Jamie Mathieson

Being Human – The Graveyard Shift

2012-01-18T17:14:00.004Z

The new series of Being Human is almost upon us. I wrote episode three, 'The Graveyard Shift'. I am inordinately proud of the fact that I also came up with the title for my episode, which wasn't the case last year (damn you Laura Cotton). Obviously I wouldn't dream of spoiling any of the plot points other than to say that it is funny and shocking in a roughly 70/30 percent split. I am very proud of it and would like to publicly thank all involved.

This was my third year in a row writing for Being Human and boy has the time flown. It seems like only yesterday that Lord Toby was urging me to drink the virgin blood from the Hollow Skull of The Fettered Man and swear fealty to the Horned Onesy. Since then I've written 'That One with Tourettes George and the Cage', and 'That One with the Zombie and Mitchell's Cornish Stalker' as well as pitching quite a few lousy ideas that Toby has wisely vetoed. (Evil Morris Dancers? Anyone?)

Hope you enjoy it.

Douglas Adams Rewired My Brain

2011-09-12T17:38:00.009+01:00

If you were to remove the top of my head and look inside, I'd probably die from shock and blood loss. So don't do that. But if you were to do it metaphorically, and chose to picture my formative creative influences as a series of geographical features, then you would find a pretty big mountain range named 'Douglas Adams'. Probably with a dead whale lying next to it.

I was ten years old when I saw the Hitchhiker's television series. On a family holiday in the same year, I found the first two Hitchhiker's books sitting on a spinner in the caravan site shop. Their influence on my tiny forming mush-like brain was seismic. Ideas that were funny. Jokes that made you think. Concepts pursued to their illogical conclusion. Dry British stoicism in the face of interplanetary insanity. Arthur. Ford. Zaphod. Trillian. Marvin. Slartibartfast.

Much of where I am now, who I am now, what I do for a living now, I owe to the worlds he created.

And now I find myself, thirty one years later, writing an episode of Dirk Gently for the BBC. My seasoned forty one year old self is calmly typing the words, building the episode, structuring the jokes. This is what I do for a living. It's just another gig.

But somewhere deep inside my ten year old self just did a little wee and passed out.

However tangentially, I am adding to the legacy of Douglas Adams. I am putting words in the mouths of characters he helped create. But more than that, the reason I am able to, the reason I got the gig in the first place, the reason that working in this world feels so damn natural to me, is that Douglas Adams rewired my brain as a child. I am simply putting into practice what he taught me.

Thanks for everything, Douglas. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Becoming Human Coming to the Tellybox

2011-03-09T15:29:00.004Z

And lo! A child to Being Human was born! And the people saw that it was good, even though it doth have both fangs and fur. And they watched it online quite a bit.

And the Gods looked down from on high, well, BBC Television Centre, and they too saw that it was good. And they decided, this is good enough for the tellybox. Let's put it on. And so they did.

Well, they will. On Sunday 20th March.

And lo, I wrote a third of it, the bit in the middle.

Amen.

Being Human - Type 4

2011-02-06T21:52:00.004Z

The second episode of Being Human wot I wrote airs this week. Spoilers beyond this point, so go away and watch it then come back. Titled “Type 4” it was a blast to write and I hope everyone found it a blast to watch. I got to introduce zombies to the Being Human universe! Quite a responsibility. And I got Mitchell and Annie to make out. And I set George and Nina on the road to having a little hairy baby. All fairly big Being Human milestones.

Sasha the zombie's character came from a few places, not least of which was my past life as a stand up comic. I used to spend my weekends on stage attempting to talk over gaggles of drunken Hens, a fair few times in Cardiff. Little did I realise that my onstage fantasising about killing gobby women then digging them up would later prove creatively useful.

Being Human Series 3

2010-08-09T12:15:00.001+01:00

I am writing the third episode in season three. I report this at this late juncture as they're begun filming my episode and paid me for writing it. Which in this business is this only point at which you can be sure it's actually going to happen. Probably.

As with my experience last year, the development and writing process has been a joy. And not in a 'DVD extras, fixed grin, let's not get sued' kind of a way, but in a real, 'deep joy, wow, didn't we make something good, let's all pat each other on the back until we bleed' kind of way.

For the curious, my episode is the one where the werewolf/vampire hybrid steals the Necronomicon eggs and pollutes the water supply of Cardiff with the ghost virus.

Some of that may be untrue.

But not all of it.

(The new series is set in Cardiff.)

"Being Human" Read Through

2010-02-01T21:03:00.004Z

I got a train from Nottingham to Bristol, where Being Human is shot. The weirdness began at Bristol train station, when I spotted Kemp, or at least Donald Sumpter, the actor that plays him. I introduced myself and he revealed something of a history with Nottingham, (where I live) having performed at the Nottingham playhouse. He was a thoroughly nice man, which proves he's an actor and not evil.

Relax, I told myself. You're a professional. You're cool with this.

It turned out that several more actors were due to arrive by train, at which point they would all be ferried onto the read through in a mini van thoughtfully provided by Touchpaper. By chance there was a spare seat for me.

Now I am not by nature a superstitious person. Nor am I one of these writers that believes that I create people as I type, breathing life into my creations by will alone. I understand that these people are simply actors, paid to pretend, in the same way that I am a writer, paid to make things up.

But here's the thing: I soon found myself sharing a mini van full of actors, playing characters I had been thinking about and inventing words for, pretty much constantly, for the past three months. For them it was no big deal, some of them knew one another – there was gossip to catch up on, old jokes to revisit. For me, however, it was like travelling along in my own head.

There was Sam (Lucy Gaskell) who's romance with George I had kindled, there was Sykes (Brain Dick), whose first words on screen I had invented, and there was Lucy (Lyndsey Marshal), who I had written a nice little flirty scene for with Mitchell. I felt like leaping to my feet and screaming “I gave you life, do you hear me? Life!” and then leaping out of the window into the road. But I didn't.

Directly in front of me, in the passenger seat, sat Paul Rhys, the actor who plays Ivan. Now his character is dangerous, unpredictable and scary. The actor himself, however, is a thoroughly nice chap, who also professed a Nottingham connection, having lived in outlying villages as a child. He turned around in his seat and spoke to me during the journey. But between us was a head rest, one of those square padded ones, like a hoop with a hole in the centre. And he was talking to me through the hole. At any one time, I could see his eye, his nose or his mouth. But never all three at the same time.

And part of my brain was making conversation and sharing knowledge of Nottingham. Chatty. Light hearted. Professional.

And another part of my brain was going: “Oh my God. It's Ivan. He's talking to me through the back of a chair.

And he knows where I live.”

Being Human Starts This Sunday

2010-01-08T23:57:00.003Z

I wrote episode four. That's the one where they all swap their abilities.

I josh, of course.

It's actually the one where they get infected by the horny virus. And dissolve into a pile of thrusting limbs. Surely the episode idea that many people secretly want to see.

I could go on. But I won't.

I've already seen episode one. It rocks.

Enjoy.

Hotwire

2009-07-03T14:31:00.002+01:00

I am adapting the comic Hotwire into a film script.

Hotwire began life as a Warren Ellis outline, which Steve Pugh wrestled into life, doing pretty much everything else. I've met Steve and he's a lovely bloke. His site can be found here, with some pix of Hotwire.

The premise in a nutshell is a world where spirits can no longer cross over and hang around, like ectoplasmic pollution. The titular Hotwire is a police exorcist with an ass kicking attitude and a spiked blonde crop.

It's so far up my alley I'll need a doctor to get it out again. And odd – I have a shelf full of Warren Ellis stuff, have a bit of Steve Pugh, and hope one day to branch into comics, yet here I am, interpreting one of their nuggets into another form. Odd the way the business works. And very, very cool.

Being Human

2009-07-03T14:25:00.002+01:00

BEING HUMAN
Originally uploaded by BBCTHREE

I am writing an episode of Being Human.

For those of you who don't know what this is, it's basically the current jewel in the crown of BBC 3 and you can read all about it here. In a nutshell, it's a flatshare drama with a difference, namely that the flatmates are a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost. And laughable though the premise sounds, it works. Very well indeed.

It was an honour to be asked. I'd auditioned for season one, failed, forgotten all about it, then got offered an episode of season two. This was partly, I understand, in response to another fantasy spec script that I wrote that was floating around the various production companies of London. It didn't get commissioned, but it's more than paid for the time it took me to write it in getting me this gig.

I've had a few meetings with the creator Toby Whithouse and the producers and was stoked when I discovered the plotlines they were entrusting me to execute. Big juicy stuff that I could really get my teeth into. And I was also stoked by the gaps in the storylines that they were entrusting me to invent.

Obviously, it's nothing that I can divulge here. But in the wake of my episode I'm expecting nothing less than a BAFTA. I also expect to be given Toby's job when he passes on the Being Human torch, in the manner of Russell T Davies passing on Dr Who to Steven Moffat. My episode will be that good.

And if it isn't, I will blame everyone else, from the actors to the tea lady on set. For I am a writer and that's what we do.

Alan Moore on the phone to Zack Snyder

2008-07-21T21:39:00.001+01:00

Alan Moore
Originally uploaded by whatisanimagetoyou

Z) Hi Alan. Such a buzz to finally speak to you. I just want you to know we're going to do everything we can to adapt Watchmen as faithfully as possible.

A) I'm glad to hear it.

Z) Just a couple of things I wanted to pick your brains over.

A) Fire away.

Z) Who would win a fight between Superman and Dr Manhattan?

A) I'm sorry?

Z) It's just we got into a bit of a discussion in the production office the other day -

A) I think you're missing the point of the character. Dr Manhattan is more of a meditation on superhero as God, with limitless power but also a godlike moral detachment due to his quantum perspective -

Z) He'd so kick Superman's ass. I'm right, aren't I? I mean he wins the Vietnam war on his own! Blowing up all the gooks. Boom! He's like a giant blue Rambo.

A) Erm. Yes. I suppose so.

Z) And Nite Owl versus Batman? That's gotta be a close one.

A) Again, that's not what the character is about. He's a retired middle aged man with a pot belly who can only get it up when he wears his costume -

Z) Alan, Alan, Alan. You have seen 300? I don't do pot bellies, mo fo. I was thinking more of a kind of lean mean ass kicker. Pow! Like, I want to extend the Rorschach prison break-out sequence to give Nite Owl and the Spandex Spectre a chance to really throw some moves.

A) Sorry? Spandex Spectre?

Z) Yeah. We've renamed the Silk Spectre. See, her name didn't make any sense any more, after we took all the silk from her outfit -

A) What? Why did you do that?

Z) Marketing thought silk was too pervy. So we replaced it with spandex and leather.

“Click!”

Z) Hello? Alan? Alan?

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(All of the above is, of course, satire. I am no way implying that Alan Moore has ever spoken to Zack Snyder, nor ever will.)

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Parteeeee

2008-04-19T14:18:00.002+01:00

Charlie Brooker
Originally uploaded by Your Humble Narrator.

Last week, I went to the “BBC Vision” party.

I went to it last year, wrongly assuming it was for up and coming writers and would be set in a scout hut with cheesy pineapple on a stick as a dozen writers milled awkwardly. It was, in fact, the total opposite of all of my assumptions, being in a hall the size of an airplane hanger, containing hundreds of celebs of all ranks, with stuffed quail. On a stick.

It was, in short, like stepping inside my own television. If my telly could only get channels beginning with “BBC”.

I am not famous. Not even nearly. But I have done stand up comedy for years, which is a kind of fame inoculation. Standing before hundreds of strangers, night after night, who clap cheer and laugh at your words, then sitting in a cramped crowded dressing room kind of takes the sheen off showbiz, of any kind. You've crossed behind the curtain and you can never fully go back.

So upon seeing David Tennant, chatting with a group of friends, my immediate thoughts were “Oh, there's David Tennant. That's cool. Nothing particular to say to him, other than 'Good job', which isn't really worth interrupting a conversation for. I'll move on.” And so on, around the room, with dozens of vaguely familiar faces.

I saw Charlie Brooker, acidic Guardian columnist, and considered saying “Hello, I've been a fan since you wrote for PC Zone.” but decided against it, as that would probably be the end of the conversation.

I did a few loops of the room, grinning at the bizarre nature of it all, then went home.

This year, I was determined to make sure there would be people there I knew. I asked around my small group of stand ups I still have links with, and lo, there were three who had also been invited. This year, I could have a posse.

I'm not going to name them, partly because they're my mates, and partly because I'm going to be doing enough name dropping in this piece as it is, and want to keep a little bit in the indulgence bank.

Rolf Harris was there. (Let's get the big guns out of the way first). And a lot of news readers, and a lot of makeover show presenters, and that shouty American bloke from The Boosh (Rich Fulcher) and Kenneth Cranham and Graham Norton and the bloke from behind the bar who serves Maggot Bhunas in the Old Gregg episode of Boosh, and that bloke, wasn't he in an ad for beer? And that news reader that I used to vaguely fancy.

At a certain point in the evening, I was at the perfect level of drunken playfulness to take advantage of serendipitous event. I spotted Tom Bell, stand up comic, on one side of the bar. On the other side was Rasmus Hardiker, who plays the vacant boyfriend of Jack Dee's daughter in Lead Balloon. Check out the linked pictures. I think you'll agree, especially if you're drunk, that they look very similar, close enough to be brothers. Obviously I would have to introduce them, despite the minor barrier that I knew neither of them.

And I did. And it worked like a charm. And it was a good laugh. And they both agreed that they looked similar and I left them chatting happily away. And I met Antonia Campbell Hughes, who plays Jack Dee's vacant daughter, and who was very nice.

Standing near Tom Bell was Isy Suttie, who reminded me that I had seen her perform years ago at try out stage in Nottingham – I had complemented her and recommended a couple of comedy writing books - which she had bought and appreciated. I was left with a warm glow about something I don't even remember doing, very much like wetting the bed.

I met Tim Minchin, who has a great brain under great hair. And I introduced myself to Morwenna Banks, opening with my anger that all the men talked over her on her recent appearance on the Jonathan Ross radio show, and ending with fanboy gushing about her part in Absolutely.

All in all, it was a great evening and as I staggered out into the night, I reflected on the fact that I hadn't spoken to Charlie Brooker again, but there was always next year. As I was pondering this, I noticed there was a man falling into step beside me as I left.

It was Charlie Brooker, who provided me with the perfect cherry on the cake for the evening.

