My problem is I keep developing things which are big and expensive and extravagant because that’s what I would like to watch but I have to write to my strengths of what I think I’m good at. I can’t write a sort of Sally Wainwright domestic drama which you know she’s brilliant and there are many other rights like that but I can’t write that. I try and write something like that and before I know it you know an alien’s arrived or they’ve gone back in time or half the cast have been shot in a gruesome manner. I like genre stuff so I’ll leave the other stuff to those who do it much better than me.

Hello, I’m Laura Shavin and this is 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.

This is the second part of my conversation with Charlie Higson. So rather than run through his many achievements all over again, you’re better off hopping back one episode for the full introduction. The headlines though, you probably know him as the co-creator, writer and star of The Fast Show and or as a best-selling novelist, author of the young James Bond series and a whole range of crime, horror and young adult books.

In part one, Charlie’s offcuts included a mash-up of two Monty Python sketches for a Harry Enfield show, a scene from the first episode of a big-scale TV drama about the young Winston Churchill and a wonderfully creepy short story that predated Frozen by several years. And the variety continues in this episode. So picking up where we left off, here’s Charlie introducing his next offcut, though do be warned there is a fair bit of swearing quite early on.

This is a film script which I wrote in 1998 called Don’t Go Crazy. Interior, pool at the gym, evening. Alex, Phil, Lester and Rob are sat around the pool.

It’s good to have you back, Phil. The pool felt empty without you. Well, I just… Don’t say anything depressing, Phil.

I came here to relax. Alex, have you ever considered taking a bit of exercise while you were here? It is a gym after all. I only come here for the pool and the sauna.

You do two lengths, then you sit there drinking wine. It relaxes me. But maybe if you did some exercise, you wouldn’t be such a fat fuck.

I’m not a fat fuck. Well, you’re not a thin fuck. Who says I have to be any kind of a fuck? No, you’re definitely a fuck, Alex.

That’s not in dispute. And you’re definitely getting fat. You’re a fat fuck, Alex.

Let’s face it. You only need to be as fit as your lifestyle requires. All these freaks doing weights and tramping for hours up imaginary staircases.

What do they need to be so fit for? They all work in offices, for lifting phones to their ears, for opening their car doors. No, to look better, to be healthier, to not be a fat fuck. I’m perfectly healthy.

All blokes think that. Look, it keeps Sarah off my back. She thinks I get some exercise so she doesn’t keep on at me about me dying young.

Christ, I would have thought she’d be relieved. The thought of living with you. We’re perfectly happy in our own way.

We’ve worked out a system. If you want to be successful in a relationship, Phil, you have to have a system. You pompous prick.

Well, I hope it’s cheering you up, Phil, having a go at me. You know, what you need is a fuck, Phil. It’s fucking that’s fucked me up, Lester.

Girls, what I actually need is to stop thinking about fucking. Your problem with women is you appear too fucking desperate, Phil. Can you tell me something? Can you tell me why I should take any advice on women from you lot? You, you’ve been 10 years with the same woman.

You, you’ve never spent longer than about 10 seconds with one woman. And you have an almost supernatural ability to attract mad women from miles around. Hello, I’m bonkers.

Ah, well, you must go out with Lester then. Well, at least we’re all getting a fuck. I don’t know.

I don’t really like sex anymore. What? I find it too troubling. I know Sarah too well and I just feel so… I feel so ridiculous.

And it reminds me too immediately of my longing and my need. Yeah, I know what you mean. You’re all fucking bonkers.

Okay. There’s a lot of bad language in there, isn’t there? Yes, a lot of… there will be a warning before this episode goes out. Don’t worry.

Explicit. E for explicit. But it’s all right. Don’t mind a bit of swearing. So Don’t Go Crazy is the name of the film’s script. Tell us about it. Tell us about the story.

Well, one of my favourite American crime authors is Charles Williford. He wrote some brilliant books.

And I was reading one of them and it was… quite a lot of it was these four guys sitting around a motel swimming pool in America, just kind of shooting the breeze with each other. And then it develops into a crime story. And I quite liked that idea.

I thought, I want to just start a film like that. So it starts with these four guys around a swimming pool in a gym in London with a view out over the city. And it was a way of writing about men.

And it was a way of writing about London. And I developed it originally. I thought it would be good for me, Paul Whitehouse, Mark Williams and Simon Day.

So we would play these four friends. And the basic premise is one of them, which would have been Mark Williams’ character, announces to his mates that he’s had enough and he wants to kill himself. Right.

And I thought I would turn around what the normal story is that it’s about how they try and persuade him not to. And, you know, he’s got a great life. He shouldn’t throw it away.

But in this one, they go, all right, then, well, we’ll help you. And so they do. And they sort of discuss how they should do it and and what should happen.

And and they sort of set up things which he doesn’t go through with. And obviously, in the end, he doesn’t kill himself. And everything that they’ve done actually persuades him that he doesn’t want to do that and that they are good friends.

And along along the way, it’s a it’s a comedy, a comedy about blokes, really. And a lot of it is about how blokes don’t, you know, when they get together, they don’t really talk about personal things and emotions and stuff. Mostly talk about films they’ve seen or football or cars or whatever.

So, yeah, and I quite like the script. I thought it was good. And for a while, I was developing it with Working Title, with Working Title Films, who I got to know through doing Random Hot Coat Deceased, because that was through Working Title Television.

They set up a television arm. So I got to know Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, the two guys that run it. And we started developing the film.

But the film world works very differently to the TV world. And it’s quite slow and cumbersome. And this is one of the reasons, I think, why we’ve made so few comedy films.

You know, in America, someone’s got a funny character on Saturday Night Live. Oh, we’ll make a film. We’ll do it quickly.

It might be a hit. It might be rubbish. But we’ll get it out there and get these things done.

And then we put these guys together. They’re good. But it’s a lot slower and more cumbersome in this country.

We don’t really have an industry. And if you look back, it’s amazing. We’ve had so much good comedy on the TV.

Very few good comedy films. So this would, in fact, sort of be a fast show film. Yes.

But not with the millions of characters. Although, you know, the way these things go, once you get into the film world, suddenly it’s, well, we can’t get the financing if it’s you guys. But if it’s Hugh Grant, whatever.

But surely that would be part of its appeal, no? The fact that it’s the fast show. Yes, but they’re film people, you see. And there is a gap between film people and TV people.

And often when someone eventually gets around to making a film, it’s a bit late. It’s a bit after the event. You know, like the Alan Partridge film was 10 years too late, really.

Great film, though. Probably not as good as a TV show. But so it was quite cumbersome and it was taking a long time.

And then there was the Twin Towers attack. Oh, yes. And they said, and it may have just been an excuse because they wanted to get out of it.

They didn’t want to make it. They said, you know, since the Twin Towers attack, people don’t want dark humour. They want things to be light and breezy and fun.

And we think this central idea of them trying to help him commit suicide, could you change it that actually they’re trying to persuade him not to? And I said, well, yeah, but that’s the whole joke. That’s the whole idea of the film. And things do get changed because of this.

I remember I was asked by Working Title if I wanted to work as a script doctor on this thriller script that they were developing. And I read it and I thought, I don’t get this. And I went back to them.

I said, I really don’t understand what it is about this film that you wanted to get it made. What’s this kind of USP that you thought? Yeah, because it’s mystifying me. And I said, well, we were originally developing it as it was going to be the first Channel Tunnel thriller.

And it was about someone planting a bomb in the Channel Tunnel. But then someone else announced they were making a film of that. So we took that part out of it.

And I said, yeah, but that means you just don’t have an idea. There’s no idea behind this film. And this happens a lot in that world.

You know, you get a certain amount down the line. We’ve got the financing. We’ve got this.

Oh, we can’t do that. But we’ll take that out. And suddenly you’ve got something that makes no sense at all.

So I didn’t pursue Don’t Go Crazy. And obviously, if I did go back to it, it would not be with us in it anymore. But I still think it’s quite a funny script.

And they’re quite interesting characters. Well, I mean, there’s a renewed interest in the Farsha. You’re going on tour.

Yeah, but we’re too old. You know, this was written for people in their late 30s. And it couldn’t be for people in their early 60s or mid 60s.

However old your team are? We could do. Well, I’m just thinking, could BBC finance it partly or, you know, sort of as a, not a TV special, but… A BBC couldn’t. We can’t be seen to encourage people committing suicide.

Oh, God, right. OK. Again, you know, I’ve got hundreds of these things.

I’ve got so many unmade films. I’ve got so many pilots and Bibles for TV series that I’ve worked on. It’s often something will lie fallow for a while.

And then you’ll meet someone, you’ll have a conversation. Oh, we’re looking for this type of thing. You say, oh, I got something like that.

It’s like my picture book, my first picture book. What’s that noise? I’ve done with a fabulous Nadia Shireen. I was with her and she said, oh, have you ever written anything we could work on together? I said, well, when my kids were little, I wrote this story.

I never really finished it. But a boy who gets inside a cardboard box makes a lot of noise. She said, oh, I’d like to see that.

And I dug it out. And I think the last version of it was from 1994. And she said, this is great.

Let’s do it. So I kind of finished it and we published it. So, you know, things can get a second lease of life and come back.

OK, let’s move on to your next offcut. What is this one? This is a Doctor Who script that I wrote in 2016 called The Birthday Present. Interior, house in the desert, back room, day.

Amy and the Doctor find themselves in a bedroom full of British Eighth Army desert troops in shorts and wide helmets. A bed stands against one wall. There’s a back door here and two glassless windows.

The troops are firing from the windows and through the open doorway. Throughout the scene, they completely ignore the Doctor and Amy, who duck down as an explosion outside sends a cloud of dust into the room. Sniper! A bullet cracks and one of the soldiers falls away from the window, dead.

Grenade! He lobs a grenade out. There’s an explosion across the road. It’s chaos.

Bullets everywhere. The Doctor and Amy cower, trying to avoid being hit. German machine gun nest at five o’clock! I’m on it! He runs out into the street.

There’s the rattle of machine gun fire and a cry. The machine gun rakes the building. Two more soldiers fall back, dead.

See the pyramids and die. There’s something not right here, Amy. Will you stop seeing that? Another soldier goes up to the window.

All soldiers look the same in uniform, but he looks identical to the one who ran out into the street. Sniper! I’m on it! Look around you, Amy. What is wrong with this picture? What, even apart from the guns and the explosions? Grenade! The soldier who just shouted grenade.

Wasn’t he shot before? I don’t know. I was too busy ducking. Concentrate, Amy.

We’re in the middle of a battle and yet… There’s no blood? There are no bodies. Indeed. As they look around the room, there’s no evidence of the several soldiers who have been shot.

Keep your eyes on one of them. Okay. Wait till he’s shot.

What? Just watch. Amy watches as the second British Tommy is shot and falls dead. He sprawls in the dust on the floor among broken pottery and ammunition cases.

Nothing’s happening. What am I supposed to be looking at? Over there! Amy spins around to look where the doctor’s pointing. Can’t see anything.

Turns back to the dead soldier who has disappeared. Where’d he go? I’m not sure he was ever there in the first place. What’s going on? I think we’re caught in a wrinkle of time.

We’re seeing different times at the same time. But that’s impossible. No, it’s not.

Space is folded in on itself. That’s how the TARDIS is able to travel anywhere and to any time. Look.

As the gun battle rages around them, the doctor pulls a blanket off the bed, uncovering a white sheet. He fissures a large marker pen out of his pocket and draws a dot on the sheet. Okay, we’re here.

North Africa, 1943 or thereabout. And over here… The doctor draws another point a long way away on the sheet. Is ancient Egypt.

4567 BC, okay? He hands the marker pen to Amy and points to the dots. So how would you get from here to there? Amy draws a straight line across the sheet. No, too slow.

That would take centuries. The doctor tugs the sheet off the bed and scrumbles it into a ball, oblivious to the bullets that smack into the wall all around him. Then he carefully peels back the layers, revealing that the two dots are now touching.

Abracadabra! You didn’t submit this script, you said. Well, it’s a long story. I knew Russell Davis enough to say hello to him and have a conversation.

I knew Stephen Moffat much better. And when he was showrunning, we talked about me possibly writing a script. And I wanted to do something, because they’d never done it.

I said, look, computer gaming is such a big thing with kids. You haven’t ever done anything about that. You should do.

But the interesting thing about the showrunners is that Doctor Who very much kind of is a representation of whatever their concerns are. So Russell Davis, there was a lot of human drama, but there was also quite a lot of satire in it. Stephen Moffat, as we know, is a brainy fellow.

And he likes kind of complicated, brainy things. And that’s what he likes writing about and making up incredibly complex, folded in stories. And, you know, his Doctor Who was quite similar to Sherlock Holmes.

So he liked some aspects of what I was talking about. But obviously, he wasn’t that excited by the idea of computer games. It wasn’t really part of his world.

But I play a huge amount of computer games and my boys did, too. And it was interesting that under Stephen, the Doctor Who probably started to move away from being aimed at 10 year old boys and girls. But what was great was it was a series.

You know, there was science fiction and there were adventures. And it was great that the hero of it was different to the other sort of heroes you were shown. A male hero who didn’t have a gun, wasn’t beating people by fighting.

He used his brain and he used technology and wizardry. He’s a wizard. But Stephen, the scripts became very complicated and complex.

And he started getting very interested, really, in what was the online fan community and particularly American online fan community. He was trying to push it into America where it would be aimed at an older audience. And I felt it did slightly move away from being a fun Saturday night show for kids to watch.

And so mine was about how it’s the sort of Tron idea that the Doctor and Amy get trapped inside a game, which I mean, obviously you can’t do. So it’s essentially it’s a game. The game essentially gets inside you.

It starts to manipulate your brain so that you think you are in a in a real world. But it’s a game that this thing is playing. So, you know, I had a lot of fun writing it and working it up.

And I worked up a pitch document and Stephen was so busy that it was months, I think years before I eventually could have a meeting with him. And I developed it to a certain extent. And it’s quite interesting, the Doctor Who world, there was a huge team, a sort of support team to keep this thing running.

And, you know, it was a bit like trying to get to see the emperor, only dealing with his minions and his court or trying to get access to the pope or something. So eventually I got through to Stephen and he’s very energetic, full of ideas, throwing ideas out there. And my story was quite, quite straightforward.

It was about gaming. You know, it’s about the universe could be about to be destroyed. And he realises that someone is playing a game and they don’t realise and they are actually controlling everything that’s going on.

And it turns out that it’s just a young teenage kid. And Stephen says, well, you could try this or do that. And, yeah, it’d be great if he went there.

And it started becoming more Stephen Moffat-ish. And I was saying, well, that sort of makes it a lot bigger and expands it. Also, don’t worry about that.

No, no, no, no. We’d never worry about that when we start. We’d make as big as we can and throw as much as we can and make it exciting.

And then and then when we know what the budget is, we worry about this stuff and then we pull it back. But, you know, don’t restrict yourself now. So I went away and did what he said and came back.

And the team said I didn’t get access back to him again. The team said, well, it’s just too big and expensive. We can’t do this.

And by that point, I thought I’m not pursuing this. I’ve been banging my head against the wall. And I’d been I’d started writing it just just to see for myself whether it worked.

And so then I thought, well, I might as well finish writing it. Have some fun with it. So I did write it up into a complete script.

I mean, you can tell when it was written. Yeah, it was still Matt Smith and Amy Pond. And yes, and I’ve just sat on it since.

Could it be resubmitted now, do we think? Well, Doctor Who has changed so much now that it’s it’s become a different show, really. It seems to be about something else. And nobody really knows where it will be next.

I mean, it was interesting because when Chris Chibnall took it on, I’d been working with him on I was in Broadchurch and he was talking about what he was going to do with it. He thought that the bar to entry was set too high and that a 10-year-old kid coming to this would be absolutely mystified. He said he was going to strip away all that, go back to basics.

I do like the reboot like they did with the Marvel comics and stuff. Year zero. And he sort of did that a little bit, but he did also at the same time change quite a lot of the for want of a better word, the DNA of the series.

It became a bit of a team and also much as I love Jodie Whittaker again, who I’d worked with on Broadchurch and she’s and she’s a brilliant actress and she was great as Doctor Who. I felt it was a shame because it was the only show on TV in which a male hero wasn’t an action man. And I thought that was such a good role model for boys and was giving them something they weren’t getting elsewhere.

It was really interesting to see what happens when you make it a girl, a woman. But for me, that changed what I thought was a real strength of the show. Now, another huge TV franchise you got involved in, as you mentioned, is the Randall and Hopkirk deceased relaunch, which I loved as a child.

The original. I also loved yours as well, but I had a bit of a crush on Hopkirk when I was very young. But you wrote and produced the whole series and it starred your mate, Jim, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.

That sounds like a huge endeavour from being a writer or a performer dabbling in the two. I also played a different character in every episode, rather foolishly. Oh, did you? Very Alfred Hitchcockian.

I didn’t. Yes, it was. I didn’t write all of it.

I was the lead writer. I was the showrunner, although we don’t really have that role in this country. But I did manage to get in a lot of really good writers to work on it with me, like the League of Gentlemen guys and people like that.

It did look like a lot of fun. It was. It was huge fun.

And it came about because Working Title TV was set up. And at the time, they were sort of under the umbrella of Universal, who had bought up the whole of the loo grade, the ATV catalogue, all those great shows from the 60s. They were looking through it to see which ones would stand up to remake.

And they went for Adderall and Hopkirk to see because it was a really good idea. It had been a popular show. Two detectives.

One of them’s a ghost. But it had never quite gained the respect of, say, the Avengers or the Prisoner. So whilst people sort of remembered it, they didn’t remember it in that great detail.

And, you know, it was proficiently made, but it wasn’t like a sacred classic that you couldn’t touch. So they felt, you know, well, we could update it and just keep the idea. But Vic and Bob, though, Vic and Bob, an interesting choice.

Well, Vic and Bob got in touch with them and they said, here you’re talking about making Randall Hopkirk deceased. Vic’s white suit was obviously inspired by the original Hopkirk deceased. I did not know that.

Yeah. And so they said, look, we’d love to have a go. We want to get away from doing shooting stars.

We want to do something different. Have a go at doing something with a story. And suddenly it became a package.

You think, yeah, Randall Hopkirk with Vic and Bob. That’s a thing. And they said, would I? Because they liked me as a writer and someone they like working with.

They said they didn’t want to write it themselves. They didn’t feel that that was their forte. But would I like to write at least the pilot? So we did and we developed it and people liked it.

And then we came up, you know, to run the series. And I said, well, you know, why don’t I show run this thing? Because I know how it works. And this is something I wanted, you know, I always wanted to do that kind of thing.

And also direct some of it. But it nearly killed me. It was so much work.

And yes, it was huge fun, but incredibly stressful. Filming is, you know, it’s a grind. You’re constantly fighting time, money, the weather, actors getting it right.

And to be stuck with no escape, you know, from right from the day run, writing it to filming it, to editing it to all of that is a huge amount of work. And it was very, it was very stressful. But you went back for the second series, did you? Yes.

Yeah. But also, I think by the end, that was when it was more stressful, because by the time we’d finished filming the second series, we kind of knew that the show hadn’t taken off the way the BBC wanted and they weren’t going to do another series. So once you’ve got that drive and energy taken out of it, it becomes even more hard work.

But it did mean that the last couple of episodes we shot, we just said, look, let’s stop trying to keep everyone happy and let’s just go bonkers. OK, let’s move on now with your next Offcut, please. This is a children’s story called Far Away Forest Friends that I wrote in 2004 and never published.

I am the happiest and the prettiest fairy in the forest. And with one tap of her magic wand, they would forget all about being cross and start dancing and singing and clapping their hands with joy. If anyone was ever bored, then Dingle would sit down on a spotted toadstool, wave her wand and fill the forest with sweet music.

In a flash, they would be bored no longer and they would spring to their feet and dance and sing and clap their hands all day long. And sometimes well into the night. It didn’t matter that their feet might start to bleed and that they couldn’t stop dancing to eat or drink, for their smile would be wider than the river bright that winds through the forest.

In fact, the smiles that Dingle put on their faces were so wide that it sometimes hurt quite badly. The river bright is as much as 45 feet wide in some places. Can you imagine a smile 45 feet wide? That’s going to hurt, isn’t it? But Dingle didn’t care, because it is quite the most awful thing to be bored, isn’t it? Yes, little Dingle brought happiness and joy with her wherever she went.

If anyone was tired and just wanted to sleep in their beds all day long like a silly lazybones, then Dingle would fly in through their bedroom window, sprinkle fairy dust on them with her silver wand and they would jump out of bed with a cry of joy and begin to sing and dance and tidy their room and do the washing up and maybe fix the roof and oh, how merry they would be. And when it came to bedtime, they would see their soft cosy bed with its goose down pillows and its coverlet all covered with a pattern of pretty flowers. But would they lie down? No, they would not, because they would be dancing away and singing like mad and clapping their hands like a lunatic.

Dingle the magic fairy never rested. You should have seen her as she flitted through the forest, bringing happiness and laughter and dancing, lots and lots of dancing, into the lives of all the forest friends who didn’t know what on earth they would have done without her. Which is why it was such a shame when one day she was eaten by a giant toad called Roger.

Now, this is a children’s story that you never developed. How far did it get? I did show it to my people at Puffin, and we talked about it. The idea was that there was going to be a whole series of books about different characters in the faraway forest.

But partly I couldn’t think of another story. Right, so this was going to be a collection of stories. Well, it would be like a little collection of books, you know, like Mr Men.

A lot more text than Mr Men. Well, that’s the thing, but at the time there had been things like A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was a lovely set of little hardback books for slightly older readers, but, you know, sort of breaking down the barriers, I suppose, of what you expect for certain reader ages. But yes, as I say, but partly I didn’t press on, because again, probably something else came up and I wrote another book instead.

But also, and you could see there’s a couple of moments in there that even as far back in 2004, that people were starting to think, and certainly publishers, they have to be very, very careful, you know, about what you can and can’t put in a kid’s book. And there had been a rise in more irreverent books, but… There was a backlash, wasn’t there? Yeah, to a certain extent, you know. What could you not say? What were you not allowed to imply? Well, you know, bleeding feet, someone being described as a lunatic.

The story ends with her, there’s this sort of big fairy tale book that she produces, and she ends up, they free her from Roger the Toad, but then she flies off and gets snapped shut inside a big fairy tale book, and everyone cheers, because they don’t want her back. But it’s, you know, you can’t do that, have that sort of violence and trauma. So, you know, you can have fun.

You can’t have violence in a children’s book. It’s a tricky one, it’s a tricky one. Children are very violent.

I know, but publishers sort of worry about encouraging that. It goes in waves. You know, it’s like what happened, they did a version where they toned down the Roald Dahl books, because, you know, you can’t call people fat.

You can’t call people ugly. You can’t say a woman is a witch. If they’re evil, they start to look ugly.

And things like that, which is all the fun of the books and why kids love them. And you can see why you don’t necessarily want to be saying those things, you know, equating ugliness with evil and old women are evil, whatever. But without that, books can be boring, a little boring and bland.

So, you know, I think there was a certain sensitivity about that when I went, even back in 2004, when I wrote that story. OK, fair enough. I think if I had come up with loads of other stories and ideas, I would have pushed it.

But alternatively, I might go back to it one day and say, well, let’s just try and make this work as a fun little one off. And let’s see what we can get away with. So obviously, if anybody doesn’t know, apart from your fame from The Fast Show and also being a prolific novelist, you’ve written a lot of stuff for younger readers that has been published, but you’re probably most well known in the younger reader space for your novels featuring the young James Bond.

Now, how did that come about? Was that your idea or was it suggested to you? Well, no, it wasn’t my idea at all. It was generated by the Ian Fleming Estate, Ian Fleming Publications, IFP. They were looking ahead to the release of Casino Royale and the whole of the James Bond film franchise being rebooted and refreshed.

And so they knew there was going to be a lot of stuff about Bond. It was also coming up to the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth in the early noughties. And there had been many continuation Bond novels after Fleming, more than he wrote.

There’d been more continuation novels. That had been permitted by the estate? Yes, they’re all commissioned by IFP. They were wanting to remind people where Bond started as a literary creation.

So they were looking at finding, you know, serious, inverted commas, adult authors to write continuation novels, which ended up being the likes of, the first one was Sebastian Foulkes. Then they had William Boyd and eventually Antony Horowitz. But Antony Horowitz had had huge success at the time with his Alex Rider books, which were very much a contemporary teenage James Bond.

Yes, my sons read the whole lot of those. Yes. And so they thought, well, we’ve got the actual James Bond.

We should do our own books about the early life of young James Bond. And really on the back of Harry Potter, kids’ books had become a viable thing. There was money to be made.

Writers were being taken seriously. There was a big resurgence in kids’ reading. And there were various other authors who were doing things.

There was Robert Muchmore who wrote a series, a sort of young secret agents called the Cherub series. Oh yes, we read those as well. Yep.

And so they were thinking, well, we should do our own young James Bond books. And I wrote these four crime books in the early 90s. And I had a fantastic editor working on them called Kate Jones, who ended up working for IFP.

And she was in charge of these new projects. And she suggested that I might be a good possibility to write the young James Bond books. She knew I had boys.

She knew I was a big James Bond fan. And she felt that my writing style, the sort of very stripped back, hard-boiled American style, would work very well with kids because it’s very unfussy and unflowery and it’s sort of straight to the point. And so she approached me and said, was I interested? And I said, God, yes, I’m interested.

I’d love to do that. It’d be the perfect thing to write for my own boys. So I got the gig.

And I had a huge fun writing them. I wrote five of them. But then I thought, if I don’t move on and do something else, that’s all anyone will want for me.

Because they sold really, really well. And I thought, I don’t want to be stuck for the rest of my life working on somebody else’s creation, essentially. Sure.

Time for another Offcut now. Tell us about this one, please. This is another unmade film script I wrote in 2013, based on Beauty and the Beast, called Beast.

She goes up the wide staircase. She sees an open door and walks along the landing towards it. Interior, madame’s room, night.

Bella’s bags are in the old lady’s bedroom, which has been tidied up a little. It is dimly lit by an old lamp. Bella opens the wardrobe and finds that her clothes have been hung up neatly.

She looks around. There is an old-fashioned dressing table with combs and brushes, makeup and perfume, etc. The room is more grown up than her own room at home.

And there is something of a fairytale feel about it. She sits on the bed, takes out her cell phone, starts to dial. You’re as beautiful as your picture.

Bella looks up, startled. The Beast is in the doorway, backlit so that she cannot see his face. He is nevertheless a huge, menacing presence in the cramped space.

I wish I could say the same for you, but I can’t hardly see you. That’s for the best. So, what do I call you? As far as you’re concerned, I don’t have a name.

You will need to give me your telephone. Do you want to come and get it? First, turn off the lamp. Don’t you think you’re taking this anonymity thing a little too far? Turn it off! Bella cringes back, then turns the lamp off.

