Toby Whithouse at the Soho Theatre, 4/3/09
Mar. 9th, 2009 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielLast Wednesday I was lucky enough to attend a question and answer session with Toby Whithouse at the Soho Theatre, Dean Street, London. This is a rough summary. It wasn’t possible to capture all questions and answers verbatim, so please be aware that everything has first passed through the Una-filter. (Toby Whithouse is the creator and writer of Being Human, and also wrote 'School Reunion', the episode of Doctor Who in which Sarah-Jane returned.) Following contains spoilers for Being Human.
TW: Started writing theatre; working as an actor. Was in The House of Elliot. (Do you remember? Audience: YES!) Would read scripts; think, “this is nonsense”, was an actor with spare time on his hands for writing. Began writing a gag, then a scene around that gag, the lines before and after; then characters – then the first draft of a play. This won the Verity Bargate Award; got a literary agent on the back of it. Then started being offered TV work.
Q: How is it writing other people’s characters?
TW: A tricky process; depends on how well the originals are written; RTD’s writing is so perfect it’s easy to get into it. Depends how good the writing is in the first place.
Q: Career plan?
TW: There has never been a plan. Only thing – wanted to write sitcoms. Would spend a few years writing dramas to learn how to write characters and how to write drama across an hour. When finally got opportunity to write sitcom – hated it! [Other People.] Easy writing gags, but artificial discipline of writing six gags a page is very hard; won’t go back to sitcom. So: never had a plan beyond the next job (background as an actor).
Q: Was first writing on TV a shock? In terms of moving from stage:
TW: First TV gig was Where the Heart Is; three-act structure, although this the viewer shouldn’t notice – quite tricky. It took five years to write the first stage play; process in TV much faster – also a novelty to be paid to do something!
Q: You did No Angels; about the underbelly of the NHS. How did that come about?
TW: Wrote a TV show called Attachments; this was at a time when Channel 4 put a tender out to independent production companies asking for 10 and 20 part dramas. World Productions approached him; show about four nurses in a northern city – that was as far as they had got! They asked him to devise the tone, etc. This was entirely research-based. Used to be very lazy about research, but it is fantastic: gives you so much story and confidence; knowledge and facts at your disposal. Went and met loads of nurses (!); interviewed them about their experiences. As one interview was ending, one of the nurses told one last story, about being on night shift. Meant to do hourly checks; forgot; rushed to do the check and one elderly patient had died (natural causes); body cold; she and other nurses ran a bath and warmed the body; when the doctor came and checked, body still warm; told the nurses, next time; dry her hair. TW thought: “Thank you very much, that’s the opening of episode 1”. It set the tone, which was irreverent and shambolic.
Q: You said you start with character...
TW: Always started with character; writes pages and pages of biography. Detail that will never come up in show. Throws up a lot of story as well: “wouldn’t it be good if they do that...!”
[Clip of BH; George turning into werewolf in house; Mitchell hugging TV; Annie fleeing outside]
TW: Great you show a clip where the dialogue is mainly, “Argh.” How BH started: Touchpaper approached him for a new This Life; group of friends who buy a house together. Thought, “That’s the dullest idea...” But walking home, ideas for three characters fell into his mind. Spent nearly a year developing this version; got nowhere. One last meeting. He suggests, “We could turn George into a werewolf.”(Had already written a sitcom about a Jewish werewolf called George.) Then natural to change Mitchell into a vampire and Annie into a ghost. Started to develop that. In this earlier version they were much more integrated; basically a sitcom. BBC became interesting; but started from scratch. Wrote it as a low budget US indie film. Call from BBC: going to do a series of pilots; had to try that or otherwise it won’t get made. But still wrote is as the first episode of a series.
Q: Did the characters and the tone change?
TW: Life doesn’t follow genres. If a man ran in here now holding a gun, we wouldn’t think, “My god, we’ve just changed genres!” As happens in real life, we shift in gear. Life does it effortlessly; he tries to map that. Had written a series bible which had arcs for the characters; a little of this appeared on screen. But all he knew about the content of the final episode was that Herrick goes into a room, the door closes, and George steps out from behind him. That image; nothing more.