I stuck out my hand: “Charlie Brooker! I've been following your writing since PC Zone.”

“God.” he said. “There must be something wrong with you.”
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What A Beautiful Baby

2008-03-27T18:31:00.001Z

DSCF0131
Originally uploaded by mdhbarnes

I've just finished a new spec film script.

My first outline for the script was dated 13th January and I finished it yesterday, which means it took me roughly two and a half months, from sitting bolt upright in the bath shouting “Eureka!” to hitting “Send” on my e-mail as it wings it's way to my agents.

(mimes stirring invisible pot with both fists)

“Go Jamie, go Jamie!”

It's a paranoid science fiction thriller very much in the mould of Philip K Dick. And it rocks.

Of course I'm biased. I'm the father. All parents think their children are beautiful. But this one is. It really is. So when everyone peers down into it's cot and coos “Soo cute.” I'll know they're not lying.

And when those self same onlookers pull out their cheque book and say “You child is so cute, we want to take it to Hollywood, chop off all it's limbs, grow it new ones, give it a face lift. Oh, and comb it's hair.” I'll look at them, with their pens poised over the cheque and simply smile and say “It's Mathieson. With one 'I' and one 'E'...”
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Adam Bloom Is A Lovely Guy

2008-01-15T14:50:00.001Z

Adam Bloom
Originally uploaded by Steve Best

Adam Bloom is a lovely guy. Don't get me wrong.

He's a stand up comic that I've bumped into a few times over the years and he's always friendly and nice. But he's hyperactive. And he's one of those comics that's never “off”. I don't think I've ever discussed anything with him other than joke structure, the strengths and weaknesses of his act, my act, other comedian's acts. At speed. With intensity. Which is fine for a few minutes backstage. But hours of it can become wearing. I've heard stories of comics losing it with him over the years. So when I read the headline:

“Comic Bloom is locked alone in a bunker for 48hrs”

I thought another comic had finally snapped:

Annoyed Comic: “Right! That's it! You dissect one more of my punchlines and I'm locking you in the dark in a nuclear bunker for two days.”

Adam: “But maybe you could make it a double punch – or a call back.”

Annoyed Comic: “You were warned...”

Turns out my “other comic snapping” was well wide of the mark – he volunteered. But the thought of it really made me laugh. If I had to pick a comic to lock in a bunker alone for 48 hours that really wouldn't cope with it very well, it would be Adam.

All the best if you're reading this, mate. Good luck with the recuperation.
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Writer's Strike Caused By Half-Life 2 Orange Box?

2007-11-15T12:02:00.001Z

Sentry Gun
Originally uploaded by arsenionavarro

On October 10th 2007 a computer game, “Half-Life 2 – The Orange Box” was released in the U.S. to popular acclaim. On November 5th 2007 the Writers Guild of America went on strike. Two totally unconnected events.

Or are they?

A recent online poll by Valve software, creators of the game in question, revealed that an unprecedented amount of screenwriters in film and television were not only fans, they were spending vast amounts of their time playing the games contained in the Orange Box package in the days leading upto the strike and even more so since the strike began.

Through Valve software's online game system “Steam”, hours spent playing are logged, along with an option to indicate profession. Time and time again, Valve's staff were surprised to find the players racking up the longest stretches of game time were screenwriters.

“I suppose it makes sense.” commented Adi Shepherd, Valve's head of market research. “I mean a lot of these guys work from home, obviously on a PC. With no boss looking over their shoulder, I guess the temptation to just log on and start fragging is strong.”

These facts alone are interesting, but certain parties believe that the popularity of the game may have actually contributed to the strike itself. Certain members of the WGA negotiation team have been accused of “computer game addiction” in a spat that is threatening to draw attention away from the aims of the strike itself.

“Utter nonsense.” countered Cal Houn, one of the WGA's chief negotiators. “This is merely an attempt to cloud the clear issues at stake here. All we want is a slice of the online cake. A cake that at the moment, the producers are claiming doesn't exist. Well, we don't agree. That cake exists.”

“And when it comes down to it, the writers are the initial creative force. What is it exactly that the producers have created? Can they name even one thing?”

AMPTP representative Gina Cross countered bullishly “Cry some more.” going on to cryptically state “ A shepherd must tend to his flock, especially when they have grown unruly.” When pressed for clarification, she commented:

“I am sick and tired of hearing this whining from the writers for more money. We are their benefactors and they should appreciate that.”

On the issue of computer game addiction, she became defensive, believing that the accusations were directed at her union.

“I can assure you that no-one within the AMPTP even has a computer, let alone knows how to install mods, aimbots or wallhacks.”

“Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and build a sentry gun. Overlooking the picket line.”

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Yes, it's a spoof. And apologies if you haven't played any of the Half-Life family of games, and read the whole thing with the slack jawed frown of someone with the creeping feeling that they're missing out on in-jokes. Maybe go buy The Orange Box, play the whole thing all the way through, then come back. I promise you it will get much funnier.

I Am Quitting Myspace

2007-10-03T11:30:00.001+01:00

Firstly, don't get me wrong. It's been a blast. You're all close personal friends of mine and I will truly miss all the partying we do. But I feel it's time to move on. Facebook maybe. Or I might even go outside. Stop crying, you'll find other friends.

Now I was planning to just slink away like a thief in the night. But here's the rub: Myspace won't let me. And it's pissing me off.

About a week ago I tried to cancel. Here are the buttons I had to press, each of which lead to a new screen with variations on the theme of “Are you sure, little boy?”;

Account Settings,

Cancel Account,

Cancel My Account,

Cancel My Account.

The last one read as follows:

“We're sorry you're leaving MySpace!
Please briefly explain in the form below why you're cancelling. You can really help us improve MySpace!”

By this stage I wanted to kill someone. But they weren't done:

“NOTE: You will receive an email from MySpace instructing you on how to confirm your cancellation request. You must follow the instructions in that email to complete cancellation of your account. Thank you.”

I went through this process at least three times. I received no e-mail. It's been a week. I've had enough. I want out.

Not only that, I want revenge. Revenge for being treated like a witless simpleton stuck in a call queue. Revenge for the transparent psychological ploy of trying to keep me in Myspace by making it too irritating to leave. Revenge on Rupert Murdoch for being Rupert Murdoch. And taking Sky One from my Virgin package, damn him.

And you can help me.

Here is my plan:

If you've been feeling a little lacklustre about the whole Myspace experience for a while but just needed that little push, I am here to shove you in the back.

I want to stage a mass exodus from Myspace.

I want to start a meme that swells and grows and hits Myspace where it really hurts; membership numbers.

Firstly, I want everyone who reads this to report me for abuse using the abuse button at the bottom of my page. Get me banned. I don't care how I get out I just want out.

Secondly, forward this to anyone you think might appreciate it.

And then, if you've had enough of Myspace, try and leave. Go on, try. Not that easy is it? Failing that, you might want to try making your pages hideously offensive, then report each other for abuse.

And then all move to Facebook. Job done.

(Update - it worked - just got an e-mail from Myspace - "Account deleted for violation of Terms of Service" It does my heart proud to think of all the unsung heroes out there who reported me for abuse. Thanks to anyone who bothered.)

Crazy on a Theremin

2007-06-16T20:16:00.000+01:00

Will You Be My Friend?

2007-05-13T23:50:00.000+01:00

Today I had a man on Myspace send me a friend request. He already has 24,000. I turned him down. It would have felt cheap.

I don't think I'll be missed.

To Spec or not to Spec

2007-05-11T20:58:00.001+01:00

MONEY IS SHIT
Originally uploaded by cashmoney_4real.

I don't think I am unique in writing scripts on spec (for those of you not in the business, spec is short for "speculative" which essentially means no-one has paid you or asked for the script, you just thought it was a good idea and wanted to write it) but there seems to be a growing trend of writers pushing for commissions and payment before they write a word of anything, usually based on a few page outline or pitch document.

I am not keen on this approach for a few reasons. Firstly, the idea of trying to expand an "approved" outline brings along with it a whole set of pressures which simply don't exist if you're off on your own, plotting territory in the undiscovered landscape of a new script. For one thing, you've already been paid to finish the damn thing.

If you're working on something speculatively, the option always exists to just shrug and go "Screw it, this isn't working." and put it to one side. Not so if the money is already in your account. You're contractually obliged to hand something in, even if you have to wrestle the story to the finishing line.
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I have written a new film. Nearly

2007-05-11T20:55:00.001+01:00

Gun
Originally uploaded by efo.

In the format of Final Draft, my screenwriting program of choice, one page equals one minute. I have just reached page ninety of a brand new screenplay that I began exactly one month ago. This blog entry is my limp virtual version of popping a champagne cork. The script isn't finished, not by a long chalk, but it's an hour and a half long, which is a film. And just to be clear, that's ninety pages that I am happy with, rather than ninety pages that need rewriting.

I tend to rewrite a lot, and habitually cut rejected sequences or dialogue and paste the rejected bits at the foot of the document. The current document is 141 pages long. The mathematically minded amongst you will realise that this means that I have 51 pages of trash stuck to the bottom of the "approved" stuff. I am telling you this merely to give an insight into my wasteful and ill-judged working practices.

I can't tell you what the script is about, but I am very excited by it. This was partly an exercise in pushing myself. I had the idea for the film on 10th April and just wanted to get the script written and the film out there as fast as possible. At this rate, it should be with my agents and encouraging ferocious bidding wars within the next month.

Hurrah!
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Happy Anniversary

2007-04-03T16:11:00.001+01:00

Smashed Watch
Originally uploaded by mathieson_jamie.

Well, it's been one year since I did any stand up.

April 1st last year I stood on stage and announced my retirement to an audience who didn't even know my name. Not that this is that unusual. In comedy clubs up and down the country there are comedians wowing appreciative audiences, who then file out at the end saying things like "That Irish guy at the end was pretty good."

Do I miss it? Not really.

I always used to say that if I could teleport to the gig and then teleport home, gigging would be a lovely job. The laws of physics being what they are, it's a lot of travel and a lot of waiting around for half an hour of sweaty spotlight.

Some stand-ups thrive on the sweaty spotlight bit. I never did. I was never entirely comfortable being a stand up. I tended to stick to the script. I didn't improvise well. I could never fully shake the fear that I would fuck it up and jeopardise the mortgage. Especially playing at a big chain of clubs, where a couple of really bad gigs can lose you a lot of work.

I think the only way I could ever go back now is if I was so financially comfortable that screwing up on stage wouldn’t really matter. And I'm not there yet.

So now I'm a writer. I make things up to feed myself. Which I still find funny. I love the idea of cutting out the middlemen, of trying to pay for my shopping by waxing lyrical to the shop assistant on some bizarre topic:

"Four pound fifty? Well here's a fiver's worth of speculation about futuristic nano-armour. You can keep the change."
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My Lovely Lady Lumps

2007-04-03T10:34:00.000+01:00

This is beautiful. For those of you too busy to press play, it's a satirical cover of "The Black Eyed Peas" "My Humps" by Alanis Morissette. It has been thoroughly shown up for the abomination right thinking people always knew it to be.

And how has Ms Morissette deconstructed this beast? What clever lyrical changes has she wrought to underline the wrongness at it's core? The answer: None. She's kept the lyrics exactly as they were. Only instead of being sung as a celebration of women using borderline prostitution to gain material wealth, the lyrics are now sung as a keening lamentation of exactly the same thing.

Fucking genius.

Bingo The Imaginary Dog

2007-03-25T21:13:00.001+01:00

Bella2
Originally uploaded by kraftybkraft.

My wife and I have taken to walking in the local woods because we enjoy the exercise and being in nature. Basically, for fun. But here’s the thing: we never bump into anyone who hasn’t got a dog. And they always assume we’ve got a dog somewhere behind us in the wood. We’ve had people ask us “Where’s your dog?” and “Have you got a dog?” And worst of all, just look at us oddly, as if to say: “In the woods? Without a dog? You perverts.”

The other day, something in us snapped. We borrowed a leash from an understanding neighbour and whenever we bumped into anyone in the woods, we would shout “Bingo! Bingo! Come here boy!” into the woods, while slapping our thighs and shaking our heads and rolling our eyes as if to say “That Bingo! Always getting into trouble!” Anyone we bumped into also rolled their eyes and shook their heads as if they too had encountered Bingo and his unruly ways before.

To complete the illusion, we even carried a bag full of Bingo’s poo. We’re nothing if not responsible in cleaning up after our imaginary dog. Although judging by the size of his stools, Bingo is, in fact, a six foot tall dog-man.

I had suggested we call Bingo “Felcher” which as well as being a very rude word, is one of those lovely catch 22 rude words that people can’t actually get offended at without losing the moral high ground, as the very act of getting offended reveals that they know a great deal about deviant sexual practices and therefore have no right to judge.

However, it was pointing out that shouting “Felcher!” into a wood might feasibly attract a gay man with that proclivity, who would arrive very disappointed when he discovered that we were simply trying to attract an imaginary dog.

So “Bingo” it is.

When To Shove

2007-03-23T21:36:00.001Z

101_2608
Originally uploaded by urban hermit $27.55.

When I was about ten or so, I developed an odd little game. A friend of mine would stand on the school playing field with their eyes closed. I would then stand next to them and explain that they were in fact standing on the very edge of the roof of an immense skyscraper. I would then describe in great detail their surroundings, the wind whistling around them, the dizzying height in front of them.

And then, at the very height of their absorption in the story, I would give them a good hard shove in the back.

Now, twenty six years later, I'm doing exactly the same thing for a living.

And now, as then, it's all about deciding when to shove.

An Open Letter To Myspace Users

2007-03-23T19:07:00.000Z

See if this sounds familiar;

Someone asks to be your friend on Myspace that you’ve never heard of. You check out their profile and think: “Our Venn diagrams don’t overlap even a sliver. We have nothing in common at all. This friendship would be a huge mistake.” But then an inner voice accuses you of being an old curmudgeon and that you’re missing the whole point of social networking so you click on “Accept” and welcome them in to your bulging friend pit.

And instantly, your “bulletin space” lights up with two or three inane pieces of crud from your “new friend” that you have no interest in whatsoever.

Here is my advice to you: delete that so called friend immediately. Dump ‘em. Leave them confused as to why their friend list bleeds members every time they send out a bulletin.

If I wanted to know your deep inner thoughts I would read your fucking blog. If I wanted to find out what side of the bed you slept on, I would sleep with you. If I wanted to find out your favourite colour, I would pull both your eyes out with a fork then ask you what colour you missed the most. Stop telling me this shite.