The Beast steps towards her, a vast, lumbering shape in the near darkness. Your phone is no use to you here. Oh right, I get it.

Spooky old house in the woods, young girl all alone, no signal on her cell phone. The Beast suddenly takes the phone and smashes it to pieces on the bedside table. He puts what’s left of it into his pocket.

Bella stands. Okay, do you want to get this over with then? What? Oh, come on. We both know what this is all about, why I’m here.

What do you want? She starts to unbutton her top. She is shaking with fear, but trying not to show just how scared she is. What are you doing? How do you want me then? In tears? A little girl on her knees with an upturned face? Oh please, don’t hurt me! Or maybe you want me frozen like a baby deer in the headlights? Or do you like defiant? Maybe you’d like me to fight back a little, huh? Maybe make you feel big and strong? Or do you want me to fake it? Oh yes, yes big man, oh my god, do it to me! How do you want me? She can’t keep it up.

She starts to cry. By now, her top is completely undone and hanging open, half covering her naked breasts. You are braver than your father.

Slowly, the Beast reaches out for her. Holds her arms with his ruined hands. She glances down and winces.

You haven’t answered my question. How do I want you? Yes. You would do this for your father? Bella nods, too scared to speak.

Breathing heavily, the Beast leans in toward her. A sliver of moonlight falls across his face. Bella’s eyes widen in horror, then she screws them shut and twists away from him.

With a roar, the Beast flings her onto the bed. She breaks down completely into a mess of tears. When she at last looks up, the Beast is gone.

What a scene. Yes, it’s not quite Disney. No, no, it’s not.

No. And actually, there was another scene that I really wanted to do because it was very funny, but then it became so shocking. And I just thought, no, it’s too shocking.

I think the audience might get quite upset by it because there’s a lot of comedy in this, but there is some really nasty stuff as well. Tell us about it. Yeah, well, my first novel was published in 1991.

It was called King of the Ants. And George Wendt from… Norm in Cheers. Norm in Cheers was over in London working on something.

A friend of mine was working on it. And for some reason, he gave him a copy of this book, King of the Ants, and said, here, George, my friend’s written this. I think it’s really good.

You might like it. And George Wendt did. And he became obsessed by it.

And he got in touch with me and said, Charlie, I really want to make a movie of this book and play the main villain. And I was a bit nonplussed. I said, well, great, let’s try it.

And we tried it. But I mean, that book is, yes, it’s quite nasty. I think many people are surprised, certainly in my earlier books, just they are quite dark.

And there’s a lot of black humour in them. I can’t write things without humour. But, you know, there are elements of, you know, there’s a lot of psychopaths and horror in them.

And as a result, we found it hard to get made. But George Wendt was a very good friend of the American film director Stuart Gordon, who probably is most famous for Re-Animator. And he then went on and did a lot of sort of kind of horror, fantasy, sci-fi stuff.

And his career was going great. And he developed and was about to direct Honey, I Shrunk the Kids when he had a heart attack. Oh.

And as a result, they couldn’t get insurance to make that. And he couldn’t make films over a certain budget. So George Wendt said, well, maybe we could do it with Stuart.

And so we did a film of King of the Ants, which I kind of Americanised. It was all filmed in L.A. and George was in it. And was it called King of the Ants? Can we look it up and see it? It was called King of the Ants.

And it’s just been re-released in a very posh DVD. So it is available to watch. It’s quite full on and it’s quite nasty.

And then later on, he said, oh, I’ve been approached by this movie company to try and develop a horror version of Beauty and the Beast. Oh. So that is how I ended up working with Beast.

And we worked for some time on the script. So it’s a sort of cross between a horror movie and a gangster movie. This big guy has been incredibly badly beaten up and disfigured by these gangsters.

But he’s immensely strong. And he’s a good guy like Beast is in Beauty and the Beast. He’s a good guy, but he’s quite violent.

And I had a lot of fun developing it with Stuart and trying to make it horrific, scary, but also with a lot of black humour. There’s a lot of things in these, particularly in these kind of cheap exploitation movies where someone says, I’m going to stick my hand so far up your ass. I’m going to work you like a puppet.

But then he does. You see, normally in these films, they never follow through on it. But the Beast does.

And so I had a lot of fun with things like that. So it’s kind of its body horror rather than supernatural. And we were developing it.

But I don’t know how much I can say. But I think the company that Stuart was working with, I’m not sure how bona fide they were in the end, because it suddenly all went quiet and I didn’t really hear any more about it. And I don’t know if he went off and made a version of Beauty and the Beast with a different script, but it just stopped and didn’t happen.

Right. Are you ever tempted to be a director at all, considering you write so much stuff? Well, I’d love to. As I said, when I was a kid, that’s what I really wanted to do, was be a film director.

And I’ve directed TV. I directed some of Randall and Hotkirt Deceased. I directed, we did some online fast show stuff, which I’ve directed.

A series called Bellamy’s People, which I directed. So I love directing. And that always was my passion.

But you haven’t done a film. I haven’t done a film. Maybe I should, because, you know, maybe do a cheap horror film.

Because I do love horror. You’ve got enough scripts for it. Short of material, must be said.

Right. Well, we have come to your final offcut. Tell us about this one, please.

This is another pilot for a TV series that was never made. This was from 2020. And it’s a TV series named after the diamond, and it’s called Koh-i-Noor.

Exterior, main road, day. Vikram is walking along, the sounds of the demonstration in the background. He glances back to see Danny Boy, Colin and the thug following him.

He looks up, checking where he is. Makes a decision. Exterior, dead end street, London, day.

Vikram enters a nondescript side street, loading bays on either side. The sounds of the demonstration diminishing. Danny Boy, Colin and the thug come in after him.

Vikram stops, looks around. He can go no further. It’s a dead end.

You’re right. It’s dead. Nothing ever happens here.

Which is why there are no surveillance cameras. Result. Exactly.

Vikram squares up to the three men, still clutching his vulnerable sandwich bag. They can see now that he is tougher and more self-assured than they first assumed. There’s a hard glint of anger in his eyes.

You need to learn some respect. Your country’s only what it is because of what the British Empire give you. I think you’ll find you took away a lot more than you ever gave us.

No. You have a go at our country, but you’re happy to come over here and take our hand out. Most of the things you worship in this country, you’ve taken from somewhere else.

Your language, your monarchy, your music, your cooking. But the way you fight, that is all your own. You what? I’ve seen how you like to fight.

The English way. At a million football matches. He goes into a sarcastic impression of a football hooligan having a go.

That weird, slightly silly way they prance about. Chest out, arms swinging, elbows out. Little ineffective kicks darting in and out, not really wanting to get stuck in.

There’s something of the Monty Python fish-slapping dance about it. If you want to fight properly, you need to learn from filthy foreigners. Well, maybe we’ll learn you how to fight.

Colin shoves Vikram backwards, then advances. And as he goes to shove him again, Vikram neatly sidesteps and performs a quick, intimate yet devastating self-defence move that ends with Colin flat on his back. Now Vikram executes a perfect standing roundhouse kick to the head and the thug goes down.

Finally, as Danny Boy goes for him, Vikram does a balletic double kick to the chin and Danny Boy goes down. Huh, well, same difference. He walks off, his sandwich bag still intact and untouched.

His three assailants lie groaning. Titles. The Diamond.

That’s the cold open, then, of the pilot script. Yes. So Vikram is going to be like an Indian James Bond, is that right? Well, to a certain extent.

I mean, he’s a Secret Service agent and the plot of it is that the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the famous and controversial diamond, is stolen and he is tasked with trying to get it back. And the series sort of follows the diamond as it gets stolen and re-stolen by all the various different representatives of all the various different countries and cultures that claim that the Koh-i-Noor is theirs. So it is initially stolen by a bunch of white van men who are enraged that the British government is talking about giving it back.

But the history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond is fascinating in that it passed through so many different hands that it is actually sort of impossible to say who it rightfully belongs to. And the story involves the Taliban, it involves Indians, Iranians. I was trying to have fun with it.

If it had progressed to a series, I would have had to get in some Indian, at least one Indian writer to work on it with me because it is a multicultural series. And, you know, as with everything I write, there’s quite a lot of humour in it, but it’s a way of partly looking at history and, yeah, and modern politics and geopolitics. It’s the most recent of the offcuts that you sent us.

So that was a long ago, 2020. Is there any chance it might be resurrected, do you think? It’s a tricky one because, again, as I developed it, a bit like the Winston Churchill one, it is a huge, you know, spanning continents story. Budget are we talking about as a problem? Yeah, budget, but yeah, the scope of it is big, you know, because it follows a lot of Indian history and the Middle East and, you know, there is action and adventure through it and kind of reconstructions of the past.

Oh, right. So it’s a big deal. But, you know, it was developed at a time when the likes of Netflix were saying they wanted stuff, you know, they didn’t want everything to be American and about America.

And they were looking at, you know, they are now set up in somewhere like India. They make a lot of Indian content. And so there was a lot of talk of wanting to do series like that.

And this was commissioned actually by an Indian team. And I thought the only way to really tell this story to get away from some of the controversy was to was to put in quite a lot of humour. So it’s a sort of light hearted, a heist movie type of feel to it.

But my problem is I keep developing things which are big and expensive and extravagant because that’s what I would like to watch. But I have to write to my strengths of what I think I’m good at. I can’t write a sort of Sally Wainwright domestic drama, which, you know, she’s brilliant.

And there are many other rights like that. I can’t write that. I try and write something like that.

And, you know, before I know it, you know, an alien’s arrived. They’ve gone back in time. Half the cast have been shot in a gruesome manner.

I like genre stuff. So I leave the other stuff to those who do it much better than me. And, you know, we hit the same problems that you get on a lot of things where the Indian side of it tried to raise more money for them.

They said, oh, it’s too English. And the English side said, oh, it’s too Indian. And as I say, well, it’s kind of both.

It’s half and half. It’s telling the story of the story of India and it’s telling the story of the British Raj and it’s telling the story of contemporary nationalistic politics. Well, you’ve worked on so many projects, you know, high profile, big budget.

Some of them. Is it any easier pitching projects now or do you still get a similar kind of rate of rejection for TV anyway? It’s not easier at all. And I’m not the demographic that TV companies and streamers are looking for.

They want the new young thing. Often the new young things find they can’t deliver and they have to hire a lot of old crocs like me to help them out. But coming in as the face of things, you know, it’s hard.

It’s just it. Same here. Same in the States.

You know, showrunners in the States who massively more successful than me have made huge shows. You know, you read interviews with them. They say, I can’t get anything off the ground anymore.

I don’t know what’s happening. And when the streamers sort of burst onto the scene, it felt like there was a sort of golden age. It was a gold rush.

It’s like suddenly there’s all this money washing around. They’re making all this stuff so much more content and everybody was jumping on it. But they came in and they had a different approach and traditionally what you would do to pitch something, you would make a pitch document which outlines over a few pages what the thing is.

And then you would if they were interested in that, you would then knock up a sort of series breakdown and they would commission things based on that in the UK. In America, they had that hugely ruinous pilot season thing where you would have to make the whole thing fully budgeted and then they would make a decision. So the Americans have moved away from that.

They’ve got more sensible. But in the UK now, because the streamers say we will only look at a script, we won’t look at a pitch document. We need a script and a full Bible for the series, which you will then have to go in and pitch to them.

It means that all these production companies have taken on the burden and the cost of commissioning full length scripts, which inevitably you get knocked down because they start saying, well, we can’t really afford to pay you your full work. We’ll pay you this. And if it gets made, we’ll work it into the contract that you get the full thing.

So it’s kind of knocking everyone’s prices down. And there’s a massive over commissioning of stuff by the production companies. Yes.

And they’re having to pay for the burden of that. So a lot of them now are under the umbrella of larger media companies who’ve got more money, but it’s wasteful and it’s wasteful of people’s time and talent. So it’s better for the Americans because they are now making decisions based on scripts.

But it’s worse for the British because you’re having to write scripts. So that’s why I’ve got so many of these things is because I get paid. OK, to develop them.

But, you know, having to come up with ideas and characters and whole series, and that can be quite draining. And you go and pitch it and then you see what they’ve actually made and how different it is from what you were pitching. You think, OK, I can see why they made that and I can see why they didn’t want what I went in and pitched.

And you can tell within the first minute or two, really, whether they are actually interested. So, no, nothing is easier. And you talk to anyone on TV, they’ll say it’s a real struggle.

Production companies are really struggling. And yeah, you know, who knows what happens? But, you know, when things don’t move, I just go back and write another book. Well, we have come to the end of the show.

How was it for you? It was marvellous and it was great to be reminded of some of these old projects. Yes, you have certainly sent me a lot of stuff, more than I usually receive and of very good quality as well. Well, I thought you might whittle it down and say, oh, I want to do these five or whatever.

But yeah, but then there was, oh no, but if I do this and talk about that, it’s a total headache. Thank you, Charlie. Well, it’s lucky I didn’t send you everything.

I was very surprised that of all the offcuts you sent me, such a small percentage was actually comedy, comedy sketches. Considering how much comedy you have worked on in your career, there were no rejected fast show sketches. Why was that? Well, there probably were fast show sketches that we wrote and never used, but I don’t have any of that stuff on my computer because when I started writing a fast show, I had an Amstrad and it was all on floppy discs.

I don’t know where they are and whether you can still read the things. So yeah, some of that stuff was printed off. But I mean, in the end, most, you know, it would be like the odd sketch of a character where we wrote 10 sketches and only wrote eight.

And there would be a reason why we didn’t do the other sketches. And they would probably only be one line or two lines long. So it’d be quite short to actually demonstrate, I suppose.

Yes. So really, yeah, the stuff I wrote for Harry’s show, there were a couple of other bits I wrote for that. But that seemed to be the one that kind of explained itself best.

Also, I would have loved to read the pitch document for the fast show, how you actually described it written down in words. I don’t suppose you still got that. That does still exist.

That is… Oh, does it? Yeah, that’s in the archive. And also the actual, you know, the initial pitch document scripts. Oh, right.

Which, again, was hard to do because obviously they’re short sketches and you need to read three or four of them before you get it. So it didn’t fully reflect how the finished series was, but it was an idea. So if anybody wants to see it, they have to go to the University of East Anglia.

Yes. And knock on their door and say, could I look at Charlie Higson’s archive, please? I mean, one day might do some kind of a script book. But it’s interesting, you know, on paper, there’s not much to them.

It’s like one page. But if that’s the page that made everything happen, then it’s of historical significance. Well, yeah, as I say, my archive is there.

So if anyone wants to go and look at it, I think you just arrange in advance what you want to look at. You can go and have a look. Well, we are now at the actual end.

And all that’s left for me to say is Charlie Higson, it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing the contents of your offcuts drawer with us. Well, thank you for having me on.

It’s been a marvellous trip down memory lane. The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Charlie Higson. The offcuts were performed by Beth Chalmers, Shash Hira, Kenny Blyth, Chris Kent, Keith Wickham, Noni Lewis and Nigel Pilkington.

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.

There’s a great thing about being a writer is it doesn’t cost anything to sit down at your computer and write something. And if it’s a novel, that’s it. I mean, obviously, if it’s a script, you then rely on loads of other people and millions of pounds to turn it into something.

But that’s the great joy of being a writer is you don’t always have to wait for somebody to say, oh, here’s some money, go and do some writing. You can write something and hope to sell it later. Hello, I’m Laura Shavin and this is 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 episode is Charlie Higson, who began his creative career in the early 80s as lead singer of a band named The Higsons. He then moved into comedy writing and performance, teaming up with Paul Whitehouse to write for the successful Harry Enfield sketch show before co-creating and performing in the BBC sketch series The Fast Show, which ran from 1994.

Beyond sketch comedy, he worked in television drama, serving as writer, producer and occasional actor on Randall and Hopkirk Deceased in the early 2000s and created the 2015 ITV series Jekyll and Hyde. On the literary side, he authored four novels in the 1990s and he gained wide recognition for writing the first five instalments of the authorised teenage-era James Bond novels, beginning with Silverfin in 2005 and ending with By Royal Command in 2008. He also created the hugely successful post-apocalyptic horror young adult series The Enemy, with seven novels between 2009 and 2015.

In 2018, he wrote a game book for the revived Fighting Fantasy series and returned to the Bond universe in 2023, this time featuring Bond as an adult with On His Majesty’s Secret Service. More recently, he launched the podcast Willy Willy Harry Ste, exploring the history of the British monarchy, with a companion non-fiction book, illustrated by Jim Moyer, also known as Vic Reeves. And at the time of broadcast, he’s on a national tour of An Evening with The Fast Show, which celebrates 30 years since the series started.

With such a busy and diverse career, there was an awful lot to talk about and Charlie’s offcuts and interview contained so much good stuff that rather than try and cram it in and cut it down, I’ve decided to release it as two episodes. And this is the first part, which began with me asking him what project, if any, he was writing on at the moment. Yes, well I am working on another book.

It was commissioned some time ago. It’s already late because my most recent book, my first non-fiction history book, consumed my life and took over my life in a way that I hadn’t quite taken on board the amount of work it takes to do a non-fiction. It’s much easier to just make stuff up and not have to do any research.

It just comes off the top of your head. Although, of course, that does rely on you being able to squeeze things out of your brain. Yes, so the other thing I am working on is a new adult James Bond novel.

Ah, is that the follow on from the 2023 one? Yes, it is. On His Majesty’s Secret Service. Yes, which went down very well and I sort of initially work with the Fleming Estate and we developed an idea for a novel.

And yes, they went out and sold it and that is going to be out kind of September 2026. And I thought I could write it in parallel, in conjunction with doing the history book. I thought, well, you know, I could do fiction in the morning and non-fiction in the afternoon or the other way around.

But the history book was so much work, researching it and structuring it and wrestling it into a narrative that it was just my brain, I was just too exhausted. And it’s much easier, you know, I found I’m 67 now. When I was younger, I could quite easily work on three things at once and just flit about.

And I had the energy for that. I do find that a little bit harder now getting the concentration. And of course, there’s all the other things in life that come in and distract you and things that you have to do.

There’s a great story about James Cameron. The film director. The film director and obviously also screenwriter that he had three scripts to work on when he was a lot younger.

And he basically shut himself away in a hotel when nobody could get to him. And now I think he has himself said he had not necessarily a suitcase full, but quite a lot of drugs to keep him going and room service. And he set up at three separate tables, three different typewriters, and he would hammer away at one script until he could do no more.

Then he would refresh himself and move to the next table and carry on on that one. And by the time he came out of the hotel, he had the Terminator, Rambo and Aliens. No.

Well, I, you know, I think I’ve probably slightly embellished, but he was certainly working on those three things at the same time. And you can do that when you’re young. But, you know, then when he was older, it took him like 20 years or something to write Avatar.

And it was crap. Well, let’s kick off with your first off cut now. Can you tell us, please, what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when it was written? This is Cheese Shop and it’s a comedy script I wrote for Harry Enfield’s spoof history of BBC Two, which was called The Story of the Twos back in 2013.

Interior. Cheese Shop. Day.

Enter a customer. Hello. I wish to register a complete.

Hello, Miss? What do you mean Miss? Mister! I’m sorry. I have a cold. I wish to make a complete.

We’re closing for lunch. Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this cheese, what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

Oh, yes. The Norwegian Blue. What’s wrong with it? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad.

It’s gone off. That’s what’s wrong with it. No, no.

It’s ripe. Look, meaty. I know an off cheese when I see one and I’m looking at one right now.

No, no. It’s not off. It’s ripe.

Remarkable cheese, the Norwegian Blue, isn’t it? Beautiful veining. The veining don’t enter into it. It’s gone off.

No, no, no. It’s perfectly ripe. Mmm.

Smell the aroma. Beautiful aroma. Very pungent.

I’ll give you pungent, sonny. It’s pungentness is virgin on the emetic. He unwraps the cheese and thrusts it in the owner’s face.

He winces, recoils and gags. Oh, delicious. Perfectly ripe.

A good cheese should make you want to gag, sir. It’s a sign of maturity. He throws up in a bucket.

You did more than gag, my good man. You just threw up in a bucket. No, I didn’t.

Yes, you did. I saw you. That was clear in my throat.

That’s a lovely bit of cheese. Oh, now look, mate. I’ve definitely had enough of this.

This cheese is definitely off. And when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its uniquely eye-watering aroma was due to it being fresh out of a cow’s underbelly. Well, the wrapping’s made it sweat a bit, that’s all.

You need to get it on a cheese board. Get it on a cheese board? What kind of talk is that? If I take it out of its wrapping, it’ll run all over the place like a toxic spill. The Norwegian blue is famous for its resemblance to a toxic spill.

Look, I took the liberty of examining this cheese when I got it home. And I can assure you it’s passed its sell-by date. It’s bleeding off.

It’s rank. Rotten to the core. Its metabolic processes are now history.

It is beyond putrid. It is decrepit, atrophied, unsavoury, decomposed, mouldering, high. It smells like the shithouse door on a tuna boat.

It is giving me the wiggins. It is, in short, off. This is an off cheese.

Well, I’d better replace it then. He takes a quick peek behind the counter. Sorry, Squire, I’ve had a look round the back of the shop and we’re right out of cheese.

I see, I see. I get the picture. I got a parrot.

Ha ha ha. So those who are in the comedy know will probably recognise that being an amalgamation of the dead parrot and cheese shop sketches from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Very clever.

Well done. Well, it was fun doing that. It was a fun sort of technical exercise because, you know, the style of Monty Python is so strong.

It is easy. Well, not easy, but it is a fun challenge to kind of write in that. Well, it’s very recognisable.

Yes. And Harry didn’t use it in the end. And in fact, I was going to work on the whole series with him, but something came up and I had to go away and do something else, so I didn’t.

And Harry slightly took the series in a different direction to how we had originally discussed it. It was less sort of parodying. It was a fantastic programme, though.

Yes, it was great. There was a lot of really good stuff in it. There was some nasty stuff on there.

I loved it. Some really cutting, evil stuff. But you wouldn’t work on that in the end because you were doing something else? Yes.

And it was always a problem because, you know, I worked a lot with Harry in his first TV sketch show. And then we parted company because we both had quite strong personalities and we would often pull in different directions. And Harry just thought in the end, well, this is my show, so I’m in charge.

Charlie can go and do something else. Ah. But Paul, you see, Paul is very good.

In writing partnerships, it’s like a marriage. You both have to bring something different to it. There’s no point you both being the same and being able to do the same thing.

And in a writing partnership, you tend to have one of the pair who kind of wanders around the room throwing out ideas and going into routines and just doing crazy stuff. And then the other is the one who sits at the computer or typewriter, as it used to be, kind of writing it down and structuring it and thinking, how do I make that into a sketch? Oh, I use that bit and put it with that. And so you have the sort of, it’s the left hand and the right hand of the piano.

So the left hand is sort of doing all the structure and the right hand is doing all the fancy stuff. So which one are you? I am very much left hand. I mean, obviously, you’re both coming up with funny ideas.

But I tend to be the one who always was at the computer. Is that with both of them? Is that with Paul and Harry? Well, that’s the thing is Paul is very much right hand. And when he’s with Harry, Harry is left hand and he’s right hand.

So Harry is the one who’s sort of scratching his head and worrying about things. And Paul is just saying, no, this is funny, let’s do this, let’s do that. So there was, once there were three of us, there were two left handers and one right hand.

If I’d been right hand, would have been different because I could have just been throwing out ideas and not worrying about anything else. But I tend to sort of get in and worry about stuff. Now, in public recognition terms, you’re probably most well known for the TV sketch show, The Fast Show as a writer and a performer.

Now, apart from enjoying the huge success running on and off for like 20 years or so, including specials, the show is notable for being different from sketch shows that went before in that an episode would have a lot more sketches, which would be much shorter than the norm. And a lot of the comedy came down to recognise characters and their punchlines. How did that format come about? Was it a deliberate decision? It was, yes, because there were several factors.

One is that Paul and I, Paul Whitehouse and myself, had been working on a Harry’s sketch show at the Harry Enfield television programme. And the first stuff we’d written with Harry was character stuff, doing Stub Ross, and then we all created loads of money together. And we both, Paul and I both really loved character comedy.

That was, you know, probably our favourite type of TV comedy. And we’d grown up on things like Dick Emery, Benny Hill, Monty Python. Although Monty Python, well, they did have some recurring characters.

And I guess it sort of goes back to the British musical tradition of people creating your stage persona and having your character. So we loved doing that. So we did that with Harry.

But we didn’t want to be stuck as Harry Enfield’s writers forever. We wanted to do our own stuff. But we knew if we were going to do another character-based sketch show, it couldn’t be exactly the same as Harry’s.

But that would be our template, because Harry had the same influences that we did. So we were always looking for a way… Because we collected material, which for one reason or another wasn’t right for Harry. Either there was a thing that Paul could do, but there was no role for Harry, or he just didn’t think it was funny.

So we collected quite a lot of material, and we were thinking, well, how do we do this? We wanted it to be a team show, not just a star pairing as Harry and Paul had done. And the producer, absolutely brilliant comedy producer, the best around, Geoffrey Perkins, who we’d worked with on Harry’s show and on Saturday Night Live, for the launch, I think, of the second series of Harry’s sketch show, he cut together a sort of highlights reel to show off the new characters and some of the highlights. And Paul and I said to him, oh, no, you need to show whole sketches or a whole episode, because the characters won’t work if you’re just showing one or two lines.

And he said, no, no, it works really well, actually. You’d be surprised. And he showed it, and Paul and I watching it, we simultaneously had a lightbulb moment and said, what if we tried to do a whole show like this that was just the highlights, just do the funny stuff and cut out all the rest? Because, you know, there’d been shows like The Two Ronnies, very funny and enormously popular, but some of their sketches were, like, eight minutes long.

And it was that old-school writing thing where it was building up towards a punchline. But obviously you have fun along the way, and you’re laboriously grinding towards the payoff, and you’re usually there a couple of minutes before the sketch ends, and you’re just waiting for them to catch up with you. So we thought, no, let’s keep things short.

Let’s just have the characters come on and do what it is that makes them funny. And actually, if you keep it short enough, the sort of sketch is its own punchline, as it were. You don’t have to build up towards the… That’s what the joke is.

You’re just enjoying being with the characters and what they’re doing. Yeah, obviously you need to know when things end, but if you keep it short enough, I mean, like, Mark Williams had the character Jesse, who comes out of a shed and says, This week I have been mostly eating terramacillata, and goes back in the shed. As I say, it’s kind of the essence of a joke distilled to absolutely, well, nothing, really.

So the character coming out is the punchline, in a way. So we thought, yeah, if you keep it quick and keep it light on its feet, you can move on quickly and people won’t get bored. And also, you know, the first series went out in 94.

