A Master Class

I finished the edit, and now feel much better about the comma content of my manuscript. Phew!

It’s time to move forward, and concentrate completely on my WIP. I’ve promised myself, I will no longer keep going back and forth between the new work and -- I don’t even like to say it -- the old.

I wonder how experienced and prolific authors such as Amélie Nothomb, who wrote the best book I read in 2007, handle such transitions? (She writes three novels a year, publishing only one.)

Perhaps she tells us in this interview for Spanish TV. But I didn’t quite catch it. Perhaps when she draws in marker pen on a plastic globe, she is explaining by using a diagram. Perhaps the word Bangladesh is code for “move forward".  

Let’s see:

Kevin Spacey agrees with me!

I have a sister who loves reality TV. I don’t. I find it depressing and downright boring. I really would prefer to watch paint dry.

Reality TV is a subject on which my sister and I will always clash. Therefore, since our last bust-up over How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? it’s a subject we’ve agreed to avoid.

She’s an aficionado (and I sort-of respect her for that). Reality TV is her preferred viewing. She watches X Factor, Pop Idol, Wife Swap, Celebrity Love Island, I’d Do Anything, and countless shows I’ve never heard of.

She involves herself with a passion; agreeing or not with Simon Cowell, hating Sharon Osborne, defending this or that contestant, shocked at what a certain family feeds their children, appalled at whom Sir Alan Sugar did or did not hire as his new Apprentice.

And she believes it is real.

Our fall-out over ‘Maria’ occurred after I read an article when the show first aired, which happened to mention the writers. My sister would not accept it was even partly scripted. Nor would she accept that the TV portrayal of the process is not how auditions take place in the real world, and that her enthusiasm to see the winner perform in Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End production of The Sound of Music, was really the whole point of the show; the reality, in this case, of reality TV.

So I was pleased when Kevin Spacey, actor and artistic director of the Old Vic, said this: "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? was a 13-week promotion for a musical, on a public-service broadcaster. I thought that was crossing the line."

Here, here!!


But then I read something on Meg Cabot’s blog:

… one third of people aged 100 or older watch reality television. One quarter of them watch MTV or music videos, and some even surf the web and use an iPod.

Curl up on the couch. Watching reality TV is the key to long life!

Moving Wallpaper & Echo Beach

A new TV concept aired last night. 

I LOVE new concepts!

From What’s On TV:

“Echo Beach is a … soap-style drama … while earlier show Moving Wallpaper is a comedy that follows the fictionalized crew who make it." 

Wow. Sounds GREAT. I would never have expected this from ITV!

“The interlinking comedy and drama screen back to back … with plots, characters and jokes crossing over between the two."

THAT was a one-way street.

“Echo Beach sees much-loved soap stars Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon return to their roots playing ex-lovers Daniel and Susan."  

I should have known...

“On the other side of the camera, in Moving Wallpaper, the hapless producer Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller, of Armstrong and Miller), is pushing his creative team to the limit.”

But not far enough to exceed mild humour!

“Producer Jonathan Pope claims the concept will 'change the face of British television for ever'.”

I doubt it.

As you’ve probably guessed, this did not live-up to my expectations. Perhaps because I was a huge fan of The Larry Sanders Show, from which this type of concept is obviously derived. I’m not saying no other show can do it; I loved Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Moving Wallpaper & Echo Beach takes the step of splitting the idea into two separate shows. And is weaker for it, IMO. But they are targeting a different audience (I think!) and soap fans might appreciate this more than me.

However, I did laugh at this line in Moving Wallpaper.
Script Editor to Producer: “They’re writers, they hate everyone!”


Everyone? Perhaps with the exception of Larry Sanders!!!

Christmas Crackers

Oh, the pain!

Day after day of talking and socialising has taken its toll. If my family were smaller, or had less time off work, or if they didn’t throw themselves so completely into Christmas…

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day were fantastic. But then it went on…

It feels like I’ve toured the whole of Northern England. A car sped through a red light and almost ploughed into the side of my car. I drove through a flood that appeared without warning in the dark on a country road. It continued for quarter of a mile! I’ve taken crowded trains to shopping centres on the outskirts of soulless industrial towns. (That was just one trip, but it felt plural!)

I haven’t read anything (apart from a two chapter sampler of The Hard Way by Lee Child), and that’s now all I want to do. After I’ve watched J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life, which starts in five minutes, on ITV.

And tomorrow -- is New Year’s Eve! Will I be a party-pooper? Probably not, but it is a nice thought.

Cold and Sold

I have a horrid, stinking cold. So bad that all I could do last night was curl up on the sofa and watch TV. Despite my blurred vision, I was GLUED to I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!

Then it was time for Sold, the new “money-grabbing, dodgy-dealing estate agent drama”. In this property-mad country, it’s hard to believe an estate agent drama has not been done before. But with Kris Marshall (the modern Dad from the soft-focus BT commercials) in a leading role, I did not expect such an entertaining show!!! Kris was brilliant. I’m hooked. And to think I would have missed this, if not for my hideous cold.

“Aaa-choo!”

Vivienne Vyle

Apart from Ugly Betty, and the occasional fix of Newsnight, I don’t watch very much TV. When I moved back here from New York, and to the horror of my X Factor-addicted sisters, I didn’t even OWN a TV set for almost three years.

That said, I’m a huge fan of Jennifer Saunders, and thought Absolutely Fabulous was, well, absolutely fabulous in its time. So I anticipated with great excitement, The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle. Co-written by, and starring Jennifer Saunders, it is set in the world of daytime TV.

But I’ve been really disappointed. In fact, I found episode one to be borderline depressing. Still, I persevered, because new comedy shows sometimes take a few episodes to settle in. I’ve now watched four or five, and I’m not the first to say -- this just isn’t funny.

The problem is not that Jennifer Saunders isn’t fantastic as the ambitious host of a daytime talk show. It’s the subject itself that brings it down. This type of format is difficult to parody. And really -- how much humour is there to be found in vulnerable people having their lives torn apart on national TV?

After five episodes, for me it's over and done. Bye-bye, Vivienne Vyle.

But I still love Jennifer Saunders!