EMMA KENNEDY

Hello, I’m Laura Shavin, and this is The Offcuts Drawer. Welcome to The Offcuts Drawer, the show that looks inside a writer’s bottom drawer to find the bits of work they never finished, had rejected, or couldn’t quite find a home for. We bring them to life, hear the stories behind them, and learn how these random pieces of creativity paved the way to subsequent success. My guest this week is the bestselling author, TV writer, actress and presenter, Emma Kennedy. You’ll know her from the numerous TV comedies she’s appeared in, which include Goodness Gracious Me, The Smoking Room and Miranda, or possibly from her work with fellow comedian Richard Herring in his various podcasts. As a writer, she adapted her autobiographical book, The Tent, The Bucket and Me, to become BBC TV series, The Kennedys, and has published another 10 books, including four for children, with a further book, The Time of Our Lives, out later this year. Emma is also a well-known face in the presenting world, having done a lot of work with Comic Relief, including organising the Guinness World Record-breaking Largest Kazoo Ensemble Ever at the Royal Albert Hall in 2011. In 2012, she won the coveted title of Celebrity Masterchef. She’s also won Celebrity Mastermind and Pointless, and nearly won the World Conquer Championship, but a soft nut let her down. Emma Kennedy, what a rollercoaster ride. Welcome to the off-cuts drawer. Masterchef, Mastermind. It feels like there should be a third master prize in there you’ve won.

I do believe I am the only person in the world to have won Masterchef and Mastermind.

Is there a lot of competition?

Well, there’s not, no. But the point is, at this moment in time, I am the only person in the world who has achieved a double.

So, maybe another Guinness Book of Records record?

I mean, if only. I do recall when I won Mastermind, I did say that I’m just interested in doing competitions that have Master at the front. So, if someone brings one out, I’m all for it.

You don’t have a Master’s degree by any chance. That would complete the set.

No, but I, well, technically I do. Technically I do because I went to one of the universities that allows you to just have one without actually having to do anything. So, technically I have, yeah.

Okay, so you’ve won the triple then. You have MasterChef, Mastermind, Master’s degree.

I’ve done the triple.

Okay, well, let’s start with the basics, writing-wise. What do you need around you when you write?

Gosh, no, I’m a very quick writer. What I tend to do is, it’s the thinking bit that takes the time. But ideas come to me very, very quickly, and I have ideas all the time, which is, I think, a lucky thing. Because I know that some writers will just have like one brilliant idea, but it will be the most brilliant idea that anyone ever had, whereas I have lots and lots and lots of idea that might not necessarily be brilliant, which is why I’m here today. But I think it’s important when you’re a writer to just give everything that you think might have legs a go. Because I always think that nothing is ever wasted, even if things don’t actually happen or get commissioned or whatever. Nothing is ever, ever wasted. And it may well be that that’s something that you had an idea for and maybe you got commissioned to write a script and it then didn’t happen. You know, down the line, a seed from that script or a character from that script might come back to you and you can turn that into something else. And also, commissioning editors come and go. And I always sort of keep things in the back of a drawer. I never give up on something, even though something might have not got through first time round. You never know, like in 10 years or even five years, that you can just go, oh, look, here’s a script. Have a go at that. But in terms of things I need to have around me on my desk, I’ve got two laptops on my desk and a screen.

And another screen as well. So three screens all together.

Yes. So I’ve got three screens and one laptop is just entirely for making my Lego films on. I have my central laptop, which is for where I have my script. And then on my screen, I have notes, because I hate the one thing I hate once you get notes back on a script or something, is having to constantly click back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So I have a double screen situation going on. So I never have to do that. It’s very good. It’s a super situation. Yes. So I have that and I’ve got my mobile phone and I’ve got my to do list that I write every morning. But other than that, I know I don’t. That’s it.

Oh, fair enough. Not everyone has a lucky gong or whatever it is you think you need.

I haven’t got a lucky gong. I’ve got a BB8. Oh, I’ve got the ashes of my dog on my desk next to my laptop. My dead beagle.

Right.

She sits on the desk with me.

Oh, that’s touching and slightly macabre. But anyway, let’s kick off with your first off cut. Can you tell us what it’s called, what genre it’s written for and when it was written, please?

This is from People To Stay, and it’s a TV sitcom I wrote last year in 2019.

Exterior, house, day. Emily, George and Katz are standing in a classic goodbye huddle. They’re all waving and shouting.