This was, by then, videos were popular and home taping people were doing. DVDs were coming out on the market. And we realised that people were consuming television differently.

You were able to go back and look at it again. You know, when Paul and I were growing up, you’d see a Monty Python episode and you’d try and remember it so that you could do it the next day at school because it might be another year before you saw it again, if ever. You couldn’t guarantee things would be repeated.

But we realised by the 90s that people could watch things over and over again, and people were. And our kind of imaginary audience was a band on a touring bus. And the show was very popular with musicians who, after a gig, they say, I’ll put some of the fast show on.

And it’s short and fast and you’re not overstaying your welcome and you can watch things over and over again because you’re not explaining everything all in one hit. Sometimes you might watch a character three or four times before you sort of twig. All right, OK, that’s what this is all about.

So it was designed for repeat viewing. It was almost as if we anticipated YouTube. But, you know, it’s very popular on there because that’s sort of how it was designed.

And also, digital editing was coming in. When we did the first series, we started on tape and then moved over to digital. And with digital editing, you can deal with lots of small bits and pieces much easier and move things around because we’d be shuffling sketches over a whole six, seven, eight episode series and thinking, well, that sketch goes well with that.

We’ve got too much of this performer here or this character’s too much. We need to move that there. But that means we’ve got to move that.

With digital, you can do all that. It’s really easy. With tape, it was a nightmare.

So it was technology. It was the way viewing habits were changing and it was a desire to do something different to Harry’s. Right.

Well, time for another Offcut now. Tell us about this one. Right.

This is The Frost Child, which is a short story that I started in, I think about 1988, and I haven’t quite finished it yet. It wasn’t snowing. It hadn’t snowed at all this winter, but the frost and the whiteness of the fog reminded him of Courchevel, the Alps coated in white.

Nearly a year ago it was now, and still vivid. It would always be vivid, whenever it was cold, whenever it snowed, whenever they showed skiing on the TV, he’d remember. Of course, he’d never actually go skiing again himself, the thing he’d loved doing most in the world.

He could picture Amy now, the person he’d loved above all else. Yes, he had to accept that. Loved more than Kate.

He’d tried not to think about Amy for the whole journey, but the fog ahead was like a blank page, and her picture kept drawing itself across it. There wasn’t anything else to look at. He sees her now, how she was, standing in the cottage door, the wreath still up from Christmas.

She likes it so much she’s begged them not to take it down, though it’s looking rather tatty. She’s wrapped up against the cold and wearing the new bobble-hat that Kate gave her for Christmas, and she looks utterly, utterly miserable. Please don’t go, Daddy.

Do you have to go? Yes, Amy dear, we’ve told you. You’re a big girl now. It’ll be fun for you, an adventure, having the run of the cottage.

I don’t want to run round the cottage. I don’t want to be alone. Yes, well, you won’t be alone, will you, darling? Kate says briskly.

Claudia will be here. You’re too young to come skiing. It’ll be dangerous for you.

We’ll be back before you know it. And once again, Kate goes over the instructions with Claudia. If it weren’t for Claudia, they wouldn’t be going at all.

The last girl they had had been completely hopeless, more work than if they hadn’t had a nanny at all. But Claudia’s great, totally confident and competent. But she looks so young, almost a child herself, so small.

But competent. She’s a treasure. Phil shivered.

It had been on this road that it had happened. No, no, that wasn’t right. Claudia wouldn’t have come this way.

The hospital was the other way, wasn’t it, up through the woods and over the ridge? Stop it. You know you must never think about that. You can’t change what happened to Amy.

But it was impossible. Her thin, sweet voice, her face. They’re everywhere.

As they get into the car that time, that last time, Amy runs down and presses her face against the window. Can’t you take me with you? No, Kate snaps. Now you’ve been told, so just behave yourself.

Amy opens her mouth wide and screws her eyes shut and begins to wail. Phil winds the window down and tries to touch her, but she pulls away. No, she shrieks, you don’t love me.

Phil feels like he’s been kicked in the gut. But Kate just laughs. Don’t be a silly, she says.

And Amy, embarrassed, looks at her feet. Now Claudia comes over and gently but firmly leads Amy back to the cottage. Why can’t she understand that she can’t come, Kate says as they drive off.

Phil says nothing, because the thing is, he can’t understand either. This was unfinished, you said. Yeah, that was like a Sunday afternoon with Radio 4 on, sitting by the fire in December.

Yes, well, it was finished, but I never liked the original ending. Oh, what was the original ending? Well, in the original ending, I mean, you could tell from that reading, you know, it’s about a husband and wife who’ve lost a child. And you can tell from that reading that the wife appears to be unsympathetic.

And in the original end of the story, she was. But, and I’m still working it, because I want her to actually, that all the time she has known more and has been trying to protect her husband. Oh, so this is really still ongoing, you weren’t being flippant? Yes, yes.

And that’s why I haven’t published it. I mean, I wrote it. My wife’s family have a little cottage down in Wales, and we went down there, pre-kids, for New Year’s Eve with a bunch of friends.

And somebody said, oh, Charlie, why don’t you write some kind of spooky story that you can read out? Because it’s quite a spooky, isolated cottage. So I did, I wrote this story quite quickly. This was in 1988? It was around about that time, yes.

But I wrote it on an old Amstrad, so I can’t, I thought I’d lost the story, but my archive went to my old university, UEA, and it turned up in a bunch of old papers. And they said, oh, we found this. What is it? I thought, amazing.

So I’ve been working on it since. And yeah, the story went down very well, but I thought I could do a better and more interesting ending. The thing is, it’s still a story rather than, say, a novel.

Yes, yes, it’s a short story. I mean, you know, it could be adapted into a sort of one of those BBC ghost story for Christmas type things, because it is a ghost story. I mean, the other thing, actually, when I reread it again, because the central conceit in it is that there was this fairy tale that the wife read as a child called The Frost Child, which is about a sort of evil kid that if it touches you, it turns you to ice.

And of course, since writing the story, Frozen has become a big thing. And I’m reading it, I’m thinking, oh my God, actually, this is the same story as Frozen. I need to change that or at least have the characters acknowledge, well, that’s a bit like Frozen.

So yeah, there’s a few things to sort out, but I return to it now and then and kind of tinker with it because it has got a nice atmosphere and it is quite, quite spooky. Well, this is the earliest piece of writing you gave me. So tell me about your childhood.

Where did you grow up? Did you come from a creative family? Where’s all this writing-y, acting-y stuff come from? I had a very ordinary sort of home counties upbringing. I was born in Somerset, but then I grew up in first Sussex, near Crawley, and then in Kent down near Sevenoaks. My father was an accountant who then became a management consultant, classic commuter.

He would set off in the morning with his bowler hat. Did he have a bowler hat? Yeah, he did to start with, yes. I was born in 58, so yeah, in the late 60s into the 70s and then he stopped wearing it, but yeah.

My mother was, she did a bit of teaching, I guess what today would be called special needs. She’d go into schools and spend time with the kids who were special needs, as I say, that’s what they’re called now. She also did a bit of amateur dramatics, which was the closest we came to doing anything creative really.

But not writing? No writers? No, no, nothing. No. The best advice my father ever gave me, when I was 16, he said, look, you obviously enjoy writing and you’re a good writer, because I’d been writing stuff since I was 10, little books and things.

You know, if I read a book I liked, I’d write stories in that vein and draw little drawings and things. And yeah, I was writing sort of fantasy novels when I was a teenager. And he said, look, obviously you’re good at writing, you obviously enjoy it.

It’s a fantastic thing to do. You can do it all your life, doesn’t cost you anything. But whatever you do, make sure you get yourself a proper job, because you will never make any money as a writer.

And the reason that was such good advice is because I was 16, I completely ignored everything that my father said to me. And I did the opposite of what he said. And I’ve never had a proper job.

And I’ve been lucky enough, and I appreciate that I am very lucky, to have been able to make a living as a writer. You know, making things up, people pay me to do it. Did you always want to be a writer? I always enjoyed writing.

I mean, but, you know, as we were saying, I didn’t know any writers. It wasn’t anything… It wasn’t a tangible goal. Yeah, and certainly, you know, TV, I wouldn’t have dreamt of going on TV.

This was before media studies or anything like that. These felt like things that other people did. But I carried on doing it.

I carried on writing novels. And then when I went to university, I wrote a couple of sort of student novels, should we say. This was the sort of heyday of postmodernism.

So unreadable novels. But I was using, you know, I was quite interested in people like William Burroughs, who would use genre elements in a sort of cut up way. So there’d be bits of sort of Western fiction or pirate fiction or science fiction in his books, all kind of jumbled up together.

And I’d been doing stuff like that. What did young Charles dream of being when he grew up? Well, my sort of fantasy thing was I thought I would really love to make films. So creative.

You didn’t want to be a train driver or an astronaut? I always knew I was going to do something. No, no, no. It was always going to be creative.

I loved art as well. So I thought I might be a painter. I might be a writer.

I would love to make films. But again, I didn’t know a way of doing that. But then at university, I carried on writing.

So I was comfortable writing. I enjoyed writing. And I met Paul Whitehouse in Norwich University in 77.

And this was pre-alternative comedy. So you wouldn’t have dreamed of going on stage doing comedy, but you would form a band. So we formed a punk band together.

So then I really got into music. That’s the other thing I’d really liked doing was music and playing the piano and stuff. So I always knew I would do something creative.

Well, appropriately now, tell us about your next offcut. This is a pitch document that I knocked up quite quickly in 2016 and it’s called Ghosts of Dead Rockstars. A hugely popular and successful rock star is backstage getting ready for a monster comeback gig at the O2.

It’s not going well, however. He’s wasted, edgy, arrogant, insecure and losing it fast. He rows with his band, who seem to hate him.

He rows with his gorgeous girlfriend over his infidelities. He rows with his long-term and long-suffering manager. He even rows with his chef and the guy selling merch.

In short, he’s a mess and the gig is shaping up to be a disaster. In the end, he locks himself in his dressing room and refuses to talk to anyone. Things have taken their toll.

Years of constant touring, late nights, a rootless existence, losing touch with family and friends, alcohol and drug abuse, meaningless sex with groupies, more money than he knows how to spend have left him disillusioned and wrung out. He has lost his mojo, completely disillusioned with not just his own music, but all music. Nothing seems to matter to him anymore.

His dark night of the soul now takes a turn for the worse. He swallows a gut full of sleeping pills and whisky. In his semi-comatose state, he imagines, or perhaps it’s for real, that he’s visited by the ghosts of several dead rock stars.

The likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Louis Armstrong, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Billie Holiday, Cass Elliot, Mark Bolan, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Keith Moon, there are so many possibilities. Just like the ghosts in A Christmas Carol or the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life and the heavenly spirit guide in A Matter of Life and Death, he’s taken on a tour. He has shown how his music has touched people’s lives, how important it has been for them.

The young girl brought out of a coma in hospital. All the couples brought together and starting families. Depressed, suicidal teenagers who his music gave hope to.

He’s shown his past, his early days, playing in tiny clubs when he was so excited about music. He’s shown the present, the fans in the auditorium waiting in intense anticipation for the gig. His fellow bandmates, yes, they moan about him and give him a hard time, but it’s clear they do actually love and respect him and wouldn’t be here at the O2 without him.

He’s also shown the future, all that he might achieve, coming to terms with his demons and settling down and starting a family of his own. The dead musicians also talk about their own lives, those that died young, for instance, lament what might have been, all they might have achieved, how none of them really meant to end it all. Some of the ghosts will be funny, some moving, some inspirational.

Jimi Hendrix, for instance, could keep banging on about the ridiculously pompous rock opera he was planning to write. And it’s a great opportunity for some fun cameos.

This was a pitch for a TV series, that’s that right? No, it was for a film. It was for a film, right. It sounds very much like a cross between It’s A Wonderful Life and Channel 4 Star Stories.

How far did it get? Yes, it didn’t get very far at all. I put it together quite quickly because a friend of mine, who I also met at university, Dave Cummings, who was in the band with me and Paul and ended up as a commotion with Lloyd Cole and as part of Del Amitri. And somebody had mentioned to him that someone was wanting to do some kind of music-based, rock-based project, and we have any ideas.

So I sort of came up with that. And the idea was if they bit that Dave and I would write it together. And they said, oh, no, that’s not what we’re looking for.

And I didn’t do any much with it because I was doing other stuff. Well, you know, listening to it there, it does sound like a really good idea, actually. It is, yes.

And a way of looking at music. Because, you know, I was in, well, two bands when I was younger, and I was a singer, professional singer for six years. And, you know, I probably know more people in the music, who make music than who do comedy, you know, right up to good friends with Paul McCartney’s musical director.

So I have a lot of contacts with that world and sort of thought it could be a really good idea. And, you know, it sort of touches on the idea of the 27 Club, you know, that so many musicians apparently died when they were 27. But actually, it’s a tiny fraction.

But, you know, if you just concentrate on them, it looks like that’s when they all died, which is why I put in people like Louis Armstrong, I think. Also, it was quite a lot of fun. And I thought it was a different way of, you know, looking at how important music is for people.

I mean, this was quite interesting digging out all this stuff for this podcast. I mean, what I sent you is a fraction of what I got over the years. You throw stuff out there.

Some of it you paid for, some of it you just develop yourself and you see what sticks and something else. At the time, I got commissioned to do something else. So that ended up in the bottom drawer, as it’s called.

But going through it all again, I’m thinking, oh, that’s actually quite good. Maybe I should try and do some more. Yes, I think you should.

I mean, you’ve now got a fair amount of heft behind you. You should be able to generate. You can imagine being a big Christmas special film or Netflix or Amazon, you know, a big production.

I definitely can see that. I was very surprised that that didn’t get anywhere. But if you are busy doing other things, that makes sense, I suppose.

So you were in a band, you were in two bands and when you say you were a professional singer for six years, was that when you were in a band or you were a professional singer anyway? Yes, yes. No, no, no. So the first band was a student punk band with Paul and Dave called The Right Hand Lovers.

And in true punk style, we burned brightly and burnt ourselves out. Within a year, we’d come and gone. So then I formed another band because Paul, other than Dave, everyone else in the band was kicked out of university.

So then I started another band with a fresh intake of students, which ended up being called The Higgsons. And that I carried on doing after university for six years. And why did it all end, the band thing? Many factors.

One was that the bass player and I started doing decorating when we weren’t on tour as a way to actually make some money. You did decorating with Paul Whitehouse? Well, that was later on. First of all, it was with Colin Williams, the bass player, because we didn’t make any money in the band.

When we were on tour, it was fine because we’d be given free sandwiches and beer. But between touring, there was no income. So we started doing decorating and we were pretty good at it.

We worked well together. And we were living in London by this point and, you know, there is no shortage of houses to decorate in London. And we realised that the band was getting in the way of our decorating.

So we thought, well, if we stick to just the decorating, then we make quite a good living, which we did. But also, you know, I’d been doing it for six years. I was feeling I was starting to get too old for it.

And really, in my heart of hearts, well, not in my heart of hearts, I knew, I completely knew that I was not cut out to be a rock star, to take it to the next level. To do that, a lead singer has to believe in themselves as being God, as being a messiah. You’ve got to go out on stage at a stadium and stick your hands in the air and put them together and expect 10,000 people to clap along with you.

It requires a certain level of ego and self-belief and belief in what you’re doing there. And you do have to behave as, I am a rock star. And I could never do that.

We always had too much sort of self-deprecating humour. So we were great at a club level and at the sort of medium-sized venues. But I knew that really, I didn’t have what it took to take it to the next level.

Because this was, by now, we’re in the sort of second half of the 80s, and music was changing. Most of the places that we hit, the small music venues we’ve been able to play at, were all stopping having live bands and just going over to DJs. And some of the bands who’d been doing stuff like we had did manage to kind of reinvent themselves as club bands, like someone like The Farm, for instance.

And we thought, do we want to do that? And I thought, actually, you know what, I don’t think I really want to be doing this for the rest of my life. It’s not, whilst I’ve had a great time doing it, I thought, I’ve had enough of it now. I want to do other things, and particularly writing.

So yeah, we became full-time decorators. And then Paul and I started writing together. Okay, let’s move on to the next offcut now.

Can you tell us about this one, please? All right. This is King Bullet, which is a film script from 2001. You should have left me.

I was going to, but right now you’re all I’ve got. Me, and a bag full of money. What did Tom have all that money in the house for, anyway? Your birthday present.

How do you mean? He was buying you a painting, off the Russians. An icon? Yeah. Tom was doing that for me? Yeah.

Look, I’m sorry to fuck up your birthday party like that. It was nothing personal. I can’t believe he was buying me an icon.

We saw some on holiday. I told him I thought they were beautiful. He remembered.

Rublev smuggled it out of Russia. Jesus, Danny, you haven’t got a chance. He’s just a man.

An old man. He’s past it. Being young’s not so fantastic.

Yeah, but don’t you ever think about it? What it used to be like? Don’t you ever think about, you know, a young man’s body? A young man’s stamina? You haven’t got a chance. I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t have run.

Maybe we should have stayed to fight. He doesn’t frighten me. He frightens me.

Still now, after 30 years. Sometimes he can look at you and he knows. Is that why you’ve stayed with him? Because you’re frightened of what he’d do if you left? I’ve stayed with him because I love him.

And in his way, he loves me. You’re sure of that, are you? Long time ago, I found out he’d been cheating on me. A German girl singer, Annalise.

He had a kid by her and everything. Well, I hit the roof, didn’t I? We’d not been married long and it looked like it was all over, but he promised me he was finished with her and she didn’t mean nothing to him. Said he’d never see her again.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. And he proved it. He used to have a boat.

Big motor launch, you know. He and the lads used to stock up with beer and that and go out fishing. One day, they all went out with Annalise.

And when they came back, she wasn’t with them. Jesus. When Tom fixes something, he fixes it.

Like our Paula’s husband. Paula? Our daughter. She married a guy called Antonio.

Best looking bloke you ever saw. Well, one day, same old story, Tom finds out he’s been playing away from home. He burned his face off with a blowtorch.

Father of our grandchildren. Didn’t kill him, but I guess Antonio couldn’t live with it. After three months in hospital, he jumped off the roof.

Like I said, Danny, you haven’t got a chance. That’s a cheery little story, isn’t it? Yes. Tell us about this story.

It’s quite violent. Yeah, it is. It’s a British gangster story.

I mainly wrote it because I had a new computer and new software. Final draft or something? Well, possibly final draft. I can’t remember when that kind of launched.

And I wanted to practise writing a full length script. And I had an idea for a story. This was sort of, I guess the 90s had been the heyday for the sort of British gangster movie.

So I thought I’d have a go at writing something in that style. And I’m not sure I ever showed it to anyone, actually, when I’d finished it. I can’t remember.

So it was mainly, as I say, it was a technical exercise. Did you read through it this time before you sent it to me? No, I read a bit of it just to check that it wasn’t complete rubbish. Yeah, it’d be interesting to go back and revisit it.

But yeah, it’s about an ageing British gangster. And in my mind at the time, I was thinking of Michael Caine, who’s living in a proper gangster’s mansion in Essex with his younger wife. She’s not like a 20 year old, but she’s younger than him.

And this guy comes in and robs him and takes his wife hostage. And that’s the two that are speaking in the car and they kind of, they end up falling in love and the main man comes after them. And yeah, there’s a lot of violence and killing and shooting.

I wrote, in the early 90s, I wrote four crime novels. I was a big fan, well, still am a big fan of American kind of hard-boiled crime writing, but also the pulp writers, really interesting writers of the 50s, 60s and 70s, people like Jim Thompson, who is my all time favourite writer. And I’ve always liked trying to write that sort of thing that’s a bit sort of twisted at its core.

Right. And that’s what this was. This was a film version of something like that, you’d say? Yeah, it was a bit of the sort of pulp fiction type of writing, a bit of the British gangster fiction.

I think probably by the time I’d finished it, there was a feeling like we’d had enough of British gangster films, and nobody was going to be that interested in making another one. But I always keep thinking, well, when I’ve got time, I’ll go back and look at these and see which ones to develop. Right.

This one never had an audience until now. Yeah, no, I mean, well, I think I showed it to Mark Mylod, who we worked with on The Fast Show and ended up directing it. And then I worked with him, made a series of Randall and Hopkirk Deceased with Vic and Bob.

And Mark then went off to Hollywood and he now does things like Game of Thrones. He was the lead director on Succession and he’s now overdoing the new Harry Potter TV series. So I think I showed it to him and he found some of the bits of it funny, but I think he would have preferred if I’d written a comedy.

I mean, there is elements of comedy in it, but then it sort of turns serious. So I like that juxtaposition of something’s quite funny and then it turns really dark. Now, you’d recently finished or had a break from The Fast Show at this point.

It’s difficult for me to have a timeline, like you say, you do a lot of things at the same time. So it’s difficult to know what you were actually working on because the dates that I can have access to are publication dates or broadcast dates. So I don’t know what you were actually doing.

But I think you were also working on other TV projects, but none of them were comedy, or at least not sort of pure comedy, sketch comedy like The Fast Show. Were you kind of comedied out at that point? Did you have enough of that format? Well, writing sketch shows is, it burns through a huge amount of material, particularly on The Fast Show where we’re trying to keep things as short as possible. So you’re having to write, you know, 30 mini dramas, an episode, and it’s got to be funny, and the characters have got to work, and there’s got to be a point to it.

And it’s quite tiring. So inevitably, you kind of think, well, I’d like to do something a bit different to comedy, you know, use a different part of the brain and flex some other muscles. And that can make it easier for you to then go back and write more sketch comedy.

So, you know, there are two things I’d always wanted to do. One was, I loved growing up in the 60s, I loved all those fantastical TV shows that people used to make at the time. Things like The Prisoner, The Avengers, The Champions, Adam Adamant.

There were loads of them. And these were big mainstream shows, a lot of them made by ITV. And that’s what people loved watching.

And of course, there was all the American stuff coming in, Star Trek and whatever. And that’s what I really loved, that sort of slightly fantastical TV drama, which it stopped in the 70s. It was killed by kitchen sink drama.

And everything started to be, it was all about gritty, gritty realism, which is fine. But it meant that everything was judged on how realistic it was. And we stopped making those shows.

We still kept in port and all the American ones, which were very popular. But if you tried to do anything like that in British TV, people would say, well, this is for kids, isn’t it? It’s fantasy. So it died out.

So when I had the opportunity to do a remake of Randal Hotkirk Deceased, which was another of those ATV shows from the 60s, 70s, I thought, brilliant, that would be a lot of fun to do. And everybody, you know, that we got involved in it thought the same. We had a fantastic lineup of actors and designer, cinematographer, whatever, because they said, we never get a chance to do this sort of thing.

This is so much fun. But inevitably, it goes out. People said, isn’t this a kid’s thing? One of them’s a ghost.

So people didn’t get it. So I was quite pleased, actually, that well, I mean, you know, it’s interesting because the first episode got 10 and a half million viewers, which is pretty phenomenal. But unfortunately, it kind of dropped from week to week over the two series.

And we ended up around about kind of four million. So that trajectory was going in the wrong direction. Perhaps if we’d pushed through and been able to get a third series, we might have been able to reverse a trend.

But it didn’t happen. But then not long after that, Russell Davis rebooted Doctor Who and managed to do, you know, to bring back a sense of fun and fantasy and science fiction. But what he was really clever at doing was mixing fantasy and rooting that in solid family drama with Billy Piper and her family and all that sort of story.

And he was really clever about that. But what I found very gratifying is that a lot of people who I’d worked with on Randall Hotkirk ended up working on that. So Murray Gold, who did the music for us, did the music for Doctor Who.

David Tennant, who had starred in our first episode, ended up as Doctor Who. Writers like Gareth Roberts went on from there. Mark Gatiss from The League of Gentlemen had worked on Randall Hotkirk.

So, you know, I was thinking, well, well, Russell is coming really from the same sort of place as I am and hats off to him for making it successful. And it did change the TV landscape. Well, it didn’t, it didn’t.

I thought, great, now we’ll be having more fantasy shows and maybe some stuff for adults, but it didn’t happen. It was, no, we can do that in Doctor Who because that’s a special thing, but don’t try and do it anywhere else. But I mean, but through the, I suppose, I suppose Charlie Booker with Black Mirror has done something much more interesting.

But it’s really through the streamers that now they are less focused on kitchen sink dramas. Very much less and very much more focused on fantasy. But you look at, you know, you look at drama on TV, it’s, I mean, there’s some great stuff, but it’s, you know, it’s cop shows, it’s doctors, it’s missing children.

Oh, well, time for another off cut now. What have we got? Right. This is a pilot TV script that I developed in 2018 for a series about the young Winston Churchill.

Maudie. And what do I call you? My father is, well… At school, they used to call me Copperknob. My hair? Oh, right.

So come on then, Copperknob. What do you want? What does any young man want? I can tell you that in one sentence. A man wants three things.

He wants money, he wants excitement, and he wants to make his mark. To be someone. That’s a longer sentence than mine was going to be.

Maudie leans in on him, but Winston breaks away and circles the room, reciting verse in mock heroic style. And then out spoke brave Horatius, the captain of the gate. To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late, and how can man die better than facing fearful odds for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods? Winston? Winston! Still in his shirt and tie.

Come along, Cinderella. It’s way past midnight. If we don’t look lively, the milk train will leave without us and we’ll be missed at barracks.

Don’t want you done for dereliction of duty, do we? Oh lord, I lost all track of time. I’m not quite sure of the etiquette. Dylan reaches for his wallet and nods to Winston to get a move on.

As Winston ducks back through the door, Maudie comes out still fully clothed. Dylan slips her some money. She looks at it ruefully before folding it up.

I’m not sure I earned that. All he did was talk about himself all night. Then you indulged him in his favourite pastime.

Winston comes back out, putting on his jacket. I’ll be seeing you then, copper knob. Yes, good morning to you.

Dylan is intrigued by this little exchange. Dad, this seems like an excellent idea. How come this didn’t get snapped up instantly? Well, well, it’s a tricky one.

I worked on this for a long time with a fantastic production company with proper backing. And yeah, I worked out, I wrote a pilot and worked out a whole series. And it is the young life of young Winston.

And the thing that really, I thought, actually, yeah, this could be interesting is they showed me this fantastic photograph of him. This was when he was at Sandringham, I think, training to be an officer. And there’s a photograph of him in his uniform.

And he must be about 20. And, you know, he’s young and handsome and dashing. And I thought, we never really see this side of Winston.

We forget, you know, he was a young man. He was a Victorian man. And, you know, we only think of him as he was really in the Second World War.

And I thought, well, that’s fascinating to try and show that side of him. And I mean, at that instant in the scene, that’s based on something that actually happened. That he and the officers came down to London and got drunk in a theatre and had a sort of mini sort of riot.

But also then he went off and he was a war correspondent in Cuba. There was a Cuban War of Independence broke out. And just thought, well, you know, this is really interesting to look at, you know, the makings of the man.

