract from my 1980 chat with actor Paul Darrow, who died earlier this week, he talks about starring in Terry Nation’s TV series Blake’s 7, fans, writing and…. Blake’s 7 is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ariane Sherine wants to live to 100 and write 100 books, starting with this one
Ariane Sherine has had a busy week. It’s her birthday. And she released the first episode of her weekly podcast Love Sex Intelligence. And she has published her first novel, Shitcom, about two male TV...
View ArticleClik here to view.
David Mills on the difference between US and UK comedy clubs… and more…
Every week, British-based US-born comedian David Mills posts online an extraordinary 5-point bulletin called Quality Time, a smörgåsbord of societal snippets, curated curious comment and interesting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
PR, lateral thinking, political porn and Channel 5 TV’s new Tractor World…
A tractor attracter… Even if you are on painkillers and muscle relaxant drugs for a sore spine/hip/leg/ankle… when you get an email from an unknown person called Xander with the heading TRACTORS: BIG,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What happened when I produced a Jerry Sadowitz TV comedy special…
WARNING! THERE ARE MULTIPLE USES OF THE ‘F’ WORD AND THE ‘C’ WORD IN THIS PIECE… PROCEED AT YOUR PERIL IF YOU ARE OF A NERVOUS OR EASILY-OFFENDED DISPOSITION… OTHER BLOGS ARE WIDELY AVAILABLE TO READ...
View ArticleClik here to view.
John Ward and the stupid TV people…
John Ward in a photograph where it is probably best if you supply your own caption… I first worked with mad inventor John Ward – designer of the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards – on the TVS/ITV series...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Does John Ward have THE No 6 badge from cult TV series “The Prisoner”…??
Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward has got in touch with me about the cult TV series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan… John Ward wrote: Patrick McGoohan made The Prisoner down...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The mystery of The Prisoner’s No 6 badge from the cult TV series solved?
(Photo from The Prisoner episode 4: Free For All) About a month ago, Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward got in touch with me about cult TV series The Prisoner. He thought he might have the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How and why surreal Wavis O’Shave avoided becoming a household name…
In my last blog, a man with no settled name talked about his life in music, comedy and surrealism. One of his names was/is Wavis O’Shave and he became/remains a cult figure from his appearances on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to find the best experts and eccentrics for television shows…
(Photograph by Glenn Carstens-Peters via UnSplash) In my last couple of blogs, I asked AI to explain Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics. In both cases, I think the clearest...
View Article