k-punk

mark: I look forward to your script. It must be fucking brilliant

Sadly not. But what I've said comes from a sense of disappointment, not from a feeling of smug superiority, as I imagine you're implying. I'm comparing TV drama not to any attempts of my own - which would no doubt be risible - but to what it used to be like. Potter, Kneale: their likes are unimaginable now.

nostalgia is about missing the point. People might long for the BBC to nurture talent as it did in the past (as if it ever did!), but they miss the fact that they can do it all themselves if they want - they can nurture themselves. If someone wanted to, they could make a sitcom on dv and post it on the net for about a grand. But they don't. Why? Because writing is hard work. Everyone's got the time to write, but hardly anyone does. I think at least 3 of the top sitcoms had the same writing team didn't they? With drama, it looks like the new Shameless will be one that people will admire, it won't quite reach our memories of Boys from the blackstuff, or numerous Potter plays, but...well those are just two writers out of almost three decades - not many of 'em are there? I will persist: write one yourself.

> I look forward to your script. It must be fucking brilliant

Rather than submit scripts unlikely to make it past Jane Root's sense of humour, surely it would be more profitable to analyse the institutional reasons for the commission of lazy derivate shit (how I'm looking forward to Jam performed by washed-up celebs!)

> If someone wanted to, they could make a sitcom on dv and post it on the net for about a grand.

Assuming that cast and crew are willing to work for free. The going rate for a single episode of a thirty-minute sitcom is £200k.

Technical production and style over investment in writing/experimental production every time.
It's easier and safer to make - and no doubt to watch - a vacuous technically-perfected simulacra of 'quality TV' (ie the multiple sub-Morse detective dramas, shitty uninformative blurry-stock-footage documentaries) than to take the risk of making something different. Unless, even better, you can get away with a repackage of previous successes with a minor celebrity talking you through it.

re: brent's pop video. Totally unnecessary and counterproductive, I thought, taking The Office into the realm of reflexive TV. And a example of the embarassing way people always seem to feel they have to throw money at something once its become popular, even though it obviously gained that success _without_ a gargantuan production budget. All I could think of as I was watching the Brent vid was how it probably cost as much as an _actual_ shit pop video and added nothing to the show except a(nother) smug BBC back-pat. Production crew having a field day "cos actually pop videos are what I really want to move into eventually, I know all the techniques, a mate of mine in Soho knows the guy who did the CGI on Bjork's latest, I'm actually just working here until I get my big break..."

Tommy Cooper exasperating?????

> re: brent's pop video

Inexplicably shown in full, rather than, as would have been more appropriate for the genre being spoofed, as a short excerpt. The BBC (i.e. Gervais) leaks a rumour to The People about If You Don't Know Me By Now being released as a single, and then Gervais writes to The Sun to protest that it isn't.

Dear Bizarre,

Firstly I'd like to thank The Sun and Radio 1 for their continued support but I'm afraid I won't be releasing If You Don't Know Me By Now as a single.

There are a number of reasons for this. I think the reason people liked it was its context as much as its content and I've always been very careful that David Brent and his antics only exist in the TV series and not outside.

In the show, Brent releasing a single makes him a sad wannabe seeking fame and money. Releasing the single in the real world makes ME that person.

I hate celebrities, actors or comedians "having a go" at a pop career. However high up the charts they get, it doesn't count.

And finally, I've only just forgiven Billy Connolly for In The Brownies and he's the best comedian in Britain.

The good news is, we are putting a full version of the video for If You Don't Know Me on the Xmas Special DVD due out some time later in the year.

So if people still care by then they can own it without having to go through watching me on Top Of The Pops.

Have a great New Year,

Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais is currently making training videos for internal use by Microsoft UK.

Gervais was always (perhaps purposefully, perhaps rightly) putting himself in the firing line giving all those interviews talking about all the work offers he'd turned down and how he wouldn't do something 'just for the money' and it 'had to be right'. A misjudgement like the pop video I can forgive (like you say, 5 seconds would have been enough. and oh, what a surprise that they made the _whole_ video for DVD release. I wonder if there's a 'making of the spoof video' feature too?). The microsoft thing is just sick!

> money money everywhere

Ironically, ITV's all but bankrupt. The main effect has been for it to leave completed dramas in the can, because its contracts allow it to delay coughing up until the actual transmission.

Isn't the issue with TV drama more specifically to do with the fact that entire genres — comedy, drama — have been hijacked to executives' notions of what would satisfy a particular target demographic, effectively killing off the esoteric, experimental or otherwise just demanding (and banishing what survives to digital)?

One could ask where can an (unknown) dramatist with a relatively singular vision find an output for formally innovative work that rattles its audience's preconceptions. The answer 25 years ago would have been Play For Today or Second City Firsts — what's the answer now?

And don't say Doctors.

>One could ask where can an (unknown) dramatist
>with a relatively singular vision find an output
>for formally innovative work that rattles its
>audience's preconceptions.

They could always start a blog wherein to 'nurture themselves'.

As long as they wash their hands afterwards. In Dettol.

and no moaning. Keep it positive, for Vauung's sake!

Let A Hundred Currencies Bloom

A two-hour HSBC drama premiere exploring tariff-free trade between the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong and the Mainland, with Niamh Cusack as a futures trader. You know from the beginning that she won't take her clothes off, and as a gentleman I wouldn't want her to.

actually, the Junkies cost £6000, not £200, 000. And yes, nobody got paid. Isn't that awful? You wouldn't like that would you, if you did something quite good and you didn't get any MONEY. You deserve some MONEY. No, you're quite right. I'll get me coat

If you're already a bunch of fairly successful TV comedians that helps...for a start, you might have 6000 spare quid to spend. It's surely unrealistic both to protest that writing is hard work (which, presumably, means that it takes time and dedication) and that anyone can do it on the bus home from work of an evening. And does it really make you a foul money-grabbing capitalist to suggest it would be a good idea if TV companies made investments in these things, since they stand to make the profits, rather than shifting all the risk onto small production companies? This also entails commissioners having some vision beyond pandering to imagined demographic groups. OK, if you as a writer believe in an idea, you should put what you can into it, but in a world where power and access is unevenly distributed to say the least, that's not always going to be enough to break through (even sacred comedy cow Only Fools and Horses 'failed' initially). (And I note that The Junkies is not presently enjoying a repeat showing of the 26 episodes not commissioned for primetime by ITV.).

actually, the Junkies cost £6000, not £200, 000. And yes, nobody got paid. Isn't that awful? You wouldn't like that would you, if you did something quite good and you didn't get any MONEY. You deserve some MONEY. No, you're quite right. I'll get me coat

How terribly foolish of me to take into account the fees of people who write, vision mix, act in, direct, produce, score, script supervise, light, cast, costume design, set design, sound record, edit and film a real-life prime-time television programme out of something other than love, Mr Caesura.

I take it you've also factored in any residuals. Martin Shaw can be a real bitch on the score.

Oh alright you win. I hate arguing anyway, especially about things I don't really care about. And anyway, what's so important about sitcoms or any art form for that matter? Why do we crave them so?