Unfortunately, I think there were two reasons. One, in the original way that I developed the series, I tried to put too much in. It would have been way too expensive because it followed him from there through to being out in India and fighting in the northwest frontier.

And in actual fact, towards the end, before we stopped working on it, we were scaling it back and it was just going to be about his time in Cuba, which is what I should have done in the first place. So that was one problem is I think it put people off the scope. And the other thing was the fact that it is Winston Churchill, because people are very much reassessing him.

And young people certainly don’t want anything to do with him. So you have he’s quite a divisive figure. On one hand, you have sort of certain members of society in the establishment to saying, you know, Churchill was a great, great man who saved us from Hitler.

And then you’ve got and it’s often younger people saying, well, no, actually, he was a terrible man. He was involved in exacerbating the famine in India. And he said some quite racist things.

So it’s kind of like, I mean, the interesting thing about this was this was trying to show him before all that when he was just a young man finding his way in the world. But I think a lot of people thought, I don’t know. I want to keep away.

It’s a touchy subject. But surely that would mean that anything set in, you know, more than sort of 60, 70 years ago, if it’s historically in any way accurate, is going to feature people who would have insulted the sensibilities of people today. Surely there’s a kind of understanding.

Maybe you don’t put those bits of dialogue in. Yeah, but it’s a tricky one because I think it was he’s controversial and he splits so many people that, yeah, you could A, you could see that as, well, this would be a really interesting thing to explore. Or B, you could say, no, it’s too controversial.

We’re going to get into a lot of hot water on this from both sides of the camp because the sort of traditionists will say, well, you can’t be showing Churchill doing this. This is terrible. And then the other side is saying, well, you’re whitewashing him or whatever.

So I don’t know if, again, if other things hadn’t taken over, we might have been able to pursue it more. But we sort of felt we’d gone about as far as we could with it. And yes, I wish actually from the start I’d scaled it back and just concentrated on what he was doing in Cuba.

And you couldn’t do that. I mean, I know you’re busy right now, but you could do. Yeah.

I mean, if someone else would be interested in a series of Winston Churchill, then I’ve got all you need. You have to choose, you know, which thing am I going to push now? And as I say, as I’ve got older, I can’t, I found I can’t work on so many things at once. And, you know, you have to go with where you get a sense of what Netflix are looking for.

The likes of Netflix, well, I’d use them as example of a streamer. They’re not really looking for a series about young Winston Churchill. They want a series about the prime minister’s husband being taken hostage.

But history is your thing, though. I mean, you have, well, you’ve got a history podcast called Willie Willie Harry Stee. Yes.

Based on the mnemonic rhyme for remembering kings and queens of England that I was taught at school. Did you learn it? Yeah. Willie Willie Harry Stee.

Oh, no, how embarrassing. Harry Dick John Harry Three. Oh, I did know it now I’ve forgotten.

That’s great because I mean, so many people didn’t. So it’s nice when you meet someone who did. Even though she can’t remember a single word beyond stee.

Never mind. So, yes, obviously, that’s why you called it that. And of course, you’ve got your book coming out, which is also based on that.

Does it cover the whole of British monarchy from the first Willie of the Willie Willie Harry Stee? Yeah, it’s pretty much a history of England over the last thousand years from 1066 onwards. Yeah, it’s a narrative history about this extraordinary dysfunctional family. And it’s a family saga.

You can follow it from one generation to the next, from William all the way down to King Charles III. It’s the same family. I mean, it takes some mad detours and it gets a bit tangled up here and there.

But but it’s amazing that you can follow that. And it’s a great way of using that story as as a lens through which to to to look at our history in a way to it’s a washing line to hang it all on. And so many people know little bits of English history and they’re not quite sure how it fits together and how one monarch is related to another.

So it’s really for those people who know a bit and want to know a bit more. And the podcast is an episode or two per king, queen? Yes. Yes, that was the idea.

I thought it’s a great would lend itself to a great narrative podcast. And then once I had got to Charles, I’ve gone back and I’m I’m going over the same story again, but looking at other people along the way. Now, in my Facebook feed, I often get adverts for you and Vic Reeves or Jim Moyer doing live shows based on this.

Is it based on the same thing, the same Willie Willie Harry Stee? Yeah, Jim has done the illustrations for the book. So, yeah, we’ve done we’ve done a couple of events together. We’re hoping to do some more.

But it felt like, you know, because Jim and I worked together a lot back in the late 80s and through the 90s, I worked on a lot of Jim and Bob’s comedy shows and what we did live stuff with them before they were on the TV. And there was a lot of crossover between what they were doing and what Paul and I were doing. Paul obviously playing one of Slade on their show.

And Bob actually wrote quite a lot for The Fast Show as well. Oh, did he? So, yeah, he wrote all the filthy lines for Swiss Tony. And so it felt right that because they’ve left us and have buggered off our partners, Jim and I, our partners have gone fishing together.

Oh, yes, of course. I had to put those two together. Yeah, that Jim and I should work on our own project.

Yeah, stuff them. And there we leave it for part one. Listen to the next episode to hear the rest of my interview with Charlie and some more offcuts that include a horror version of Beauty and the Beast, a potential Indian James Bond and a Doctor Who episode that delves into the murky world of alternative computer games.

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Charlie Higson. The offcuts were performed by Shash Hira, Kenny Blyth, Christopher Kent, Keith Wickham, Emma Clarke, Noni Lewis and Nigel Pilkington. And the music was by me.

For more details about this episode, visit offcutstraw.com and please do subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.

Tony Jay and I didn’t agree on anything politically, and I didn’t want people to think that the Yes Minister was a Tory programme, which it wasn’t, because we both implicitly had a right of veto. We never discussed it, but if I didn’t like something that Tony wrote, I could change it. If Tony didn’t like something I wrote, we’d change it.

We’d find a way through. And in those days, unlike more recently, it was really possible for people with opposing political views to still be friends. That’s less probable today.

Hello, I’m Laura Shavin, and this is 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. This episode, my guest is Jonathan Lynn, a writer, director, and actor whose career spans television, film, stage, and books.

He first came to prominence in the Cambridge Footlights, performing alongside contemporaries that included John Cleese and Graham Chapman, and on television, he acted in series including Doctor in the House, The Liverbirds, The Good Life, and the Jack Rosenthal plays Burmits for Boy and The Knowledge. As a writer, he penned episodes for the Doctor series, for sitcom On the Buses, and for comedian Harry Worth, but he is best known for co-creating and co-writing the acclaimed political satires Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, awards for which are too numerous to list here. He later co-authored companion books The Complete Yes Minister and The Complete Yes Prime Minister, which spent 106 weeks in the Sunday Times Best Selling Top Ten list.

His career in film includes writing the screenplays for The Internecine Project, Clue, and Nuns on the Run, also directing the latter two, as well as directing other films that include My Cousin Vinny, The Distinguished Gentleman, Sergeant Bilko, The Whole Nine Yards, and The Fighting Temptations. Other directing credits include award-winning stage productions for the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and multiple West End shows. In fact, he has contributed to a wide range of film, stage, and television projects over several decades, which we just don’t have time to include here.

And most recently, he has returned to the world of political satire with a new stage play, I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, which is set to premiere in London’s West End in January 2026. Jonathan Lynn, welcome to the Offcuts Drawer. Thank you.

The Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister project has seen various iterations. Firstly, you had two different levels of government, which turned into two very successful TV sitcoms, and then they became books, which were also hugely successful and bestsellers. And this time round, it’s theatre.

Why this genre? Well, I’ve always worked in the theatre before I worked in television or film or anything, and I like the theatre. And about 12 years ago, I’m not sure actually, maybe a bit longer, we did a play called Yes Prime Minister, which was all original material, it wasn’t from the series. And it opened at the Chichester Festival, and then it transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in London.

And after that, it played at the Apollo Theatre, and then the Gielgud again, and then the Trafalgar, and it did two national tours. So it went on for two or three years and was immensely successful. So I thought, why not do one more about a final chapter for Humphrey and Jim? All right, so you’re keeping the same characters? Oh, yes.

It’s about Humphrey and Jim, and they’re both old men, they’re in their 80s. Right. Are they both still in government? No, no, they’ve been retired for years.

And they’re bewildered by the world the way it is now, as most people are. And it’s a sort of LSA play about loss, about loss of friends, family, job. You know, what do you do if you’re forced to retire around about the age of 60? And that was your whole interest in life.

What do you do for the next 20 years? What do you do, well, for the rest of your life? What do you do when you were used to everybody hanging on your every word, everything you said mattered? And now nobody really cares what you think or say about anything. So it’s about the loss of power, loss of everything. The only play I’ve seen that’s on this subject really is King Lear.

But my play is funnier. So it’s not so much a satire on British government anymore then? Well, it is in a way, because it’s about, you know, Jim. What it’s about is Jim is now master of Oxford College.

And the student body and the fellows want to get rid of him because he’s been politically incorrect in a variety of ways. And he gets Humphrey to come and help him, or he hopes he can get Humphrey to come and help him. They haven’t spoken for years.

And so it’s a reunion. But I think of it as the final chapter in the story of Jim and Humphrey. And who have you cast for Humphrey and Jim? Jim is being played by Griff Rhys-Jones and Humphrey by Clive Francis.

And we tried out to play about a year and a half ago in Cirencester at the Barn Theatre, and then Theatre Royal Bath and now the Theatre of Cambridge. And I played Jim at that point. Did you? And Clive played Sir Hertford, yes, which was a bit nerve-wracking.

I hadn’t been on stage for 41 years. How’d it go? It went incredibly well, as you can tell, because we’re opening in the West End now. And you’re not tempted to go back into the play yourself? I’m not, no, because I have Parkinson’s disease and my movement is now pretty strange.

And also, I’m not a famous actor. And Griff Rhys-Jones is. And he’s wonderfully funny.

Excellent. Successful sitcoms, especially British successful sitcoms, they’re often sold abroad to be turned into the American equivalent or the Israeli equivalent or the German equivalent. Did you ever have any country try and do their own version of Yes Minister or Yes Prime Minister? Not as far as we know.

I think there was one tried in Sweden that was so clearly based on our show, but they hadn’t bought the rights, so we stopped that. But I’m not sure about that. This is the distant past.

And we had a lot of enquiries at the time, a lot of people wanting to make an American series based on our series, which has happened, as you know, with so many others. But it doesn’t translate. The separation of powers, the presidency, Congress, all the power structure is different in America, or was at that time.

Now it’s a sort of dictatorship. But it just didn’t translate. And we didn’t mind that.

And it had been shown in dozens of countries. And the books had been published in lots of countries. And then it was shown here, not on a big network, but on PBS and public television, and it was very well received.

So we’re pretty happy with all of that. Well, let’s kick off with your first offcut. Can you tell us, please, what it’s called, what genre it was written for, and when it was written? Yes, this one’s called The Bottom Line.

And it’s a screenplay I wrote in 2008. Good morning. As the Chief of Surgery, it’s my doubtful pleasure to welcome you to the Morbidity and Mortality Meeting to discuss the week’s surgical complications in the hope that we can prevent similar screw-ups in future.

You all know the drill. This is a closed meeting. Are we all clear what that means? It means that by tomorrow, half the hospital will know everything we said.

Maybe. So let’s really try to keep it confidential today. Lawsuits at this place have been increasing exponentially, and some of the surgical mistakes on the agenda are even more embarrassing than usual.

Tell me about it. I’m being sued again. I’m wondering if there have been leaks from these meetings.

Oh dear. This must stop. Who’s suing you? Victor Rich.

He’s suing me too. Yeah? I’ve never been sued before. He’ll get used to it.

All right. First, Dr. Duff, your hip replacement. Let’s see the x-ray.

Lights. Lights go out. Duff, an orthopaedic surgeon, speaks as a hip x-ray is shown on a screen.

This is prior to surgery. The hip at the point of disarticulation. Everyone stares at the x-ray, slightly puzzled.

Looks perfectly normal to me. Well, yes, yes. In point of fact, it is perfectly normal.

Now everyone stares at Duff. You removed a perfectly normal hip? Yes. However, we choose to regard this as a positive measure.

There is very severe osteoarthritis degeneration, admittedly, of the other hip. But when the other hip needs replacement, next Thursday, actually, since we didn’t do it this week, electively, of course, his new hip will certainly help speed up his convalescence. They are all still staring at him.

You’re pretending you replaced the wrong hip on purpose. That’s almost worse than doing it by accident. Dr. Duff, may I remind you that the purpose of this meeting is not damage control.

It’s to learn from our mistakes. There were no mistakes in the surgery itself. I did it perfectly.

I don’t know how to reply to that. Everyone shifts uncomfortably in their seats. The question is, why did it happen? Excellent question, sir, if I may say so.

Thank you, Julia. The X-ray wasn’t labelled. There were no left and right markers.

Why not? Someone else was using them. There aren’t any others. It’s the cutbacks.

I see. Cut to interior, a panelled boardroom, day. And now what we’ve just heard is from a film script called The Bottom Line, which you mentioned when you sent it to me, had subsequently changed its name to Samaritans.

And it’s now a novel and has, in fact, been acquired by a UK production company to turn into a TV series. Have I got that right? Yes, that was right at the time we spoke. The UK production company was not able to turn it into a TV series because at the time we made that deal, Netflix and other similar streaming companies were looking for material.

By the time we got something to show them, they were not looking for any more material, which is the situation now. But yes, it became a novel and people could get it on Amazon. And I’m very pleased with it.

It got a lovely response. Yes, excellent reviews from lots of famous people as well. Yeah.

Yes. So are you still looking to turn it into a TV series or a film? Which would you prefer, actually? I don’t think I’m looking to do it anymore. I mean, you reach a point where either you get the show on or you move on.

You can’t keep batting away at something forever. If somebody else buys the rights, I mean, a couple of people have bought the rights to Samaritans already and not managed to get… I mean, somebody else, Linda Obst, bought the rights for Sony Pictures Television, but she came up with a pitch for the series, which I didn’t like, so I vetoed it. And I’d rather it’s not done than unless it’s done properly.

Right. So what I had to say, which was about the American healthcare system and how catastrophic it is, is all in the book. And sooner or later, somebody will probably think, oh, I could make a film or a TV series.

But obviously, the novel is much fuller. I mean, I added a huge amount of material because the screenplay is very short. You know, the screenplay is about 120 pages and a lot of white space on each page.

And so you have to be very, very economical in what you say. In the novel, I was able to add characters, background, you know, more funny scenes. And on the subject of medicine and doctors, where I first remember you was as an actor in the Doctor in the House series, which you also went on to write on and on the related series, Doctor at Large, Doctor in Charge, Doctor at Sea and Doctor on the Go, I think.

I think so. But you were an actor first. So what prompted you to write the series? Were you part of the original writing team? No, I was engaged as an actor.

But I’d been trying to write for years because I was in my 20s and I discovered that being an actor meant being out of work a lot of the time. That’s so true. So I wanted to write because when I wasn’t acting, I was doing things like selling records at Selfridges and I felt that wasn’t very creative.

So I was acting in the series and then I left it. And one day I got a phone call from another actor in the series, George Layton, with whom I got along really well. And he said, the writers haven’t delivered a script for about three weeks ahead.

Shall we try and do one? And I thought, well, maybe this is an opportunity. I’d been writing for five years without any success. So George and I got together and we wrote an episode.

Was he still an actor on his own? Yes. And it was easy for us in a way because we all knew all the characters. And we wrote what turned out to be a very funny script.

And the producer, Humphrey Barclay, bought it and put it straight into production. And three weeks later it went on the air. And people absolutely loved it.

And suddenly we were deluged with offers. We suddenly became hot writers. And I’d been trying to get anything done for the last five or six years.

And then suddenly I was an overnight success. Well, Humphrey asked us to write lots of other Doctor episodes. And then we were asked to write for a series of On the Buses, which I found terribly hard.

Oh, why did you find it hard? Well, I was familiar with it, but it just wasn’t really my sense of humour. And our job was to make it seamless so that when Ronnie Wolfe and Ronnie Chesney, who had created the series, they were off making a film of On the Buses. And it was our job to continue, as it were, seamlessly.

And it worked very well. But I found it hard. You know, with jokes about the price of fish.

And I hadn’t really learned about research yet. So I suppose I could have made it easier for myself if I’d gone to a bus depot and talked to some bus drivers and bus conductors and inspectors. Although it might not have made any difference at all.

But George found it easier than I did. And we wrote a series that people really liked. As an actor, were you ever tempted to write yourself into the shows, into the scripts, on any of the projects you’ve written on? Yes, I was.

I was tempted. We did a series, George and I went on, to do a series called My Brother’s Keeper at Granada Television. And we wrote it for ourselves.

It was an idea of mine about when I was at Cambridge, sometime in the Dark Ages, criminology was one of the subjects I was doing as part of a law degree. And there was a twin study. You know, twin studies are used to determine whether or not characteristics of people are caused by what they used to call nature or nurture.

In other words, were they genetic? And there was an experiment with nine identical twins whose twin brothers were missing. And they were all policemen. And they managed to find 13 of these missing identical twins.

And interestingly, nine of them were convicts and the other four were policemen. Wow. So I don’t know what it really suggested.

I think it suggested that people genetically were either very law-abiding or very anti-law-abiding. Right. So we wrote these parts and we played the twins.

And it was well received. And we did two series of Granada. But then Granada didn’t continue it.

So at that point, George and I stopped writing together. And then I didn’t write anything for myself until we did the pilot of Yes Minister. Oh, who were you in Yes Minister? No, I wasn’t.

Oh. But I thought I might be. Ah.

When we were writing it. There was Jim and Humphrey and the part of Bernard Woolley I thought I could play. And then I decided that it just wasn’t a good idea.

It would be much better to find somebody else than for me to be able to look at rehearsals objectively. And it’s hard to be objective about something if you have written it and you’re in it. That’s true.

Yes. And we were very lucky we found Derek Foulds. And in the end, I was very glad I had not suggested myself for the part.

I never suggested myself. It was all in my head. So did you ever get to the point because you’re writing, you’re acting, directing, did you ever get to the point where you thought I’m not an actor anymore.

I’m a writer and director or has acting never really been off the table if the right part came along? Acting was off the table for years after My Brother’s Keeper and before Yes Minister. I was director of the Cambridge Theatre Company that was a touring company Arts Council subsidised based on the Arts Theatre, Cambridge and it toured all over the country. And I was director of that for nearly five years.

And we did about 40 productions in that time. And I never cast myself at all. I think it’s very unusual for actors who are directors.

So it was clear to me I could always find someone who I would rather see play the part. So at that point it was clear to me that I wasn’t really interested in acting anymore except occasionally with people who I really liked. Okay then, let’s move on.

Time for another off-cut now. Can you tell us about this one? This is a one-act play that I wrote only a few years ago. I think it was 2018.

It’s called Primitive Murderous Rage. The audience should become convinced that something has gone wrong. Forgotten lines.

Somebody missing. Who knows what. Eventually.

You’re supposed to say something. He nods. That’s up to you.

How about, why are you here? Not really. He nods. Bill nods again.

Look, I didn’t come here to be bored. I can be bored at home. Are you bored at home? Yes.

Why are you bored? I don’t know. So, in the absence of anything better to do, you decided to bore me too? No, that’s not fair. Are you chronically bored? I think so.

You’re not saying I’m boring you? You are boring me, actually. But I’m not the cause of your boredom. No.

So, what now? Ball’s in your court. Why? You’re the one who’s bored. Can you tell me why you’re bored? No, I just am.

Why don’t you tell me? That’s why I’m here. I can’t tell you anything until you tell me something. There’s nothing to tell.

There must be something. Something about your life. My life’s boring.

Is that why you’re here? Because you’re bored? Yes. He nods. Now you’re bored too.

No, not now that I know that your boredom is in fact the presenting problem. He waits, nodding occasionally. Eventually.

Is there anything else you want to mention before you go? You want me to go? Do you want to go? Why do you always answer a question with a question? Why do you think? You mentioned when you sent this that this was in fact written as part of a double bill. So what happened to the other play? The other play was called Oedipus Gate and it was about Oedipus the King, Sophocles, in the form of Donald Trump. Oh.

And that play is no longer relevant because Trump has, it was written during the first Trump presidency and now it’s all quite different. So it was a topical political play. But I wanted to write a play about boredom because I thought that was a challenge.

Just the challenge of boredom that you were interested in. There was no point that you wanted to make or any kind of conclusion you wished to reach? Oh well yes there was. I mean as the play goes along it’s clear that she suffers from a condition that the play calls primitive murderous rage.

Ah, hence the title. And the psychiatrist is really inept and doesn’t really know what to do about it. He’s very, he thinks he’s very scholarly and original.

But in fact he’s very pedestrian and he outlines his theories. Other than about boredom it’s a play about psychotherapy. And my wife is a psychotherapist.

And so I’ve known dozens of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts during her career. And this play is a sort of satirical version of the worst of them. Do you know lots of people with primitive murderous rage or just those who treated them? Yes, large numbers of people.

I think most people have. Have primitive murderous rage, which manifests itself as boredom? No, no. It can manifest itself in all kinds of ways.

But as you know anger management is quite a big thing nowadays. I mean a lot of people do things because they’re angry or because they’re very angry, which are not necessarily the right things to do. So I wanted to investigate all that.

And in fact this play is on my list of things to rewrite and expand into a full-length play. Ah, so it doesn’t have to be part of a double bill anymore. That’s right.

When you started your show business career, it was live performance in the theatre, you were in the Footlights and the breakthrough show was Cambridge Circus, which went to Broadway and on television stuff. But you originally joined the cast as a musician, is that right? Well I didn’t really join the cast. I mean I joined the show.

I was in the orchestra, in the orchestra pit. I played drums, percussion. Which at that time I thought I was going to do professionally.

I thought I was going to be a jazz drummer. And I spent a lot of my time at Cambridge playing in the jazz club with some wonderful musicians. But then I joined the Footlights Club with Eric Arnall.

We knew each other, we were in the same college. He wrote a sketch, which we both did. And the only way you could get into the Footlights in those days was to make the committee laugh.

And we did. We got into it as members. Was it a musical sketch? Because he’s obviously very musical as well.

No, it wasn’t musical. No, it wasn’t a musical sketch. I can’t remember what the subject was exactly.

I think it was two centuries outside Buckingham Palace, but I can’t remember more than that. And I found the script, oh, 30 years later, literally in a bottom drawer. And so I had it framed and sent it to Eric.

I think it was the first sketch he ever wrote. Oh, lovely. So the show went to the West End.

A producer called Michael White saw it at Cambridge. And it went to West End, where it did pretty well, actually. And John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Bill Oddie, Timbrook Taylor, Joe Kendall, and a couple of other people.

And then I left it because I was just in the band. And I went on to work at the Edinburgh Festival. Still as a musician, or were you acting then? No, no.

This was a production of Waiting for Godot, which Stephen Frears, another Cambridge friend, was directing. And then I went back to my third year. All the others that were leaving Cambridge, and I was a year behind.

And the year I graduated, the following year, I got a phone call from Bill Oddie right after my exams. And he said, Cambridge Service is going to Broadway. Do you want to come? And I said, well, they have a Musician’s Union there.

I wouldn’t be allowed to. He said, no, no, in the cast. So I said, yes, of course.

So my first acting job was actually on Broadway. And my first TV show was the Ed Sullivan Show with 70 million viewers live. Spectacular.

And it’s been sort of downhill ever since, really. So you took over as an actor. Did you do any writing there too, or was the script already set in stone by then? The script was already more or less set.

And I wasn’t the writer then. I mean, at Cambridge, I hadn’t started writing. And I didn’t know how it was done.

I very much admired John Cleese and Bill Oddie, who wrote the majority of the show, because they could write funny scripts. And I thought it was sort of a magic gift. So when did you find out that you could do it too? Well, I told you about Doctor in the House.

Oh, that was literally the first time you’d done any writing. Because I thought if you’d been involved with the Footlights, that you would be contributing to the shows a bit yourself. But not at all.

No, no, not at all. They were all writers and comedians. And I really wanted to be an actor at that point.

And after we were on Broadway, they came back and started a radio show that was immensely popular called I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again. And I wasn’t in that because I didn’t write. And Graham Garden joined the cast of that, because he could write.

And I just acted in plays. You mentioned the Ed Sullivan show with the 70 million audience. Did that give you more confidence, do you think? And possibly even too much confidence, because that’s one hell of a gift for an actor.

It didn’t give me any confidence at all. I mean, I was doing it with a group of people, who we did a song and I did a very short sketch, which people thought was funny. But no, it didn’t really give me confidence.

I mean, we were there on Broadway, which sounded very glamorous. But we were getting 30 quid a week. And I was staying in a really run-down hotel in Times Square.

And it was distinctly unglamorous. But, you know, it was a terrific opportunity for someone aged 21, who had been in Susan three months earlier. Of course, yeah.

Okay, moving on now. Let’s have your next Offcut, please. What’s that? This is a treatment for a screenplay called The Rocket’s Red Glare, which was written in about 2006.

And I wrote it with somebody called M. G. Lord, who’s a writer in Los Angeles.

This is not based on a true story. This is a true story.

This is a tale of two scientists, perhaps the two most important rocket pioneers of the 20th century. One was an idealist, an internationalist, and a humanitarian. He was an American.

His name was Dr. Frank Molina. He is the protagonist of the film. He was interested in pure science, and he developed a rocket to study meteorology, our planet, and space.

He was not interested in money. The other was his nemesis, interested in fame, wealth, and power over his fellow human beings. He was German.

He is the antagonist. His name was Dr. Werner von Braun. He developed his rockets with Hitler’s personal approval as revenge and terror weapons against the British.

Molina, troubled by the poverty he saw during the Great Depression, flirted with communism very briefly in the 1930s, until Stalin signed a pact with Hitler, and the scales fell from his eyes. Von Braun was an active Nazi and a member of the SS until he surrendered to the Americans, who protected him because they wanted his knowledge, and they didn’t want the Soviet Union to have access to his knowledge. Molina was from a dirt-poor background.

He was interested in social justice, and he was tolerant of all people, if not all points of view. Von Braun was a baron, and was not interested in social justice. He handpicked Jewish scientists to work on the V1 and V2 at the Mittelbau-Dörer concentration camps, and allowed them to starve to death.

Molina had nothing to hide, didn’t care about money, lived a good life and, by a quirk of fate, ultimately died both wealthy and fulfilled. Von Braun died famous and powerful, but he lived the second half of his life in fear that his past would be revealed in spite of a massive and deceitful PR campaign. Molina, who developed the rocket that first went into space, is almost completely forgotten.

Von Braun, the lesser of the two scientists, has been immortalised as the father of the American space programme at NASA. This is their story. Now this didn’t make it because… What happened to it? What happened to it was David Brown, who was a very important producer, produced The Sting and Jaws and Driving Miss Daisy and a number of very successful films, was extremely interested in it and we were just about to start writing a screenplay when he died and we, I don’t know, for some reason we didn’t get anyone else interested and it sort of fell away from our priorities.