Q: Big themes; what it means to be human, what is meant by humanity.
TW: Shifting genres; supernatural creatures; but humanity something the characters yearning towards, striving for.
Q: Structure, preparation: how do you work?
TW: Write a few drafts of a treatment; feedback depends on the production company. Then scene breakdowns; then script. By the end of BH would write the treatment for his own benefits, 1-2 drafts, then into script; there were time constraints because filming was underway.
Q: Collaboration?
TW: Currently storylining season 2; ideas for arc and new villains; talking that through – but he’s the one has to turn up to the meetings with stuff ready.
Q: ‘High concept’ – is it?
TW: Er, yes! [laughs]. Comic book fan as a kid; Doctor Who opened a door, now an appetite for those shows.
Q: Influences?
TW: Alan Moore; Joe Aherne and Ultraviolet: BH one long homage to Ultraviolet. PJ Hammond and Sapphire and Steel; Aaron Sorkin and The West Wing; David Simon and The Wire.
Q: Was it difficult to re-establish the character of Sarah-Jane, given how the tone of the show had changed?
TW: The whole show had been massively reinvented; SJ had to move along with it. SJ was easy; K9 was the difficult one! SJ very iconic in the 1970s; feisty sexy journalist; ahead of her time. But ‘forgot’ K9 in the first draft!
Q: What’s the relationship with the other writers on BH?
TW: Gave them the stories; paedophile story was the first one he came up with; has to end with Mitchell in the hospital room offering the mum the choice; then going back to Herrick. Episode 3 turned out different from the original and better for it. Spent a couple of days with the writers to storyline together. He chose the two writers; Rachel another writer on No Angels; Brian a writer on The Smoking Room, a programme he greatly admires.
Q: Comedy?
TW: Could never write a script without gags. But in a straight drama with 20 gags, everyone says, “What a funny guy!” Expected in sitcom writing!
Q: Complete stories vs. arcs?
TW: Was a time always had to be ‘story of the week’. Writers warned away from arcs; nobody made ‘appointment television’. No audience loyalty; serial arcs stops them going back. Example of this: Lynda Green: you could watch that in any order). Viewing habits changed: that was a time when you only got once chance to see. iPlayer and particularly DVD boxsets have changed this. BH tries to do both arc and story of the week.
Q: Changes from pilot to series, especially the cast.
TW: Because BBC didn’t commission, the options on the actors ran out; had to recast Annie. That changed the dynamic. One positive from redoing the pilot meant that they rethought the vampires – all lace and Anne Rice in the pilot; wanted to rethink.
Q: Differences between stage and TV; write plays again?
TW: Main difference is you can do absolutely anything for stage; you can do more. Sheer amount of money involved in writing for TV; TV much less experimental and brave. His second play was two scenes long, 40 minutes each scene; TV couldn’t do that. Theatre very liberating – but you get no money and he has a family to support!
Q: Does that mean a loss of control?
TW: On BH, very privileged; a lot of autonomy. Writing for Hotel Babylon: his script very different from the finished episode! Shocking! Wanted to direct, for more control over his work. Frustrated at seeing his stuff go wrong; gags not work because the stress is on the wrong word. Did stand-up for eighteen months.
Q: BH is doing two things: observational drama, and also an epic about vampires taking over the world. Tension?
TW: In the pilot, the vampires were Gothic; unrealistic. If they did exist, what kind of lives would they lead? Low profiles, on the fringes, low-paid unskilled jobs because of the chaos of their lives. But they are immortal. After a while, they would get sick of it: Why aren’t I ruling the world? Herrick is a policeman; rooted in the mundane; although talks in purple prose. Definitely a tension. Sometimes works; sometimes not.
Q: Research?
TW: As a kid – watched more horror than anyone should.
Q: Control? Tone change across show? Writer or director influence?
