…and gazuky

It’s Sunday night, and I’m reflecting on a couple of months of absolute creative joy. Three projects have come to fruition over the last few weeks, bringing a huge smile to my face in each case.

The first is broadcasting on 1Radio.org. Tim, the station’s owner, has created a marvellous outlet for creativity in allowing a wide range of broadcasting talent to hold complete creative control over regular shows, right down to the booking of timeslots. The level of interaction possible on the station is huge, with a ’shoutbox’ that acts as a chatroom, mail facility and request form all in one. The satisfaction in being able to present a live show from home that’s part of such a professional outfit is huge, and I’m grateful for the opportunities it brings to test out material. Audience figures aren’t huge, but as the station’s reputation builds, 1Radio is sure to go from strength to strength. I’m excited to be a part of it.

The second of the three has been a competition I’ve been running in conjunction with character artist Steve Rack. Steve created a new character for Clever Little Pod that I’m going to bring to life on the show, and the character needed a name. The competition invited people to submit suggestions, with original artwork from Steve on offer as the prize for the winning suggestion. Working with Steve throughout has been a pleasure, and quite a buzz with over 150 people entering the competition. The winning suggestion – ‘Dop’ – was announced on a special 1Radio show on Wednesday. The new podcasts will follow next week.

Finally, earlier today I did my first show from a proper studio since my hospital radio days (13 years ago!) It was on the Birmingham community station ‘Rhubarb Radio’ which broadcasts from the Custard Factory (which is Brum’s centre for the creative arts – it’s the old Bird’s Custard factory, hence Rhubarb Radio!) I had been looking forward to this for weeks, and crammed as much comedy as I could fit in to the hour I had between 5-6 today. Rhubarb has an added dimension to it, because there is a passionate local community behind it working hard to build the reputation of the station throughout the region and beyond. There is a culture of creative freedom that is rare in radio, and I am hoping that it will give me the opportunity to meet other people who are as passionate about comedy writing and broadcasting as I am.

So, you can probably tell I am feeling a huge amount of creative fulfilment at the moment, and I haven’t even started to put out the new podcasts yet. The new website is almost there (in fact, I should be doing it now!) and will be online in the next few days.

I’m now writing more original material than ever before, which is a massive leap from the early days of the podcast, when writing material was creatively fulfilling but so, so hard. It is still a challenge, but I feel I have more of a handle on my own ’style’ of humour now, which helps with generating ideas and turning them into workable items. It remains to be seen whether I can keep the ideas flowing on a regular basis, given that I now have two weekly shows to put together (although I’m sharing some material between the two.) Working to a set format for ideas also helps too.

The next challenges – apart from keeping the material coming – will be to grow the audience to equal and exceed the buzz – such that it was – that surrounded CLP when podcasting was ‘the next big thing’ in 2006-7. I said to someone the other day that I think there is more of a challenge in growing live Internet audiences than podcast audiences, but with the help of services like Twitter and Facebook, people can at least be reminded when things are happening.

Please, if you have a few minutes, check out the following:

1radio.org – try different shows! There’s something for everyone. Read the schedule descriptions and set up email reminders for the ones you want to hear.

steverack.com – Steve has opened a great new shop with original artwork for sale as well as T-shirts, badges and more. All featuring his unique, fun designs. Check it out and treat yourself!

rhubarbradio.com – soon to have a new website, but in the meantime you can ‘listen again’ to all the shows, and check out presenter profiles. My show is not detailed on the site, and only features on ‘listen again’ as the second hour of the 4-6 Sunday slot (which you can’t forward).

Radio. Comedy. Live.

Love it!

If you like your comedy extremely silly, but sharply written too, then check out ‘We Are Klang’, Thursdays on BBC3.

The British Comedy Guide’s review says you’ll either love it or hate it. I think it’s hilarious, and goes some way to redeeming BBC3 after the terrible, terrible crime against comedy that was ‘Coming of Age’.

If you search for clips on YouTube, bear in mind that ‘We Are Klang’ have done other things as a comedy group, and that most of the clips currently are not from this sitcom. Here’s a clip (not there, here!) that shows the cast breaking the fourth wall to interact with the ‘Department of Audience’.

Oh, and why has on one ever thought of producing a sitcom where the actors are free to corpse? It’s fantastic! (Greg Davies, especially.)

I’ve recently been helping someone with their purchase of a new 42″ HD TV and am shocked by how much the general public are being conned. It seems that TV manufacturers and retailers are using a smokescreen of jargon to encourage people to buy what they think are state-of-the-art TVs, but that, in reality, are nothing of the sort.

For example – how many lines does your HD Ready TV have? If it’s 720, then you will not be seeing the HD picture in as much HD detail as the director intended. 1080 pixels is the minimum required for full HD, and even then there are technical complications with 1080i and 1080p.