Bye, thanks for coming.

We see the tail end of a car, one arm out of the window waving. It disappears. Emily, George and Katz pause for a nanosecond and then erupt into wild cheering, jumping. It’s like they’ve won the World Cup.

Yes, yes, yes!

Thank God!

I can’t believe they’ve gone.

Oh, two weeks! They were only supposed to stay for the weekend. Like everyone else has every single weekend ever since we moved here.

We’ve got a free weekend.

Nobody’s coming to stay. This must be what Nelson Mandela felt like when he got out.

Please, Mum, that’s it. That’s enough people to stay up begging you.

It’s fine. Diary is clear. Everyone that was coming has come. It’s over. We’ve done it. We’re out the other end. I can do what I like. I don’t have to make a cake or fold origami napkins.

Can I have a tin with a spoon?

Yes.

I am going to go fishing. Where am I way, does Em?

I don’t know. Where did you put them when we moved?

I haven’t got a clue. That was six months ago.

There’s still loads of boxes in the garage, Dad.

Yes, try the boxes.

Right.

I’m going to strip the bed and wash the guest towels. And then I’m going to do nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. We can do anything we want.

I’m going to wander around the house in pants and read terrible magazines.

I’m going fishing. No one coming to stay. Can you even believe it?

Interior day. Emily’s in the kitchen, ironing board up behind her. She’s folding the last of the precious, now laundered guest towels. George comes in through the back door, wearing waders and holding a fishing rod.

Ta-da! Found them!

George’s hand is covered in oil.

Oh, look, can you pass me a…

He looks around for something to wipe his hands clean.

No, not the guest towels.

Well, we haven’t got any guests.

I don’t care. They’re for guests.

But I live here.

Right. So you’re not a guest.

Emily hands him some kitchen roll.

Do you think we should rethink the whole guest towel thing, Em?

The back door opens. It’s Biscuits, your typical teenage cosplay gamer.

Alright, Biscuits.

Cool, cool.

It is very, very clear that Biscuits is madly in love with Cats and that it is utterly unrequited.

I thought you worked on Saturday’s Biscuits. Got the day off?

No. Salman’s nicked the weights off the strawberry scales, so I can’t weigh nothing.

I’m starving. It’s always exciting when I’m not having guests.

I’m a guest.

Biscuits, you’re here so often, your middle name is Deja Vu.

No, it’s not. It’s Ian.

He means you’re here every day, Biscuits, like family.

I was wondering if cats wanted to come up to the bus stop.

Yeah, right.

Cool, cool.

Where are you going?

Bus stop.

No, where are you going?

Bus stop.

No, Biscuits, where are you going when you get to the bus stop?

Nowhere. You just sit at a bus stop. Standard.

Right then, I’m off.

So with people to stay, what was the plan with this?

So the plan with this was I was contacted by the person who had been the executive producer on the Kennedys. And she had gone to Tiger Aspect and was doing company development over there. And she contacted me and she said, have you got any ideas for sitcoms? And I’ve been rattling this thought sort of around because I had left London and I had moved to a very nice village in leafy Surrey. And something that doesn’t happen to you when you’re in London is that all of a sudden people started coming to stay. And it was constant. It was like pretty much every weekend for about three months. And it was lovely. But I started thinking about what it would be like, because I really like I’m very sociable creature. But I started thinking, what would it be like if you couldn’t bear people coming to stay, but you were constantly having people coming to stay? And so that was the sort of the seed of it. And I really enjoyed the characters of George and Emily. And I think in the script, the characters are all right. We got those correct in terms of I think all the characters in the scripts, you know who they are immediately, you know what their needs are, you know what their wants are. But I think where it didn’t quite go right was the actual central premise. And we sort of umdenarred about it for quite a while. And I think if I ever resurrect this, it would work better if it was a couple who have finally been able to buy their own house. Maybe they can’t afford to live in the city or whatever, but they can’t quite afford it. So they have to supplement it with having people to stay on a rental basis or maybe it’s an Airbnb. So that it’s crystal clear that they have to have people to stay in order to survive. I’m also thinking about turning this into a book rather than a sitcom. I’m actually in discussion with a publisher about it at the moment, but it’s again going back to Nothing’s Ever Wasted. This one is a classic example of Nothing’s Ever Wasted, because I think the characters that are in this script have got legs for something else.

So it would be like a novel or would it be short stories per…

No, it would be a novel. It would be a novel about a family who moved to the countryside and then he loses his job and then they can’t afford the mortgage so they have to turn the house into an Airbnb.

