I met K today to try and cook up some ideas for a possible TV project. He’s the Blue Eyed Boy with the BBC at the moment, they like all his ideas, and he starts filming a sketch show on Monday. They’ve laid out the criteria for the various channels, and if we were to submit something it would go to the top of the pile, but from what I’ve experienced in the past personally and from what friends have been through, it’s a long and frustrating process without much chance of reward.
I’ve sold TV formats in the past, none of which have ever gone into production, and written scripts for about ten more that never got through the corridors of power even when there’s been some initial interest. Whilst this has rather hardened me to disappointments, which is a good thing, it’s also very much dampened my enthusiasm for starting new projects without any guarantees. There still aren’t any, but K’s got a position of power to an extent now and so it might be a good idea to give it one last shot.
But what to do? What to write? We met in the Tea Factory today for a bit of a natter and see if any ideas cropped out that we would be mutually interested in continuing or developing a stage further. What happened in the event is that we managed to slag off everything else of the TV without coming up with anything good ourselves and this is no real surprise. One writer sat in a room will find plenty to distract themselves with, so imagine how TWO, sat in a BAR, can find new methods of moving away from the task in hand. It’s to be expected though – it’s not that we were being unproductive. When an idea comes it will come out of nowhere.
I’m working up to something here so have patience, but at 7pm I took him down to the St Thomas St Hotel where I had been invited to some ‘do’ by FortyEight. I’m not so interested in going to events but it struck me the other day that neither Wade or I have been out socially with the lads designing The Project and they suggested tonight might be a good opportunity. We arrived to find a girl with a guest list on a clip board and I explained that I wouldn’t be on the list, I’d just been asked to come down for a drink, before realising I was on the list after all we were handed a glass of wine. FortyEight must have added me. I am important.
It was some sort of Young Entrepreneurs or Young Business awards thing, sponsored by a bank. Ester McVey, who used to present the breakfast programme on ITV as I recall, was hosting the thing and there was only one award – to this years winners. It was a couple of blokes. I was worried K might be having a rubbish evening but an idea was beginning to form in my head, going back to the problem of trying to come up with an original comedy concept earlier. What if it was about two blokes setting up a new business, and leading up to a prize similar to this?
I turned to K. He read my mind and said “I’ve been thinking the same thing.� It was good telepathy.
“What’s the title?� I asked.
“The Next Big Thing� he said.
It’s a cracking premise and we sketched out the two lead characters there and then. It’s amazing how these things can fall into your lap sometimes.
As I say, this is going to be my last effort at getting a TV project going and then it’s going to be full steam into Global Hangover. At the moment there’s only so much I can do on that whilst the initial designs are being done by Forty Eight. We’ll have weekly meetings to check on progress and make suggestions and there’s still some funding issues to sort out by FortyEight are putting in the muscle at the moment. I’ve probably got about two months until it’s really going to get stressful and full time. Enough time to get a script together. If it gets taken up I’m really in trouble, but it would be nice trouble.
Treated the FortyEight team to a night at a comedy club where K was headlining. Great gig. His future, for one, is certainly assured.
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