But I think it would be a wonderful film still. But there isn’t a screenplay yet, it’s just, there’s a long treatment, I think it’s about 20 pages, telling the whole story. So you could still be shopping it around then? I could be but I’m not.

M.G. Lord, who’s a terrific writer, she teaches creative writing at USC, University of Southern California, and her father worked with Melina and that’s how she knew the story. So we worked on it together and enjoyed it very much. But I don’t know, for one reason or another, my agents were unable to interest anybody else in this and so it fell by the wayside.

I think it’s because it would have been a very expensive film. It’s again another project along political lines. Are you very politically active? You wrote Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister with Anthony Jay, who was very close with Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government.

Were the two of you politically aligned or were you more neutral and just interested in the entertainment of it all? I’m not politically active really, although I take a great interest in it. I am very politically aware. Tony Jay and I didn’t agree on anything politically.

He was quite right-wing, and increasingly so as he got older, and he did a lot of work for speeches and things for Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson and Mrs. Thatcher, Norman Tebbit, and I had very little sympathy with all of that. Mainly because, apart from the fact that I didn’t agree with their political views mostly, I had very little sympathy with it because I didn’t want people to think that Yes Minister was, as it were, a Tory programme, which it wasn’t. Because we both implicitly had a right of veto.

We never discussed it. But if I didn’t like something that Tony wrote, I could change it. If Tony didn’t like something I wrote, we’d change it.

We’d find a way through. And in those days, unlike more recently, it was really possible for people of opposing political views to still be friends. That’s less probable today.

And Tony and I were very good friends. And we tolerated each other’s views amiably. And I just used to beg him, you know, to make sure that his conservative connections weren’t written about in the papers at the time.

And on the whole, they weren’t. And your West End play coming up, the I’m Sorry Prime Minister. Well, government behaviour has changed beyond recognition since the 1980s when you were writing Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.

Do you have to incorporate those changes? Or do you think that the politics is still, at its heart, kind of the same beast? Politics is always the same beast. Politicians are always people who are interested in short-term changes in order to win the next election. The civil servants were interested in something long-term and that they felt was good for Britain.

But of course, they weren’t elected. And it wasn’t for them to say what was good for Britain. That was the essential conflict.

But this play, which is now being called I’m Sorry Prime Minister. But when I actually wrote it, the full title was I’m Sorry Prime Minister, I Can’t Quite Remember. And that’s what it’s going to say outside the theatre and in the programme.

And, you know, they both have memory problems. You know, they’re old. And it’s about what it’s like to be old and forgotten and ignored.

And about all the mistakes they made in their political careers. Orrin Humphrey in his civil service career. So it is about politics, but it’s not about contemporary politics.

The series was never about politics either. People always used to say it was a political series. But actually, it wasn’t.

It was a series about government. Politics is quite separate from government. Politics is what goes on in the House of Commons and people make big speeches.

And, you know, it’s essentially theatre. Government happens in Whitehall and nobody really knows how it’s done. Right.

OK, time for another off-cut now. What have we got? This is called Mayday and it’s a screenplay I wrote in the late 90s based on a novel I’ve written of the same name that was published two or three years earlier. Scripts, sandwiches and half-eaten pizzas litter the room.

Three melancholy, hard-bitten writer pals, Max Kirsch, Sidney Byte and Jerry Kelly. Jerry is reading aloud from the screen of his word processor. How about she says, I’m trying to break it off, but I don’t want to hurt him.

Then sex therapist says, Then don’t break it off. Wait till it goes soft. That’s funny.

Maybe. Jerry types. Mayday enters.

Hey, Ernest, come to help us punch up the show? Jerry, I don’t think I’d be much use. Still blocked? Yep. I finally told Fanny Rush.

What did she say? Do you have to give back the money? I can’t. I spent it. She suggested I plagiarised one of my other books.

That’s not plagiarism. It’s plagiarism if you copy someone else’s work. That’s right.

If you copy your own, they call it your style. What do you know? You’re just a bunch of sitcom writers. That’s how we know.

Plagiarism’s what we do. Come on, fellas. We got 20 minutes left to write this scene.

Somebody think of a gag we can borrow. They all chime in with ideas. I envied their facility.

Interior Mayday study night. The cursor is blinking on the screen, which is still empty apart from chapter one. Mayday is unshaven, unwashed, apathetic.

He stares hopelessly out of his magnificent picture window, then at the wall, then at an in-tray full of bills marked past due in red. I had nothing to write, nothing to say. I was living on credit, literary, emotional, and financial, and time was running out.

The one bright spot was the masseuse I shared my life with. We hear the front door open and shut. Randy Toner comes in.

She’s very attractive in her 30s, carrying a folded massage table and big sports bag. Hi. How’s it going? Still blocked? He nods.

She sits on his knee and kisses him hungrily. I can think of something that’s much more fun than writing. Her name was Randy Toner, and I was seeing her at the time.

Seeing is an L.A. word for fucking. I’d been seeing her for a couple of years. She was great at it.

They tip slowly backwards out of his chair and out of view. Interior Mayday study day. Mayday is sitting blankly at his desk again, still staring at his computer.

The words chapter one are still on the screen. Beside him is a glass of scotch and a nearly empty bottle. He stands and wanders into interior Mayday’s state-of-the-art kitchen day.

He pours himself a coffee. Consuela, his pudgy, smiling Mexican maid, is busily cleaning out the fridge. Dramatically, she picks up a milk carton and points to the sell-by date with a reproachful look.

Sell-by date. And she makes a kill gesture, pretending to cut her throat, then hurls it into the garbage. Consuela, my maid, spoke no other English words.

She finds some half-eaten cheese holding it aloft in triumph. Sell-by date. And the offending cheese is cast into the outer darkness.

And as I spoke no Spanish, the relationship was simplified to a level at which I felt entirely comfortable. He sips his coffee and idly opens the copy of LA Weekly, which is lying around on the kitchen counter. Suddenly, he sees something interesting.

Insert the personals. We pan down the column. Stop.

Zoom in to read. Joanna is in desperate need of $10,000 now or soon. No holds barred.

It was then, in that copy of LA Weekly that I’d picked up by chance, that I saw the answer to my problem. This was based on a novel that you wrote, which was successful and seems like a great story, perfect for a film. So why didn’t it get made? I think they thought it was… I think they thought it was too clever.

And being clever is a real problem in the world of Hollywood. But I don’t know. It’s about a man with writer’s block and he finds this ad by Joanna and gets the idea that if he will pay her whatever she asks, she will tell him how much money she earns from her ad and how she does it.

And that will make a story. And it’s a very good idea. But it doesn’t work out very well for him because what it’s really about is how writers manipulate people in their own lives in order to get stories that are interesting.

It’s about what is the writer’s obligation to people that they write about, even if they fictionalise them. And some people really loved it. But, you know, you never know why things don’t get made.

The truth is that about… I think every writer I know maybe has a ratio of about one project in six that gets made. That’s part of the course. There’s only a limited number of films that can be made.

They don’t get made without star names or a star director. And it’s all finally decided by the marketing department. You weren’t tempted to maybe, I don’t know, try it in the UK? Well, it’s set in Los Angeles.

I don’t think it would be possible to make it in the UK. It might have been possible, but that would be very expensive because you have to be some shots in LA. It’s an LA novel.

It’s not about Hollywood. Although he’s a writer. It’s about Los Angeles in the 1980s.

What it was really like. He’s a British expat living in LA then. And you were too? Were you in LA at that point in the 80s? I was, yes.

So how much of him is you? Well, it’s not really me. What I have in common with the character is that we’re both writers. There’s no masseuse hanging around.

No, there’s no masseuse. I had been married to the same woman who I loved for nearly 60 years. And there was no masseuse.

No, no. It’s about what I observed in Los Angeles. Well, we did hear in that particular clip mention of the sitcom writer’s room.

Is that something that you’re familiar with? Did you have much experience of that, working in a stereotypical American-style writer’s room? I did, actually. I was asked to join a show called Mr. President. And George C. Scott was the star in it.

And I didn’t want to do it because Ed Weinberger, who had created The Cosby Show, was the producer and head writer. And I’d read his pilot. And it was a very cosy show.

It was like The Cosby’s in the White House. And it lacked bite or any sort of real comment on Reagan, who was president at the time. So I said no.

And then he kept asking me to do it. And finally, we made a deal by I was going one day a week on Monday for what they called the punch-up. And the script would be… There’d be a read-through in the morning.

And then everyone would give their notes. That is, everyone meaning all the executives. And then the script would come back to the writer’s room.

And we would have to fix it that day. And there were always lots of fixes necessary. And there were about six or seven writers around the table.

And we all worked all day, usually from about 11 a.m. to about one or two in the morning. And of course, this was pre-computers. So we had a chain of typists or secretaries making all the changes during the day.

And I was paid extravagantly for this one day. And I used that to live on when I wrote the complete Yes Prime Minister for the rest of the week. But they never tempted you into a writer’s room as being part of the core team? That really was the core team.

That was the week in which everything was punched up. The day in which everything was punched up. I’m thinking more about developing the plot.

No, that was whoever was credited as the writer on screen. But I did do that one time. I got in one morning and Ed Weinberger said, I want you to read this script.

And I said, when do you want me to read it? He said, now, don’t go into the writer’s room. Go up to your office and read this and tell me what you think. So I read this really dreadful script.

And I went back downstairs half an hour later and I said to Ed, I think this is terrible. And he said, oh, I agree. I’d like you to rewrite it.

And I said, when? He said, today. And I said, well, nobody will rewrite the script today. He said, yep.

Don’t go back to the writer’s room. Rewrite the script. So I went upstairs.

I worked on it all day till 8 or 9. And I got halfway through. So I took it down to Ed’s office and said, this is as far as I’ve got. I’m halfway through.

Sorry, I couldn’t finish it. And so I went home and I expected to get a phone call saying that I was fired. And instead, I got a phone call saying, it’s great.

Next week, do the second half. So it wasn’t great. Great is the minimum adjective of praise in an American show business.

So I went in the following week. I wrote the second half. And incredibly, two weeks later, it went into rehearsal and on the air.

And I never saw it. Well, I didn’t want to. I thought it was terrible.

Oh, no. I thought it was just better than what I’d been given to start with. And the series didn’t really work.

And at the end of the first series, George C. Scott left it. And the series finished. Because he’d also thought it would be something much more acerbic and politically interesting.

And he was really upset by the way the scripts were being done. So he left. And that was the end of that series.

But it was a very nice two or three months when I got extremely well paid for one day’s work a week. OK, well, we’ve come to your final offcut. Can you tell us about this one, please? This is a repair I wrote a long time ago.

I’m guessing about 1997. And it’s called The Prenup. Interior.

The dining room. Night. The table is piled high with wedding gifts.

Alice enters, followed by Zach. She turns to him. OK, what is it? Well… Babe, what is it? My dad wants us to have a prenup.

So I didn’t want to mention it before because I knew you’d take it the wrong way. The wrong way? What’s the right way? It’s just that my dad says it’s just sensible. It’s a sensible… Go on.

No, that’s it. Sensible what? Precaution. Precaution? Against what? You think you need to protect yourself from me? Well, I… You don’t know me.

No. I knew you’d react like this. Look, if you feel so strongly, let’s forget it.

Forget it? How can I ever forget this? It’s my dad. What has this got to do with your dad? If we don’t do this, he’ll stop me getting the trust fund. So what? It’s 40 million dollars.

We don’t need his money. Tell him to shove it. Of course we need the money.

40 million dollars? Are you crazy? Am I crazy? You spring a prenup on me the night before our wedding and you ask me if I’m crazy. He only just sprang it on me. Why is a prenup such a problem? You always said you don’t care about money.

I don’t care about money. I’m not marrying you for your money, you doofus. So what’s the… I thought our marriage was going to be a partnership.

Sharing everything. For richer, for poorer, for better, for worse. You just have to trust me.

I have to trust you, but you don’t trust me. I do trust you. It’s just my dad.

Please sign it. You’ve got it with you. You have, haven’t you? Shame-faced, he pulls out a contract from his inside pocket.

Without a word, she holds out her hand for it. He gives it to her. She barely glances at it.

You said he just sprang it on you. A few days ago. You were lying.

I was not lying, just not telling. You said it was hypothetical. You said you were just talking about your father, but now you’re saying you do want me to sign this.

Yes, I do, but only because… Why did you say you didn’t? I just couldn’t see a way to mention it without upsetting you. I’m not upset. I just hadn’t realised I was dispensable, that’s all.

But money’s important. We must be sensible. I understand that.

Alice, darling, I love you. I… I’ll just take this away to read it. I must read it carefully.

Of course, you understand that. She crosses past him, towards the door. He tries to take her in his arms.

Carefully, she disentangles herself. Excuse me? She leaves the room. The accompanying note with this was you couldn’t find a name to play Alice.

Was there anyone in particular you’d approached and they just turned you down, or you just had no particular inspiration for it? I really can’t remember. But the film is about the culture clash between America and England. She’s the daughter of an English judge and she’d been to a fancy school.

She’s quiet and thoughtful and she’s a writer. And he’s a banker and doing rather well. And so it’s about marriage and it’s about the difference between English and American attitudes to marriage at that time.

So the premise of the film was the difference between the cultures of American and English. That was one of the things it was about. It was also, there was a space of romantic comedies in recent years, which weren’t about anything.

They were about just silly, silly setups. This is about a serious dispute. It’s about money and it’s about, you know, whether or not Zach is prepared to marry her and risk losing the fortune that his father was going to give him.

So it’s not an artificial setup. It’s a very real problem that exists in many marriages in those days in America. And now I think in Britain as well.

I think the high court in Britain recognised prenups a few years ago as things that should be taken into account in divorce settlements. And so it’s not quite about a culture clash anymore. But also the script is about romance and that it’s an anti-romantic comedy.

It’s not a romantic comedy. It’s an anti-romantic comedy. Because finally, it’s about what’s important in the relationship.

And it goes into other generations. It goes to Alice’s parents who have lived together not entirely successfully for 40 or 50 years. And to Zach’s father who’s been married lots of times.

He’s a rock star. And so, you know, it really sort of addresses a lot of questions about what’s the basis of marriage and how much money or financial interests or vested interests intrude upon the relationship. And would you have directed this film? I would have, yes.

Because you’ve obviously directed a lot of films, many of the scripts that you didn’t write. Yes. For example, My Cousin Vinny, which is a great film.

As a director who’s also a writer, do you find yourself making changes to someone else’s script? Are you allowed to do that? Oh, yes. Do you need permission? I was hired by 20th Century Fox to actually do the production rewrite of My Cousin Vinny. Is that before you became director? No, when I was director, it was part of the deal.

Ah, I see. But they weren’t happy with the script. They thought it was potentially successful, but they weren’t happy with a number of things about it.

So I did do a production rewrite. I made a number of changes. And I’m not credited, which I think is appropriate because a director has to write at least 50% of a script in order to deserve a credit, because otherwise it’s too easy for a director who’s quite powerful just to rewrite bits here and there and then claim a credit.

That used to happen, but the Writers Guild doesn’t allow it anymore, and I think they’re right. So I did write some of My Cousin Vinny, but most of it, of course, was written by the original writer Dale Lorner. Did you have to consult him when you were rewriting it at all? I chose to.

I chose to, and he didn’t like anything I suggested. So I did it anyway. I mean, there’s bits of dialogue that people still quote, you know, when Vinny says there’s these two utes to the judge, and the judge says, what? And Vinny says, two utes.

And the judge says, what’s a ute? And that was just a conversation that Joe Pesci and I actually had at the Mayflower Hotel in New York when we met to discuss the script. And he said to me, there’s these two utes. And I said, what’s a ute? So I realised that had to go into the script.

And, you know, so I added stuff here and there. I changed the ending. I got Dale to rewrite the very last scene, which wasn’t working.

And, you know, he wasn’t very pleased with what I did, and he should have been, because the film was an enormous success. Okay, well, we have come to the end of the show. How was it for you? Well, fine.

Thank you very much. You know, it’s nice not to have to feel guilty about talking about myself for an hour. Okay, well, let me ask you one final question.

Yes. Is there any advice that you would give a younger you, knowing now what you know about life, the business? Oh, so much advice. I wouldn’t know.

I hardly know where to begin. Is there one snappy little phrase that you would use for the sake of the podcast? Let me think. Advice that I needed or that I could give as a result of my experience? Is there anything, thinking of yourself 50, 60 years ago, is there anything you think, ah, you just need to don’t worry about that, or slow down with this, or this is more important than you think it is? That sort of thing.

I think I would say, that’s a really tricky question. I’m having to think about that. Maybe the answer is no.

I think I did everything pretty much the way it should have been done. No, I think I did nearly everything wrong. So the question is, what did I do? Which of the many things I did wrong? I think I wasn’t always sufficiently open to other people’s ideas.

And I would say, although in the end, you have to be true to yourself. You have to be open to other people’s suggestions and comments. And it took me a long time to learn that.

And I think I would also say, when you’re starting out in this business, take any job that’s offered. You can learn from anything. And the main thing is to keep working and get to know people.

And gradually you’ll find bigger and better opportunities. And I think that applies to everything. It applies to acting, writing, directing, anything in our business.

Now, that is excellent advice. Very useful indeed. Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today, Jonathan Lynn.

Thank you for sharing the contents of your Offcut straw with us. Oh, well, thank you. My pleasure.

Thank you very much indeed. The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Jonathan Lynn. The Offcuts were performed by Keith Wickham, Shash Hira, Emma Clarke, Kenny Blyth, Christopher Kent and Beth Chalmers.

And the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit offcutstraw.com and please do subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.

I’m still going, I’m still doing the thing, but the sheer amount of pen names will tell you that publishers constantly look for a debut, they constantly look for freshness, they keep pretending I’m fresh, and rattled though I am, I go along with it, and yeah, still haven’t quite got there, but they all get published, they all get read, so I’m certainly not complaining.

Hello, I’m Laura Shavin, and this is The Offcut’s 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 pave the way to subsequent success.

My guest today is known by multiple different author names, nom de plumes, or noms de plumes, all of them writers differentiated by genre. She’s Juliet Ashton, but also Claire Sandy, Bernie Gaughan, and M.B. Vincent, and the original persona under which she was first published, Bernadette Strachan. To date, she has written 28 novels, starting with The Reluctant Landlady in 2004, cosy titles that include What Would Mary Berry Do?, Snowed in for Christmas, and Diamonds and Daisies, through to later novels that include the more quirkily titled Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death.

For the stage, she co-wrote the book for the musical Next Door’s Baby with her late husband Matthew Strachan, which was based on her own radio play. This has been produced at the Orange Tree Theatre in London, and again at the Tabard Theatre. Her other musical, About Bill, was also staged at the Tabard recently, and starred West End veteran Kim Ismay.

And finally, not content with the five already mentioned, she’s added two more to her harem of author identities, Alice Kavanagh, responsible for the 2023 novel The House That Made Us, and Catherine Miller, who has written a trilogy of books which are prequels to The Archers series on Radio 4, recently turned into a two-part radio drama, with the possibility of reaching our TV screens as well. So, Bernadette, Bernie, Juliet, Claire, MB, Alice and Catherine, welcome all of you to the Offcuts Drawer. Thank you.

We’re all very happy to be here. So, you’ve just moved home. Did that give you the impetus to go through old boxes and find actual paper copies of old projects, or am I presuming you’re 182 and actually was everything neatly organised on a computer or online? No, there were lots of boxes.

And actually, I had to not give in, because there were so many of them. And I found myself pouring over the notes for a novel I never wrote in 2005. So, actually, I dragged myself away.

And also, I had to chuck out a lot because we downsized. So, I kept every notebook, which is insane, as if I’m Arthur Miller, you know, and I’m going to lead them to Yale or something. So, I actually just kept one or two notebooks from each novel, because I do a mixture of longhand and on the screen.

So, yeah, I had to get rid of a lot. And once I looked at them, you know, most of it was, you know, smileys and, you know, sort of insert humour here and things like that. So, it’s no great loss.

But it was, yeah, it was quite sobering. Well, I imagine you have to be pretty organised if you’re juggling so many different professional personae. I think so.

Yeah, you do. And, you know, all the writers you talk to say this, and you know this yourself, it’s a job, you have to be organised, you have to get up and you have to turn up. But yes, when you’re writing two books a year, and one’s a cosy crime, and the other is romantic, you do have to change your hats with great fluidity.

So, yeah, I’m used to it. But that’s one of the most fun parts, actually, I don’t find it a problem. I find that a complete plus because you don’t get bored.

I do think seven different names, presumably seven different personalities. I’m thinking like Snow White’s dwarves, have you got like a sleepy, grumpy, happy? Do you sort of inhabit them as different personalities themselves? Or are you more practical about it? I think of myself, I always remember Margaret Rutherford in Blind Spirit saying when she goes anywhere on a bicycle, she ups with her heart and over the hill. And that’s how I feel in the morning.

I think, well, who am I this morning? Oh, I’m the dreamily romantic, you know, I don’t know, decorating a house or something. Or I am the detective who’s working out what the DNA is. So yeah, it really helps to sort of sit down, centre yourself and get into it.

Normally, what I do is I read a few pages back, and then I just sort of gallop. But I’m very fast. I plan to maniac degree, actually, I over plan.

But that does mean that once you start, I’m sprinting through the whole thing. And that’s the fun bit. That’s the really fun bit.

Right, well, let’s kick off with your first offcut. Can you tell us please what it’s called, what genre it was written for, and when it was written? This is a radio play. And it’s called, rather pretentiously in hindsight, Reflection in an Acton Loft.

And it was written in 2019. away. So the world looks pastel and dusty.

I wish I could touch it. I’d love to touch it. But one of those elderly volunteers would waddle over pointing to the sign and saying it was Jane Austen’s actual mirror.

And it’s very precious and keep your steaming mitts off it. And they’d be right. Things only last this long if they’re cared for.

Imagine this looking glass actually reflected Jane Austen herself, a real face, her eyes and her expression. I know Simon thinks I’m bonkers coming here to Chawton to her museum over and over, but it’s because of this mirror. The other stuff is fine, all correct period and style, but this was hers.

And look at the way her bedroom, her actual real bedroom looks in the mirror. So much more characterful than it does in this raw, sunshiny afternoon. If I lean to the left, I can see the little iron bed, just like the one the poor thing died in, tiny and bruised, hardly making a dent in the bedclothes.

I could almost be there in 18… looking after her, if it wasn’t for all these people around me in polyester separates and bum bags. I’m a Jane Austen fan, you see, a proper one, not… There is loud beeping. Oh, hang on.

Body Biz Spa, promoting wellness for all, how may I help? Just putting you through. A proper Jane Austen fan, not of the films, not of the TV stuff, not even of Colin Firth in Drenched Britches. The books, the books do it for me.

I was too young, really, when I picked up my first one, Emma. I fell in love with… More loud beeping. Oh, hang on.

Body Biz Spa, promoting wellness for all, how may I help? He’s not in on Thursdays. I’m sure Janine can help. Putting you through.

Just totally fell in love with Emma. The language, so witty and so correct. Jane always said exactly what she meant, never scrabbled around.

It was pithy, that’s what it was. I gobbled all the books up, then the biographies, the letters. I can quote her comments to Cassandra.

They were so close, they were sisters, like sisters can be. Good morning. I need a towel.

There you go. Have they fixed locker number 12 in the changing room? I don’t know, madam. Probably.

I hope so. It’s my favourite. I love it at Body Biz.

All these nice people. A people watch, you see, because I write. Excuse me, excuse me, may I see your membership card, please? No, I’m afraid I have to see it.

Oh God, we’ve got to run ahead of the spinning class. Hang on. Judy leaves her desk, suddenly knocking over things.

Madam? Later. Tea break at last. Not much tea gets drunk.

It’s all scribble, scribble, scribble. I’m working on my fourth novel, based very closely on the style of my heroine, Jane Austen. It’s a kind of epic about a fierce love between star-crossed estate agents.

Freehold of the Heart. Good title, I think. Or is it terrible? This, well, I thought it was the beginning of a sort of chiclet type book.

I mean, Jane Austen is every chiclet writer’s favourite writer and all that. But then I looked back on your notes and thought, oh, hold on. This is not that at all.

Can you explain to the listener what this project was, please? Yes, I can. Gentle listener. This is a very dear thing to my heart that, yes, all chiclet, which we’re not supposed to say anymore.

We’re supposed to say commercial women’s fiction. But I’m very happy with chiclet. Everybody loves Jane Austen, but there is an assumption that you love her for the sugary, pastel dresses and the romance.

And actually, I did really, really love her and always have for the genius. So it was partly a reaction to how annoyed that made me. But yes, I went to Jordan many times with my long-suffering husband in tow.

And I always looked in that mirror, thrilled to think that Jane Austen looked in it. And I used to think, I wish I could nick this. I’ve got a criminal mind.

What can I say? So my heroine actually does steal it, which is very unlikely, but she gets away with it. She props it up in her attic bedroom. She has a terrible relationship with her sister.

Her husband doesn’t support her, is never home, is always away on business. She’s very neglected and she pretends things are okay. And she’s actually very unhappy.

And she slowly dies like Jane Austen did until she disappears. And there’s no reflection in the mirror at all. So yeah, it does veer away from Chick-fil-A quite speedily.

Perhaps why it didn’t get put on, Laura. So it started out as a sort of, oh, is this going to be Jane Austen helps this woman either become a writer or find her the love of her life? No, it kills her in a horrid, nasty, she basically fades away. Wow.

Yeah. And so you wrote the whole play? I wrote the whole play. I always write the whole everything.

I never half write anything. I write the whole everything, which is why if you had two years of airtime, we could fill it with my stuff. But yes, I wrote the whole play and yeah, my agent wasn’t mad about it.

I sent it to a couple of, you know, the way it goes, you can send it to people, you know, who might send it to people they know. And I think it was just, it was a mixed bag. And if I’m really honest, I never expected it to get made.

It was just something I really wanted to write. We have to be quite strict about genre. It’s a business.

It’s a depressing business at times, but yeah, it did straddle two genres and neither quite happy. When you’re saying disciplined about genre, you mean when you’re writing novels or everywhere within the writing? Well, certainly in novels, I mean, strictly in novels and in my experience elsewhere. Yeah, especially if you introduce humour.

I mean, I have seen very successful humour drama and humour crime and humour thriller, but they’re not as pure, I think, and they don’t gain as much attention or get as many green lights as a purer thing, because the worst thing a producer wants to be is confused by what you’ve written. They want to go, I know exactly who will listen to this. I know exactly how much to spend on this.