So this project may well rise to live again. Anyway, let’s have another off cut now. Tell us what this one is please.

Yeah, so this is a young adult novel that I wrote in 2010 and it’s called My Disastrous Life.

It’s not true, is it? asked Paula Merriman, her forehead knitting into a frown. You’re not really going to Fletchley. It is true. My mum and dad are going to work there so I have to go too. There was another sharp intake of breath. Jane Shaw, a thin girl I sat next to in French, raised her hand to her mouth and started crying. Her parents are teachers, I heard someone whisper. Oh, God, no, someone else replied. Not that, anything but that. Look, I said, stepping up onto the bench next to Cress. I know it’s all a bit sudden and I haven’t quite worked out what I’m going to do, but I do know one thing. I’m a ludder and I always will be. A cheer went up. Never stop fighting, Jessica, shouted Jane, rallying. Yeah, said Paula, her mouth twisting sideways, but after the holidays, you’ll be a Fletcher. Mutters rumbled through the crowd. Cress, arms folded, started nodding. I shot her a sharp look and cleared my throat. I know what you mean. Can’t hear you, shouted someone at the back. Sorry, I’ll just… I lifted the loud haler and pressed the button. A sharp whine pierced the air. Everyone winced. Sorry, so I know what you mean, but I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to be a Fletcher. It’s going to be like being sent to prison for a crime I didn’t commit. I may be there in body, but they can never take my Luddah soul. I closed my eyes and punched a fist into the air. Silence. Awkward, I heard Cress mumble. How many times have I told you not to take the loud haler from my office? A voice sounded behind us. It was Miss Nettles, our PE teacher. Miss Nettles is on the wheel of good and bad. So bad, she’s good again. She once went on a school trip to Russia with the A-level history group from year 12 and told them there was no electricity in Moscow, so everyone had to take a torch. She also sent round an email banning thigh-length leather boots on school premises, which nobody could make head nor tail of, seeing as our school uniform is blue skirt, white shirt, blue jumper and sensible shoes with no heels allowed. Cress wondered whether Miss Nettles has one of those weird phobias, but I said I’d never heard of anyone having a morbid fear of thigh-length leather boots before. I knew a woman who couldn’t look at spoons, but that’s it. Perhaps something terribly traumatic happened to her during a panto, Cress had whispered, to which we all nodded and then passed that round the school as if it were fact. Anyway, Miss Nettles marched over and snatched the loud halo back and then blew her whistle and told everyone in the first and second elevens that they needed to get their bibs on and get warmed up.

So, My Disastrous Life, did you write the whole thing?

No, I only wrote the first two chapters. And I was mad, mad, mad, mad for hockey when I was at school.

Right.

And I remembered that those deeply passionate feelings that you would have, number one, when you’re part of a team, where you will literally do anything for your team, but also the absolutely visceral hatred that you have for a rival school.

Right.

And that’s the basis of this book, is a girl who is a passionate, passionate, passionate ludder. She’s at that one school. And she discovers in the first chapter that she’s being sent to her rival school. And so she’s now going to be at her rival school. And what that would do to you. But I particularly, the thing I really enjoyed writing is in the second chapter of this book was the hockey match. I just really wanted to write a book about a hockey team. I think that’s what it was.

You’ve written some young adult novels. Was this written before, during or after the Wilma Tenderfoot ones?

It was after I’d written the Wilma Tenderfoots.

She wasn’t a hockey player, I take it.

She wasn’t a hockey player, no. She was a little girl who wants to be a detective. And I was a great fan of the Louise Renison books. And I was sort of thinking, I would probably find it quite straightforward to write a book in that genre. So this first two chapters was me sort of thinking, oh, well, let’s see if I can, and let’s see if the characters start sort of singing. And then I don’t know why, I think other things just came along at that time.

So you didn’t submit it to anybody?

No, no.

You just started it and stopped yourself?

Yeah.

Are they based at all on any elements of your own childhood?

Well, the Russian story is true. That actually happened.

To you or someone you know?