What has shocked me the most, however, is the technical requirements for receiving HD on Freeview. HD is not currently offered on Freeview, but there are plans to include it by 2012, as the digital switchover progresses. Most TVs being sold as ‘HD Ready’ now include built-in Freeview tuners, but – and this is a scandal – not one of them on the market will be capable of receiving Freeview in HD. You will need – wait for this – a separate set-top box! HD Ready? I don’t think so.

Manufacturers of audio-visual equipment must be wringing their hands with glee. People spending a fortune on HD TVs now will soon discover they don’t have the kit they need, and will wonder why they have to spend extra trading in or upgrading to get the picture they thought they could already get.

I’m not complaining about the fact that technology moves on. That’s been happening for decades. But what I do find suspicious and unacceptable is the poor quality of information that’s available to the general public about what exactly it is they are buying. Most people aren’t tech-savvy enough to know what questions to ask, and many people don’t have the resources or the know-how to do detailed research on what products can actually do. They rely on good, solid information from retailers and manufacturers. And based on what I’ve seen recently from the big chains, that information is woefully poor – with much of it missing, uncertain or shrouded in unexplained jargon.

The best advice I can give is to do your research, and remember that you ultimately get what you pay for. That £399 big-screen TV may look like a bargain, but if there’s a similar one retailing for a grand more, you need to know why.

One of the great things about podcasting for me has been the seemingly random connections I’ve made with people around the country, and often around the world.

Many of these connections haven’t lasted for one reason or another; sometimes the interest will have waned, often people simply don’t have time to maintain a connection with so many people. Whatever the reasons, I always think it’s a shame that these connections are so transient.

Which is why I’m really pleased that ‘Worlds of Wayne’ has reached its 100th show. Ever since 26th July 2006, Wayne Brekke – a talented musician and artist from Omaha, Nebraska – has been producing this high-quality podcast.

One of the greatest strengths of the show is its quality of interviews, which are always executed in a way that pulls in the listener, being informally and intelligently conducted. The show is also a great supporter of talent local to the Omaha area, which adds further interest, and has rightly benefited the show, as evidenced by some local sponsorship present on the show’s website.

For my part, Worlds of Wayne has also presented me with some opportunities to work on some fun creative projects, for which I am extremely grateful to Wayne, and which I thoroughly enjoy putting together. These have included a stint as narrator on ‘Playhouse of the Damned’ for the 2008 Halloween Special (I was Gus the Ghoul!) and now the chance to open the 100th show, albeit with a very dodgy impression!

So congratulations to Wayne for 100 fantastic episodes of ‘Worlds of Wayne’. If you don’t already listen, then please visit worldsofwayne.com and give it a go!

One of the shows that had been on my ‘must-get-round-to-watching’ list for quite a few years was ‘Soap’, the ground-breaking 70s sitcom that spoofed the outrageous storylines and acting of American daytime soap operas.

I was 5 when it aired, and to my knowledge it’s never been shown on (terrestrial) British TV since, so I was dependent on a DVD release. Last week I spotted series 1 in HMV, so I got it and have been enjoying a couple of episodes a day.

If you’ve never seen or heard of it, the plot revolves around the families of two sisters of different class backgrounds, all of whom have quirks, problems and secrets that become more outrageous as the series progresses. For example – one of the characters has three sons; one is being hunted by the mob and keeps turning up in disguise, the second is gay and considering a sex-change so he can be with the quarterback he is in love with, and one is a ventriloquist who treats his dummy as if it’s real and expects everyone else to do the same (which they do, with hilarious results.)

The writing is so incredibly sharp, I was convinced that whoever penned the scripts must have gone on to other big things; they did – Susan Harris wrote ‘The Golden Girls’ 4 years after ‘Soap’ finished its run.

All series have been released on region 1, while only series 1 is available so far on region 2. I really hope they release the others – Soap is like nothing else on TV at the moment and deserves a place on every comedy fan’s DVD shelf.

It’s also surprisingly progressive for a 70s show. The gay character is handled quite sensitively, as it’s the discomfort of those who surround him that we’re invited to laugh at, not the homosexuality itself. And, despite the odd dodgy moment, even the black butler, Benson, is allowed to hold is own against the racist attitudes that were so prevalent at the time.

Here is a clip that gives a flavour of the style of the show, featuring Chuck and Bob in a memorably silly moment:

In his book, ‘Laughter in the Air – An Informal History of British Radio Comedy’, (pub. 1976) Barry Took included the entire text of the 1949 ‘Green Book’ – a guide for writers and producers of BBC variety programmes. Its main aim was to list the principal taboos of the time, and indicate what was and wasn’t acceptable as content on light entertainment programmes of the time.