I even debate the merit of pimping gigs you’re doing. Fine. Do it. But in moderation. Save it for the really special gigs you’re justifiably proud of. If I want to find out where you’re playing I’ll visit your page.

I realise of course that in sending this out, I risk the same fate I am recommending. My friends list may suffer a sudden huge drop in members, but I win either way, as to do that you’ll all be conceding, even as you delete me: “You know what, that guy had a point. Bye bye you smug fucker.”

Payslip Of Destiny

2007-03-02T19:04:00.001Z

Jamie at Royal Mail
Originally uploaded by mathieson_jamie.

I used to work in the phone based customer service department for Royal Mail, the UK postal carrier. The calls were primarily along the lines of “I’m 78 and the postman has left my gate open again.” or “Where is my benefit cheque? I am going to f**king kill you if you don’t find it”

You know, the usual.

But I had a plan. Oh yes. I was going to escape and become a stand-up comedian, an ambition I was already making inroads into.

I was paid monthly and never spent too much time checking my payslip – if it looked about right, I would shrug and file it. I usually cleared about £800 a month.

Until one month my payslip read £8000.

That’s right. An extra zero. The decimal point had slipped one place to the right, earning me £7200 in the process. And this wasn’t just an error on the payslip – the money actually turned up my account a couple of days later.

But what to do?

I discussed it with my wife over a weekend. Two options presented themselves; just keep quiet, spend it and hope that no-one spotted the error, or come clean and give the money back.

And this was big money for me in those days. I could survive for months on eight grand. Months without work to focus on the comedy.

But after much soul searching I decided on option two, to give the money back, which may sound crazy, but I really didn’t like the idea of looking over my shoulder for years, fearing that at some point, payroll was going to come knocking on my door and ask for their money back. Presumably at the point when I was furthest in debt.

So, first thing Monday morning, I rang payroll and explained to the nice lady on the line that I thought they’d overpaid me a little. She checked the records and sounded a little shocked as she agreed with me, then put me on hold as she got the manager. The manager came on and explained:

“Er, we haven’t overpaid you. That’s back-pay. We’ve been under-paying you for five years.”

I stood up at my desk, brain whirring and got him to repeat this bit of information. He did, with a little more detail:

“Every year you worked here, you were due an increment which you never received, due to an error in payroll. We have only just spotted and corrected this error.”

The money was mine.

After a quick phone call to my wife, I marched into my manager’s office and asked for six months off unpaid leave. She was only too happy to agree, as her budget was now down by £7200, which not paying me for six months would certainly help.

During my six months off I managed to get enough comedy gigs booked to ensure that I never had to go back to customer services.

And the moral of the story? Be sloppy with your finances. And write good jokes.
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I have seen the future

2007-03-02T10:40:00.001Z

Clock
Originally uploaded by redisred.

Drum roll please:

I have seen the as yet unreleased film “Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel”. Twice.

Or to be more accurate, I have seen two different cuts of the film. At the moment it doesn’t have all the music, it’s in mono and the special effects are obviously temporary or indeed, missing. But nevertheless, I have seen it, from beginning to end.

The story I made up in my brainhole and squirted from my fingers into a keyboard has now been squirted in through my eyes and back to the grey pulp where it began it’s journey.

“But Jamie” I can hear you all screaming in the void “Is it any good? Tell us details and stop beating around the bush, you fat ponce.”

Stop being so impatient. And rude. We’ll get there, we’ll get there.

My first viewing was with Justin and Neil, the producers, in the conference room of an office building. On a television. And about ten minutes in, I realised I had lost all perspective. I knew the jokes too well. I had forgotten why they were ever funny.

(Apparently Richard Curtis guards against similar fatigue by putting stars in the margins next to jokes that make him laugh in his first draft, because he realises that six weeks down the line, he won’t have a clue. But I digress. And possibly repeat myself from another blog entry.)

I genuinely didn’t know if it was any good. I was too close. I mean technically, it felt like it worked. Everything was in the right place. The funny bits felt like they should be funny, if only I wasn’t mouthing along with the actors. Justin and Neil thought it was really good. But the only bits I really laughed at were ad-libs I didn’t know about, or quirky takes I hadn’t seen in the rushes. I genuinely didn’t know.

Then we had a test screening. With real people. Most of which knew nothing about the film and none of which who had read the script. And they laughed. And we breathed out. And they liked it. And we breathed out some more. And they filled in questionnaires and offered opinions on what bits they thought were slow and what they liked and didn’t like.

And Gareth and the Editor considered these questionnaires and notes from us and went away and tweaked and tucked and recut.

And lo, then there was another test screening. Which scored even higher. And there was much rejoicing in the land.

And flushed with this early success, a small paranoid voice in the back of our collective heads whispers that maybe, just maybe, we’re all doomed.
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"I am not a Number", etc

2007-03-01T20:43:00.001Z

Portmerion
Originally uploaded by jwight.

I have just returned from a very pleasant few days in Portmerion, where they filmed influential mind-mashing sixties telecast "The Prisoner".

By law, all writers of twisty turny high concept fantasy must come here periodically to recharge their creative engines. Using the key which I keep around my neck at all times, I unlocked the secret gate and descended through the echoing dripping passage. Soon I had reached my goal - the machine which swiftly rejuiced my maguffin gland.

I returned blinking into daylight feeling rejuvenated and filled with the promise of stories as yet unborn . To celebrate, I ran along the beach shouting Prisoner quotes in my best Patrick McGoohan voice (not bad, but sadly very similar to my Patrick Stewart. And for that matter my Ian McKellen.)

And then it rained for two days.

If You Aint on Myspace, You Aint Nowhere

2007-02-23T22:32:00.000Z

I went to a comedy gig the other night with Marc Wootton (who’s Myspace Page can be found here) his friend from the BBC called Anna (who’s Myspace Page can be found here) and Marc’s co-writer Liam, a poor fucker who has no Myspace page, and thus, in any measurable way known to man, doesn’t exist. Oh wait a minute, here it is. Now he is real.

On stage we saw The Alternative Women’s Institute, (Myspace Page) who were composed of The Congress Of Oddities (Myspace page) Danielle Ward, (Mspc Pg) Isy Suttie (Mspc Pg) Josie Long (Mspc Pg) and Bridget Christie (NO MYSPACE PAGE – she will be DESTROYED!)

To underline the point, a mugger mugged us on the way home (that's what they do) and in the process gave us the address of his Myspace page in morse code, a slap being a dash and a kick being a dot. He took all our money and asked us to leave a review of the mugging on his comments.

I feel conflicted, as that would mean adding him to my friends. And I know that technically, friends on Myspace don’t have to be real friends, but I draw the line at someone who has terrorised and mugged me.

For those of you at all alarmed that I am making light of a real mugging incident, I am not. The mugging story is a lie. You may now breathe out.

The comedy night itself was fun, and I found myself remembering how comedy could be. Experimental and filled with flights of fancy, rather than a production line of set-up/pay-off. When I wasn't laughing I had a big smile on my face. I even found myself fleetingly thinking I could go back to it, be reborn after a year off, which it will be in April.

Then I remembered the traveling and loneliness and thought, nah.

And for those of you wondering, my Myspace page is here. But I never update it and it only serves to entice people here really. So why bother going there?
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I, Writer

2007-02-19T19:11:00.001Z

broken clock
Originally uploaded by ananasbacke.

I am a writer. That is now where all my money comes from, rearranging words and letters and selling these specific arrangements to other people, who say things like “Those words in that order! We could never have rearranged them like that!”

It wasn’t always this way. I did a lot of “normal” nine-to-five work on the twisty turny road that lead me here. And in my spare time, and sometimes even when supposedly at work, I wasted a lot of time. I watched a lot of TV, played a lot of computer games and read a lot of comics.

However, now that I am a writer, I can retroactively re-categorise much of this time wasting as research;

Lying on the sofa in my underpants for that three hour Simpsons marathon? Research. Reading the text files of Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books while supposedly processing customer service complaints for Royal Mail? Sticking it to the man. And research. Playing Counter-Strike until I viewed every dustbin on my street as potential cover? Research.

Obviously, had I never become a creative of any sort, this would all have remained time wasted. Now it’s all grist to the creative mill. Even striking out in my teens is valuable raw material.

If I ever have to write a script about a teen striking out.

Adventure Time

2007-02-15T15:43:00.000Z

It's a bit of a lazy man's post to just embed a YouTube video, but I enjoyed this so much I had to share. I hope you do too.

The Vision

2007-02-14T19:18:00.001Z

vision
Originally uploaded by Ape Lad.

I am starting to pick up more and more returning visitors to this blog. And I don't want to let you guys down - every time you open this box there should be something new and interesting inside, so I am going to try and start writing more frequently.

Here's a story I don't think I've ever told the world, and should tell you all you need to know about me:

When I was young - and we're talking under the age of seven here, I was convinced that if you wished for something hard enough, it would occur. This was one of my more reasonable beliefs at this age. On the day in question, I decided that I wanted to have the superpowers of "The Vision", a lesser known Marvel superhero. (His Wikipedia entry is here, for those of you that really care. And who wouldn't?)

One of the key things about The Vision was his ability to change the density of his body - he could become as hard as diamond, or as ethereal as mist. This mist thing was the bit I was keen on - for then I could walk through walls, just like The Vision. Quite why this appealed to me so much at this age is lost in the mists of decayed synapse pathways. And gin.

So I wished, and I wished, and I wished, eyes scrunched up and straining almost to the point of forcing a hernia. Then, having determined that I had wished hard enough to achieve my goal, I decided to test my new Vision powers on the nearest wall.

Imagine my surprise when I bounced off.

Now I am sure that most children at this point would realise the folly of this whole wish/superpower belief system and move one step closer to the healthy cynicism of adulthood.

Not me though. Oh no.

I came to the conclusion that my wishing system was working just fine. It was the execution of my super powers that needed work.

Put simply, I needed a run-up.

And so I did. I ran full pelt at a concrete wall. I'll repeat that for those of you skimming. I ran full pelt at a concrete wall. Oh yes. I was knocked senseless with a lump on my head the size of an egg.

And the moral of the story? I don't know. Pick one. Something about futility, or the power of imagination, or the folly of youth. Something like that. Knock yourself out.

Or rather, don't.
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Cousins Through Time

2007-02-11T17:18:00.001Z

With at least twenty years between photos. Same people, same garden. We would have been in the exact same position but they'd gone and built a pond there.

Me and my brother on the right, my two cousins on the left. Guess who are the crazies and who are the straights...

I love my little brother's Nosferatu face as a child.

Truth In Advertising

2007-02-07T09:24:00.000Z

NSFW - but very funny. It's like they looked at my life and put it right up there on the screen.

Johnny Morris

2007-01-28T22:21:00.001Z

Johnny Morris
Originally uploaded by mathieson_jamie.

Is it just me, or does Johnny Morris look like Steven Spielberg? Has anyone ever seen them together?

I gave a talk

2007-01-24T12:41:00.000Z

I spoke for the best part of two hours, which felt very self indulgent, but the other writers there said they found it useful (see previous post, if you have no idea what I'm talking about.)

I'm reminded of the story of Woody Allen, who was rehearsing on his clarinet when someone knocked on the door and informed him with excitement that a few streets away people were queuing round the block waiting to see his new film. Woody was then left alone and pondered upon the fact that this piece of information hadn't changed anything. It was still just him alone in a room rehearsing.

Success is like that. Most things stay the same. Problems you had before success are still there afterwards. The biggest difference, at least for the moment, is that I don't have to go out and do things I don't want to do in order to stay fed and warm.

I will do eventually, but allow me my moment of smug self satisfaction before it all collapses around my ears.
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I'm Giving A Talk

2007-01-21T19:52:00.000Z

The very thought makes me smile with stinging pangs of self-mockery.

Basically Joe Oppenheimer, our contact point and supporter from BBC Films asked me if I'd give a bit of a talk to some TV and Radio writers about my experiences on the rocky road to FAQATT. The phrase "teaching your granny to suck eggs" comes to mind.

And also, if I flipped the situation and found myself facing some upstart who'd come straight out of stand-up into feature film writing and I'd been bashing away doing radio and TV for years, I'd want to slap his impertinent little testes.

Anyhoo, I'm committed to doing it on Tuesday at some conference stylee stately home. I'll try not to be too much of a nob.

Having self-deprecated sufficiently, I've got to confess I am looking forward to talking to some other writers about the journey that got me here. I'm sure we'll all have had similar experiences with rejection, failure, juggling day jobs, stupid gutless commissioning bods, stupid producers, over-enthusiastic but talentless script editors and piles of things we've written that nobody wanted. Or is that just me?

(For anyone that's wondering, all of the above was before FAQATT got optioned. Relax.)

Joe was a bit concerned about how I'd feel about talking to a room full of strangers. I reminded him that I'd earned a living as a stand-up for six years regularly playing to 300+. This would be much less people and I wouldn't even have to make them laugh.

All I've got to do is make them not want to kill me.
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And that's a Wrap

2007-01-18T10:06:00.000Z

Principal photography has finished. We had our wrap party during which I witnessed the incredible sight of one of the producers body popping. I wish I was making that up, but Neil Peplow is a big hip-hop fan and at one point was spinning on his back in the middle of the dance floor. And spinning some tunes. And then he popped a cap in our asses. Because he's old skool.

One of those statements is a lie.

I had a bit of a dance, then realised that the sedentary lifestyle of the writer has severely reduced my dance floor endurance. I started dancing like I used to in my twenties, then started sweating like a man in his fifties. Note to self: avoid heart attack by moving arms and legs occasionally in your life.

During the party I had three people independently comment to me that everyone was there "because of me". It felt it churlish to mention the free bar.

Joking aside, I know what they meant, and I kind of refute that idea. It's pandering to the worst kind of egotism. We are all where we are as the result of a lot of different things and people. For one thing, if the production staff and crew weren't working on this film, many of them would no doubt have found work on some other film. We all gotta eat.

Yes, my script was the catalyst to get these people together and that's kinda cool. But that's all it is. Took me long enough to get here. I've been trying to write things since I was sixteen.

When my script first got optioned, I asked Justin when I should celebrate. He said "When you're sitting in the cinema and the credits roll."

That was almost two years ago. I still haven't celebrated. Not really. Each little victory along the way I've done a little internal "Whoo-hoo!" but I've yet to really kick back and howl with joy. I wonder if it's really in me.