No, to me. We asked our history teacher, this is when we were in the lower six, we said, please, can we go on a school trip? And my history teacher, who was a really sort of grumpy old man, he said, there is absolutely no way I’m taking you on a school trip. And anyway, the only school trip I would ever go on is to Russia. And bear in mind, this was in 1984 before the wall had come down. So he was presenting it as a complete impossibility. And a couple of the girls in my history group, they went off and organized it. They organized the entire thing and then went to him and said, well, we’ve organized it now, so you’ve got to take us. And so we did. We went to Moscow and was then Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. And his wife was the school librarian. And she had this amazing voice. And she’d always, she’d come in and she’d go, Emma, there would be a gasp after every sort of word she said.

She said, and she crept up to me in the library and said, now, there’s no electricity in Moscow, so you’re going to have to bring a torch. And then she said, and don’t wear any, any, any, so high boots.

And then she crept off again. It was like, what, who’s got silent boots?

You didn’t find a load of people in Russia walking around in silent boots.

No, although it was amazing, it was absolutely incredible because, as I say, it was before the Berlin Wall came down. So it was still USSR when we went to it. And people, every single time we went out in the streets, someone would come up and say, please, can I have your jeans? Please, can I have your trainers?

I’ve heard stories like that before.

And people would be really properly staring at us because we looked so different to everyone there. And we weren’t allowed to go anywhere without this minder. And at the end of the trip, we gave her as a present, and we’d brought them from England, a pack of 10 tights, because my other history teacher had heard that a pair of tights would cost a month’s worth of wages. So they were just complete luxury. And I’ve never seen someone cry like it.

Really?

Yeah, because we’ve given her 10 pairs of tights. She couldn’t believe it.

It’s about like GIs did in the war.

It was quite extraordinary. I’m really glad actually that I got to sort of go there and see what it was like before communism ended. It was fascinating.

Sorry to interrupt, but if you’re enjoying the show, please do subscribe to The Offcuts Drawer, give us a five-star rating, leave a review, tell your friends about it. All that stuff’s really important for a podcast like this. And visit offcutsdraw.com for more details about the writers and actors, and to find out about future live shows. Thanks for your support. Now back to the interview. So, did you start writing young adult novels? Was that your first attempt? Or was that something you developed later?

No. My very first book was How to Bring Up Your Parents. And I don’t really count that as my first book, because what that was, was just sort of an amalgamation of the blog that I had been writing. I started writing a blog. I was an early adopter of the blog. And I had started writing that blog simply as an exercise in learning firstly how to write prose, because I was pretty confident writing dialogue. That’s never been difficult for me, but I’d never written prose. So I wanted to have a go at that. And I just set myself a task of every day I would spend 15 minutes on it, and I wouldn’t look back at it, and I wouldn’t edit it, and I wouldn’t do anything to it. It was just, see what you can write in 15 minutes every day. But it was also an exercise in working out what I was good at writing about. And what became clear after I’d been writing it for about 18 months or whatever, a publisher then approached me and said, can we turn your book into a blog?

Your blog into a book.

My blog into a book, sorry. And I said, yes. And then I sort of did that. And then another publisher came to me and said, can I turn your blog into a book? And I said, no, you can’t, so it’s just been done. And he said, well, is there anything else that you’ve got ideas for? And I went away and I was having lunch with my parents that weekend. And something that had been very obvious was that everybody really loved the blog entries that were about my mum and dad. And we just started remembering our family holidays and how disastrous they were. And we were crying, laughing, just crying, laughing. And I thought, maybe there’s something here. Maybe this might work as a book. And that was what became the bucket to me. And that was sort of the beginning really, because that just went ballistic, that book. And it was a weird thing. It’s like, I didn’t think for a single second that anybody would be particularly interested in somebody else’s childhood holidays. But how wrong was I?

Okay, let’s have another offcut now. Tell us what this one is, please.

This is from the opening of a television drama I wrote in 2018 called Love Again.