TW: Yes, tone of stories very different with different writers. Last two episodes are a two-part thriller, higher number of scenes. But he is there for all the process. Sees episode 3 as lighter than episode 4. But other writers were good as imitating the tone of the show.
Q: What factors determine number of episodes; US shows have 22 episodes.
TW: Money! Second season of BH will have 8 episodes; an hour each. In US, millions more viewers; that’s revenue UK writers can’t get through advertisers or the licence fee. But a US show will be pulled for underperforming. Writing British sci-fi teaches you how to do things on a budget: Sapphire and Steel a high concept show done on a fiver. But what you’re imagining is infinitely worse that anything BBC prosthetics could do. Relies on viewer imagination. So the transformation to a werewolf – how? Budget for pilot was derisory; instantly ruled out CGI, would have taken the whole budget. Had to use prosthetics and animatronics; something different about watching something that actually exists, rather than CGI. The way the light falls on it the same as light falling on what’s around it.
Q: Pilots?
TW: Writing a good first episode is incredibly difficult; you’re setting the stall for the show. And the downside of the pilot system is that you end up doing this twice?
Q: How long working out the world?
TW: Comes out as you’re doing the script; e.g. what rules for vampires are we going to keep – there are thousands and thousands of them! What gives us the most interesting story? Likes having no reflection (though the producer’s heart sank). The vampires’ masterplan: all worked through in the script.
Q: Wasn’t putting them in a funeral parlour obvious?
TW: Yes, but that’s the genius of it! [laughs] In the script meetings, I’d refer to this as a deserted funair. All they could afford was the funeral parlour; made a gag of it.
Q: Gap between pilot and commission.
TW: 5-6 weeks. All hell broke loose! Completely taken by surprise by the response. Ultimately what got the BBC was the audience online petition. Forums went crazy. It was the audience the BBC had been pursuing for years – and there they were. On message boards someone claimed this had all been clearly orchestrated by the producers – they haven’t met the producers! BBC flooded with emails; started taking an interest again. Slight revision of history; the commissioned show, Phoo Action, has been airbrushed out, like Trotsky!
Q: Why Bristol? Location important?
TW: BBC Wales commissioned it, so a limited number of places to set it. But not Cardiff – it’s getting crowded there! Drew a circle around the area. Made sense of it in retrospect; talked about the slave trade, etc.
Q: How much do you accommodate actors?
TW: Sympathetic and realistic about actors (has been one); tries to give a gag if it’s a single line, and always names the characters – it looks better on their CV. Otherwise: “It’s in the script! Say it!” Herrick in episode 1 very similar to Herrick in episode 6: he has no journey. But testament to the performance. Makes the writing much better.
Q: New series?
TW: Me, producer, and script editor. Will cast the writers – one episode will be domestic comedy, another a thriller – will cast the writers accordingly. Made a mistake trying to cram all the genres into every episode; will write 4 of the 8 himself (you can do 4 well, 6 not so well).
Q: Ever tempted to write plum roles for yourself?
TW: Would hope for better actors than me! First play had Martin Freeman – a little-known actor at the time. No way he could have done the part as well. Pragmatism overtakes vanity.
Q: Is an agent instrumental? Clears obstacles?
TW: Makes life much easier. Many companies won’t read unsolicited scripts.
Q: When did people start coming to you?
TW: After No Angels got recommissioned, twice. In industry terms, a runaway juggernaut success. People who hadn’t seen it would want him in meetings.
Q: Stand-up?
TW: Useful for a TV writer; get in the gags, cut out the words. Did stand-up in Brighton and London, Edinburgh. Instant feedback. Exciting, unpredictable; a success one night could bomb the next.
Q: Casting; did you have an idea, involved in the process?
TW: Saw their DVDs; gave notes; things like ‘rubbish’ and ‘weird face’. Should know better as an actor! Relief when someone comes in who could do it, “Oh god, good, they’re here!”
Q: How do you come up with ideas?
TW: “The voices in my head...” From characters, from bios... Drawerful of ideas; recycles stuff; gags on BH from plays and stand-up.
Q: Day-to-day process of writing. Up at 9am in a suit?