So yes, I do think unless you’ve got a track record, if you want to try and hit the spot, it’s best to be clear about your intent. And I don’t think much as I enjoyed that play, and I really was great hearing it dramatised. That was great fun.

I always thought, yeah, this is not going to go on. You do, don’t you, when you write things? Sometimes you think, yeah, not going to go. Right, time for another off cut.

Can you tell us about this one, please? Well, this is more radio. This is a comedy and it’s called Number 89 and I wrote it a thousand years ago in 1985. My name is Nancy.

I’m 20 something, five foot something, and I have no distinguishing marks. I live by the river in what the estate agent described as a spacious mansion flat. I don’t own it, I rent it, so there are in my life two very special people, my flatmates.

Breakfast time is the only time when Joanna, Susie and I are all together, when we can relax and enjoy each other’s company and discuss matters of great import. No milk again! Why is there never any milk in this place? Oh dear, oh Susie, I think we’ve got some coffee right now. Oh my cornflakes! There’s no cornflakes either, so you’re in luck.

Oh God, would I be asking too much to try and scrape up a boiled egg? Oh dear, oh Susie, the last egg went into Bernard’s quiche. Great, I starve and your fancy man stuffs himself with quiche. You’re not starving, Susie.

God knows Bernard’s not fancy, and anyone who’s tasted Joanna’s quiche knows better than to stuff themselves with it. Oh Nancy! Make yourself a slice of toast. Oh yes, some lovely toast and marmalade, Susie.

Mmm, lovely, delicious, luxurious toast. I can hardly wait. Why is the grill so filthy? Presumably because you neglected to scrub it after that sausage orgy last night.

Oh, it’s always my fault, isn’t it? I only left it because I had to get to bed and rest my voice. I do have a gig tonight, you know. Yeah, Sus does have a gig tonight, Nancy.

She has a gig tonight, you know. Resting for this gig also stopped you taking out the rubbish? Erm, the rubbish? The rubbish? Are we going to say everything three times? Just so I know, just so I know, just so I know. So, I didn’t take the rubbish out.

Beat me, shoot me, leave it out my bones for the vultures to pick at. The flat’s starting to smell like a Calcutta backstreet. Oh no, oh really? You should- Anyway, you were home all day doing sod all, Joanna.

What’s stopping you taking the rubbish out or cleaning the grill? Well, the rota. I mean- Oh, the precious rota. It’s made out by Nancy, not Moses.

She didn’t stagger down from Mount Sinai with it. It’s chalked onto a blackboard which has a transfer of a care bearer on it. You can ignore the blessed rota, you know.

Susie, pack it in. She’s going to… Cry. No, please.

Anything but that. Don’t, Joanna. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. Jo, don’t. Shh, shh, shh, shh.

Just because I don’t have a job, I can’t do everything. I try, I really try. But Bernard’s had a virus and that budgie’s more work than he looks.

Poor Joanna. It’s a strain for her to be unemployed, to be the odd one out, to be, well, to be alive, really. Particularly to be alive in the vicinity of someone like Susie, who’s rather sparky.

It’s the artistic temperament, you see. The artistic temperament of a builder’s yard typist who sings in pubs at night. Maybe you’ll hear Susie sing later.

Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to be horribly murdered first. My day promised to be a gruelling one. I had to leave Joanna snivelling on the formica and yoke myself between the shafts of Bootle, Bargle, Hefty and Warnes.

When I became a copywriter, fresh-faced and newly sprung from university, nobody told me I was selling my soul to the devil. That I was prostituting my only skill. That I would one day write a commercial for dog toilet paper.

Ah, the gals in the flat chair scenario. Was this you? It was me. It was me and my two cousins.

Very much me and my two cousins. I mean, the whole budgie thing, I could, you know, I could write War and Peace. But it, do you know, it’s really fascinating listening to that.

It’s so of its time. The humour is so of its time. You could pinpoint that as the 80s.

I sent this off completely cold. I was working in radio advertising at the time. I was in a production house.

And I sent it completely cold to a producer who produced comedy I liked. And she sent me back such an encouraging letter. It was wonderful.

She said it was this, it was that. In short, I loved it and I want to hear more. But this is a topic that is tackled by a lot of first-time writers.

So if you can think of something else and write something else, I’d love to hear that. And I, as you can imagine, went straight back to the desk. And well, the kitchen table in this case.

And scribbled and scribbled and scribbled. And by the time I’d finished it, she’d moved on. And I’d sent it to a guy who took over and he sent me back.

I will never forget what he said. He said, thank you for this. It did raise a titter, he said.

And then he turned it down. I mean, he really hated it. But that stopped me in my tracks.

And instead of just saying sod you and carrying on, I kind of let it lie and went back to doing my little stories for weekly magazines, which I really had a huge cottage industry going. But yeah, that was really interesting. I mean, that wouldn’t get made now.

All the jokes were really obvious because they were made a thousand times during those days. But it’s lovely to hear. It’s a period piece as much as crinolines are.

And I think what she was trying to say to me was that she got a lot of this. And you need to have an original idea. You need to think outside, like literally raising your head from the table and describing what goes on around you.

But it was super encouraging. And I’m really grateful to her. And I think that producers should never underestimate the impact of what they say.

I don’t mean they should be careful or anything. I just mean they should train themselves and think, yeah, I made someone happy with that one word of encouragement. It really is.

It’s important. It matters. Yeah.

Now you mentioned just now about the writing of the short stories. Is this for the Just 17 magazine stuff? Just 17. Yeah.

So what happened there? Oh, another bitter story. I had… Keep them coming. I can get very twisted.

I’ve been sitting there, you know, I had one of those great jobs. I was working with two guys. I was like the girl in the office.

Literally, I did everything. They paid me really well. They took me out to all the restaurants with them.

They treated me like a little sister. Because of that, I was abounding with unearned confidence. And so I sent a soap opera idea to Just 17, which was around the corner from us.

Now, to those people who aren’t as old as us, explain what Just 17 is. Just 17 was like a precursor to Heat magazine, which of course is now defunct as well. I have to explain Heat before I explain Just 17.

Just 17 was one of those sort of magazines. They had the gossip and they had fashion stuff and they had lots and lots of silly photographs of celebrities. It’s where that all started.

I was sort of pointing out what celebrities were wearing and who was going out with who. And their office was exactly what you would wish. It’s all full of girls wearing too fashion-y clothes, laughing their heads off and going out to lunch.

And I just sent it to them and it came out every week, amazingly. Can you imagine a weekly magazine? And it was kind of huge, like all the girls I knew read it. And it just seemed to me it should have… It always had a short story.

And I thought, I’ll punt it a soap opera. Right, when you said a soap opera, so it wasn’t a photo story? No. It was written in words.

It’s actual words. Actual words. And it was basically, yes, a saga that happened every week.

Yes. And you wrote it. And were the lead characters or the lead character, were they 17? They were not.

They were older. They were flat-sharing. Ah, I see now.

I thought, sod you, BBC. Someone’s got to buy this. So yeah, it was literally the house I lived in.

And she said, oh, I’m looking for a serial. Yeah, give me five of these, 200 quid a go. I couldn’t believe it.

And it was great. It was all fun and games until indeed someone did lose an eye. And it was me.

Suddenly, I got a call saying, I’m going to give it away. I’m going to give it to… And she named a guy who was on the writing staff there. And I said, oh, are you sure? She said, yeah, you know, he’s got more experience than you.

It was literally done like that. And I said… Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me say. So hold on.

You sent an idea for an ongoing story to a magazine. You actually gave them the plot and the characters, et cetera. They went, yes.

They agreed to pay you 200 pounds or whatever to write per episode. And then they gave that story and those ideas to someone else to write. Are they allowed to do that? Well, I did four episodes and thrilled skinny with the whole thing, doing it at work with the guys cheering me on.

And then the vocal came. And it never occurred to me until you just mentioned it that perhaps I owned it. And they couldn’t do that.

But to quote my grandmother, God pays debts without money. And actually paid them with money this time, because for some reason I stayed on the payroll. And I kept getting 200 pounds per week.

And I remember mentioning this to my mum and she went ashen and she said, tell them, tell them it’s fraud. So very, very reluctantly, I told them. And I said, do I have to pay you back? And they said, no, don’t worry about it.

But did they stop paying you the 200 pounds? They did stop paying. Yeah, God damn it. So yeah, but it was a learning curve.

And also I just, I carried on giving them weekly stories, just, you know, one offs for years. You weren’t sort of cast back into the cold. No, no, no.

I’m still in the fold. And I’m giving them very, very genre-based stories where people either got together happily at the end or one of them died. There was no in between.

As it is in life, always. It’s my relationship history. Okay, then, right.

Well, let’s move on and have another offcut. What is this? This is a stage play. And this was about 2006, maybe a little earlier.

And it’s called Troubled. Exterior, street at night. Mary strolls over to take Pat’s arm, both shivering against the cold as they walk along.

Mike, a soldier, nervous with a rifle at the ready, is manning a roadblock. Mary and Pat don’t see him yet. Did you see me, Uncle Brain? Head thrown back, bellowing.

I never heard Donny boy murdered so comprehensively. Leave him alone. He’s a grand voice.

A church bell begins to toll. Beneath the dialogue, it tolls 11 o’clock. That’s 11 o’clock, Pat.

Me mother’ll go through you for a shortcut. We promised half ten. We promised.

We should have gone down Shank Hill. There’s too many riots down there these nights. This is safer.

Oh. Mary and Pat notice the roadblock, hear the crackling of the soldier’s walkie-talkie, take in the cocked rifle. Where are you going? What’s your business? We’re… I’m walking me girlfriend home.

Let’s see some ID. Why? I’m walking me girlfriend home in me hometown. Sean Pat.

She gets out her ID. Mary O’Halloran. O’ this and O’ that.

Begara. It means son of. Pat.

Your ID, mate. Come on, then you can get home and canoodle on her doorstep. He’s obviously never met me ma.

Pat sullenly hands over his ID. Mike looks at it perfunctorily and hands it back. That’s all in order.

Don’t be so touchy, Paddy. Me name’s Pat. That’s what I said.

Paddy. Run along, there’s good kids. Mary and Pat walk away.

Pat looking resentfully back. Soldier appears to whisper urgently in Mike’s ear. There’s no point cheeking them, Pat.

Even poets have tempers, Mary. They shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be bloody here.

Oi! Soldier grabs Pat, throws him to the floor, plants a boot in his back and points a rifle at the back of his head. Mike contains Mary without brute force, pushing her to the other side of the stage behind him. It’s important that her face is obscured from Soldier’s vision.

Are you sure? You sure it’s him? Soldier nods. Your boyfriend’s wanted, darling. Dangerous.

That’s me brother. His brother. His brother is on the run.

You’re making a mistake. My mate arrested him once before. He knows him.

Pat’s never been arrested. You’re making a mistake. Me brother.

You want me brother. Soldier moves his boot to Pat’s head. Please, honest to God, he’s not political.

He keeps out of all this. Check his ID again. Go home, love.

Soldier drags Pat to his feet. Mike pushes Mary in opposite direction, not too harshly. Tell me Ma.

Well, you tell his Ma her baby boy’s been naughty and won’t be home tonight. He’s going for a little holiday in the kesh. Pat! Soldier drags Pat off stage.

Mike exits. Mary takes off her coat and tosses it as abrupt scene change to interior disco.

So, Northern Ireland. I know your maiden name was Bernadette Gorn, which is very Irish, but you didn’t grow up in Ireland yourself, did you? I did not, no. But I tell you, it’s got very long tentacles, Ireland.

Yeah, my mother was from Dublin and my dad was from Mayo, which is on the west, like the east and the west coast. And to be honest, when I was growing up, there was a very, very specific attitude to, especially in Dublin, which was, we don’t want to hear about the north. It was like the troubled or irritating brother who was always in trouble.

And I felt terrible when I grew up that I didn’t know much about it. So I studied it. And obviously you get friends when you’re older from everywhere.

And I had very good friends from Northern Ireland. And I really felt strongly about the fact that they were all just people, and especially they were young people together and they were falling in love with each other and they were not being allowed to do it, seemed preposterous. So yeah, it was quite passionately felt, but yeah, it feels quite juvenile.

And I wasn’t juvenile when I wrote it. So I think it was, is a stab at sort of getting into much deeper waters. And it was actually, it’s David Bowie’s fault because I used to, when I first listened to Heroes, I used to imagine it as being about the Berlin Wall.

And I remember hearing about people who’s like, their loved ones were murdered. And I’ve always had a very strong feeling that the best revenge, if somebody kills somebody you love, is to get them to love you and then you kill yourself. That’s one hell of a plan.

So that’s what this girl was going to do. And it was also about the incredible sort of whimsicality of the Irish, which is just a coin’s turn away from complete bleakness. And so it was sort of a mystical and very brutal kind of treaties on how love gets really screwed up in war, which makes it so much better than it was.

But you know, it’s all an ambition, isn’t it? Every work of art is an ambition, but that was the idea. And what was your childhood like? Did you come from the cliched big Irish family, all sitting around being incredibly witty and basically the cast of Derry Girls? But you didn’t grow up in Ireland, did you? No, no. I was born in Fulham in London and my parents met in London and they brought me up there.

And I did come from the archetypal big Irish family, but our part of it was just me, my mum and my dad. So I was like the unicorn. And if you can begin to imagine how spoiled I was, you haven’t scratched the surface.

And I was spoiled by my parents, then I was spoiled by my aunties, then my grandmother got in with the spoiling. So it was great. I mean, it was very Derry Girls in that there is no privacy and everything is up for discussion.

Everything you do, say, if you walk across a room, you get 18 comments. But I only got that some of the time. Most of the time it was a very quiet house with the dog and my parents and lots of books and too much food.

And so it was nice. It was almost like I holidayed in it. But as I’ve grown older, I realised I am very Irish in that the way I think about things and the way I relate to people.

And it’s interesting to see my daughter. I married a completely English person, but I can see it cropping up unstoppably in her. And I don’t know if you feel that, Laura, that as you get older, your sort of inherent culture starts like bursting forth with the chin hairs.

And I’m just really enjoying it. So yes, it was, I feel like I had a very Irish background, but at the same time, much more sedate than your traditional thoughts of an Irish childhood. And were there any writers or creative types in there? Any great grandparents who turn out to be Brendan Behan or something like that? I don’t know how strongly I can say no.

I mean, a long line of carpenters and painters and basically genteel working class people. That’s what it was. And I mean, also a lot of poverty in the generations before me and then they got okay.

But having said that, my uncle John once got paid a shilling by Brendan Behan. He met him on the bus and Brendan Behan had just got his typewriter out of the pawn shop and he gave it to my uncle John and he said, here’s a shilling, take it to me, Ma, or I will pawn it again. So yeah, it was very, not Dublin stuff, lots of countryside stuff, but no, not one single creative person.

We’ve got a lot of musicians actually. A lot of musicians, lots of singers, but nobody’s written a word except me. So you’re the family first.

I’m the bard. Yes. Right, time for another off cut.

Tell us about this one. This one is, oh, it’s another odd one. This is a novel very close to my heart, which I wrote in about 1999, probably five years before it.

And it’s called Tiddles Gets Life. He stared. It stared back at him.

As incongruous in Pete’s damp, custard-coloured quarters as Gina Lollobrigida, the kitten leapt out of the open box, paws high. It goose-stepped here and there, suddenly fast, then still. Every soft inch of the animal quivered with curiosity, as if it might fart, question marks.

It was agog at the plastic-coated iron leg of Pete’s bed. It held out a paw to bat the roll of toilet paper, standing by the stainless-steel pedestal. It stared up at him, unafraid and seemingly fascinated by his big, soft face.

It’s not an it, Pete reprimanded himself. This thing was a girl. A lady? A child, really, only just torn from its mum.

It’s a she. A she in his cell. That was a first.

Who are you? he asked, softly, afraid his voice might knock her off her fat, beferred feet. Your Tiddles, he answered for her, the name coming so naturally to his lips that it was surely preordained. My Tiddles, he said, quieter still, in case the morbid plasterwork should soak up this new tone of voice and broadcast it to the wing.

How in the name of God was he supposed to pick her up? Tiddles was so small, and Pete’s hands were so big. He flexed his fingers, long, elegant enough in design. They were stained by too many cigarettes and unhappy wanks beneath cheap bedclothes.

L-O-V-E, said his right hand, in dirty blue. H-A-T-E, more convincingly, suggested the left. Paid a pound a day just to be Pete Kennedy, he made no decisions, had no responsibility.

His meals were prepared for him, his clothing washed, ironed badly and returned. There was no manual strapped to the kitten, nobody looking over Pete’s shoulder. He needed a diagram.

His own instincts had led him to this place, after all, and couldn’t be relied upon. Rubbing his nose hard as if he wanted to rub it off, Pete counselled himself to be calm. This morning felt important, it glittered.

The kitten’s debut was sharp and certain in a life defined by its lack of everything, deadlines, change, urgency. The only other distinct moments were conflicts. This moment was fluffy and strange and funny.

That took a minute to sink in. Tiddles was comical. She had funny bones under her tabby stripes.

Pete’s nana had used that expression about some god-awful comic on the screeching 1970s television she’d sat as close to as if they were lovers. Across a chasm of 30 years, Pete understood what she meant. Some people can make you laugh just by doing ordinary things.

Tiddles was one of those people. This was a very interesting piece and certainly your description of what happens in the story again takes a turn that nobody listening to that bit would have any idea of. So, tell us what happens to Tiddles and friend.

Well, yeah, the genesis was I read a long form, really fascinating article about lifers in American jails having a terrible trouble with violence because the stakes were very low for them. They were going to be in prison forever so they may as well act up. So they wanted a way to get them engaged with life so that they could live more calmly.

They introduced the thing that if you were good for long enough, good in inverted commas, whatever that means in prison, you were given a kitten. I know, not very fair on the kitten. But it turned into like a cat lover’s circle.

They became obsessed and in love with their kittens as they grew into cats. The cats were cosseted, they were kept clean, they were fed. And of course, the prisoners knew that if they got into fights or if they disobeyed authority, that the cats would be taken away.

So it had a massive impact on their behaviour, but also, and this was something that really fascinated me, on their feeling, they felt happier and they felt love, like genuine, clean, ordinary love for some other little thing that they were responsible for. And it really moved me because I think men in general, I mean, we’re changing things now the way we talk openly about it, but men in general have always been very in two minds about being frank about their needs emotionally or even having needs that are emotional. So I thought it was lovely that these men who had lived in a really grim and smelly, violent and transactional place suddenly had a fluffy kitten with big eyes looking at them for everything.

So that fascinated me. So I thought, yeah, we’ll start there. And it just grew.

Tiddles is given to this guy who’s imprisoned for life at the horrific murder of an elderly lady. He robbed from her, but he was really violent with it. And he can’t face it.

He can’t talk about what he actually did to her. And he kind of blames her for getting on his nerves, as it were. She was a neighbour.

And as he softens up with Tiddles, he becomes able to talk to his therapists in prison about it. He becomes absolutely besotted with Tiddles. And then we start hearing Tiddles in a voice.

And Tiddles in a voice is that of the old lady he killed. Because as always happens, don’t you hate it when this happens, Laura, the murder victim has been reincarnated as a kitten. Again! I know, that old chauvinist.

And she is being, of course, cared for by Pete, who is finding new dimensions to his soul and falling in love. And she hates Pete. And by the end, she engineers a riot and the prison burns down.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Back, back up. She’s a kitten.

Well, presumably even as a fully formed cat, she’s going to have some limitations as to how she could do something like she creates an entire riot. She does. Tiddles, without even an opposable thumb, manages to get the entire prison rioting.

Basically, she fakes being injured in his enemy’s cell. And Pete thinks that this guy has hurt Tiddles. And, of course, it looks like he has.

And so there’s great enmity between them even more than before. And Pete tries to control himself and he can’t. And Tiddles does it again.

And basically, Tiddles, of course, is sinuous and sinewy and can go all through the prison. And she manages, I can’t quite remember, I know it all fell together very well, Laura, very, very, very believable. But yeah, the whole thing burns down.

And, you know, Pete’s on the roof looking for Tiddles and Tiddles is sauntering off down an alleyway as the whole area is lit by the flames of Pete’s demise. So, yeah, she gets her own back on him quite spectacularly and fair play to her, I think. Yes, that’s an unusual turn up.

Well, that’s what my agent said. And I was always saying to her, I’m still working on Tiddles and she would be very, well, don’t neglect your other stuff. And she didn’t show it to anyone.

She didn’t show it to a single person. So that is in a drawer waiting for its time. Well, who knows? Maybe some publishers listening to this podcast go, do you know what we need? Our company needs a book like Tiddles Gets Life.

We need a reincarnated cat burning down a prison. That’s what’s going to get Netflix on its feet. Yeah.

But yeah. But then after that, you published your first actual book. Yeah, actual book, which was called The Reluctant Landlady.

And did that have any reincarnated cats or prison riots in there? No, not a one. No, shelled. Right.

But that was a romantic novel. Yeah, it was chiclet and we were still allowed to say chiclet then. And it was the next big thing.

And it was touted everywhere and highly exaggerated versions of how many copies it had sold were sent out. And it did really well. And I had an amazing editor.

She’s called Philippa Pride. And she was also Stephen King’s editor, which gives you, I know, which gives you an idea of the power she had. But then Philippa got rid of everyone except Stephen.

She had sort of changes in her career. And I was then handed over. And, you know, when there’s a changing of the guard, it’s not so good to be inherited.

It’s much better when somebody finds you. So things got it. I’m not complaining.

I have consistently published books ever since. But I wasn’t like the next big thing. Suddenly, I was, oh, and I also have to look after you, which did change things.

So yeah, it was, you know, if it hadn’t been so exciting at the beginning, I think it would have been a lot better for me. But as it was, I felt like, I don’t know, I felt like Noel Coward when he was a child star, and he was billed as destiny’s tot. And suddenly, I wasn’t anyone’s tot.

And so it was, yeah, it was, it was, it was quite humbling. And in retrospect, really useful, a really good life lesson. Because 28 novels later.

Well, yeah, I’m still going. I’m still doing the thing. But yeah, it’s, but the sheer amount of pen names will tell you that, you know, publishers constantly look for a debut, they constantly look for freshness.

They keep pretending I’m fresh. And rattled though I am, I go along with it. And yes, don’t quite got there.

But they’ll get published, they’ll get read. So I’m certainly When you say got there, you mean what top of the Sunday Times bestseller list? Exactly, or on it even. But yeah, I mean, I have readers, and I have a career, but I don’t have any name recognition.

How could you with the umpteen names, but even so, and you know, I’d like that. But more than anything else, I like being able to keep myself and to have something to do every day. So I’m plugging away, Laura.

Yeah, well, I’m trying not to feel sorry for you. I mean, 28 books. Are you sold in airport bookshops? Some of them are.

Yeah, the most recent three are the Archer’s ones. Well, there you go. I’m sorry, my sympathies just got out the window.

So you’re obviously doing extremely well. I’ll put away my tiny violin. Yes.

Right, well, we’ve come to your final offcut now. Can you tell us about this one, please? This is a TV screenplay, and it’s called Turpin, and it was written around 2019. Interior, Dick’s house, kitchen, day.

Martha is busy making a list, counting jars on a shelf, pondering, scribbling. Jane is shelling peas at the large scrubbed table. It is sunny and pleasant.

The kitchen lass can do that, Miss Jane. Don’t dirty your white fingers. It’s calming, Martha.

You used to sit me on the barrel over there and tell me I wasn’t allowed to talk until I was done. That was then, and this is now. The lady of the manor won’t shell peas.

Then I must make the most of my freedom before I’m expected to press flowers or read poetry or embroider my own straitjacket. Honey. We’re nearly out of honey.

Dick enters, scowling. Ah, thwit. Down the head, fool.

And good morning to you. Dick slams down the tiara on the table. Martha and Jane gape.

Is that… Martha involuntarily looks about her. It is, madam. Booty from last night’s jape.

What are you doing with it, sir? What do you think, woman? I stole it last night. Dragged it off that ugly aristocrat myself. Father! Lord Jane, were you out the day they delivered irony? This was left with poor widow Fleetwood by our kindly highwayman.

Surely that’s a good deed, father. The poor woman could buy herself a home with the proceeds of such a bauble. She wouldn’t need a home.

She’d have a nice, cosy coffin. If any of Prothero’s men caught an old widow woman with such a trinket, they’d march her to the gallows. Surely not.

This is England. Aye, England. Where the poor have no voice.

Where they hang old women. Dick feels his neck, suppresses a shudder. Young fool riding around our woods nearly got an innocent killed.

Dick bangs the table. And you, sir, I wouldn’t care to be in your shoes if Prothero had picked you up with that in your pocket. He can’t hurt you, father.

Dick and Martha exchange a look. You’re a man of substance and you have nothing to hide. You could have explained that you simply… Simply? Nothing simple with the likes of Prothero.

He’s been looking for a chance to jump on me and this… He puts the tiara on his head. Would hand it to him on a plate. Your head’s empty, Jane.

Life’s not all singing and shedding peas. Dick sweeps the peas off the table. Jane jumps up, shocked, and runs out the door.

Jane! I didn’t… We watch Jane race across the yard and jump the gate into a field. You never did let those skirts get in your way, girl. I handled that magnificently, eh, Martha? I can hear you thinking it.

Tack that off. It don’t suit you. Dick has forgotten the tiara.

He takes it off. Where does she go, Martha? When she runs off for hours on end like a tinker child. Where does she go? Right.

A TV series about, well, Dick Turpin. And in this case, the daughter of Dick Turpin. Tell us about that.

Yes. Dick has reformed and thinks no one knows he used to be a… A highwayman. And his daughter certainly doesn’t know it.

But he doesn’t know that she’s a highwaywoman. What? Well, yes, I know. Excuse me.

Get out of here. When she runs off like a tinker child, that’s what she’s doing. And she’s about to be married off to a local bigwig, who is a perfectly nice young man.

But she doesn’t want to marry him. She wants to have a wild, crazy life. So, yeah, it was about the pair of them circling each other, father and daughter circling each other, starting to think, hang on, this is a family business.

What’s going on? But Dick being very conservative because he knows this could mean death, all their houses stolen from them and everyone in prison and hanged. And she’s, of course, much more giddy and thinks they can get away with it forever. So, yeah, it’s very Saturday evening.

It’s that early Saturday evening romp where they always seem to have huge budgets, always lots of horses in them. And also a real throwback to a film I was obsessed with as a child called The Wicked Lady. Ah, yes.

Margaret Watson Fonteyn, isn’t it? No, Margaret something. Oh, we’re going to have to look this up now, Laura. Margaret something, the mum at the beauty spot.

Go on, look it up. It’s called The Wicked Lady. It’s called The Wicked Lady.

It’s Margaret Douda. Rutherford, no, not Rutherford. No, that’d be different, Margaret.