Streets, various, exterior, day, grams, something thumping, exciting, energized. Suzy cycles her way through side streets, dodging the major traffic. She knows her way around. She’s confident, enjoying herself. She glides into the inner circle at Regent’s Park. This is the part of her ride that she loves. It starts to rain, but sunlight is still dappling through the trees. She sticks her tongue out, catches it, upturns her face into the fresh, cool rain. She comes to a corner, bends round it, and picks up Daniel, another cyclist. He’s very handsome, chiseled, a James Cracknell type in the cycling gear he wears to go to work. We see him clock her ahead of him. He’s watching her ass. Nice. He pushes down. He wants to catch her up. He pulls level, stays there. Susie clocks him. He’s nice looking. Nice bike, too. The rain starts to come down harder. There’s something sexy about it. Daniel turns and grins at her. She grins back. Well, this is a fun start to the day. He pulls away. He looks back over his shoulder. Gestures with his head. He wants to play. He slows down, lets her catch up, and then off he goes again. Races on. He looks back over his shoulder. He slows down, lets her catch up, and then off he goes again. Races on. She’s not having that, she pulls back and they come to a red light and they have to stop. They’re both on their toes on their bikes, poised, ready. They both know what’s going on. Sideways glances. Grins. The lights turn to amber and they’re off. And they’re racing, not in a reckless way. They’re having fun. Some more lights are coming up. Susie pushes hard, but Daniel beats her to it. They stop. He flashes her another grin. She takes out an earphone. She puts her earphone back in. She’s cocky. He likes it. And he’s missed the light change. She’s off. And she’s got ahead of him. He pulls level. They’re close. This is sexy. Physical contact. A sense of playful jostling. Elbows being used. Jockeying for position. Susie gives Daniel a more forceful shove and she edges ahead. He comes back. He’s almost caught her, but suddenly a woman with an umbrella walks out into the road without looking. He has to swerve and Susie is away. Susie is laughing. She casts a look back over her shoulder. She smiles at him. She had him. Daniel’s not having that. He chases hard. He pulls level. Parked car ahead. They’re racing and Daniel weaves inside her and as they come to the parked car, Daniel jostles her sideways and the lorry hits her.

Well, I chose this clip of the script because it was very intriguing, especially with the title Love Again. That was obviously one of the opening scenes, which leads you to believe these two characters are the ones who find each other, but obviously that’s a red herring. So tell us about this one.

This is interesting. I actually sent you an earlier draft of this and that entire sequence was cut out. And I’m really glad you picked that opening sequence because I think this is one of the big lessons that you learn when you’re a professional writer is that when you have a script that’s in development, and this script, Love Again, was in development for the best part of two years at the BBC. And it’s probably the closest I’ve come to getting a series commissioned since The Kennedys. It came really, really, really close. And it was a really good example of a script that, though I had the basic idea in the first early drafts, it became something quite different towards the end. And the original idea was that Daniel had been responsible for the death of somebody, and that that was what made him who he was. But actually, we completely got rid of that idea as we moved through. But the idea of Love Again was, it’s basically about whether or not you can fall in love with the same person twice. And what that initial, that first script became was, instead of Susie being knocked off the bike, it becomes Daniel who is knocked off his bike. And what you sort of discover in the first five minutes of the show is that Daniel is having an affair. And three courses of the way through the first script, he is then knocked off his bike, and he can’t remember having the affair. So, it’s about what does she do? And she, the female character, has just told her husband that she’s leaving him, because she doesn’t know that he’s had the accident yet. And then it’s about whether or not she tries to get him to fall in love with her again, whether she can fall back in love with her husband again, whether his wife can fall back in love with Daniel again. So it’s all this sort of tangled web of people trying to make their relationships work.

That sounds fascinating.

Yeah, well, it really came super, super close. And I think that it was so frustrating, because when we were working on it, and it was in-house at the BBC, and everyone was very excited about it. And you should never let this happen. But I got a real sense of, oh, this actually might happen. And then I lost my producer, who left? She left the BBC. So I then had to wait for another producer to come in and be assigned to it. So we lost six months on it. And then it got past the first, oh, that’s right, sorry, that’s what happened. The head commissioner left. So it was one of those things that it had been, the script had been commissioned under the commissioner that was the head of the drama department. And then she left. And then we had to wait a year until the new guy was in place. And so we lost that time. And the momentum of it was sort of, and then it starts feeling like, oh, this is a script that’s been hanging around the department for 12 months. It was that. But then we got through again. So we were like, it was all looking good and it was all about to happen. And then it went up to the head guy and he had just commissioned Wanderlust, which it was very like. And so that was the end of it.

Oh, no. How frustrating.

But you know, that’s the game we’re in, so I mean, you’ll know this. This is the thing is you can start something off and then you go into development hell. And then when people start leaving, you have to wait for new people to come in and on it goes and on it goes.

Yeah. Oh, that’s such a shame. That sounded very promising.

Well, that’s another one that might end up as a novel.

Oh, right, of course, because with a novel, you don’t need anybody to commission it as such, especially if you’ve got a reputation already.

But that’s another one that I sort of think, hmm, that could be a book. So that one might come back to life. But it was my first go at a drama.

Right.

And that was an eye opener.

Why?