TW: I wear a sombrero. Absolutely a job; up at 7am with the kids; at desk at 8am, write till 5pm. Try to do five pages a day, then revise; at end of the day, should have five good pages. By 5pm my brain is cotton wool.
Q: Enjoy? Some writers hate it.
TW: They’re idiots. Downside – incredibly solitary. No-one to delegate to. But likes control over day – empowering. Write, have nap – couldn’t do that in an office! However, if you’re predisposed to introspection, can be dangerous. The longer you spend on your own, the weirder you become.
Q: Would you be happy to write for someone else’s series?
TW: Doing that now.
Q: Control; surprised you’d be willing to give away 4 episodes.
TW: Will be storylining, giving notes, etc. Can still rule over them like an angry god! [lots of laughs]
Q: Characters taking on lives?
TW: Yes, they have to, otherwise you get bored.
Q: How do you reconcile that with commissions?
TW: If it’s an interesting change, they won’t mind. Keeps them on their toes! You have to keep yourself sane, changing them.
Q: (Asked or else questioner’s daughter will kill him) Do you have a favourite character?
TW: Probably... no... Genuinely not. If pushed, at the moment, Mitchell – I’m in his head at the moment, writing the story arc for season 2.
Q: Any of the characters you?
TW: Aidan and I are physically similar [lots of laughs]. George and Mitchell his two sides. Half punctilious, house proud, fussy; half... isn’t.
Q: Limited audience demographics of BBC Three.
TW: Advantages – less intervention than on BBC One and BBC Two; e.g. in episode 5 when Annie whispers something to Owen about death, on BBC One or Two would have had to explain that. Bigger audience means more intervention.
Q: Deliberately post-watershed?
TW: Yes, difficult to tell those stories with authenticity otherwise; would declaw it; only written one pre-watershed show. Being able to tell breadth of stories, more nuanced, couldn’t get away with it pre-watershed.
Q: How do you look at your own scripts, decide ready?
TW: Comes a point where you have to get it out of the house. Deadlines help, otherwise you’d be poring over them and nothing would get done. You get too attached. Write and get it out.
TW: Started writing theatre; working as an actor. Was in The House of Elliot. (Do you remember? Audience: YES!) Would read scripts; think, “this is nonsense”, was an actor with spare time on his hands for writing. Began writing a gag, then a scene around that gag, the lines before and after; then characters – then the first draft of a play. This won the Verity Bargate Award; got a literary agent on the back of it. Then started being offered TV work.
Q: How is it writing other people’s characters?
TW: A tricky process; depends on how well the originals are written; RTD’s writing is so perfect it’s easy to get into it. Depends how good the writing is in the first place.
Q: Career plan?
TW: There has never been a plan. Only thing – wanted to write sitcoms. Would spend a few years writing dramas to learn how to write characters and how to write drama across an hour. When finally got opportunity to write sitcom – hated it! [Other People.] Easy writing gags, but artificial discipline of writing six gags a page is very hard; won’t go back to sitcom. So: never had a plan beyond the next job (background as an actor).
Q: Was first writing on TV a shock? In terms of moving from stage:
TW: First TV gig was Where the Heart Is; three-act structure, although this the viewer shouldn’t notice – quite tricky. It took five years to write the first stage play; process in TV much faster – also a novelty to be paid to do something!
Q: You did No Angels; about the underbelly of the NHS. How did that come about?
TW: Wrote a TV show called Attachments; this was at a time when Channel 4 put a tender out to independent production companies asking for 10 and 20 part dramas. World Productions approached him; show about four nurses in a northern city – that was as far as they had got! They asked him to devise the tone, etc. This was entirely research-based. Used to be very lazy about research, but it is fantastic: gives you so much story and confidence; knowledge and facts at your disposal. Went and met loads of nurses (!); interviewed them about their experiences. As one interview was ending, one of the nurses told one last story, about being on night shift. Meant to do hourly checks; forgot; rushed to do the check and one elderly patient had died (natural causes); body cold; she and other nurses ran a bath and warmed the body; when the doctor came and checked, body still warm; told the nurses, next time; dry her hair. TW thought: “Thank you very much, that’s the opening of episode 1”. It set the tone, which was irreverent and shambolic.