Margaret Lockwood, of course. Margaret Lockwood and that wonderful actor with the plummy voice in it as well. Hold on, we haven’t got his name yet.

James. No, that’s Michael Winner’s version. Did you know there was a Michael Winner version? 1983.

Not Mel Ferret, hold on. Oh, James Mason, of course. James Mason.

James Mason. And he was her lover and I just loved it. It was all sort of rushing out of rooms and cracking whips and a hat on the side with a feather in it.

And I just thought it’d be brilliant. If I was an actress, I’d love to be playing that role. So yes, again, it was kind of comedy.

It would have been a series serial. I mean, you know, the end of the series would always be Dick or Jane escaping from the gallows. And it was just fun to write.

And it did get sent to people, but it never got any interest at all. I think there were probably half a dozen other similar things circling. It’s now I know that it’s kind of a perennial thing to open.

Oh, is it? Yeah, there’s a lot of it. I mean, there’s two Harryman things on at the moment. There was that Noel Fielding one that was cancelled and that really lovely one.

Renegade Nell. Renegade Nell as well, which was lovely. So yeah, I don’t think I was the right person to write it, but it was fun.

And I’m very, very proud of the line, booty from last night’s Jape. And to hear it said so, so actorishly is a delight. But that’s the thing, like all that language.

And do you know who else is in there? Lorna Doon. We did Lorna Doon when I was about nine. And that being out in the wind, being a girl and having to struggle with all your 50 petticoats, but still jumping on the horse and getting away.

I just love all that. Right. But you’re working on another TV project at the moment based on The Archers.

Yes. Got three books set in Radio 4 hit soap opera, The Archer’s Village of Ambridge, taking place before The Archers started. Now that is an excellent idea because The Archers has a huge audience in this country anyway, very popular.

I mean, it feels like the prequel options are endless. Well, that’s what I think. We’re trying to get it away.

It just so happens that my agent also is the agent of the editor of The Archers. And she kind of got us both in a room and said, this could be great, couldn’t it? So we did it with the Biebs blessing. And I had the staff on Speed Dial to talk about what kind of tractor would they have had before the war? Bovine diseases.

I actually have a folder of bovine diseases. And of course, keeping the kind of lineage, the pedigree of the families straight because people take it as they should incredibly seriously. It’s a delightful world to dip your toe in.

I can’t tell you how safe and lovely it is in the world of The Archers, but not in a kind of silly way, just in a kind of really nice people doing important jobs. Well, it’s very what the BBC does best. But yeah, I mean, I’d watch it.

But yeah, we’re talking to people and there’s lots of meetings that should have been emails. But yeah, I hope one day to see that, but it’s not like it’s not coming to a screen near you anytime soon. It just seems like a really good idea.

It does. It seems like an excellent idea. You’ve already got three books out of it, have you? Yeah.

And presumably there are endless others. You just have to keep going. And yes, but before that, the Archers in the Stone Age, I mean, yeah, we can just keep going back.

And it is, of course, the war is just like prime archers going to time, isn’t it? Yes. You know, all that kind of gritting your teeth and getting on with it and, you know, putting up with rationing. And I had a ball writing those books.

I presume you have many more plans coming out, surely? Don’t stop. No, they haven’t asked for any more. And do you need their permission to do that? Yes and no.

The problem is the plan was always that the end of the last book in the trilogy would be the day of the first episode of the radio serial. So we’re getting a crossing of universes and a crossing of ley lines. So I can’t get my archers to do what I want them to do.

But what about, you know, like the Star Wars, did it for God’s sake? Yeah, that’s true. Surely prequels of prequels. I mean, also the American TV series Yellowstone has about four spinoff series already.

Pre that and then pre that and pre that. I mean, the question, I suppose, is whether you’d be allowed to, do you need to apply to them for the IP and all that? Absolutely. Yeah, you do.

You do. And you have to share the profits with them. So yeah, you do.

You know, I can parley this into a pension if I keep yakking. But yeah, I mean, that is the idea, to kind of flesh it out and make it, you know, really nice sort of period thing. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I can’t do it on my own, Laura.

You mean for the TV series? Exactly. So we’ll work on that. But yeah, it was a joy and is a continuing joy to write about the archers, I have to say.

Excellent. Well, we have come to the end of the show. How was it for you, Bernie? It was lovely.

It was really lovely. I enjoyed the podcast anyway. And it’s surreal to be on this end of it, I have to say.

And yeah, thank you for being so gentle with me, Laura. I’m not quite sure what you thought I should be doing. I’m generally, I’m a very vanilla presenter.

I don’t do anything to anybody. So you’re always going to be safe. But having heard your offcuts, do you think any of these offcuts are worth going back to and having another stand back? Or do we think that their time has passed? I think if I’m honest, I think their whole time has passed.

But hearing Tiddles, I want to write about the cat who burns the prison down. I’m going to forcefully… And not as a children’s book, which the implication is the cat that burned down the prison. Exactly.

The lifeless cat that burned… No, I just, I want to get back into Tiddles. I love Tiddles. So yeah, I think they’re all backdated.

I think they’re all in my rearview mirror now. I really do think they are. And I think that’s great.

It’s nice to have a very crowded rearview mirror. But yeah, it is reminding me actually, just how… I remember someone saying to Ronnie Barker once when I was a kid watching him on, I think it was on Parkinson, said, do you ever worry that you won’t be able to make any more jokes that you’ve used up all your jokes? And he said, no, it’s like writing music. There’s only a certain amount of notes, but there’s no end to the amount of music you can write.

And I think the same is true of kind of literary endeavours. It’s just like a self-generating machine inside you. It’s an engine.

And it’s kind of nice to be reminded that your engine works. So thank you for that, Laura. It was absolutely our pleasure.

Well, it’s been great fun to talk to you today, Bernie, Juliet, Claire, MB, Alice, Catherine and Bernadette. Best of luck in your new home. And thank you for sharing the contents of your offcut straw with us.

Thank you, Laura. The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Bernadette Strachan. The offcuts were performed by Shash Hira, Noni Lewis, Beth Chalmers, Marcus Hutton and Emma Clarke.

And the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit offcutstraw.com and please do subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.

Piers: I was like many people at the time, turning way too much time on Facebook. It was the beginning of the great sort of distractor crisis. But I posted these little things on Facebook and people, I think they were just like, oh God. Piers is obviously having a nervous breakdown. I’ll post some nice comments and maybe he’ll step off the ledge. So I kept on posting them and gradually the comments got less and less. They were like, yeah, we didn’t need to carry on. And a loose narrative kind of formed and I just enjoyed doing them, but they’re completely mad. I dunno what was going through my head.

Laura: Hello, I’m Laura Shavin and this is the Offcut Drawer that 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 pave the way to Subsequent success.

Today’s guest is Piers Torday. After working as a producer and writer in theater and television, he turned to children’s fiction. His debut, the Last Wild, published in 2013 was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He followed it with the dark wild winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Wild Beyond, and the Prequel the Wild before he also published

There may be a Castle and more recently launched a fantasy geology with midnight treasure being named Children’s Book of the Year by New Statesman among Others, and the Sequel Wolf Crown Due late 2025. Earlier this year, he released letters to a dog, a title published with dyslexia, friendly accessibility in mind.

In 2016, piers completed the death of an owl finishing his late father’s final unfinished novel on stage. He adapted the box of delights for a premier at Wilton’s Music Hall in 2017 with further revivals up through 2023 at the Royal Shakespeare Company. His theater credits also include a Christmas Carol, the Wind in the Willows, a child in the Snow and Plum, a Homage to Happiness, staged earlier this year.

Pi Tour Day. Welcome to the Offcut Straw.

Piers: Thank you very much for having me. I’m excited and nervous and equal measure. Excellent.

Laura: Right. Um, well you’ve written for both stage and page. How does your creative process differ between the two? Do you, do you start with the format in mind or do you have the idea first and then decide what format it best suits?

Piers: Well, I’ve been incredibly lucky in the sense that everything I’ve done for stage has more or less been someone else’s idea. At least initially in the sense I was approached to adapt John Mayfield’s box of Delights by Wilton’s musical. And it very different to writing a book of your own. You’re beginning with someone else’s, uh, story.

Mm. And I’ve, after that, I then suggested books I’d like to adapt. And we’ve, we’ve done them, but it’s so different because you not only have someone else’s story. But you are collaborating with other people from, from the start. And everything I’ve done has begun conversations with the director who’s also read and loved the book, and a producer and a designer, all of who’ve got, uh, sort of ideas and visions and things they want to bring to it.

And. I’ve loved doing them because when you’re writing a novel, you are a total opposite. You’re a complete control freak. Uh, but the, the flip side to that is you get everything you want, but you have to do everything yourself. So you are director, script writer, designer, actor, lighting designer. And it’s lovely, but quite intense.

Laura: Yes.

Piers: And so I’ve, in the last few years, I’ve doing more. Just put work at the moment, but I’ve, I’ve enjoyed that switch between intensely solitary in your head, creativity and then the sort of freedom of collaboration where your job is literally with a, you know, you are telling the story and you’re putting the word, the dialogue down on the page, but so much else is.

Up to other people.

Laura: Right. And you’re not tempted to translate one of your books into a stage production? Is that double the work?

Piers: No, it’s really interesting. L Little Angel Theater did a book of mine called Thou, maybe a Castle. They did it as a musical with puppets, which was joyful. Oh. And I really trusted the people doing it, and it was.

Lovely. And now the National Theater and the Unicorn Theater are doing the, my first book, the Last Wild. And again, a lot of people assume that I’m going to be, uh, uh, adapting. It’s not, it’s being adapted by a wonderful writer called Jude Christian. And the, honestly, the feeling is relief. ’cause I took me four years to write Last Wild, and I angsted and.

Agonized over every word of that book, and I’m really proud of it. But I’ve absolutely stated my need to tell that story. Ah, and I’m now really excited by hopefully someone else, another team of people gonna tell in a different way. And so far I’m loving what they’re doing and I’m sure it’ll be great.

And I’m sure there’ll be things about it that I, choices I wouldn’t have made. But I think you have to sort of. You have to sort of accept that and when you hand something over for ad adaptation. So yeah, I like adapting other people’s stuff. I think adapting on my own is just too inside your head.

Laura: Yeah, too intense.

Yeah. Makes sense. Mm-hmm. Okay, then well let’s kick off with your first off cut. Can you tell us please, what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when it was written?

Piers: So, uh, this is from Dead Animals and this is a sick pom pilot. I wrote in 2005,

Actor 1: scene one, exterior Country Church, yard Day, Dartmore rain, a small family funeral.

Actor 2: We have entrusted our brother Harry Thick, and our sister, his wife, Margaret, to God’s mercy, and we now commit their bodies to the ground.

Actor 1: We focus in on Paul and hear his voice over the following scenes. As I watched my parents’ bodies finally going into the ground, I asked myself the question, how did I get here again?

Cut to scene two. Interior classroom day. Close up on Paul reading aloud, there is a book poster behind his head and piles of novels in front of him. I was a writer living

Actor 3: in London. He had never made love in an intensive care unit before it felt wrong and good fucking Bridget in there next to some dying people.

As they both climaxed noisily together. He heard the alarm on a nearby heart monitor Sound. Beep. How ironic he whispered in her ear. Um, that’s, uh, that’s about as far as I’ve got. But you, but you get the idea.

Actor 1: Pull back to reveal that he is in fact reading to a creative writing class of old ladies.

Actor 4: Okay, thanks Paul.

That just about wraps up our brief encounter session everybody next week. I’d like your interpretation of my strangest Christmas ever

Actor 1: cut to scene three, exterior bus stop later. I was from the country, but I hadn’t been home for 10 years. I just loved London. Paul with several large supermarket shopping bags, tries to get on a packed bus, but some kids barge past him outta white gimp.

They push him over to get on and he falls into a puddle. They jeer as the bus recedes. Cut to scene four. Interior vegetarian cafe bar. Later establishing shot the wet lettuce cafe I

Actor 3: had arising and active love life.

Actor 1: Paul struggles into the cafe with shopping bags. A stunning blonde by the bar smiles and then moves past to greet someone else.

She reveals Paul’s blind date ugly in bifocals and a cable knit jersey. Reading how to Talk Yourself Thin. Paul fleas. Cut to scene five, interior apartment block stairway night. I had a room of my own. You could say I had everything I’d ever wanted. Paul struggles up to his door with his shopping as he tries to get his key out.

A fat neighbor comes barreling past,

Actor 3: excuse me.

Actor 1: He sends Paul shopping, tumbling down the stairs, and then tragedy struck. Cut to scene six, interior barn night. My parents both suddenly died in a freak farming accident. Harry and Margaret sick are bending over a bailing machine, poking about, are

Actor(s): you sure this is safe?

Harry, of course is, as long as nobody comes and

Actor 2: suddenly

Actor(s): turns

Actor 2: it

Actor(s): on, you mean I shouldn’t press this switch?

Actor 2: Exactly.

Actor(s): Oh, silly me. I didn’t mean to do that.

Actor 2: Didn’t mean to do what?

Actor 1: There’s a horrific mangling noise. Blackout.

Laura: So did you write the whole thing? Was this a, a whole script or just like a few scenes?

Piers: I, I did, I think write a whole pilot. I mean, yeah, roughly about 30 odd pages, but that was as far as it got. I, I had a look when I was looking in my offcut draw and I think there were maybe some different versions or other episodes, but this was the kind of only fully completed. Episode. Right.

Laura: What was gonna be the premise of this sitcom?

’cause I mean, the title Dead Animals is quite intriguing for a sitcom, but, uh, from those scenes we just heard, I, I don’t think I would be able to understand why it was called that. What, what was No, I’m

Piers: not sure I can remember, understand why it was called Dead Animals. I think it was, I was trying to do that thing of, as you should do when you start writing, is trying to write about what you know and.

I had been working for a TV company a few years previously, and, um, we’d been talking about some various ideas for sort of family. Family television involving animals in the kind of doctor who slot. But it became clear that wasn’t gonna happen and I certainly wouldn’t be the person to write it. But one of my colleagues said, well, look, if you want to write something, you should start.

Don’t try and write something real expensive that no one’s gonna make. Why don’t you try writing something that’s based on your own experience? And I, I did grow up on farms and I did move to London and I was trying to be a writer. I wasn’t, obviously not called Paul. And this. Sitcom was an attempt to sort of, not at all really be truthfully about my family, but take lots of some of the funnier, more extreme anecdotes of my childhood and country life and try and turn it into a sitcom about the difference between.

Country life and the idea of someone with artistic pretensions coming from a very agricultural background and the jumping off point for dead animals, which is alluded to in the script, was the foot and mouth. Virus in 2001, whenever it was. Um, because that was a time when actually the countryside felt pretty dark because certainly in the farm I grew up on, there were sort of Paso animals being burnt, and the army were called in and there was, you know, the first lockdown way before COVID, it was the first lockdown.

So that was the kind of, that was going to be the backdrop,

(music): right,

Piers: uh, to this. To the sitcom ideal subject for sitcom, but in my pandemic, what fun, I can’t imagine why this wasn’t made, but, um, but it was, it was an attempt to try and, and some of that I, I, I, I wince at hearing, but it was an attempt to, to try and sort of at least go back to my own life and experience, which I do think is always a good place.

To begin, even if some of this execution leaves a bit to be desired.

Laura: But in the note that accompanied this, it said that this script inspired the last Wild, which was the first of your wild series of children’s books. That that’s quite a leap. How did, how exactly did that happen?

Piers: It is, it is certainly quite a leap from someone reading out that story that begin withing Jill’s books, but, and do you mind me thinking what on earth.

But in a way, that’s why I chose this, because I think it is so weird and unpredictable how the creative process works. And when I wrote this, I was working for Tiger Aspect TV back then, a TV production company. Did a lot of comedy and stuff and I was. My, my day job was to come up with entertainment formats, so sort of game shows and entertainment shows, but I was, uh, enjoyed it, but I was feeling a bit creatively frustrated, and so I was working on this in the evenings and the weekends, and when I’d written this draft episode, I sent it to a former colleague to say, look, will you, what do you, what do you think of this?

You’re someone who’d worked in sitcoms and stuff and knew about it. And he said, um, well, he said it’s perhaps not quite ready to go, but, uh, one of the things he said was in terms of the farm scenes and that it gets to, and there’s a treatment that takes onto the farm, he was wondering if the animals could talk so the animals could have a voice in this as well.

And I think he was imagining something in along the lines of desperate housewives, you know, where. You hear the, the dead former housewife kind of narrates that series.

Laura: Oh, right.

Piers: Yes. He was imagining could one of these dead animals, a cow or something, actually be a very sardonic narrator for this stick com.

Oh, see? And I was like, see, I

Laura: thought he was picturing animals like in a field talking to each other.

Piers: No, he was thinking much more like a grownup kind of sardonic, a voiceover. Voiceover and I thought it was quite fun, but I didn’t really know how to make it work, but it really got me thinking about talking animals.

And I then had a break from, uh, I, I finished my job at Tri Aspect and I had a, a summer off for the first time since leaving university. Really? And I just felt like a creative kind of recharge. And almost on a whim really, I booked myself onto this creative writing course, an Arvin course in Ted Hughes’s old house in West Yorkshire.

A beautiful place. And they wanted you ideally to bring something and it was, it was general how to start writing fiction. And I was like, oh God, what am I gonna do? I’ve got time. So. And I thought, well, the only thing I’ve got knocking around is this sitcom dead animals. But obviously that’s not right ’cause it’s fiction.

And so I just started writing this thing, thinking about talking animals and something very different to my surprise came out, which was this kind of dystopian children’s book with a young boy in a world without animals who discovers he can talk to the few who’ve survived and became a very different story.

But funnily enough. It’s still in a way about my childhood growing up in a remote can with loads of wildlife and there’s lots of farming scenes in it. There’s a character in the sitcom called Kester who’s a Lord of the Rings obsessive, uh, who becomes ke last wild, who’s not a Lord of the Rings set of the world, but a Lord of the Rings doesn’t exist.

But it’s just curious to me how these things very different, very grown up. Sort of sitcom. Yeah. Becomes this kind of children’s book. But I guess that’s how ideas twist and shape in the mind.

Laura: Yeah, that is very interesting. ’cause no one could have predicted that pathway at all. And nobody directed you.

Nobody said what you should do really is right. A kid’s book or what you should do is make it dystopian. It came completely from you. There was no influence apart from your friend who said maybe have a talking animal in it.

Piers: Yeah. I mean the only, because this was in 2008 that I ended up doing the. Course and the starting the book, and I’d been trying to work on the sitcom, hadn’t been getting very far and was getting a bit frustrated, and the same friend said, well, look, if you can’t get it made as a teller, you could always try writing as a novel.

And again, I just. That sitcom you heard there was no, I tried turning that into a book for about 10 seconds and that was never gonna work. Um, and, but I think part of it is, I think part of the trick with writing is not wanting it too much. And I’d grown up really loving sitcoms. I mean, I dunno, it’s who watches sitcoms now, but I’d, I do really love them.

Uh, I do, I do. But I mean, it, it feel, it was very much a form of the. Definitely of the nineties and the early naughties. It was a really exciting form and so many great writers and I kinda really wanted to do it. And I think I wanted it too much. I didn’t really want to write children’s books. I kind of like, I loved children’s books as a child and obviously some very big children’s books came out at the start of this century.

Uh, and that was, that intrigued me and I read them, but it wasn’t such a sort of deeply held ambition in a way that freed me up just to try and. Understand it and get good at it without writing and constantly second guessing myself and trying too hard to be funny or clever.

Laura: Okay. Time for another off cut.

Now, tell us about this one.

Piers: So this is many questions, which is a treatment, actually I think for a radio format that I wrote in 2003.

Actor 4: Many questions.

Piers: Local problems solved

Actor 1: by famous people.

Actor 4: Monday, 6:30 PM and Sunday, 12:00 PM 30 minutes.

Actor 1: A question and answer show where local communities have their real life dramas solved and advised upon by a panel of celebrities.

We’ll come to your town and advise you on how to get your neighbors to turn down that stereo or what to do if you think your daughter’s staying out too late with the wrong sort. Our panel of comedians, writers, lifestyle commentators and personalities will soon have you seeing the funny side of your domestic problem, whether it be them next door or her upstairs.

Actor 4: The increasing amount of advice columns in the papers, the burgeoning number of message boards on the internet where people exchange tips on anything from DIY to social etiquette, not to mention the ever expanding lifestyle industry shows us however, ever more prepared we are to get the best advice for any problem.

If there’s a dilemma, you can guarantee someone somewhere will have the answer. We don’t claim to have that, but we’ll give you at least four to choose from,

Actor 1: whether it be community based,

Actor 4: who should get the use of the village green on Sundays, the cricket team or the local kids, domestic. What would the panel do if they won the lottery?

I recently won a hundred thousand pounds and don’t know what to do.

Actor 1: Or just one of life’s mysteries.

Actor 4: Where do the socks go? In tumble dryers.

Actor 1: We’ll do our best to help.

Actor 4: Chaired by Mark Radcliffe. Our panel of advisors are here to help if they can, but they’re more likely to make you smile. The panel will typically be made up of a range of personalities,

Actor 1: a lifestyle guru, Trini or Susanna from BBC Two’s, what not to wear, or Mary Killen, the spectator’s social agony aunt or guardian, colonist Mill Millington.

They’ll always carry a profoundly different spin depending on the philosophy and the most likely to offer some genuinely good advice,

Actor 4: a political figure. Perhaps the Bumptious comedy of Boris Johnson or the more seic wit of Tony Banks. Or we might have a political commentator such as Matthew Paris or Polly Toby, and attempt to see the personal in context of the bigger national picture,

Actor 1: a local character.

We’ll find someone from your hometown who’s known outside it and see if they still have the local touch. Did Michael winner go to the local school or did Julie Birch Hill once live around the corner? Either way, this third panelist will be someone local. But whose strong opinions may no longer be welcome?

Actor 4: A comic, a comedian of the more whimsical, kind, perhaps Ross Noble or Daniel Kitson to take a less than prosaic approach to life’s problems.

Actor 1: It’s a bit like home Truths Live, but without the Schmalz, our opinionated, diverse panel will take your queries and problems seriously. But the range of their answers combined with the disputes they’re bound to have with each other over the best solution is guaranteed entertainment.

Actor 4: A traditional and simple radio format given a modern twist.

Piers: Okay. Can’t imagine why that was a odd.

Laura: Well, I mean, it’s, it’s not a terrible idea. It just does sound like quite a lot of things. Uh, particularly radio things,

Piers: other things. Yeah. It sort of sounds, I think that program exists. I think it’s called Question Time, and it’s not so funny.

I mean, it does, it does

Laura: feel very familiar. So it doesn’t feel like a terrible idea, just too similar to stuff that was probably already around at the time, I imagine.

Piers: Mm-hmm. I, I, I chose this because I can’t, I can’t remember exactly who, where this was, so obviously a radio format, so I was, uh, I guess pitching for Radio four, but.

Until I started writing books. This was kind of my bread and butter and, uh, there’s many, many worse ideas I came up with in this one, believe it or not.

Laura: Oh, really? Such as, but I didn’t wanna share

Piers: them ’cause they’re probably owned by, technically owned by huge media giants. Well, so you sold them then. Well, I was paid to come up with them.

So they still technically in them, not that they’re worth anything, but they’re often of this kind of ilk and you know, it’s not great. It is derivative, but actually, you know, writing one of these a day or you know, a few a week, it’s sort of, again, going back to that weird thing about creative process, it was.

Bizarrely. I know it doesn’t sound like it, but it was such good training to, to become a writer because you get given this idea or come up this idea with someone else, I can’t remember the genesis of this one. And you sit down and write it and you just had to do it. And sometimes they, you know, we did actually come up with some really good ideas that got made into programs, but most of the time you came with ideas as all ideas are really, that are sort of not quite, as you say, they’re a bit derivatives, a bit similar to everything else.

Mm. But you don’t really know that until you’ve written it up. And just that sort of discipline of writing up stuff, uh, nonsense and gradually weird as it may sound, learning how to tell a story, like learning how to present an idea. Mm. And tell a story. This was very early and not in any way, particularly anything to be and, and particularly remarkable about it.

And, but it was through writing stuff like this that I sort of found my way to writing. Fiction or does it maybe the

Laura: discipline prepared you and the pressure. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I have to say that the thing I did enjoy most, as I’m sure, uh, probably the listener will, uh, the elements of historical interest, the many questions suggested guests, Boris Johnson and his Bumptious comedy,

Piers: no, God, I really hate my former self.

Laura: That was

Piers: Oh, that, that’s one for the archives. Definitely don’t blame me, but I mean, reality, you know. The idea of a panel of that included Michael, winner and Poly Toby. I mean, it’s just, and Ross Noble, it’s just not gonna happen. I mean, and also I love the fact I suggested Ross Noble, Daniel Kitson, who are famously iconoclastic and really quite reluctant to do stuff that’s not, yes, Daniel kids would

Laura: never.

Go on this show like this, this never

Piers: in a million years, never wouldn’t touch it with a barge

Laura: pole. And Ross no Will. Well, if you put him on, he would probably, who knows what show would be the result of it. Yeah, yeah. Quite, quite. But, uh, Trinny and Susanna. Wow. Oh, I to love that show. I can’t remember who

Piers: Tony Banks is either.

Laura: Oh, he was the, he I know who I’ve met him. Oh, he’s off the close show. Was your coach? No, no, no. Tony Banks was the mp. He was an MP for, I think he was the culture secretary at Point. Oh, that’s it. Yeah. Cultural sport. He was very charming. Sort of smiley eyed, kind of. Uh, no. He died about 20 years ago. But no, he was a very fairy char.

I remember being overwhelmed by his charm in real life. I had no idea who he was at the time. But you know, some people have larger than life kind of charisma. Yeah, he was one of them. So I’ve never forgotten Tony Banks. No. He died about 15, 20 years ago.

Piers: Killing, killing people off through, uh, putting them in formats while they may.

Laura: Yes. There’s not many of them that are alive or certainly their careers aren’t so alive. But anyway, that’s not, that’s not

Piers: for us to say. And, and I think it’s an interesting, I mean, it’s not a great idea, but it’s also one of those funny things where actually you’ve probably added one more ingredient that was original.

It might be. It’s just that it, it’s, there’s not enough to it.

Laura: Yeah. Okay. Moving on now let’s have your next off cut.

Piers: Um, this is a one page treatment for a romantic comedy novel. I started writing in 2007, called the year everyone else Got Married.

Actor 1: Hi, I’m Josh, and this is my story.

Actor 4: Excuse me. I think you’ll find it’s mine as well.

I’m Myra, by the way, and he never introduces me properly. Another one of the many things which

Actor 1: brought us closer together over the last year and what a year it’s been. Josh Haynes is now friends with Myra Duke. They hooked up at New Year and it was fucking freezing. You see, this was the year everyone else decided to get married.