Our main boys (Marc, Dean and Chris) got me some presents and a home made card with a photo on the front. Which I would love to share, but seeing as they are all in costume in the piccy, it's a no-no. Very touching though.

Then we all shuffled away into the night, some vomiting, some crying, some babbling about the premiere.

Next stop, the rough assembly...
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Pinewood Studios Diary 9

2007-01-10T17:51:00.000Z

It's always tricky with these things trying to give movie "news" without giving the game away plot wise. I feel a little bit like a soldier behind enemy lines with a MOD censor looking over my shoulder.

So with that in mind, we've shot all the scenes in the ***, the main location of the film, and that set is currently being destroyed. The action has now moved to an outdoor location for night shoots, which is the *** ******.

We have about a week of shooting left, everyone seems happy and the rushes look fantastic. I'm getting on very well with everyone apart from ******, who I think is a total tosser. I think I'll be doing a cameo in a big group scene which could be fun, as long as I don't have to stay there for the whole night, and can just wander out of shot and back to my fictional trailer. It's called a fictional trailer for two reasons; firstly, because that's where I write fiction and secondly, because it doesn't exist.

I've got a big list of other script ideas I want to work on when the dust has settled on this one. It's nice knowing that whatever I come up with, people will read it with the power to make it. Just being in that position is worth a hell of a lot for a writer.

I went to a party the other night, a kind of work's do for stand-up comics above the comedy café in London. It was good fun. It felt like being in dressing room without the pressure of having to do a gig at the end of it. Lots of old faces from the circuit, many of whom didn't recognise me with the beard and long hair. Or who claimed not to.

I didn't pimp the fact that I was making a film, but found myself telling a few people anyway, as many of them started conversations with "Didn't I hear you're making a film?" and in one surprising occasion "I auditioned for your film. Loved the script."
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Pinewood Studios Diary 8

2006-12-23T10:36:00.000Z

Two sleeps till Christmas

Filming has stopped for a week. We're well over half way. And I think the film will be good. Everyone breathe out.

It's an odd process, rather like viewing lots of individual pieces of a jigsaw out of order and trying to figure out if when you put them all together you've going to end up with a picture of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, or a picture of a tennis playing lady scratching her arse. I think we're far from Arseland. (Way to damn with faint praise there Jamie.)

The cast rock. Anna Faris glows. The gags work. The paradoxes make your head spin. Everyone on set is working their arses off to make this as good as it can be.

I was being interviewed for publicity purposes, and asked to give a reason, in one line, why people should go and see the film.

I said "Because it will mess with your head. In a good way."

For my own amusement, I was trying to think of a nice analogy for the film. What I eventually came up with was this:

On one stage you have the biggest glitzy extravaganza the world has ever seen; dancing girls, elephants, fire-breathing trapeze artists, with incredible dazzling pyrotechnics and costume changes every thirty seconds. And it's too much. The performers smiles seem fixed and false, going through the motions, a needy child screaming for your attention with nothing to say. The audience is restless and they don't know why. Surely the more stuff happening on stage, the better?

On another stage you have a lone spotlit man, juggling with three balls. That's all. But the man manages to pull off incredible tricks within his self imposed limits. He could have set the balls on fire, or juggled chainsaws, but he knew that if he did it right, all he needed was balls.

All you need is balls.

If FAQATT were a stage performer, it would be this guy:

Merry Christmas.

Bachelorette Video

2006-12-14T20:21:00.000Z

This is partly my first attempt to embed a YouTube video, partly a plot/vibe clue to FAQATT and partly just sharing one of my favourite videos of all time; Bjork and Gondry's Bachelorette:

Pinewood Studios Diary 7

2006-12-11T19:27:00.000Z

I've met Anna Faris on set a couple of times. She seems very nice. Expect more scandalous revelations of this nature soon. "Anna Faris in 'seems very nice' shock"

My brother and his friend came visiting the set yesterday. As he himself put it, his "film set awe" lasted the whole day.

His presence got me thinking about the origins of my story-telling drive, one of the roots of which is the practice of telling him stories when we were both children. I used to ad-lib wish fulfilment stories to him along the lines of "You're in the woods when you notice a hatchway in a tree which leads down to a secret underground base with a magic belt that turns you into a superhero. There is also a room filled with gold."

This was always great fun, the biggest thrill for me being his excitement at each fresh revelation as I came up with it. He would also suggest twists or new story elements as I went along, which I would gamely attempt to weave into the narrative.

And here I am, nearly thirty years later, gamely attempting to incorporate script notes into a screenplay and waiting for the audience's collective face to light up. Only I'm no longer sitting on a bunk bed or wearing all in one Robin Hood pyjamas.

Influences

2006-12-08T23:12:00.000Z

For obvious reasons I can't go into the plot of FAQATT at this stage. This might change, but we've a long way to go before release, so let's pace ourselves. However, I do want to give some exclusive content to the literally dozens of people who are reading my blog.

I thought I could bang on a little about my influences, which will hopefully give people an idea of the zone we're playing in without giving away the shop.

Okay. Off the bat, the film is what I like to think of as "kitchen sink fantasy" (a term which I am hoping will enter into the lexicon of science fiction and fantasy lore. I am nothing if not ambitious).

My definition of "kitchen sink fantasy" is a genre story in which ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary situations, but can't stop behaving like ordinary people, for hopefully comic effect. It's the clash of the mundane concerns with the mind-blowingly otherworldly that hopefully causes the funnies.

Arthur Dent is a good example: shuffling around the Heart of Gold trying to get the computer to make him a decent cup of tea.

Which segues rather neatly into my love for The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. I first read the books and saw the television series when I was about fifteen and they took my head off. I take a guilty pleasure in the fact that FAQATT has the same amount of words in the title as THGTTG. And one more syllable.

Long titles. Gotta love 'em.

This could easily become an essay, but maybe I should end by just throwing in a list of other things I love which I feel are relevant to the film; Alan Moore, Sleuth, The Back to the Future series, Terminator 1 and 2, Philip K Dick, Frasier, The Likely Lads, Terry Pratchett, Kurt Vonnegut, 2000 a.d.

I hope that's given people something to chew over while waiting for more "real" news.
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Pinewood Studios Diary 6

2006-12-07T16:26:00.000Z

I had an epiphany yesterday. The realisation that my film is being made hit me like a smack in the head. I was watching them shoot a scene on the monitor when the jolt of “Oh my God I made this up in my head and there are now dozens of people scurrying around making it real” occurred. You would assume, no doubt, that it was a pivotal moment, a vital shot that summed up the plot and/or characters. But no, it was actually a close up of some taps in a gents toilet.

Funny, that.
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Pinewood Studios Diary 5

2006-12-05T17:14:00.000Z

To celebrate the start of shooting, we bought the three male leads a gift each (Anna Faris wasn't due for a couple of weeks). I suggested getting them each a model Delorean from the Back to the Future series - themically bang on, and BTTF is close to a lot of people's hearts on this production, including mine.

I knew that Marc would be into it, having already proven his geek credentials. I therefore ensured that he was given the cool one that flew in the second film, with wheels that swiveled downwards. I wasn't sure how Chris would feel about his gift, but Dean I felt sure would react with bemused disinterest bordering on aggression.

I wasn't let down. When I got to his dressing room, I discovered he was using it, still in it's box, to prop the door open.

We have cast very well in this film.
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FAQATT Writer Escapes Car Crash Death

2006-12-03T15:30:00.000Z

7.30 a.m. this morning on the M25: Aquaplaned into the central reservation barrier, bounced off, careered across three lanes, swerved to avoid a lorry, skidded back into the central reservation barrier where the car finally stopped.

Got out, and ran across the motorway to the hard shoulder where I did a little jig because I was still alive.

Not a scratch on me. No other vehicles involved. On set within the hour with a new found respect for life and an arrogant belief in my own charmed immortality.

Welcome

2006-12-01T08:59:00.000Z

Welcome to the screenwriter's blog for "Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel" a farcical science fiction comedy feature film currently in production with HBO and BBC Films.

It stars Anna Faris (Scary Movie series) as a girl from the future, Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd) and Marc Wootton (Shirley Ghostman) as a couple of geeks and Dean Lennox Kelly (Shameless) as their cynical friend, who try to unravel a paradox in a British pub.

It's being directed by Gareth Carrivick (Little Britain, The Smoking Room) and written by first time writer Jamie Mathieson. That would be me then.

I'll keep this at the top of the blog for new visitors but keep checking below for regular updates.
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Just Here To Make Dreams Come True

2006-12-01T01:03:00.000Z

While exhaustively reading every scrap of speculation on the net about FAQATT (as lazy typists everywhere are already calling the film) I came upon this snippet on Film Ick:

Jamie Mathieson is the screenwriter of Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel, the new "three men walk into a pub"/sci-fi comedy film being produced by the beeb and HBO. Mathieson is keeping a blog, and I think it looks set to be one of the more interesting online production diaries. It's a minor - and very recently developed ambition of mine - to get a mention, and possibly link, on this blog.

See, I'm just here to make dreams come true. Picture me as a Jimmy Saville figure in a chair with a built in teasmade. (Reference to UK show from the 1980's. Do not be alarmed.)

So here's that link again. But come back soon, y'hear?

Film Publicity 2

2006-12-01T00:34:00.000Z

Nature abhors a vaccuum. The internet abhors a one line pitch. If no futher lines are available, they will be spun from the ether, as in this outline of FAQATT from Insomniacmania:

Anna Farris stars as hot girl (her character hasn't got a name yet) from the future in this new British sci fi comedy.

She travels back in time to answers three social outcasts questions about time travel, after a debate about the subject is started in a pub, and then time travel adventures begin.

If I was to remove all the erroneous supposition from that, we would be left with:

Anna Farris stars as a hot girl from the future in this new British sci fi comedy. She travels back in time to three social outcasts in a pub.

One site down, fifty to go.

And while we're on the topic, I love the way everyone is focusing on the whole "social outcasts" aspect of this. Maybe in the US, being a social outcast is seen as a problem. Over here, it's a badge of honour. I mean, have you been in society lately? They're eating their dead out there, man.
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Pinewood Studios Diary 4

2006-11-29T12:06:00.000Z

So. Filming is underway.

The set is a hive of activity, full of busy people with jobs to do. Apart from me, who's job, for the most part, is done. I spent a few days hovering in the background, watching various takes on monitors, chatting to the actors between set-ups before realising that I was a spare part.

I was warned I would get bored. I was warned that it was pointless to stay. I scoffed at this idea. How could I ever tire of watch things I had invented come alive? But you see ten takes of the same set of lines from various angles and you're looking for the fast forward button.

Either you spend the days biting your fingernails and whispering in the director's ear until you drive him insane and you get forcibly removed from set, or you gracefully accept your redundancy and stroll off whistling. I chose the whistling option.

However I will return to watch some juicy scenes being done. There are some corkers that I have to be there for. And I really can't moan about the level of involvement I've had upto this stage. I've been hands on for most of the rehearsals and had input to some degree or other in every aspect of the production. I know it's all in very safe hands.

We're making a movie! Whoo hoo!

I'll be in my trailer if you need me.

Film Publicity

2006-11-28T17:18:00.000Z

I'm chuckling to myself as I watch the ripples of publicity spread across the net. Errors being copied, reworded and becoming the new truth.

At the moment there are only two original sources; The Hollywood Reporter and Empire, but The Reporter has misspelled Marc Wootton's name as "Wootan", an error which is popping up like mushrooms elsewhere, making it quite easy to see who is simply rearranging the words from this story.

And sometimes in the reinterpretation, meaning is lost, such as Virgin Movie's assertion that "The 'Scary Movie' actress will play the role of one of three misfits who try to figure out the complexities of chronological time travel while drinking in the pub."

Come on guys. Do the maths. Or "math", if you're in the US, which is kind of appropriate as there is one less letter than there should be.

We have three blokes and one girl from the future. Which is why we name three male actors and one female. Anna is not one of the three misfit blokes.

This doesn't stop the pure speculation of filmstalker: "The story sounds a bit like a British Bill and Ted. Two guys are sitting in the pub discussing how time travel could really happen and what the issues of paradoxes are when suddenly Faris appears as a time traveller herself"

Wow. It's like he read the script. For some other film.

But a couple of sites have complemented the title, such as Cinema Blend and Slashfilm, who call it "The most interesting movie title in years"

Hooray, my first positive review!

Then they ruin it all by saying that the "plot doesn't sound as interesting as the title".

Boo! They give with one hand and they take with the other.

The moral of the story: Never read reviews. Even of the one line announcements of your films.

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

2006-11-28T15:19:00.000Z

The news is out about my film;

From the The Hollywood Reporter:

"Anna Faris is toplining "Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel," a farcical sci-fi comedy that also will star British comic actors Chris O'Dowd, Marc Wootan and Dean Lennox Kelly.

Gareth Carrivick is directing the movie, which will be a Picturehouse release in association with BBC Films and HBO Films.

The script, written by Jamie Mathieson, follows three social outcasts -- two geeks and a cynic -- as they attempt to navigate a time-travel conundrum in the middle of a British pub. Faris plays a girl from the future who sets the adventure in motion.

Neil Peplow and Justin Smith are producing via Dog Lamp Films Ltd.

Shooting is due to start next week in the U.K."

From Empire:

"Continuing the healthy flow of American actors heading to work in Britain, Anna Faris has agreed to star in Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, a decidedly Brit-centric geekfest.

It sees three misfits – two nerds and their sarcastic, cynical mate – trying to figure out the paradoxes and problems of chronological travel in (where else) the pub. Faris will appear as a woman from the future who sets them on the path to adventure.

Also starring in the film are three rising UK comic types – The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd, Shameless’ Dean Lennox Kelly and Shirley Ghostman’s Marc Wootton.

Working from a script by Jamie Matheson, Gareth Carrivick will start calling the shots next week."

The Screenwriter's Prayer

2006-11-20T18:41:00.000Z

“God, grant me the humility to accept the notes that will help the script, the courage to fight the notes that will damage the script,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

- Jamie Mathieson (after Reinhold Niebuhr)

Skellington Love

2006-10-29T10:08:00.000Z

Me and the missus contemplate our ribcages making sweet xylophone music.

Death takes a break

2006-10-29T10:05:00.000Z

And yes, I am still picking black make-up from my eyes, thank you for asking.