Here are a couple of extracts. Try imagining them being applied in today’s broadcasting climate! :-

VULGARITY
“Well-known vulgar jokes (e.g. the Brass Monkey) ‘cleaned up’ are not normally admissable since the humour in such cases is invariably evident only if the vulgar version is known. There is an absolute ban on the following:

Jokes about-
Lavatories
Effeminacy in men
Immorality of any kind

Suggestive references to-
Honeymoon couples
Chambermaids
Fig leaves
Prostitution
Ladies’ underwear (e.g. winter draws on)
Animal habits (e.g. rabbits)
Lodgers
Commercial travellers
Extreme care should be taken in dealing with references to or jokes about-
Pre-natal influences (e.g. His mother was frightened by a donkey)
Marital infidelity
Good taste and decency are the obvious governing considerations. The vulgar use of such words as ‘basket’ must also be avoided.

EXPLETIVES
Generally speaking, the use of expletives and forceful language on the air can only be justified in a serious dramatic setting where the action of the play demands them. They have no place at all in light entertainment and all such words as God, Good God, My God, Blast, Hell, Damn, Bloody, Gorblimey, Ruddy, etc etc should be deleted from scripts and innocuous expressions substituted.”

It’s perhaps a good thing that time machines haven’t been invented. Anyone travelling forwards from 1949 to now would probably have a heart attack on switching on BBC1 after 9 o’clock. Especially if ‘Mock the Week’ is on.

I love the fact that ‘Gorblimey’ and ‘Ruddy’ are considered unacceptable; two words that are never spoken nowadays, except perhaps in period plays or in the case of the former, re-runs of Mary Poppins. But then I remember being allowed to stay up late in the late 70s and early 80s without so much of a hint of bad language on the TV. Even so-called ‘adult’ shows (in the context of light entertainment) were tame by today’s standards – shows such as The Young Ones, The Kenny Everett Video Show and Not the Nine O’Clock News had no bad language – just the occasional double-entrendre, slapstick violence or semi-naked (usually female) body. Even Dick Emery was considered risque in those days.

The barometer of how far things have travelled is undoubtedly the word ‘fuck’: once a total taboo, it is now sprinkled liberally throughout sitcoms and panel shows, leaving the c-word as the last bastion of unacceptability and shock value.

The question is, where will we be in 60 more years?

Number 1 on my list of annoying things about the Internet is when, despite logging on every bleeding day, do I STILL manage to miss the boat on things like this…

http://www.twittertitters.com/

They’ve been using Twitter to ask for contributions (such as poems, articles) from new comedy writers for a book being sold in aid of Comic Relief.

How the hell did I miss this? Not only have I been using Twitter as an outlet for comedy one-liners etc, I’ve been searching for projects JUST LIKE THIS to contribute to aswell!

Oh well. You can of course buy the book online for a good cause. See the link above.

I look forward to next year, when I might hear about them repeating the whole exercise.

About a fortnight after the deadline, probably.

Feeling a bit down in the dumps this evening, so I’ve been trawling YouTube for some feel-good clips.

After re-watching the Larry Hagman edition of Shooting Stars (which is a joy!) I found this example of George’s Song which I missed the first time round.

Hope you laugh as much as I did…

Isn’t it amazing how powerful music can be at reviving old memories and feelings?

I stumbled across this clip the other day and was instantly transported back to early mornings in the 80s, getting ready to go to school.

The effect seems to be greater if you haven’t heard something for a long time. So what’s transported you back in time recently?

(Trivia fact: this theme was composed by Jeff Wayne of ‘War of the Worlds’ fame.)

If you’re not from around these parts, you won’t know (or care!) that the UK is currently experiencing a big freeze, which started with bitterly cold temperatures at the weekend and worsened with a huge amount of snow yesterday (the worst since the early 90s).

This country is always inadequately prepared for any extreme weather, and yesterday was no exception. I drove into work without problem yesterday morning, as the snow wasn’t settling and the roads were clear. However, after near constant snow all day, the drive home was a very different picture.

Starting out in the city centre, I soon realised how dire the situation was as I slid out of control along Moor Street Ringway, desperately wrestling control of the wheel away from other cars at a mere 2-3 mph. Then it was 20mph all the way home until some idiot teenager decided to jump out in front of my car, forcing me to swerve across the carriageway to avoid the inevitable. Luckily the road was clear and I avoided an accident, but I was left a bit shaken.

Today the roads have been clear, but I’ve had to make do without the car as the doors were frozen solid this morning, and I was out of de-icer. So I’ve had to brave the bus, and all the chaos that brings (including, tonight, a near-fight with people threatening to ’slash’, ‘knock out’ and ‘cut’ each other, which was a gentle reminder that I’m never going to return to travelling by bus voluntarily.)

More heavy snow is forecast for tomorrow night, so as a nation we shall continue to be crap at coping with the conditions, while enjoying the fact that our favourite subject for small-talk has once again taken centre stage.

I wish I was somewhere hot.