Q: You said you start with character...
TW: Always started with character; writes pages and pages of biography. Detail that will never come up in show. Throws up a lot of story as well: “wouldn’t it be good if they do that...!”
[Clip of BH; George turning into werewolf in house; Mitchell hugging TV; Annie fleeing outside]
TW: Great you show a clip where the dialogue is mainly, “Argh.” How BH started: Touchpaper approached him for a new This Life; group of friends who buy a house together. Thought, “That’s the dullest idea...” But walking home, ideas for three characters fell into his mind. Spent nearly a year developing this version; got nowhere. One last meeting. He suggests, “We could turn George into a werewolf.”(Had already written a sitcom about a Jewish werewolf called George.) Then natural to change Mitchell into a vampire and Annie into a ghost. Started to develop that. In this earlier version they were much more integrated; basically a sitcom. BBC became interesting; but started from scratch. Wrote it as a low budget US indie film. Call from BBC: going to do a series of pilots; had to try that or otherwise it won’t get made. But still wrote is as the first episode of a series.
Q: Did the characters and the tone change?
TW: Life doesn’t follow genres. If a man ran in here now holding a gun, we wouldn’t think, “My god, we’ve just changed genres!” As happens in real life, we shift in gear. Life does it effortlessly; he tries to map that. Had written a series bible which had arcs for the characters; a little of this appeared on screen. But all he knew about the content of the final episode was that Herrick goes into a room, the door closes, and George steps out from behind him. That image; nothing more.
Q: Big themes; what it means to be human, what is meant by humanity.
TW: Shifting genres; supernatural creatures; but humanity something the characters yearning towards, striving for.
Q: Structure, preparation: how do you work?
TW: Write a few drafts of a treatment; feedback depends on the production company. Then scene breakdowns; then script. By the end of BH would write the treatment for his own benefits, 1-2 drafts, then into script; there were time constraints because filming was underway.
Q: Collaboration?
TW: Currently storylining season 2; ideas for arc and new villains; talking that through – but he’s the one has to turn up to the meetings with stuff ready.
Q: ‘High concept’ – is it?
TW: Er, yes! [laughs]. Comic book fan as a kid; Doctor Who opened a door, now an appetite for those shows.
Q: Influences?
TW: Alan Moore; Joe Aherne and Ultraviolet: BH one long homage to Ultraviolet. PJ Hammond and Sapphire and Steel; Aaron Sorkin and The West Wing; David Simon and The Wire.
Q: Was it difficult to re-establish the character of Sarah-Jane, given how the tone of the show had changed?
TW: The whole show had been massively reinvented; SJ had to move along with it. SJ was easy; K9 was the difficult one! SJ very iconic in the 1970s; feisty sexy journalist; ahead of her time. But ‘forgot’ K9 in the first draft!
Q: What’s the relationship with the other writers on BH?
TW: Gave them the stories; paedophile story was the first one he came up with; has to end with Mitchell in the hospital room offering the mum the choice; then going back to Herrick. Episode 3 turned out different from the original and better for it. Spent a couple of days with the writers to storyline together. He chose the two writers; Rachel another writer on No Angels; Brian a writer on The Smoking Room, a programme he greatly admires.
Q: Comedy?
TW: Could never write a script without gags. But in a straight drama with 20 gags, everyone says, “What a funny guy!” Expected in sitcom writing!
Q: Complete stories vs. arcs?
TW: Was a time always had to be ‘story of the week’. Writers warned away from arcs; nobody made ‘appointment television’. No audience loyalty; serial arcs stops them going back. Example of this: Lynda Green: you could watch that in any order). Viewing habits changed: that was a time when you only got once chance to see. iPlayer and particularly DVD boxsets have changed this. BH tries to do both arc and story of the week.
Q: Changes from pilot to series, especially the cast.