Because it’s so much easier to write.

Than comedy?

Yeah. You don’t have to write jokes. You only have to tell the story. It was like, what? This is, this is super easy.

Although quite a few writers listening to this going, no it isn’t.

I’m sure there are. But you know what? I’m going to throw that back. So I’ll tell you what. You write what you write. Now make it funny.

OK, let’s have another off cut now. Tell us about number four, please.

This is from Just For Kicks, which was a TV comedy drama I wrote in 2016.

Interior, kitchen, day. Clemmie is finishing pulling out a load of washing from the machine. Through the window we see a car pull up. We see Trevor get out of the car. He’s clearly having an argument with whoever’s sitting in the passenger seat. Clemmie notices the car outside. She narrows her eyes, but she hasn’t got her glasses on. Trevor comes into the kitchen.

Clem, can we have a chat?

Who’s that in the car?

It doesn’t matter. Look, I’ve got something to tell you.

Does he want a coffee or something?

It’s not a he, and no, she doesn’t want a coffee. You don’t know her.

Who goes to someone’s house and sits in the car, tell her to come in.

She doesn’t want to come in, Clem. That’s what I’ve got to talk to you about.

Clemmie stops what she’s doing, looks again out of the window towards the car. We see a woman, darkly reflected, big sunglasses on.

What’s going on?

When you have to pull off a plaster, it’s best to do it quick. Right, I’m just going to blurt this out and that’ll be that. So we’re separated.

That’s a bit dramatic. You told me you needed a holiday. I thought you were off fishing.

Just let me get this out, Clem. I’ve met someone else. I want a divorce and Patsy wants you out of the house.

Is this a joke?

No, it’s not a bloody joke. Patsy’s furious.

Sorry, you’ve got someone sitting in the car who wants to steal my husband and my house and she’s furious. I can’t fathom what you’re telling me, Trevor. Have you lost your mind?

Look, I know this looks bad.

Looks bad, Trevor? You haven’t walked out of a supermarket and forgotten to pay for a packet of mints. I’d say it’s worse than bad. It’s beyond belief. You’ve done all this in 48 hours. You only left on Monday.

No, no, it’s been going on for ages. How long? Five months.

Five months? While I had cancer?

Don’t rub it in, Clem. It just happened and that’s all there is to it.

No, Trevor. Having an affair while your wife is being treated for cancer isn’t something that just happens. It’s virgin on evil. I wish you’d told me sooner. I could have saved myself the bother of washing your shirts.

Are they ironed?

No, they’re not bloody ironed. What the hell is the matter with you? Dear God, I can’t take this in.

She slumps into a chair, head in hands.

I just… Look, I know it’s terrible, but me and Patsy are making a go of it and she says it’s not right you’re in the house I bought and paid for, so you’re going to have to leave.

You bloody shit! You bloody bastard in thunder shit! How could you do this? After all that’s happened? Does Sam know?

No. I was wondering if you could tell him?

Can you actually hear what’s coming out of your mouth? I feel like I’m going mad. No, Trevor, I am not going to tell our son that you’re leaving me for a woman in big sunglasses who refuses to get out of the car. No, I’m not. You can do that all by yourself. Where’s she from?

Trevor looks down and shakes his head.

Come on, where’s she from?

Preston.

Oh, Trevor. How could you?

Well, for somebody who says you don’t normally write drama, that is fairly dramatic. I mean, there are comedy moments.

So this is what I often refer to as a bespoke request. And this was, I’d been asked to go and meet a production company and they had an idea and they wanted to do a comedy drama about some middle-aged women who used to be in a dance troupe, not like pants people, but something sort of like the blue bells or something like that. And they wanted it to be based up in Blackpool and they wanted it to sort of be a lovely, sort of warm menopausal comedy. That’s what they wanted.

How delightful.

A lovely warm menopausal comedy. And again, I didn’t write a whole script, just did some sample scenes. And this was one of those things where the production company sort of had got a bite from a broadcaster and the commissioner would have gone, oh, can you come up with something for, you know, women who are in their 50s? And then they come to me and this is what they do. They find a writer, then they go, right, this is the do this, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you go off and you think about it and then you write a couple of scenes and flesh up a treatment, et cetera. And then they go back to the commissioner and they go, oh, well, no, that film’s coming out now about the women in their 50s who once had cancer, you know, one’s got a prolapse womb. Um, and they’ve all discovered, they’ve all discovered happiness again through the power of dance. Anyway, again, it was just bad luck that that film came out that was about menopausal women who all found themselves again through dance. So that was the end of that.