Pinewood Studios Diary 3

2006-10-28T18:35:00.000+01:00

Once your fame cherry has been popped, you can never go back.

For me, it was the first time I stood back stage in the dressing room of a comedy club, waiting to go on, only to find the headliner standing in his pants, ironing his trousers on a brown stained creaking ironing board.

The fact that he was bounding onto the stage an hour or so later with a spring in his step to rapturous applause didn't have quite the same glamour anymore. The bubble was popped, for I had seen behind the curtain to a world not of magic and wonder but of mundane and every day concerns.

Performers were not gods. Comedians had the same worries and problems as everyone else. Dressing rooms could be dirty, smelly crowded places, no different in many ways to factory locker rooms. This was just another section of the real world, with a glamorous public face, true, but a disappointingly common place underbelly.

The same was true of the first time I saw my words being performed by others: initial excitement, then irritation that the lines weren't being delivered exactly as I imagined them in my mind, then finally boredom as I saw the same lines being said ten times in a row for the benefit of coverage. The dream had lost it's sheen as it entered the world of work.

But now. To my film.

We are filming at Pinewood and we have been rehearsing at Shepperton. Pop goes that potential glamour bubble. It feels just like two factories, with all the attendant security guards, hanger like spaces and whistling caretakers with walkie talkies.

In offices on the lot, there is a growing team of artisans designing and building sets, scouting locations and planning the shoot. All based around things I made up.

I think it will be a while before that bubble pops.

And rehearsals? Ah, rehearsals. Here I did the opposite of imagining glamour. I imagined frustration, assuming that the director would direct (it is his job description after all) and that I would watch, inert and powerless on the margins, fearful of breaking the bond of trust between him and the actors, fearful of overstepping my own job description.

Instead I have been welcomed in to a wonderland of collaboration, as we all work to make the script and performance of that script as good as it can possibly be. All credit to the director, Gareth Carrivick. Only someone who is supremely confident of their own position and ability could give the actors and myself the liberty which we have enjoyed.

I mentioned to my wife that these days had probably been my best working experience as a writer so far. "Well." she said "Then what you mean is that this has been the best working experience you've ever had."

She's right.

Pinewood Studios Diary 2

2006-10-17T14:05:00.000+01:00

My office is situated directly over the corridor from the producers and director. We often nip in and out of each other's rooms to shoot the breeze, lark around and waste the investor's money in other interesting and inventive ways.

Earlier on today the door into my office began to open. Assuming it was another of the film staff, I shouted "I'm not decent." and then gave an orgasmic groan.

The door stopped opening and I heard a female voice say: "I'm sorry!" followed by the sound of scampering feet. I opened the door to discover no-one in the corridor.

Turns out it was one of the studio staff who I presume is now traumatised and spreading news of a writer she caught wanking. I expect a sexual harassment lawsuit any day now.

And just to be clear - it was a joke. I wasn't doing anything dodgy in there.

Obviously, whenever I wank at work I lock the door. And then watch everyone else through the keyhole, my old lad in my hand, just like everyone else.

Pinewood Studios Diary 1

2006-10-16T19:24:00.000+01:00

I am sitting in an office at Pinewood Studios as I type this, working on a film script I wrote which is currently gearing up into pre-production.

In April I was telling jokes on stage for a living. This is no longer the case. I am very happy about this new direction in my life.

The producers have instructed me to refrain from revealing anything about the production at the moment, including; title, actors, funding partners etc. Hopefully I will be able to reveal more soon, but at the moment all I can say is that it is a comedy about time travel.

Our offices are located on "007 Drive" which intersects with "Goldfinger Avenue". I had been lead to believe that the studio roads would be filled with people carrying wafer-light Grecian columns and flat boards with realistic scenery painted on, while actors dressed as Nazis and Cowboys stood around smoking. None of these things have so far happened. In fact, it feels very much like any other factory environment, with gum chewing bored fat blokes wondering around in dirty overalls. The fact that they are all wearing razor sharp bowler hats is a nice detail, however.

I believe in weird

2006-09-23T22:45:00.000+01:00

Oh yes I do.

Consider this – I am about to go to London for the day on a train. I bump into a director I’ve not seen for five years. We chat on the train on the way down, exchange e-mail addresses and head our separate ways. Four hours later I am walking down a street in London town when I look through a window and see the same director drinking a coffee in a café. He points at me. I point at him. I enter the café and say.

“This is just wrong.”

We make predictable jokes about stalking and say goodbye again. Do you want to know what he’s currently producing? “Most Haunted” for living TV.

Three days later, I’m in London again at a friend’s party. Also at the party is a guitar playing stand up who I’ve worked with a few times. We chat a little and he leaves the party.

The next day, having stayed at the friend’s house, I hop on a train that will take me into the centre of London. I walk perhaps fifty yards along the train and pick an empty seat at random in a train full of empty seats. I look to one side to discover the guitar playing stand up from the night before sitting across the aisle.

Needless to say, I leapt upon him and staked him through the heart, cut off his head and buried it at a crossroads. It seemed the prudent thing to do.

Time To Burn Some Bridges

2006-08-30T13:52:00.000+01:00

Before I became a writer I was a stand-up comedian. Before I did that I worked in Royal Mail Customer Services. For far too long.

When I was doing stand-up I always refrained from having a pop at my old day job in writing, partly out of fear that the comedy would prove to be a fad. It would all fall through and I would end up knocking on the door of my old boss with an embarrassed grin.

“Ooh, it’s the comedian!” he would say, meaning quite the opposite. And he would point me to my old desk, waiting for me much as I left it, with the addition of mould in my mug and a thin patina of dust and despair.

Well, the comedy didn’t fall through. I have now moved onto writing, with stand-up as the new safety net, secure in the knowledge that should the worst come to the worst I can knock on the door of my old stand-up agent with an embarrassed grin.

“Ooh, it’s the writer!” she’ll say, meaning “You failed as a writer.” as I strap on my big clown shoes one more time.

All of which meandering pre-amble means that Royal Mail Customer Services is now fair game for a right kicking. I don’t mind burning my bridges in the mail carrying customer services industry. I don’t think that decision will cause me to starve any time soon.

I’m building this up as though there is a big revelation I’ve been bottling up for years:
(“They burn the mail you know. I seen ‘em. Big piles of it. And they dance round it, chanting.”) but there isn’t, not really.

All this is, really, is me giving myself permission to tell some tales from my past. Some of which may not paint my employer in a particularly good light.

But hey, they should have thought about that before they burnt all that mail. Am I right?

Writely Schmitely

2006-08-20T20:22:00.000+01:00

In my continued attempt to assist Google in it's quest for global dominance, this blog is being written on their online word-processor "Writely".

In much the same way that the first telephone conversations consisted of variations on the theme of "Wow. We're using a telephone. Freakin Sweet." this will be a writely-centric blog entry.

Wow. I'm writing on Writley. Freakin Sweet.

The feature which I'm itching to try out is the collaboration option, which basically allows other people to add to and edit a piece while you're still working on it.

Imagine that.

I am certain it would feel exactly as if invisible elves were messing with you. And we all know how disconcerting that can be.

The Year 3000

2006-08-05T19:12:00.000+01:00

I found an entry in Wikipedia which really tickled me. It's titled "A timeline of fictional future events" and is just as cool as it sounds. If you can think of a science fiction story or film that postulates an event occurring at some point in the future, it's probably on there. It's incredibly anal and just the kind of thing that Wikipedia is good for.

I thought of a few of my favourite films and books, hoping to catch it out, but no, they'd all been done. They've even got plots of computer games on there, FFS.

"But what of pop songs." I thought to myself. What about Busted's "Year 3000"?

It wasn't on there!

But it is now:

"3000 - The band Busted and their neighbour Peter arrive from January 2003 in Peter's car-based time machine and discover that not much has changed but everyone lives underwater. (Busted - Year 3000)."

An Oldie but a Goodie

2006-08-03T15:46:00.000+01:00

Professor Carnival Dunstan

Born with both sets of genitals and a tail, Carnival Dunstan took his first name from the travelling freak show that found him abandoned as a baby in turn of the century Boulogne. His second name was picked out of a hat.

Dunstan spent many of his formative years being mocked in a cage, in his job at the local post office. Disillusioned with this life, he studied long and hard, finally gaining sufficient qualifications to pursue his lifelong dream of dropping his pants for coins from passers by.

read moreDunstan took this career as far as it would go, the crowning triumph being his sell out run at the Albert Hall, where he dropped his pants night after night to a standing ovation. On one memorable occasion his audience included The Prince Regent and Fatty Arbuckle who hailed Dunstan as “A one trick pony”. High praise indeed.

Deciding to quit at the top of his game, Dunstan left show business in 1933 and turned his attention to his other love – physics. After nine years of intense study of velocity, inertia and impact damage he gained a PHD from a professor he coshed in an alley.

He then spent four years firing chickens at car windscreens before deciding to stop mucking about and do some actual science. The real thing quickly bored him though, so he went back to the chicken firing. He also collected his toenails for a time, the surviving jars of which now fetch incredible sums on e-bay, although this may be due to a misprint stating they belonged to Don Estelle.

Dunstan died in poverty and obscurity, where he remains to this day, although his estate is campaigning to have his status upgraded to “a bit poor” and “face rings a bell”.

Could This Blog Cost Me Money?

2006-08-03T13:35:00.000+01:00

This question floated into my mind today after a conversation with my writing agent. He was concerned that some of my blog comments could put off potential writing clients. I attempted to assuage his fears only to find myself having doubts of my own. Which lead me to the very basic question: what is the purpose of this blog?

read moreEveryone writes blogs for different reasons. But for someone who puts words together for a living, the importance of the blog takes on a whole new dimension.

I have to realise that this is a shop front. Not the only one I have, granted. Scripts sent by my agent to potential clients is usually their first experience of me and my work. But then potentially they may Google my name and end up here. Which makes what I put here fairly important.

It’s would be a shame if potential clients were bowled over by my scripts but then came here only to discover a rant denying the holocaust and a picture of me with underpants on my head. So I’m going to delete both those posts immediately.

On the other hand, I don’t want this to stop being a place where I can kick back, relax and write nonsense. Surely there must be a common ground that doesn’t lose me work?

A solution that springs to mind is to create virtual Worzel Gummidge heads.

No, really, bear with me.

These would be false personalities that I could adopt - with names, histories and perhaps even mocked up photos. These alternate voices would allow me to adopt their personalities and rant in character about whatever takes their fancy. Thus granting me total deniability.

“It wasn’t me that said that, officer. It was Curly Pieman.”

And step by step, I draw ever closer to full blown multiple personality disorder. Making me a much more interesting writer.

Everybody wins.

Redesigning Judge Dredd's Helmet

2006-07-25T20:12:00.000+01:00

Bug Eyes
Originally uploaded by mathieson_jamie.

When I doodle, I often redesign Judge Dredd's Helmet.

This is an activity that calms me greatly. I hope that by setting this example, one day redesigning Judge Dredd's helmet will become a national pastime.

Melting

2006-07-25T19:21:00.000+01:00

Jamie Mathieson Warped
Originally uploaded by mathieson_jamie.

Here's a photo I took today of myself while browsing in the local Apple shop. It took about ten seconds to take and then e-mail to the missus.

I am surprised no-one has set up little webcam enabled "Wish-you-were-here" booths, for people to e-mail photos direct to the folks back home.

If they do, I want a cut.

What Are You Doing?

2006-07-21T20:42:00.000+01:00

It’s tricky, this whole being a writer thing.

On one hand, I prefer telling people what I do for a living when I first meet them. Saying “I’m a stand-up comic.” used to have such an odd effect on people. They would get excited and their eyes would shine and they would start trying to be really funny themselves, as if I had started a funny competition and entered us both. And not in a sexy way.

read moreThey would also laugh at anything I said, even if all I was saying was stuff like “What time is it?” or “You’re freaking me out, I’m going over there now.”

Now, when I say “I’m a writer”, barely an eyebrow rises. Which makes for a more restful evening and on the whole, I prefer. No pressure to perform or desire to run away from randomly laughing people.

I suppose a reason for people’s low reaction to saying you’re a writer is that it’s such a catch-all term. It could mean anything, from; “I’ve got a blog that my family and two old college buddies read. Occasionally.” or “I’ve got some lyrics in a folder under my bed which I’ve never shown to anyone but which will one day, I’m sure, form the basis of a hit West End Musical. The main themes are toejam and skin tags.”

Or, as is my case, I am earning enough money from writing to pay the mortgage and eat. Which I am really pleased about.

As to what I am writing about, well, at the moment, I can’t tell you. I’d love to spill the beans on everything; every pointless meeting, every ridiculous studio note, every actor who turns out to be a nice guy, or a knob.

But that kind of thing simply isn’t done in this business. At least, not if you want to stay in it.

So broadly, here’s what’s currently happening;

1) Rewrites on my own comedy film script about time travel. Which is on course to become a proper film.
2) A teenage sex comedy – a rewrite of someone else’s script.
3) A fantasy thriller television series of mine is being optioned by a major broadcaster.
4) I’m also writing a spec script of my own of comedy sketches. Which not even my agent has seen.

Bask in my cuspdom! This time next year I’ll be eating caviar out of ladyboy’s navels.

As opposed to Pot Noodle. Which is what I am currently eating out of ladyboy’s navels.

That is all.

Baker Street Facade

2006-07-05T12:55:00.000+01:00

Baker Street North, London
Originally uploaded by focalplane.

Last week I visited Baker Street, home of Sherlock Holmes. Literally a few doors down from 221b there is some massive construction work underway. By the looks of it, they are attempting to preserve a grand old frontage, while constructing a totally new building behind it.

It struck me how ironic this was, considering that Sherlock Holmes was a master of deducing inner truths based upon outer clues. It also struck me as a nice metaphor for today’s surface obsessed society.

Then, thankfully, my internal editor kicked in and I realised that both observations were trite, pompous and contrived. I gave myself a good smack and went about my business.

Jesus Joke Payback

2006-07-05T10:25:00.000+01:00

I happened to have a drink with stand-up Dan Antopolski the other night where I told him the following story:

When I first began trying to do stand up in 1996 I had a beard and long hair and thus began every set with a Jesus joke. It was a good joke, almost guaranteed to work and I soon came to depend upon it to set the laughs rolling.