TW: Because BBC didn’t commission, the options on the actors ran out; had to recast Annie. That changed the dynamic. One positive from redoing the pilot meant that they rethought the vampires – all lace and Anne Rice in the pilot; wanted to rethink.
Q: Differences between stage and TV; write plays again?
TW: Main difference is you can do absolutely anything for stage; you can do more. Sheer amount of money involved in writing for TV; TV much less experimental and brave. His second play was two scenes long, 40 minutes each scene; TV couldn’t do that. Theatre very liberating – but you get no money and he has a family to support!
Q: Does that mean a loss of control?
TW: On BH, very privileged; a lot of autonomy. Writing for Hotel Babylon: his script very different from the finished episode! Shocking! Wanted to direct, for more control over his work. Frustrated at seeing his stuff go wrong; gags not work because the stress is on the wrong word. Did stand-up for eighteen months.
Q: BH is doing two things: observational drama, and also an epic about vampires taking over the world. Tension?
TW: In the pilot, the vampires were Gothic; unrealistic. If they did exist, what kind of lives would they lead? Low profiles, on the fringes, low-paid unskilled jobs because of the chaos of their lives. But they are immortal. After a while, they would get sick of it: Why aren’t I ruling the world? Herrick is a policeman; rooted in the mundane; although talks in purple prose. Definitely a tension. Sometimes works; sometimes not.
Q: Research?
TW: As a kid – watched more horror than anyone should.
Q: Control? Tone change across show? Writer or director influence?
TW: Yes, tone of stories very different with different writers. Last two episodes are a two-part thriller, higher number of scenes. But he is there for all the process. Sees episode 3 as lighter than episode 4. But other writers were good as imitating the tone of the show.
Q: What factors determine number of episodes; US shows have 22 episodes.
TW: Money! Second season of BH will have 8 episodes; an hour each. In US, millions more viewers; that’s revenue UK writers can’t get through advertisers or the licence fee. But a US show will be pulled for underperforming. Writing British sci-fi teaches you how to do things on a budget: Sapphire and Steel a high concept show done on a fiver. But what you’re imagining is infinitely worse that anything BBC prosthetics could do. Relies on viewer imagination. So the transformation to a werewolf – how? Budget for pilot was derisory; instantly ruled out CGI, would have taken the whole budget. Had to use prosthetics and animatronics; something different about watching something that actually exists, rather than CGI. The way the light falls on it the same as light falling on what’s around it.
Q: Pilots?
TW: Writing a good first episode is incredibly difficult; you’re setting the stall for the show. And the downside of the pilot system is that you end up doing this twice?
Q: How long working out the world?
TW: Comes out as you’re doing the script; e.g. what rules for vampires are we going to keep – there are thousands and thousands of them! What gives us the most interesting story? Likes having no reflection (though the producer’s heart sank). The vampires’ masterplan: all worked through in the script.
Q: Wasn’t putting them in a funeral parlour obvious?
TW: Yes, but that’s the genius of it! [laughs] In the script meetings, I’d refer to this as a deserted funair. All they could afford was the funeral parlour; made a gag of it.
Q: Gap between pilot and commission.
TW: 5-6 weeks. All hell broke loose! Completely taken by surprise by the response. Ultimately what got the BBC was the audience online petition. Forums went crazy. It was the audience the BBC had been pursuing for years – and there they were. On message boards someone claimed this had all been clearly orchestrated by the producers – they haven’t met the producers! BBC flooded with emails; started taking an interest again. Slight revision of history; the commissioned show, Phoo Action, has been airbrushed out, like Trotsky!
Q: Why Bristol? Location important?
TW: BBC Wales commissioned it, so a limited number of places to set it. But not Cardiff – it’s getting crowded there! Drew a circle around the area. Made sense of it in retrospect; talked about the slave trade, etc.
Q: How much do you accommodate actors?
TW: Sympathetic and realistic about actors (has been one); tries to give a gag if it’s a single line, and always names the characters – it looks better on their CV. Otherwise: “It’s in the script! Say it!” Herrick in episode 1 very similar to Herrick in episode 6: he has no journey. But testament to the performance. Makes the writing much better.