Oh, and that’s what put the kibosh on this, then?

That put the kibosh on that, yeah. But that was one of those ones that didn’t get beyond just the treatment.

Right, so not too much energy had gone into it. It was interesting because the title, Just for Kicks, I thought you had come up with that because you are a big hobbyist.

Oh, I did come up with Just for Kicks, yes.

Because you are a big hobbyist and quite public about your hobbies and your interests. And obviously you won Masterchef cooking and all that. Have you written a cookbook, by the way? Why not?

I was asked to and I couldn’t be bothered.

You write jokes and everything.

Well, I know, but it’s, I didn’t do Masterchef to change what I do. And the problem is when you write a cookbook, it’s not just you write a cookbook and forget about it. You’ve then got to go and spend a year going around doing all the food shows, doing, you know, it’s a different game. And I genuinely didn’t want to become sort of a food celebrity. I just, I did Masterchef because I genuinely love Masterchef. And it was a thrill and I’ve been given an amazing life skill from it. And that’s perfectly enough for me. Thank you.

But your other big hobby, you do make a fairly big deal out of. You’ve got a YouTube channel for it. Yes, I have. Building Lego.

Yeah.

How many videos have you done so far? I went to the page, I scrolled down and then refilled again and refilled. I thought there’s like four to start off with, but obviously there are thousands.

Yeah. I made a promise when lockdown started that I would do one every single day. So I have been making an hour long film every single day of lockdown.

Is there enough Lego in the world?

And I do, and I don’t just make the Lego, I do stop frame animations for the half time show. I have a thing called the half time show. So there’ll be, it’ll either be like a vision on thing where I show pictures that people have sent in of Lego they’re making, or it will be stop frame animations, which are normally of Dawn French punching Sigourney Weaver’s minifigure. It is quite complex. There’s a whole backstory about Dawn French in Relax With Bricks, but there’s a whole backstory which I’m not even sure I can be bothered to go into.

No, no, please don’t. There are too many other questions we have to address first. So you started the YouTube channel before lockdown.

Yeah, I started it a year ago.

It wasn’t a professional thing, was it? It was just for relaxation.

What happened was, it wasn’t last Christmas, it was the Christmas before, I was with my nephew and he said, can you please help me make this Lego kit because no one else will help me. And I said, yes, of course I will. And I sat down and I hadn’t done Lego ever. And my brain goes about a hundred miles an hour all the time and I started doing this Lego and it was like this Zen-like piece just enveloped me. And I thought, oh, that was lovely. And I got home and I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d felt when I was doing the Lego. And so I went on Twitter and sort of slightly admitted to it. And another writer, Lissa Evans, she said to me, just try the camper van. And it was like, it’s like a gateway drug. The Lego camper van, I’m telling you now, it is a gateway drug, the Lego. And so I bought myself the Lego camper van and I made it. And it was so delicious that I thought, well, okay, this is me now. And my birthday came along and I was given the Ghostbusters Firehouse. And it was so epic that I started doing little shows and little two minute films of it of what I had built that day and posting them on Twitter. And that was the start of it because people started saying, this is the most relaxing thing I’ve ever seen. And then people started saying, please, will you film yourself doing the builds? Oh gosh. And that is how it began.

Well, I will, I’m going to go and watch.

You’ll get sucked. I’m warning you now, Laura, you’ll be sucked in. Dawn just happened to watch one and she’s, I think she’s watched every single episode since. You’ve been sucked in, Laura. I’m just warning you.

Okay, thanks for the warning. I will take full responsibility for anything that happens subsequently. Okay, time for your final off-cut. Can you tell us what this one is, please?

This is, I think, my favorite. This is from 2015 and it’s an animation I wrote called Utterly Brilliant.

Scene one, meadow farm, yard. Qualified dairy cows are clocking in to work. Brenda is standing with a register underneath a sign that says, proper qualified cows. Cows are queuing, waiting to be ticked off. There is another queue under a sign that says, trainee cows. There is no one in it. Brenda looks at her list. We see the name Utterly Brilliant written down.

Where is that cow?

Brenda looks around. She sees Utterly sauntering along, whistling.

You’re late, Utterly. Farmer Lee wants to see you.

Utterly holds up an oversized watch.

Me o’clock, work o’clock.

She taps the Me o’clock section on the watch face. It looks like it’s all Me o’clock.