This was all well and good until one fateful night at a gig at the Dry Dock in Leeds. My opening Jesus joke, my banker, my comedy jewel, - got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a titter. And I died on my arse.

read moreI couldn’t understand it. Until someone pointed out to me that the crowd were all regulars. And that last week there had been an act on with a beard and long hair – doing an opening joke where he alluded to looking like Jesus. That act’s name was Dan Antopolski.

That was 1998. And the other night, I found myself explaining to Dan how eight years previously he had been responsible for me getting a shave and a haircut and writing a new opening joke.

We laughed at the idea and drank some more wine. Talk began to move onto other things, but I wasn’t done. I reached into my rucksack and produced a clear plastic bag containing a darkish lump.

“What’s that?” said Dan, his smile looking a little uncertain.

“It’s my old hair and beard.” I said. “I kept it, just in case I ever ran into you.”

Dan looked confused as I handed him the bag. The hair was mottled green with a little mould, nothing too severe. It was eight years old, after all.

“What’s this? What do you mean?” said Dan.

“You’re going to eat it.” I said. “And I’m going to watch you.”

Dan blinked. I didn’t. Neither of us were smiling now.

“Is this a joke?” said Dan. He looked hopeful.

“What do you think?” I said, head cocked.

I handed him the salt.

Shaven Headed Bubble Seller

2006-06-24T22:18:00.000+01:00

In the town centre of Nottingham today I saw a man selling plastic “bubble makers”, which caused huge foot-wide bubbles to form in the air.

Bubbles are whimsical beautiful things. Part of their appeal is their essential pointlessness. Their only reason for existing is aesthetic delight.

All of which made the shaven headed bubble seller seem a little incongruous as he had the manner of a man more at home kicking someone’s head in behind a nightclub. Indeed, the sullen brutal expression on his face suggested that he was imagining exactly that, as he pumped out bubble after bubble with all the joy of someone feeding their scrotum into a mincer.

read moreI have noticed this phenomenon before. As a rule of thumb, the more whimsical and childish the item for sale, the more scowling and hard looking the seller.

Perhaps there is an element of overcompensation at work, to overcome a fear of being thought of as “soft”. Thus, a man selling knives or nunchuckas will feel no threat to his masculinity and happily smile at his customers, stroke passing kittens and reminisce about favourite ballet steps from his youth, while a man selling dancing pink dolls will feel compelled to carry a severed head in his other hand which he will chew on from time to time.

Also today, and also on the theme of bubbles, I visited an installation by the clever people at Architects of Air. I can thoroughly recommend it. It’s effectively a big inflatable series of rooms, lit wonderfully with ambient sound from hidden speakers. I sat inside pondering – is it like being in a womb, a gut, an alien spaceship or simply a bouncy castle with illusions of grandeur? My lofty musings were brought back down to earth as I spotted a vacant looking staff member following children around with a trigger spray bottle of detergent.

Joke T Shirt

2006-06-22T14:47:00.000+01:00

I saw a person the other day wearing a t-shirt with a joke on the front. I smiled and then laughed to myself. And because I wanted to reward them, in a small way, for wearing such a funny t-shirt I looked up into their face, raised my eyebrows and shook my head while smiling. They looked back at me with the blank slightly pissed off look of someone who has totally forgotten they are wearing a funny t-shirt.

I felt betrayed and foolish.

( For those who feel annoyed that I didn’t mention exactly what the joke on the front of the t-shirt was, you should realise that this is totally irrelevant. If you like, you can pretend it was a t-shirt bearing your favourite joke. Go on, go crazy. Unless, of course, your favourite joke is racialist or sexualist.

Bumming jokes are fine though. )

Combination Lock

2006-06-20T10:08:00.000+01:00

I’ll tell you what it feels like. It feels like I’ve been trying to crack a combination lock for years. And the combination lock in question isn’t a dial or a little keypad. Oh no, this baby’s big. Full sized keyboard big. The amount of potential combinations I could enter is staggering.

And I’ve been tapping in codes for a long time: endless permutations of letters, strings sometimes thousands of digits long. And sometimes these random combinations might accidentally cough up actual words. They might resemble sentences, or even full stories.

But don’t let that fool you. They’re just codes. Any pattern is an illusion. Any narrative you think you see exists only in your mind. It’s all just code.

read moreAnd I’ve been at this for years. Tapping away at my keyboard. Discarding old approaches, leaping upon new methods with fevered intensity. Mutating, adapting, editing, refining, trying to second guess the lock builders. Punching in code string after code string.

And sometimes I think I’ve cracked it. The lock clicks promisingly, maybe moves a little. A little light leaks out. Then the lock corrects, whirs and ticks, closing tight again with a pneumatic sigh.

But I carry on. I don’t what else to do. All my other skills and interests have withered and fallen away. I only know the keyboard. And the lock.

And eventually there comes a point when I have forgotten that there is even a lock. I have forgotten why I am even here. All I hear is my fingers on the keyboard and all I can see are the code strings marching across the screen in front of me.

And slowly, my focus shifts. I begin to see beauty in the code strings where before I had seen simply utility. I start to realise that there are ways to make the code even more beautiful, without losing any of it’s functionality. The accidental words and characters and stories which I had previously endured as a necessary evil now become my focus.

The code ceases to be the means to an end. The code is no longer the journey. The code is now the destination. I soon reach the point where I can think of no better way to spend my life creating infinitely more intricate and elegant code strings.

I am so absorbed in my new purpose it is some time before I realise that I am now bathed in light from the open lock.

I grin and keep typing.

Genre

2006-06-19T17:55:00.000+01:00

What genre is real life?

Discuss...

Rumours and Falsehood

2006-06-11T16:47:00.000+01:00

Even though officially I am no longer a stand up comic, I am still in fairly regular contact with a few other acts from the circuit. One of them happened to mention a couple of months ago that he had heard another act swear blind that the reason I had stopped doing stand up was because I was making a film and “was now a millionaire”.

This got me thinking.

read moreThe stand up circuit is a notoriously bitchy place and loves rumours, especially concerning the hubris and downfall of others. I decided to craft a few rumours of my own about my current situation.

I then contacted four different comedians and gave them one rumour each to spread. I also gave them a little background to the jape and said that they should feel free to ad lib additional details at leisure.

Here are the four rumours;

1) I wrote a film script which came very close to being made into a film. I was so convinced that it would go ahead that I put my house up as security and left the circuit.

However, the film fell through, I lost my house and am now living back with my parents. I also can't return to the circuit as I sold my routine on e-bay and have got to write a fresh twenty.

2) The script I wrote contains a lot of people’s material from the circuit, which is why I can never return to stand-up.In addition, on my last gig I smashed my vibrating watch with a hammer on stage at Jongleurs Birmingham, but I didn't clear this with anyone and a bit of glass went into someone's drink. As a result, Jongleurs are being sued and have banned me from appearing at any Jongleurs venue ever again.

3) The film script is essentially a backstage expose of the circuit, with thinly veiled references to well known characters. For this reason, obviously I had to leave the circuit.

4) The film script story is merely a cover. I am now doing porn.

Having sown the rumour seeds, I sat back waiting for them to cross pollinate. What bizarre misheard hybrids would emerge? Which one would dominate? What would happen when two conflicting rumours were voiced in the same dressing room?

I recently got my one and only report back. One of my agents was in a dressing room and began to disseminate his cluster bomb of bullshit, when the act listening stopped him dead and said in a bored voice:

“Oh yeah, Jamie Mathieson. He wants lots of rumours spread about himself doesn’t he?”

"That's Not Your Joke"

2006-04-15T19:34:00.000+01:00

This is a story that dates from way back when. I was still at the "try-out spot" stage, which is stand-up terminology for doing five minutes of unpaid performance in the hope that it will lead to that far off dream of paid work. It was either 1996 or 1997.

So anyway, I went to the Edinburgh Festival, amongst other things a trade fair for comedians. I was treating it mainly as a holiday with my partner, with the vague plan of perhaps getting some try out spots while up there.

read moreAnd Lo, a try out spot did appear. It was at somewhere called the Bear Pit in the local university campus. The audience there has something of a well deserved reputation for chewing up comedians and spitting them out. At the time I knew none of this, of course. All I knew was that I had a try out spot. Hooray.

We had already booked tickets for a few proper stand up shows that day, including the great Rich Hall which left me very little leeway. We would have to watch this show then I would rush to the Uni.

All this was very much on my mind as we entered the Rich Hall gig, took the only free table, which was right at the front (did I mention I was new to this stand up lark?) and proceeded to become the focus of Rich Hall’s attention.

"Well you’re a miserable soul, there at the front. Why aren’t you smiling?" he asked me at one point.

"Because I’m here to analyse your jokes and performance technique, not laugh. And I’ve got a gig on after this which is playing on my mind."

- is what I should have said.

I didn’t, of course. I don’t remember my actual responses but they were all fairly lame. And of course, I didn’t dare mention I was a trainee stand up.

The banter back and forth continued, as myself and the missus sweated in the laser beam of his attention, when for some reason the issue of parents came up. I remembered that I already had a joke on that very topic and saw a chance to crowbar a bit of my material into the act and perhaps redeem us.

"My Mum’s a born-again Christian and my Dad’s an atheist." I said, which Rich repeated to the audience. I was primed and ready to hit him with my punchline, which was "My Dad doesn’t believe in my Mum." when Rich Hall activated his lightning brain.

"So, huh, what" said Rich Hall "Your Dad doesn’t believe in your Mum?"

Cue laughter and applause from the audience and sagging and sighing from me.

"Yeah. Something like that."

So, the Rich Hall gig over, I rushed to The Bear Pit. And had a lovely time. Mainly I think due to the fact that the act on before me died on his arse. Which I referred to, along the lines of "Well, I can only hope that you love me as much as you loved him." This kind of worked and I really won them over.

The young guy running the night, all clipboard and big can headphones seemed very impressed, so much so that he asked if I could come back for a repeat performance the very next night.

"But won’t it be the same crowd?" I asked.

"No, no." he reassured me. "Different punters every night."

So I returned the next night and ran through the same jokes that had wowed the room the night before. And got a sullen disappointed silence from virtually the same crowd. I later discovered that they all had memberships and were there every night during the festival. They didn’t boo me off, partly I think out of respect for how well I had done the night before.

Dying, drowning, searching for a lifeline, I remembered the material about my parents.

I began: "My Mum’s a born-again Christian and my Dad’s an atheist."

At which point a voice rings out, loud and clear from the balcony:

"That’s not your joke."...

B. and Dunn

2006-04-12T10:44:00.000+01:00

When I was about nineteen I had a very brief stint working as a barman at a real ale pub. The place prided itself on selling a wide variety of specialist beers both bottled and on draft and had a constantly changing list on a blackboard of guest beers with bizarre names such as “Bishop’s Fancy” and “Dragon’s Breath” etc.

I was a terrible barman, not least due to my piss poor mental arithmetic. It was also my first job dealing with the general public. I spent most of my time behind the bar in a sweaty panic.

On one particular night the bar was heaving and I was working with another barman doing my best to serve the punters as fast as possible.

I approached one man, who requested a “B. and Dunn”. I had never heard of this brewery before but this was not unusual, given the variety of odd beers we served. I duly searched the fridge that stocked bottled imports, checked the guest beers blackboard and all the taps. I even asked the other barman if he had heard of it. No joy. Finally, defeated, I returned to the customer to get him to repeat his order.

“I’m being done.” he repeated with a frown.

I Have Retired

2006-04-03T15:51:00.000+01:00

It’s done. I am no longer a stand up comedian.

My last gig was on April 1st 2006 on stage at Jongleurs Birmingham.

I did twenty minutes of gags, then informed the audience that I was retiring. I explained that the watch I was wearing had a silent vibrating alarm and was very common amongst comedians, making it a very good symbol of my stand up career.

I then took out a large hammer, put the watch on the stage, and smashed it.

Sick Train

2006-03-20T16:43:00.000Z

A few weeks ago I got drunk with a mate in London and we then caught the last train home at some time after midnight. The train was full of people in various stages of intoxication, including one man who felt the pressing need to vomit onto the floor causing most of the people in our carriage to rapidly move along to the next carriage, which presumably didn’t smell of puke.

read moreHaving recently had a really bad vomiting bug, I felt surprisingly indifferent to sitting in a carriage that smelt of sick. I suppose I’m still in that grace period after extreme illness where I feel that as long as I’m not the one throwing up, all is right in the world. My mate didn’t have a problem with it either. I don’t know why. I didn’t ask him.

So we were sitting there, my mate and I, in a carriage that stank of puke, when the train stopped at another station and a new fella got into our carriage, sitting opposite us. He frowned and sniffed as soon as he sat down and we volunteered the information that someone had indeed thrown up. We pointed along the carriage to the puddle.

This new man then volunteered the information that he was busting for a piss. He’d tried to go at the last station but there just wasn’t time.

“You could piss on the sick.” said my mate, with drunkard’s logic.

“Can I?” said the man “Can I piss on the sick?” he asked us with an earnestness that was quite endearing, as if we owned the carriage and could indeed grant him permission. He also said it without any trace of humour whatsoever.

This struck us as quite the funniest thing we had heard in a long time.

We laughed and pointed out that we didn’t own the carriage, it was a free world, and if he wanted to piss on the sick, who were we to stop him?

I then wondered what would happen if he did piss on the sick. Would it be noticed by whatever poor sod had the job of cleaning it up in the morning?

“’Ere, Mavis. I think someone’s pissed on this sick.”

We laughed and repeated the phrase “Can I piss on the sick?” so many times over the next hour that it ceased to have any meaning, which in itself became funny. Making our stumbling walk home from the train station through sub zero temperatures much more manageable.

And for those of you who hate loose ends and were wondering;

In the end, he didn’t.

Me Me Me

2006-02-27T14:31:00.000Z

A friend of mine told me a great true story which I’ll repeat for you here. His name is Dan and I plan to run this by him before I post it, so any errors or exaggerations I take he’s happy with:

“One day, years ago, I bumped into an old friend of mine we’ll call Sarah. She suggested we go to the pub to catch up and we spent the evening talking, from about six until ten. Well, I say we were talking, it would be more accurate to say: I listened while she talked. And talked. And talked.

read moreThere was no gap for me to interject, no questions thrown my way that would allow me to start a conversational thread of my own. It was just a deluge of words from her about her life. The only pauses occurred because I indicated by sign language that I had to go to the bar and the toilet. Soon I had become very bored and resentful.