Q: New series?
TW: Me, producer, and script editor. Will cast the writers – one episode will be domestic comedy, another a thriller – will cast the writers accordingly. Made a mistake trying to cram all the genres into every episode; will write 4 of the 8 himself (you can do 4 well, 6 not so well).
Q: Ever tempted to write plum roles for yourself?
TW: Would hope for better actors than me! First play had Martin Freeman – a little-known actor at the time. No way he could have done the part as well. Pragmatism overtakes vanity.
Q: Is an agent instrumental? Clears obstacles?
TW: Makes life much easier. Many companies won’t read unsolicited scripts.
Q: When did people start coming to you?
TW: After No Angels got recommissioned, twice. In industry terms, a runaway juggernaut success. People who hadn’t seen it would want him in meetings.
Q: Stand-up?
TW: Useful for a TV writer; get in the gags, cut out the words. Did stand-up in Brighton and London, Edinburgh. Instant feedback. Exciting, unpredictable; a success one night could bomb the next.
Q: Casting; did you have an idea, involved in the process?
TW: Saw their DVDs; gave notes; things like ‘rubbish’ and ‘weird face’. Should know better as an actor! Relief when someone comes in who could do it, “Oh god, good, they’re here!”
Q: How do you come up with ideas?
TW: “The voices in my head...” From characters, from bios... Drawerful of ideas; recycles stuff; gags on BH from plays and stand-up.
Q: Day-to-day process of writing. Up at 9am in a suit?
TW: I wear a sombrero. Absolutely a job; up at 7am with the kids; at desk at 8am, write till 5pm. Try to do five pages a day, then revise; at end of the day, should have five good pages. By 5pm my brain is cotton wool.
Q: Enjoy? Some writers hate it.
TW: They’re idiots. Downside – incredibly solitary. No-one to delegate to. But likes control over day – empowering. Write, have nap – couldn’t do that in an office! However, if you’re predisposed to introspection, can be dangerous. The longer you spend on your own, the weirder you become.
Q: Would you be happy to write for someone else’s series?
TW: Doing that now.
Q: Control; surprised you’d be willing to give away 4 episodes.
TW: Will be storylining, giving notes, etc. Can still rule over them like an angry god! [lots of laughs]
Q: Characters taking on lives?
TW: Yes, they have to, otherwise you get bored.
Q: How do you reconcile that with commissions?
TW: If it’s an interesting change, they won’t mind. Keeps them on their toes! You have to keep yourself sane, changing them.
Q: (Asked or else questioner’s daughter will kill him) Do you have a favourite character?
TW: Probably... no... Genuinely not. If pushed, at the moment, Mitchell – I’m in his head at the moment, writing the story arc for season 2.
Q: Any of the characters you?
TW: Aidan and I are physically similar [lots of laughs]. George and Mitchell his two sides. Half punctilious, house proud, fussy; half... isn’t.
Q: Limited audience demographics of BBC Three.
TW: Advantages – less intervention than on BBC One and BBC Two; e.g. in episode 5 when Annie whispers something to Owen about death, on BBC One or Two would have had to explain that. Bigger audience means more intervention.
Q: Deliberately post-watershed?
TW: Yes, difficult to tell those stories with authenticity otherwise; would declaw it; only written one pre-watershed show. Being able to tell breadth of stories, more nuanced, couldn’t get away with it pre-watershed.
Q: How do you look at your own scripts, decide ready?
TW: Comes a point where you have to get it out of the house. Deadlines help, otherwise you’d be poring over them and nothing would get done. You get too attached. Write and get it out.
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Date: 2009-03-09 01:00 pm (UTC)Yes, my impression from what he said was that individual episodes would have a more distinct genre in the next series. I can see the appeal of that, particularly if he's handing over to more writers, but it could lead to a more disjointed feel to the show (back to story of the week). Let's see what happens.
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Date: 2009-03-09 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-03-11 10:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 09:16 am (UTC)