Hang on.

There is no work o’clock on that watch.

She gets out a magnifying glass and sees a tiny section with work o’clock written on it.

Utterly, this won’t do. You’re going to be a trainee cow forever at this rate. You need to show Farmer Lee you can work as a proper cow and be a valued member of the farm.

Farmer Lee looms in.

That’s right, brilliant. You do. And to that end, I’m sending you on a team building weekend with Brenda, Brian and Mr Tomlin. If you want to be a dairy cow, you need to be made of strong stuff. And I told you a thousand times, you’re not going to be made a proper dairy cow till you got all your stars on that board.

He points to the trainee cow board. There are various names on it with lots of stars. We see Uderley’s name. There are no stars. Apart from one strange looking thing stuck on with sellotape. She points towards it.

I’ve got that star, Farmer Lee.

That is not a star, Uderley. That is a biscuit that you have chewed and sellotape to the star board. Take it down and then get into the shed and get packed. No buts, Uderley. Team building is for your own good.

But what is team building?

It’s where I send you into a hostile environment and you have to survive against all the odds.

Big brother house! I’m gonna be famous!

She gets herself into a variety of poses. A small rat steps forward and takes her picture.

This is a lovely little piece, I have to say.

She’s a terrible cow. That’s what utterly brilliant is. It’s just utterly brilliant. She’s a terrible cow.

Yeah, it’s not a very child-friendly phrase though. You don’t want to have a little kid repeating that.

No, but she just is really bad at being a cow. What happened here was the head of CBBC came to see me and wanted me to come up with something that could replace another animation that they thought was about to end. And this again was one of those things that I thought, oh, okay, this might actually be happening. And we went through a few sort of drafts of the script and nailed down exactly what it was. We had a, it started off as for much younger viewers and then sort of we pitched it up a little bit higher for eight to 12 year olds, which is why we upped the comedic content of it. But it was always in my head, a sort of like Heidi High and that utterly is, it’s basically Peggy from Heidi High and that she is at the greatest, most prestigious dairy farm in Britain. And she’s a trainee, but she will never get to be a proper dairy cow because she’s just really badly behaved, which is a terrible, terrible cow. And again, I had the terrible thing happen of the woman left the BBC. And then she went to Channel 5 and then she contacted me again about it and said, oh, can you pitch it down to younger again because I might be looking for younger stuff. And I thought about it and I thought about it and I thought, no, I don’t want it to be for, that isn’t what it is.

There’s a lot of very good jokes in it that you’d have to lose.

So again, this is one of those scripts that I am sitting on and I think at some point, I might try and get this one away again. But animations are very, very, very expensive. But I do write lots of children’s animation for series that are already on running. And I really love it. I think it’s probably the thing I love doing the most, actually.

Writing animation or writing for kids?

Writing animation for children.

You’re not tempted to ever write an animation for adults? More knowing, perhaps?

I could do, but trying to get an animation for adults away is probably even more impossible. I mean, I can’t, you might be able to do it in America, but when was the last animation for adults you saw here? They are so expensive to do.

But you would have thought things like The Simpsons and Family Guy and all that wouldn’t herald a new dawn.

We just haven’t got that here. We just haven’t got it as a genre, really.

What about a children’s book?

I did think about doing Utterly Brilliant as a book, but again, it would have to be pitched younger. That’s the only thing, because it would have to be a pitch book.

Right, yes it would.

This is the one I’m not giving up on Utterly Brilliant. This is the one that I still think there’s a spark of life in it yet.

My final question was going to be, are there anything that surprised you, or anything you want to go back and redevelop perhaps? And obviously, Utterly Brilliant is the leading one in that pile.

I think Utterly Brilliant is the one that’s got the most commercial potential. There’s no doubt about that. And I think People to Stay has probably got legs, possibly as a book, and possibly Love Again as a book.

So there’s hope for most of them, in fact.

Yes, probably. I always say that nothing is ever wasted, and just because something gets rejected in any given year, it doesn’t mean that you can’t rethink it five years later.

Well, we’ve come to the end of the show. Emma Kennedy, it’s been absolutely fantastic to talk to you. Thank you so much for sharing the contents of your Offcuts drawer with us. 

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Emma Kennedy. The Offcuts were performed by Beth Chalmers, Emma Clarke, Toby Longworth, Leah Marks and Keith Wickham, and the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit offcutsdrawer.com and please do subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.