The interminable evening finally began to wind down and although to mention my feelings went totally against my usual reserved character, I felt I just couldn’t leave without pointing out what had happened that night. As we gathered our coats and prepared to leave I said to Sarah:

“Can I just stop you there. Do you realise that you’ve spent the entire evening just talking about yourself?”

Sarah looked taken aback at this and said instinctively “No I haven’t.”

“You have.” I said. “Name one thing you’ve asked me about myself.”

Sarah thought for a second, hand over her mouth, eyes darting around in her head, before looking appalled.

“Oh my God. You’re right. You must really hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” I replied. “I think you should just be aware of what you’re doing. How do you think it made me feel?”

Needless to say, the evening ended awkwardly and we went our separate ways with our friendship forever altered by my honesty about her behaviour.

Fast forward six years. I bump into Sarah again, who pulls me excitedly to one side with some news.

“Do you remember that night? When you pointed out how self centred I was?”

“Yes…” I replied, wondering where this was going.

“Well that night changed my life. It made me realise how selfish I was, I came to hate the person I had become so much that I changed my name. I’m now called Flower and I’ve spent the last five years doing charity work in Africa.”

I shook my head sadly and said:

“You see, it’s all still just “Me, me, me””…

Selective Memory

2006-02-25T10:39:00.000Z

Shortly before my maternal Grandmother died, I went to see her and managed to get across to her that I told jokes for a living. As her hearing and eyesight were going, this involved a little shouting. Once this fact had been established, my Gran proceeded to tell me a little story about my Grandfather, whom I had never met. It went something like this;

“Ooh, your Granddad. He used to have loads of friends round. And he’d tell a long story. And then everyone would laugh at the end.”

My Grandfather, a raconteur? How come I’d never heard this before? Well, perhaps because I’d never mentioned that I did comedy before. Perhaps if I’d mentioned to my Gran that I’d built up a success pogo stick business, she would have scoured her memory before regaling me with some anecdote about my Grandfather’s love of jumping up and down.

read moreWe all do a lot of things in our lives. We are funny and we are cruel and we are stupid and we are brave and we are desperate. I have anecdotes from my past that I could dredge up as evidence pointing to any future career you care to name, from criminal mastermind to taxidermist.

For a year or so I was a postman. I worked in customer services for five years and for the past five years I’ve been doing stand up comedy for a living. Now I’m a writer. And I’m still moving.

We like to think there is a pattern to things. That’s the truth of it. It’s comforting to think that there are signs that point to conclusions. And we like to think that we spotted the signs, early on; the spark of genius or the sullen glower of the future serial killer. Because the alternative is to say: you never can tell. We don’t know where any of us will end up or what we will become. And that thought is kind of scary, painting us as kind of rudderless with no neat story to frame our lives.

So family friends smile wisely and nod and say “You always were very funny as a child. Do you remember when…” To which I want to shout: “I’m stopping stand up. My next script’s a thriller and it’s the best thing I’ve ever written! It’s got no jokes in it. Tell me about the time I enthralled the children in the playground with a story with twists in. Go on! Tell me!”

And then, unbidden, a memory surfaces from when I did exactly that.

Fast forward hopefully many, many years; me, dead, lying in an open casket, mourners looking down at me, smiling sadly and commenting “This really doesn’t surprise me – do you remember when he was a teenager?

He really used to love to sleep.”…

Proof of a Comedy God

2006-02-13T16:14:00.000Z

I was traveling on a busy commuter train heading north out of London. I was with a few friends and we were all sharing a six set of seats, chatting vaguely about this and that.

At one stop, a stranger came and sat with us.

However, I recognised the stranger as another stand up comedian, one whom I had worked with briefly months ago. Let's call him Joe. However, Joe gave no signs of recognising me and I had no desire to jog his memory. He was no particular friend of mine, had a circuit reputation of being a bit of a knob and thus I was happy to let the coincidence slide.

However, the God of Comedy had other plans.

read moreDuring the course of chatting with my friends, one of them, Dan, happened to mention an old joke that we're particularly fond of. The joke goes;

Q) Why did the baker have brown hands?

A) Because he kneaded a poo.

Classic schoolyard stuff. We laughed at the joke and Dan said "Classic gag." At which point, comedian Joe's ears pricked up.

"What's this?" he asked "What's the gag?"

Dan looked surprised at this interruption, but duly repeated the joke to this "stranger".

Comedian Joe thought for a second, looking very serious, and then pronounced:

"No, it's not a very good joke. It's quite childish and immature. And I'll tell you why I can say that. Because I, -"

(pause for effect)

" - am a stand up comedian."

Dan turned and looked at me with raised eyebrows. The moment hung for a second, then I replied:

"Well, I'm a stand up comedian as well. And I think it's a great joke."

Comedian Joe looked shocked.

"Are you? Are you really? What's your name?"

"Jamie Mathieson." I said "I think we've worked together before. Downstairs at the King's Head. You're (insert real name here) aren't you?"

"Yeah, yeah." replied Comedian Joe, suddenly not quite so cocky. The conversation shifted to issues of where we were working that weekend.

I was flying to Scotland for some gigs, which was a rarity but helped to increase my comedian kudos. He was heading to a gig that night on that very train. Dan asked for the name of the pub, but Comedian Joe couldn't remember off the top of his head and was forced to dig out his diary to check. It was one of those "one page to a month" desk diaries.

And here's the really heart-breaking part. The only day with anything written on it, the only gig for the whole month, was that very day.

As he left the train, a few stops later, I was left pondering how many times he had interrupted complete strangers with his pronouncements about the calibre of their pub jokes, or the fact that he was a stand up comedian. And I thought about how statistically unlikely our meeting had been.

And I also thought that if there's one thing the God of Comedy really hates, it's a smart-arse.

If the world was ending, would anyone tell you?

2006-02-04T19:11:00.000Z

Of course, it’s not going to appear on the news. They don’t want mass hysteria. They’ll keep up the pretence that everything is just fine and dandy up until the last possible second. Until they’ve squeezed the last cent they can out of whatever stocks they’ve invested in. Panic equals a fall in share price. Everyone knows that.

So you’ll keep hearing soothing words through airbrushed mouths until you’re distracted by the noise of rioting outside your window, strangers fighting each other for the last loaf of bread, for the last pint of milk, for the last drop of gas.

You look from the seething scrum outside your window then back to the soothing TV, then back out to the scrum. It’s like you’re getting your TV signal from some alternate world, where everything’s just fine.

Then you look at the presenter’s face. He’s smiling, sure. But the eyes look scared. A split second after the smile cracks and falls, the test card comes up. Then the power cut to end all power cuts begins, and you go rooting in the cupboard for your gun.

Beans Monologue

2006-01-19T23:32:00.000Z

I overheard a monologue the other day that went something like this:

“Crosse and Blackwell, right, well they also make beans. I bought four tins, because they were on special offer, two for one. Well, I put them all in the same carrier bag and I was walking home and it split! I was chasing a tin of beans as it rolled down the road.

I think what I’ll do next time is put two in one bag, two in another, and then double bag ‘em.

read moreHave you seen those bags for life? When they’re not really for life. They don’t last that long. But at least the handles don’t stretch.”

Alan Bennett eat your heart out.

Listening to this man drone on, neither needing, or receiving any encouragement or response from his sole listener, I tried to isolate what it was about this monologue that I found so fascinating.

I came to the conclusion that he had no internal editor. Whereas you or I might have had similar experiences or thoughts, we would perhaps stop short of considering them worthy of sharing with friends and family or indeed strangers at bus stops.

This man had no such filter in place. There was no inner voice asking pertinent questions, such as; “Is this remotely interesting to anyone but me?” “Is this just tedious minutiae?” and “What does minutiae mean anyway?”

It’s a great trick for writing characters unlike yourself. Just mentally remove a few mental editors or filters and let yourself go.

I like observing quirks like that.

Another classic trait I occasionally encounter is the misguided belief that just because a particular person is obsessively interested in a particular topic, everyone else would be too, if only they were fully briefed on the joys of said topic.

The first time I encountered this trait, the topic was genealogy, but it happens a lot with religion, partly because the idea of preaching is built in. And they figure they’re doing you a favour as they’re saving your soul.

From tins of baked beans to the human soul in under four hundred words.

I Am Relieved When Things Go Wrong

2005-12-31T09:57:00.000Z

I am relieved when things go wrong.

I am relieved when things go wrong because it is no longer my responsibility. It is out of my control. What can I do?

Look, the problem is out there in the world. I point at the problem. It is stopping me from doing what I wanted to do. Now I must stay in. Now I can relax. Now there is no stress. Now there is no pressure. I am in my house. Because the world is stopping me from doing what I wanted to do.

read more(Sometimes I find a small problem and I make it into a big problem. I find a healing scab and I pick at it and turn it into a gaping wound.)

Look at my injury! The outside world did this to me. The outside world is constantly stopping me from doing what I wanted to do. Now I must stay in to allow myself to heal. Now I can relax. Now there is no stress. Now there is no worry. Now there is no shame. I am in my house.

(Sometimes I start an argument that I know will lead to a fight.)

Look! I have been attacked. I must deal with this. It has unfortunately made me miss an appointment. But what can I do? Look. I will point at the problem. I was attacked by this man. Of course I must stay in to recover. It is perfectly reasonable for me to do this. Anyone can see that. Who would argue otherwise?

I am spending more and more time in my house. Invitations to leave the house are becoming less and less frequent. This is a good thing. I am safe in my house. Life is simpler and smoother. I am in my house.

I am in my house.

The Psychology of Comedians Off Stage

2005-12-13T12:26:00.000Z

If you like, you could drape a Diane Fossey metaphor over all of this, and see it as a report from some gorilla tribe that I've spent ten years observing, emulating their body language and learning their customs. Now, I've returned to polite society with my report.

The fact that I'm also a gorilla screws up the metaphor a little, but bear with me.

read moreI've already made many of these points in supposedly comedic form (see Health and Safety Warnings for Comedians) but thought it worth tackling in a longer form. And with less jokes.

I'll start with a caveat: many comedians are perfectly nice reasonable people off stage, capable of conducting a normal conversation. There, that's that out of the way. Now let's talk about the other lot.

The problem is the job: consider, a comedian walks on stage to applause. He hasn't even done anything yet. He says things. People laugh and applaud and cheer. He comes off stage to more applause and suddenly strangers want to buy him drinks and sleep with him.

This pattern repeats several times a week.

What do you think that does to the comedian's character? His ego? His sense of self? Without balancing factors, it's an almost perfect recipe for a monster.

Other issues; when you hold a mike standing in a spot-light, reality shifts. The rules are different. Taboos disappear. Want to accuse someone of paedophilia? Fine. Promiscuity? Impotence? Go right ahead. Better yet, take someone's bag from a table and go through it. Steal someone's drink. It's all allowed while you're holding the mike and getting laughs.

If someone talks to you, you are allowed to insult them, shut them up and talk over them. You have the mike, you have the power.

Then you come off stage, and suddenly civilised rules reassert themselves. You can't insult people randomly. You're expected to listen to what they have to say. You're expected to shut up while they talk. They expect you to share the power.

Some comics find this very hard. They've got a taste for being in control. They want to carry on using the rules from the stage. They sometimes forget altogether that there are any other ways to behave.

I have been in dressing rooms with several comics all trying to talk over one another, all still craving the spotlight and none of them listening to any voice but their own.

I have tried to converse with comedians who view every comment from me as a feed line to their punchline or put-down. I've had conversations with comedians who try to make every one of their responses funny. I've endured comedians who tell constant streams of jokes off stage.

This job can fuck you up royally.

There is an argument to be made that many of these character traits were already in place well before the comedian in question stepped onto a stage. The very act of wanting to be a stand up comedian is said to point to psychological imbalances in various areas.

I agree with this to a point, but would suggest that if you begin doing stand up in a real psychological mess, success in this field sure isn't going to cure you.

"What's the worst thing you can do if someone is desperate for attention?"

"Give it to them."

Health and Safety Warnings for Comedians

2005-12-13T09:29:00.000Z

1) Ask other people about themselves. Then listen to the answer.

This is a good guard against self-obsession. Try to remember one or two things about the people you're with, other than their face and position relative to you on the bill.

This is also good advice to follow with friends and family members, and may help to keep them as friends and family members.

read more
2) Stop talking about comedy.

No really. Shut up. That ashtray looks kinda heavy and I'm on a short fuse buddy.

3) Remember the world is not a stage

For example, on stage it's okay to ridicule the hecklers, but when people talk back to you off stage that's called "conversation" and is allowed. Don't feel compelled to interrupt and insult them. If they shut up and leave that doesn't mean you've won, especially if you're married to them.

4) Just because something is free, doesn't mean you have to have it

This covers free drinks, free food and free love from groupies. Accept everything that's offered you and you'll end up a fat alcoholic on first name terms with the STD clinic. Sorry for anyone I've offended with that one - ie) half the circuit.

5) Try to sleep with someone but don't tell them you're a comedian.

Not that easy, is it?

6) You are not a God walking amongst mortal men

Now I know that a few hundred people clapping and cheering you may make you feel pretty good, but face it: they don't even remember your name half the time. Face it. You're "The short one." or "That Irish guy". You did a good job of work, that's all. Your hotel room will look the same as when you left it, and won't suddenly be made of gold.

If you follow all these basic safety tips, you'll remain a stable rounded human being, assuming that's how you started off. Which, let's be honest, is unlikely, given that the desire to gain approval from a room full of strangers usually indicates massive insecurity and emotional neediness stemming from some childhood trauma.

How to be a Stand-Up

2005-12-13T09:01:00.000Z

Tip No.1: Be Funny

This is not as easy as it sounds. These two words, although Zen-like in their simplicity, are incredibly hard to achieve, much like the sound of one hand clapping. (Incidentally, in the world of comedy, the sound of one hand clapping generally means that you're dying on your arse.)

read more
Tip No. 2: Have a Bad Childhood

This is a vital requirement for all creative types. Your parents can help you a great deal with this one. They may need a little encouragement, but once you've explained what it's for, I'm sure they'll go out of their way to make your formative years a living hell.

With a bit of luck this will lead to massive insecurity, culminating in a desire to win the approval of a room full of strangers. Either that, or a thirst for vengeance on the world, explaining why so many failed comedians become serial killers or wheel clampers.

Tip No. 3: Talk About What You Know

Of course, this implies that you know something in the first place, which is a definite boon, so go and learn about some things. Stop reading this until you have...

Learnt about some things? Good. Now talk about them and make them funny.

Tip No. 4: Get Used To The Spotlight

There are many ways to do this without actually getting on stage. Late night joyriding followed by helicopter pursuit is a cheap and effective way of imitating that onstage vibe.

Or you could just buy a torch.

Tip No. 5: Know Your Audience

It helps if the things you're talking about are things that the audience can relate to in some way. For example, a middle class audience in a commuter town will respond much better to your whimsical anecdote about shopping bags ripping than your screaming tirade about the crazy layout of B wing and which of the screws are on the take.

Tip No. 6: Remember You're The Daddy

Once behind the mike, the comedian, even if female, takes the role of the Alpha Male in the room, and should stamp out any rivals, e.g.) hecklers. Pheromones are an important weapon in your arsenal, and it never hurts to mark your territory before a gig by peeing in all the corners.

My Favourite Comedians

2005-12-13T08:54:00.000Z

If you put a gun to my head and forced me to name my favourite comedians I'd probably wet myself and call the police.

read moreI think you'd get better results taking me out for a nice meal and casually dropping it into conversation over coffee afterwards, at which point I'd consider for a while, blowing smoke rings with my cigar, before producing the laminated list from my breast pocket that all comedians must carry by law. Mine has three names on it: Woody Allen, Bill Hicks and Spike Milligan.

So, in no particular order:

Woody Allen

But isn't he just an artsy film director who got off with his step-daughter? Weeelll, yes and no. In the sixties, his stand-up act rocked and his written comedy prose from the time is constructed like a swiss watch. His moose routine is a master class in following a comical premise to it's illogical conclusion and he's still quoted as a influence by many current acts.

Curiously, Woody himself seems ashamed of his time at the coal front of stand up, distancing himself from his persona of the time, that of "deluded loser with the ladies". Ahem. Well, you did a good job there Woody.

Recommended: Woody Allen: The Nightclub Years. The Complete Prose.

Bill Hicks

The comedians' comedian that most of the public have never heard of, mainly because he died of cancer just as his star was rising. He was thirty two when he died in 1994 but he'd been gigging since he was fifteen. At his best he was like a fire and brimstone preacher from an alternative religion advocating personal freedom, thinking for yourself, questioning the government and killing manufactured boy bands. All sounds reasonable to me. He's got the best gulf war material ever and again very well constructed gags. I read recently that he stumbled across one of Woody Allen's prose books as a youth...

Recommended: Revelations, Rant in E Minor, Arizona Bay.

Spike Milligan

Ah Spike! So much of the British comedy scene since the fifties can be traced all the way back to him. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that if someone did a rock family tree type affair for comedy pretty much everything since then would lead back to the grey matter between this man's ears. Pretty much anyone with an ounce of surrealism about them, from Eddie Izzard to Vic and Bob doff their hats to Spike. The TV version of The Goon Show, Q, "inspired" Monty Python (ahem). Not bad for someone with manic depression, although there's an argument to be made that this was part of his genius. No link to Woody Allen or Bill Hicks that I am aware of, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

Recommended: The Goon Show, The War Memoirs.

Well, there you have it. Obviously I have many more favourites that I didn't even touch on, but then you did only buy me lunch. Get me drunk and I'll talk about Peter Cook, Chris Morris and Joe Pasquale.

An open letter to anyone who goes to the cinema:

2005-12-13T08:45:00.000Z

Shut the fuck up. No really. Shut your big fat flapping mouth. Keep your licking hole closed. If there are big moving images in front of you, nothing is required of you but silence. That is how little is needed from you. You could be dead for the imput required. And if you keep talking in a cinema while I'm around, this may well happen.

read moreI've got a pet theory that there many of the world's so called random serial killings can be explained away by simply examining the victim's behaviour on his last visit to the cinema. "Yeah, apparently Sarge, this fellow here talked on his mobile all the way through "Batman Begins" - and then was found six hours later with his skull caved in and his mobile up his arse. It's a mystery."

Let me explain. I am a stand up comedian. A big part of my job involves telling strangers to shut up, often with a healthy dose of ridicule and scorn. This is not a talent I leave on the stage. I am free to use it in other areas of my life, a darkened cinema being a choice example.

The cinema is a good barometer for the general empathy rating of a nation. Just how well do we relate to our fellow man? Just how selfish are we? How much do we care? Well, judging by my recent visits, not a lot. This country seems to be rapidly becoming populated by self absorbed bores with no idea that anyone even exists but them and their moronic giggle buddies.

A friend of mine has an odd talent in this direction in that he can recall the exact nature of the distraction that occurred during every film he has ever seen. I test him occasionally. "Goodfellas." I enquire. He considers, before replying "Couple three rows back, two seats to the left arguing in whiny voices."

"Hellboy" - "Mobile going off four rows in front - the guy took the call and spent ten minutes chatting to a man called Roy."

"Minority Report" - "Two rows behind me - football team eating lobsters using nutcrackers and hammers."

And so on.

I have sat in the dark and I have fantasised about the perfect tool to defeat this menace. After some consideration I eventually concluded that it was a small gas powered tranquilliser dart pistol. I have fantasised at length about using such a device and eventually concluded that I would find firing knock out darts into the necks of noisy inconsiderate twats more entertaining than most of the films I've seen in the past year. And if I swapped my dart pistol for a claw hammer then there isn't hasn't been a film made that competes in the satisfaction stakes.

Either they start making better films or I'm going to start making my own entertainment.

Contact Me

2005-12-07T19:54:00.000Z

My writing agent in the UK is Hugo Young at Independent (formerly ICM). He can be reached on 0207 6366565.

My writing agent in the US is Robert Newman at Endeavor. He can be reached on 310-246-3196.
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On Plagiarism #1

2005-12-04T19:01:00.000Z

"I booked a plumber the other day. He rang me up about half an hour later and said 'I can't find your address.'

I said 'I'm not surprised. I made it up. And the next time you cut someone up on the motorway, remember your phone number's on the back of your fucking van!'"

read moreI made up the above joke about a year ago, and was happily performing it for months as part of my routine, when another comedian pointed out that a similar thing occurs in an episode of the sitcom "One Foot in the Grave".

I was mortified and have not performed the joke since.

I'm still proud of it, but the chance that someone would see the joke and think that I'd taken it from the show horrified me, so I dropped it immediately.

Comedians' attitudes to ownership of material varies wildly depending on who you talk to. The so-called working men's club circuit of the north have a long standing tradition of sharing material. They tend to view all jokes as existing in one big pot that anyone can draw from. This attitude clashes wildly with the rest of the circuit, who for the most part write their own material and guard it fiercely.

And occasionally, you get someone on the circuit who has no history of the working men's club circuit, knows full well that stealing material is wrong, but just doesn't care and happily performs a set crammed to the gills with other people's hard work.

Most of the time, the circuit is self censoring: promoters recognise the material from other acts and stop booking the offender. Word gets around. Gigs dry up.

But some promoters, some big promoters, are either not comedy savvy enough to recognise the source of the material, or just don't care. I have been on the bill with comics at big clubs who happily slip Bill Hicks' material into their set.

My rule of thumb in these situations is this: if I recognise one of your jokes as being word for word from another comedian, everything else in your set is suddenly suspect. Which was another good reason for dropping the "One Foot in the Grave" material. I didn't want anyone thinking the same thing of me.

Why would a good comedian, who could write a good solid twenty minutes of quality material steal someone else's jokes? The answer is, they wouldn't. They steal because they can't write a good twenty.

There are universally recognised exceptions and grey areas; heckle responses are one such area. They are a variety of stock phrases and insults used to quell a heckler. They are part of the comedy furniture across the circuit, as ubiquitous as the mike in the stand. It is understood that they are fair game for anyone to use.

I won't bother listing them here. Go to a comedy night and heckle for a sample.

Some comics view it as hack to use a stock heckle response. The comics holding this view are usually adept at audience banter and interaction. I am not and never was. I use the stock heckle responses and hope that St Peter will not bar me from comedy heaven when my time comes.

The Day The Dead Came For The President

2005-12-04T15:15:00.000Z

He was golfing when he heard the dead were rising. Of course, he didn't know then that they rose for him, but he was whisked away, anyway. By helicopter he was taken to a lift, which took him down to a bunker, deep down in the dark, which probably wasn't wise, but then wisdom wasn’t really his thing.

read moreHe received reports from his generals and advisors, suggesting strategies and writing statements urging calm, words he spoke into the dead fish eye of a camera lens, his own blank eyes staring right back.

The dead were rising but there was no cause for alarm. No cause at all. For they don’t attack, they don’t answer back. They’re just walking, walking, walking, so just stay in your home.

Rumours that one in four is a soldier have not been confirmed. Combat green and khaki, the dried brown of old blood simply adds to the camouflage. Just stay in your home.

The dead were walking, walking, walking. Then someone thought to think about the direction they were taking.

The dead were coming for the president.

He tried a parley, written and honed by the twelve finest psychologists in the land, delivered by a hostage negotiator, disguised as a general with a bullhorn, gold pips glinting in the sun. Four short words that earned twelve hours overtime and a new holiday home: “What do you want?”

And the answer came back, through a thousand throats filled with dust:

“An End.”

He tried to hold them back with electric fences and barbed wire, machine gun nests and nerve gas. Minor delays, nothing more. Thick steel doors, beaten like drums, ripped like paper. The secret service threw down their lives defending their charge, lay dead for a second, then got up and became part of the problem.

The president sat alone, in a replica of his office, listening to the battle rage outside as they fought to defend him. Then worse than the noise, came the silence.

A sigh, a rustle, a dragging. The handle of the door slowly moved and the president stood to meet the dead. And even though the room was small, somehow it took them all, row upon row upon row.

The president puffed out his chest and stuck out his chin. He was the president after all. He tried to stare them out, but it is hard to outstare an empty socket.

“What do you want?” he asked.

A murmur through a million throats is a deafening thing. He stemmed the blood from his ears with a monogrammed handkerchief.

“We invoke a law older than man:

When the living are rendered powerless, when their law is laid waste, when they have been imprisoned and bribed and murdered and lied to, then the dead will rise.

For you cannot bargain with the dead, you have nothing we want. You cannot threaten the dead, you have nothing that scares us. You cannot hurt the dead, we feel no pain. You cannot bribe the dead, for money is paper and paper decays.

You cannot lie to the dead. For we know.”

But he tried anyway. He knew no other way.

He spoke of freedom and pride, of the strong protecting the weak. He told carefully written stories which explained away all crimes.

“An End.” they breathed.

He told them of the menace beyond our shores, that plans to eat our children and rape our women. Of the need for more weapons to keep them from our door.

“An End.” they breathed.

He offered them medals, medals for each and every one of them. He spoke of “acceptable losses” “collateral damage” and “friendly fire”, the lies like ashes his mouth.

“An End.” they breathed.

He bowed his head.

“An End.” he sighed.

Some swear they killed him then, slowly tore him limb from limb, his expression one of resigned relief, or that they advanced and crushed him beneath their cold dry feet.

Some say he joined the dead, then went on to deal with other leaders in other lands. That he did more good dead than he ever did alive.

Others insist that he survived, that his people found him the next day still sitting at his desk, surrounded by the dust of the dead, who knew that leaving a leader alive and terrified is the best way to bring swift change.

But all stories agree about his desk. Old and oak, with three lines clawed deep into the wood:

You can lie to the world,

You can lie to yourself,

But you cannot lie to the dead.

Kill Your Darlings

2005-12-04T12:24:00.000Z

Or kill your babies, which I prefer, possibly because it sounds a lot more brutal. It's a quote variously attributed to William Faulkner, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway but I've trawled the net for a good ten minutes, and I can't find confirmation one way or t'other.

read moreIt was at this point that I realised that I was being drawn into that familiar net vortex where you lose hours looking up trivia when you should be doing something else.

So, back to the point. Kill your darlings. In creative terms: remove that thing you love from the work.

You may have sweated over it's creation and polished it to a fine sheen. It may be a wonderful thing. But when you view the piece as a whole, is it necessary? Or does it just sit there looking good, but having no bearing on the rest of the piece? Or worse, does it actively clash with other aspects of the work?

But it is so hard to let go of these things. You have invested such a lot of time and energy into their creation. How can you just cut them out and forget them? And more to the point, will you be able to replace them with something of equal quality? Will you ever be able to recreate that magic? The lightning bolt from the heavens that lead to this miracle may not strike again. You will be left with a blank space and no way to fill it.

Now I may simply be unlucky, but I have yet to have an idea arrive from the heavens fully formed in my brain and ready to be shown to the world. Most of the time, it's some half baked concept that I have to kick around and work on for quite a while before it's fit for public consumption. But I have gone through this process enough times now to know that I can repeat it at will until dementia takes me.

The problem comes when we start to view any act of artistic creation as some sort of magical alchemy with unfathomable rules. It isn't. There are all kinds of wonderful books out there that can teach you the rules about everything from writing jokes to garden design.

Of course, inspiration plays it's part, but from thereon in there is a repeatable process to channel that inspiration into a workable idea.

And by the way, if that original piece was unnecessary, or clashed with other parts of the work, then it was never really a darling at all, it was always just dead wood, with a dress on.

Cut it off and throw it away.

Comedy Feature Film Production Diary

2005-11-28T22:50:00.000Z

In a nutshell: I've written a comedy feature film script about time travel that is just gearing up into the first motions toward pre-production. We have a director and producers on board, we've had a read through with actors and some very big names are interested.

At this stage, I can't mention any names, for obvious reasons. If and when the people sign on the dotted line, I think a few jaws will hit floors. I know mine did.

It's my hope that as time goes on this will become the online progress report for the development of the film. As well as my forum for generally sounding off to the world.

Retiring From Stand-up

2005-11-28T00:29:00.000Z

It's an appropriate date: April 1st 2006 is the last date in my diary with any stand-up gigs marked. If things go to plan, it will be the last time I ever get onto a stage with the express intention of being funny.

That's right, I'm hanging up the mike and taking off the Worzel Gummidge stand up comedian head. It was never a completely comfortable fit anyway. It chafed and wasn't really me.

I've been working on a new head, behind the scenes, for years, which is now ready to be unveiled. Even as I type this, I can feel the whole "Worzel Gummidge Heads" metaphor collapsing around me.

In a nutshell, I'm becoming a full time writer, okay? And film maker, which may require a whole new head, or at least a bigger one.

This was always the plan anyway. I was always writing other stuff and always planned to stop stand-up when I could.

Now I can, so I am.