Everyone else I know. Anyway, I didn’t even know half of them. That’s because we just met, and not everyone literally, but I think 12 weddings in one year is about as close as you’re ever going to get. That’s right. 12. One wedding a month.

Actor 4: Every month for a whole year. That is two stag dues, 10 weddings. One of them is mothers, one of them gay, and one of them literally at the bad end of a shotgun, an engagement party, and a divorce celebration, whatever that is.

Actor 2: Status update. Josh Haynes is deciding that he really hates weddings, especially other peoples in foreign countries. Status update. Myra Duke is having an amazing year. So many beautiful weddings, and now she’s off to one in Italy.

Actor 1: I’m not kidding. I really hate weddings. We’ve got 12 to get through just so long as it doesn’t give her any ideas,

Actor 4: just so long as it doesn’t put him off.

Actor 2: Relationship. Josh Haynes and Myra Duke changed the relationship status to, huh?

Laura: Now that weird ending there is because the text you sent ended mid-sentence with a question mark, so it does, we didn’t know it does. How to

Piers: actually vocalize that question mark. I think that’s a great vocalization. Oh, brilliant.

I have no idea. There was much discussion, let me tell you. Okay,

Laura: so you only wrote this is a one page treatment?

Piers: Yeah, I mean, maybe this is the thing I sent, maybe there are bits of, but I never really got off the ground. I mean, it was. It was definitely a point I think so many people have in their lives that I was kind of in my, uh, early thirties and going through that experience of summers being, oh my God, we’re doing this weekend.

It’s another wedding. And they’re lovely and they’re go, they’re gorgeous and, uh, some are better than others. And some of them are in London, which is brilliant where I live and others are miles away, which is lovely, but also really expensive And, yeah. Sometimes you’re invited and you don’t know people very well, but you go, ’cause you really should sometimes, you know, literally everyone.

And there’s so much gossip and drama swirling around. Other times the speech just make you want the floor to swallow you up. Mm-hmm. And so on and so on. And I felt there was a lot of mileage in it. But I also think, and I think, I think there is, I think there is an idea, and I’ve talked to other people who’ve had this idea, who’ve had a similar experience.

But I think I was in that phase of writing TV formats where one day you’re asked to write a sort of, you know, a game show about winning loads of money. The next day you’re asked to write a really sensitive treatment for a documentary about treating, you know, some refugees who’ve ended up somewhere, or the next day you’re asked to write a kind of current affairs type format.

So you slightly kid yourself that you are a sort of, you know, master of all trades. Mm-hmm. And. I think interestingly, this was me a year before I started writing books properly. This was me edging towards writing books, but still with that very TV kind of commercial sort of mindset.

(music): Yeah.

Piers: And there is a book here to be written.

If I was a kind of. Brilliant romantic comedy novelist or someone who writes those brilliant beach, we, you know, if I someone like Jenny Corgan or if I someone like Emma Henry or there’s so, so many people who could write a brilliant version of this story. I’m not sure I’m that person, but it was an interesting exercise in, it was like a transition from tv.

It’s sort of very commercial and. But it’s not really grounded in enough real characters or set up to to work. But you know, it was a step.

Laura: Well, in the same year, 2007, your dad, Paul Toay, wrote salmon fishing in the Yemen, um, and became a successful writer. Did that in any way make you think, ah, actually that’s something I’d like to do as well.

Piers: Huge. Hugely. Yeah. He showed me how to do a good romantic comedy. Um. And I think because I, it focused my mind because I just, as you may be guessing, by all these half started things in the job I was doing, I had a lot of unfocused, creative energy mm-hmm. That I was making living from doing it for other pe for other people.

Laura: Yeah.

Piers: But the thing about developing ideas is it, it, I worked with some brilliant people and learned so much, but ultimately it’s. You get a bit frustrated because brilliant ideas are misunderstood and don’t get made. Terrible ideas do get made, brilliant ideas get made terribly, and so on and so on, and you don’t have any control over that, and you don’t quite get the follow through, uh, of least learning.

You don’t learn. Because you just write the proposal and it’s on to the next one. So I was slightly flaming around thinking, coming up with things like this, thinking I’ve got to try and do something else, but I just didn’t really know what was I gonna write sitcoms? Was I gonna write romantic beach reads?

And then my dad out of the blue who’d, I mean, he loved reading, he read English University and he’d got me into reading and it was a big part of his life. And I’d discovered once. In my parents’ house in a shoebox, an unfinished novel. Um, but that’s not unusual. A lot of people have unfinished novels in shoe boxes.

Um, but it was a total surprise when really he’d more or less was stepping back from work. He was in his, he was back to 10 60 and he took me out for dinner and said, I’ve got some to tell you something. It’s a secret and a surprise. And I was like, oh my God. Like my dad didn’t do surprises. Like he was a very.

Quiet, quietly spoken, modest. He just didn’t, I was like, this is bad. It’s like, oh God, you know what, what? What terrible news are you gonna tell me? And it was like, he said, I’ve written a novel called Salmon Fishing in Yemen. And I was like, it’s called the Whaty What? And uh. And then it was just this amazing thing where he, he hadn’t told any of his family.

He’d written three books and thrown three away, but this one he’d written half of, got an agent interested, who then said, please write the rest. And then it sold for, you know, I mean, especially now where publishing is now a huge amount of money and was lined up for film adaptations, all the rest of it.

And it was just so thrilling because it made him so happy in a way that I hadn’t seen him Oh, in a particular way. I’d seen him happy before, but in a very particular way and, and I was very proud and I didn’t want to do what the kind of stuff he was writing. That would’ve been a bit close, but it made me think, well, look, I spent my life reacting against my parents as you do.

’cause he was in business. And I was thought, I don’t want to go into business. I’m really creative. I want to go and be an artist in London. And then I was like, oh my God, now my dad’s an artist. I should have been a lawyer. Everything’s gone wrong. Uh, so I should have, I was like, what do I do? I can either.

Like, go and, uh, go to law school, don’t wanna do that. So I was like, well, maybe, you know, uh, I don’t, I’m not sure these things inherited, but I was like, look, your dad’s writing books. That is one of the things you thought about doing. So that kind of informed the creator writing course. I was like, well, let’s take this seriously and see if there’s anything in that.

(music): Right.

Piers: And it really helped because he. I was writing kids books, he was writing out books, so very different. But he was, he knew the publishing world before I did and gave me lots of advice. Um, so it was lovely and totally unexpected in the way these, the, the nicest things. Often now.

Laura: Oh. So the opposite of, uh, my father.

I, I felt I had to beat him, sort of the EPU situation, you know,

Piers: it, it wasn’t because he hadn’t been, I, I, you know, I’d got all outta my system with like, you know, you are a businessman doing engineering, and I’m working with cool comedy people in London. Um, and so I’d called that and he was totally, of course.

Completely unimpressed and wasn’t remotely interested in any of that.

(music): Yeah.

Piers: Didn’t understand any of it. It was like, what are you doing with your life? Um, so then when I started writing books, at least kind of got what that those were. Yeah. ’cause he was writing them. So it was nice. It brought us together.

Laura: Oh, that’s lovely. Right. Well, let’s have another off cut,

Piers: please. What’s this one? So, um, this is a social media status update. Uh, several, uh, that I wrote from 2013, uh, called Alfonso the

Actor 3: Weevil. I. As I mentioned in my status update this morning, there’s a small, dusty, great beetle, ought to be more precise, a weevil called Alfonso, who lives on my desk.

He’s a fan of early Tom Hanks movies, and some of you have come across him before. I believe he’s often too busy with his own projects to stop and talk. But this morning I saw him perching on the corner of my porridge bowl eyeing me suspiciously. What are you looking at, Alfonso? I said, unable to ignore him any longer.

What do you think I’m looking at? He said, I looked around behind me, but there wasn’t anything there. Just some books on a shelf and a pile of unopened post. Am I being thick? I asked him. Alfonso climbed down off the bowl and onto the strip between the edge of my keyboard and the screen, which he finds a very convivial temperature.

I’m looking at you. He said, why are you always on Facebook? I’m not always on Facebook. I said, yes, you are. I am not stupid. You know. Prove it. He got out a small weevil sized notebook and flicked through the pages and began to read off a list of times 9:30 AM 9:45 AM 10:00 AM 10:14 AM 10:16 AM 10:58 AM 11 or 4:00 AM I thought that you were meant to be writing a book.

It’s not that simple. I counted beginning to feel a little uneasy. What do you know about it? Anyway, you are only a weevil. Precisely. He replied triumphantly and I could tell he was giving a rather smug grin. Precisely nothing. You are not even on Facebook. And as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I saw that I’d fallen into his trap.

No, he said in that way of his, which always makes my blood boil. I am not on Facebook. And what have I accomplished this morning? Would you like to know? I pretended I hadn’t heard and visited myself with an urgent email demanding my attention about an extra cheap Cialis clearance sale in somewhere called Ano.

Now, do you know where, um, Botano is? Alfonso? I asked him, but he was not to be diverted. And first he began. I walked all the way across your desk and that is quite somewhere, you know, and then I walked all the way back. I climbed all over your books. I crawled up the wall a bit. I found some toast, crumbs to eat, and a piece of lint.

What have you done? It’s different. You are only a stupid weevil. I’ve got, you know, invitations to reply to groups to join people to spy on. It’s a whole new dimension to my social life. Whatever you say. He said smirking and he lent against the bottom of my screen with some of his legs crossed and filing some nails with the others.

Now, if you don’t mind, I said flicking him off, so he bounced with a crack against the window sill. I really am trying to write a book. Yes, came a weak little voice streaming up from the floor, and I really am trying to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, so I squashed him, dear Rita, but don’t worry, he’ll be back tomorrow.

Laura: It’s quite extraordinary. A a, a social media update. How, how many of these did you write and, and where?

Piers: I did loads. I did loads on Facebook. I was writing. This, you know, I was, well, 2013, I guess. Uh, maybe they get back even before then, but I was, I think that’s when I decided to collate them into a Word document.

Ah. ‘

Laura: cause the last world was published in 2013, wasn’t it?

Piers: Yeah. And I’d, yeah. And I started writing them when I was trying to, basically, when I was trying to write my book and couldn’t, and I think it was a way, I’m always saying, I, I coach. In my other obvious of day job where I coach writers, and one thing I’m always saying to ’em is like, don’t forget to be like playful.

Don’t, it’s quite intense writing a book. Yeah. And you can get a bit lost in your head and a bit stressed about it and, and you forget the writing is just should be fun as well. Mm-hmm. And these are just the silly I ideas, I mean. In the last while, there is a cockroach who’s a major character called the General who in who starts the story sitting on the rim of someone’s bowl.

So maybe there is some connection there. I’m not sure. Um, I can’t remember the sequence and I’d always liked, and there was a little weevil on my computer that kept. Distract or in my study or somewhere, dunno where it’d come from. It was distracting me and I was So you’re saying this is based

Laura: on a true story?

Piers: Oh this is definitely based on a true story. It’s gonna be a major picture and um, and I was like many people at the time turning way too much time on Facebook.

Piers: And it was the beginning of the great sort of distractor crisis. And, but I posted these little things on Facebook and people, I think they were just like, oh God, Piers is obviously having a nervous breakdown.

I’ll say, I’ll post some nice comments and maybe he’ll step off the ledge. Uh, so, so I was, I was, I, I kept on posting them and gradually the comments got less and less. They were like, yeah, we didn’t really to, we didn’t need to carry on. But I, I enjoyed doing them and they were a really nice sort of outlet.

Laura: Yeah,

Piers: just to like, I think partly also publishing takes so long and, you know, for books to be written and read and edited and, and so, and all that. So I just, I was itching to. Be out there and I was just kind of stretching my, they were just little kind of ex doodles. Really. Yeah. Exercises. But I enjoyed, and they, a loose narrative kind of formed and I just, I en enjoyed doing them, but they’re completely mad.

I dunno what was going through my head, but, um,

Laura: well, staying on the animal theme, your book this year, that letters to a dog, um, and it’s geared towards those who find reading and writing more challenging. Where did, where did that idea for that come from?

Piers: The, uh, Barrington State, this wonderful publisher who pub published books, um, for, uh, children with dyslexia and other challenges they may encounter learning to read their books are all quite short, so they’re all between about seven and a half thousand words and about 10,000 words long, and their printed on this special yellow paper, which makes it easier for dyslexic children to the, the letters jump around less on the page.

But Anthony McGann wrote a book for Barton Stoke, um, called Lark, the one, the Carnegie Medal for Children’s Book. So those restrictions are no. Barrier to the quality or the ambition, right. Of the books. Um, and this book isn’t like that, but it’s, I wanted to write them a long, long time. And actually I was asked to write for them in, in lockdown the first winter of lockdown.

They got in touch. Um, and I was like, most people at that point, the novelty of lockdown had worn off when we went to the winter phase. And ev we definitely was going not mad in the same way as writing about Alfonso the weevil, but slightly kind of like, am I ever gonna work again? Um, you know, his life stopped forever.

Uh, you know, because I’d been planning a play that’d been canceled. My book talk, my book had been postponed event. I mean, I look given what people endured in that time, it’s really, this is like the tiniest viol in the world. But it, it was. In my tiny world, it was like these, these were my preoccupations.

(music): Sure.

Piers: And, uh, I was living in the house with my husband and our dog, so I was probably spending an unhealthy amount of time as you weren’t allowed to see other people. Um, having sort of a magic conversations with, uh, my dog and Barrington Stoke got in touch and I just had had this idea about, you know, obviously dogs don’t talk back, and I’ve written about.

Lots of talking animals, but I wanted to do a kind of realistic story about communicating with animals, and this ideas came to my head about this little boy who is perhaps in hospital. I think that came from us all feeling slightly confined and cooped up, and he’s. Before he goes to hospital, he spotted this dog in a dog home and he really wants it.

And he doesn’t know how to tell his dad. ’cause they’re having, they’re not speaking for various reasons. And this very kind nurse says, well, why didn’t you try writing to the dog? And to his and her surprise, the dog starts writing back to him in hospital. Right. And it’s about the relationship that that develops.

And, um, spoiler, the dog hasn’t actually written back to him, but I’m not gonna say what. Oh no,

Piers: And it was really hard to write. It took me for such a short book. It took me far longer than I meant to, ’cause it was so different to stuff I’ve written before. I’ve written these big adventures and it’s like really short, uh, chapters and telling it basically a long, short story.

But I loved, absolutely loved, absolutely loved doing it, and it’s always, I think what I enjoy most the more I do this is being given new ways to write. Like, you’ve got to do it like this this time. I love the focus and constraints of, of that rather than trying to do it all yourself.

Laura: And talking of big adventures, we’ve now come to your final offcut.

So tell us about this

Piers: one. Uh, this is from last year, 2024, and is a treatment for moderate the damned, the first book in an adult fantasy series.

Actor 2: In Ancient Britain, a land of mists giants and wizards lives moderate the handsome, but arrogant, ambitious, and duplicitous nephew of King Arthur. He’s a knight of the round table at Camelot, who is sent on a quest with his mentor, sir Lancelot.

To investigate a valley terrorized by a strange beast, they find a mystical lion, which they pursue into Carlo’s forest. The lion attacks Lancelot, but moderate slays it, earning Lance Lott’s gratitude for life, returning to Camelot, bathed in glory. They come across a. Priest praying by a chapel. The monk reveals that Mordred is in fact, Arthur’s son, who will one day kill his father and do more damage to the kingdom of Britain than any other man.

The only thing that might redeem him is finding the holy grail, but that will never happen as he’s so treacherous, corrupt, and weak. Incensed and humiliated. Mordred kills the priest in a fit of. Peak Lancelot is appalled by his protege’s crime and drawing. His sword warns him. He must now face justice At Arthur’s court they fight and Lancelot injures Mordred, who flees back to the forest where the dead lions vengeful mate corners him.

Mordred jumps into the lake to escape the animal, but he does not realize it has been cursed by the Enchant Morgan La fey when he emerges. Not only has the lion vanished, but so has Cartloises Forest. Mordrid finds himself climbing out of London’s Docklands in 1984. He must make sense of this new world where the only giants are the dying ones of industry.

The mist is on the nightclub dance floor, and the wizards are all behind computer terminals in the city. He learns that his temporal exile must be a punishment from Arthur’s court in some way. Perhaps he will find his way back and claim Arthur’s throne by finding the holy Grail as the monk claimed to moderate surprise, his ruthless and treacherous nature allows him to thrive in Thatcher’s Britain.

He charms his way into a job as a trainee estate agent, which allows him to keep searching for the Holy Grail under the guise of sourcing and showing properties. Soon he becomes an investor and property developer of his own, and before long. Has attracted the attention of the conservative party who ask him to stand as an mp.

All the while he schemes, plots, lies, seduces members of both sexes, thieves, and murders to get his way, keeping the faith that he’s getting closer to the grail and a return to Camelot.

Laura: Dun, dun dun, dun dun. That’s very exciting. Sammy. I love the evil of the thatcherite years. The government, the ultimate arch villain.

He’s an estate agent. That’s the hilarious, um, yeah. Presuming you’re not a big fan of, of the thatcherite years, et cetera.

Piers: Not a, not a huge fan, but I wanted to kind of ex explore it. Through the ideas of someone you might see as from a heroic set of tales and where that, how that all intersects.

Laura: Would he have been a, an estate agent but a hero, or would he have been an estate agent and a villain?

Piers: I, I’ve always loved reading about kind of an antiheroes, like one of my favorite literary characters is, as you called John Self, but the MOUs hero of Marty Amos’s money. Yes. I like people who in books who are kind of awful and repulsive in every way, but you’re somehow still annoyingly drawn to them and kind of despite their horror show.

And so I thought the eighties was a good setting for that and a sort of good. Twist on a, on a very British kind of myth. And, and, and also I guess maybe looking at the idea that certain kind of ideas of Britishness perished during the Thatcher years and different ones were born. I dunno, I’m getting far too ahead of myself, but, um, it was just a proposal.

It

Laura: struck me that it would make a great TV series. Sorry to drag you back away from novel. Yeah. And back into television, the evil television. But, uh, it did remind me of things like Lucifer and Buffy the Vampire sl, and it, it seems to be a very popular format, particularly if the hero is a handsome, late teen female or male.

Yeah. That, um, I don’t want to drag you away from the, a novelist. No,

Piers: I, maybe you’re right. I, I’ve always been good at the high concept ideas unless, I mean, it’s really interesting. I, I was asked to do this. There was a. The Hawdon Foundation run a beautiful six week writing retreat in a beautiful Italian villa Oh, by the shores of Lake Como.

And you get invited to apply, which I was very lucky to be done with. The Society of Authors nominated me last year to apply for it, along with a hasten who had about 700 writers from across the world. It wasn’t, uh, so the competition was pretty stiff, and I. I, I was at a stage in my writing career back then where I was finishing various things and feeling very playful and very kind of like, I dunno what to do next.

And always toying with the idea of writing something for adults. And I had to do this quite quickly and it definitely has, to me, that feeling of something that’s, it’s sort of. It’s quite a nice headline concept, but it needs a lot more thought. And as you say, it does. I often think novels actually, it’s quite detailed and I actually think the best books often have just a much simpler idea at their heart, whereas this feels, as you say, it does feel a bit more like a sort of treatment for a, a almost a TV show or a movie rather than something that the kind of question you explore in a book, which is often a bit more.

A particularly a grownup book. And it also shows that thing where I’m still very much got one foot in children’s fantasy, even though I’m sort of literally, why don’t I take a thing children read about and put it in a grownup world? That’s how watch a grownup book. That’s just an interesting first

Laura: move.

Well, the ugly, the television series that always appear to be, uh, of the sort of Netflix charts. Yeah,

Piers: and I’d also read. Fabulous Fantasy series by Lev Grossman called The Magicians, which became a TV series. And that’s sort of about some grownup Americans doing Narnia, but they’re grownups, so they’re sex and violence.

(music): It’s very clever

Piers: and funny, uh, and that that always, that’s always appealed to me. So Netflix, if you’re listening Mordred The Damned is very much available.

Laura: Well, maybe if you put some casting suggestions in there, perhaps.

Piers: Yeah. How about that? Might Tony Banks or Boris Johnson.

Laura: Okay. Right. Well, we have on to the end of the show. How was it for you?

Piers: It was lovely. Thank you. It’s been really interesting and strange to go back to, well, not, not this, I wrote it last year, but everything else, which is from quite a long time ago now and feels like a different, definitely a different me, but also me, if that makes sense.

Which is quite odd, but nice to have that little kind of conversation in my head with, uh, former writing selves and I’ve, yeah, I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed considering the journey.

Laura: Did anything there surprise you at all?

Piers: The sitcom really surprised me because I started reading it. I mean, it’s not great, but like there are some gags in there and I was like, in my head, I’d completely written it off as totally.

Totally, totally terrible. And like in that way you do. And that’s also the first mistake. You mistake when you make, when you start writing is you immediately, when something doesn’t get made, you write the whole thing off as a complete catastrophe. It’s like, no, it’s just like, it just needs work.

Laura: Yeah. Are you someone who might go back into an old project and bring it back to life?

Or do you sort of done it now you’re moving on?

Piers: I a little bit always never say never, but I sort of think there is a weird thing certainly with, I think with stories that. There’s a moment when they’re really alive in your head and you are kind of tuned into them and you’re just kind of living them and excited by them in ways that require to explain.

And then what I found looking back at all of these is I can, I can view them quite intellectually and with detachment, but I don’t have that little spark of. That spark of the possible that makes you really want to sit down and write something. Ah, so we possibly won’t see dead animals then unless, I mean, as I said, if you know Netflix, apple tv, I feel this might be the breakthrough hit you’re after.

Uh, and I stand ready to find that spark of, uh, possibility for the right amount of money. But, uh, I suspect not.

Laura: Well, Piers Torday, it’s been fabulous talking to you. Thank you for sharing the contents of your offcuts drawer with us.

Thanks very much for having me.

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin with special thanks to this week’s. Guest, Piers Torday. The offcuts were performed by Kenny Blyth, Helen Goldwyn, David Monteath and David Lane Pusey, 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.

Adele: I think it’s a really important thing in life, admitting to yourself that you do things that are not up to scratch and that’s okay. And I think that’s obviously the whole point of your podcast. You know, there are things that we didn’t, that didn’t reach its full potential, and maybe that’s fine because we’re just learning from them.

And learning is all part of life. Everything can’t be perfect straight away.

Laura: Hello, I’m Laura Shavin and this is 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 here, the stories behind them, and learn how these random pieces of creativity paved the way to subsequent success.

My guest on today’s episode is Adele Parks, MBE, born in North Yorkshire. Adele is the author of 24 novels, including several Sunday Times Bestsellers and her 25th novel. Our Beautiful Mess is published this summer. Her books have sold over 5 million copies in English and been translated into a further 31 languages.

She’s also written for national newspapers and magazines and served as executive producer on a feature film, an adaptation of her novel, the image of you. And added to that, Adele is also an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency, and in 2022 she was awarded an MBE for services to literature.

Adele Parks, welcome to the Offcuts Drawer. Hello. 25 novels in 25 years. That is so impressive and must be very organized. Do you have an end plan though? Do you have like a magic number you are aiming for? Do you know?

Adele: I don’t, which I, I, I’ve struggled a bit this year ’cause this year is 25 and 25 and I have been very focused on 25 in 25, and now I’m going, oh.

So now I’m doing 26. And then I suppose 27th, what come, you know, when is the end game? But I suppose at some point there will be an end game. But um, but I feel 25 and 25 years I should be quite happy with. I shouldn’t overanalyze.

Laura: It’s like the wedding anniversaries, isn’t it? So this would be your silver novel?

Yes. And if you make it to 50, it’ll be your golden novel. I’m not very clear about the ones in between things like, well

Adele: hilariously, the proof for this 25th one was this beautiful golden cover and I sort of said, oh, don’t you think it should be a silver cover? ’cause it’s 25. And then we all looked at each and thought.

There’s no way I’m gonna get to 50. So we were, yeah. No, gold’s good. Gold’s great.

Laura: Right. Well, let’s kick off with your first off cut. Can you tell us, please, what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when it was written?

Adele: This is an outtake from my 2020 novel called Both of You.

Actor 1: At the bar. Everyone had been so shiny and groomed, way more groomed than she remembered.

People being in her day, men in her day smelt their clothes were awful. Checked shirts, red trousers. Still, she had fancy to fair few attracted to their wiffy pheromones. Despite the challenge, sartorial sense, she really resented getting old because amongst other things it meant she fancied no one and was fancied by fewer Still.

Women weren’t as well groomed back in her day then neither her day. Oh my God. But then she thought, and she hoped, this wasn’t just wishful thinking. She thought maybe they talked about bigger things and they had more fun. They were more sincere. Jesus. If that thought ever drifted onto paper out of her head into God forbid her voice box, they’d make mince meat out of her.

The careful emotionally vulnerable. Millennials and Zeds were so easily upset. But they had, it was true. They had more fun and they spoke about bigger stuff. They were their authentic selves, although the wanky phrase hadn’t been thought up, the only time the word authentic was used was in conjunction with antiques.

That’s how authentic they were. This station Waterloo had witnessed some of her most drunken dreadful moments. Some, not all. It would be hard to prioritize and categorize her drunken moments. There had been a few, but then again, too few to mention, sorry, outdated reference. Frank Sin er, if you’re interested.

Hell of a voice. She didn’t believe that talent had stopped. She’d never say they don’t make ’em like they used to because they did. There were numerous incredible singer songwriters, young enough for her to have given birth to. They could hold a candle up to Sinatra if they’d been given years and years of support.

But no one was Nowadays, they weren’t even given 15 minutes of fame, just three or four. It was reflecting on it impossible, probably to find your true, authentic self in three or four minutes. When she was 21, she’d been at no fixed abode. Now they’d call her homeless. They’d say she was sofa surfing at the time.

She just knew she was okay. If she could sleep on the sofa of a friend with more money or experience, it wasn’t great. It did affect her mental health, but again, that’s not how they described it. Then she was just seen as weird, bonkers, highly strung, maybe on a good day, creative.

Laura: This reads very scatterbrained to me. The, the character’s always digressing. Is that the character in the book or was it the way you put down all your thoughts as they occur to you and then you tidy up later? I mean, whose voice is it? Is that yours or is it the character’s voice? Do you

Adele: know this character and the reason this isn’t off cut.

She never appeared. It never happened. No. Um, yeah, she didn’t, this isn’t the character that ends up in the book, but she was my starting point. So yeah, there was so much, so much in that. It’s really interesting to listen to it because. Pretty much none of that gets in. First of all, she sounds as though she’s in her fifties.

That character, both of you. Character is in her forties, so she’s a good decade younger, so a lot of that is irrelevant ’cause she is a millennial. But it was the first. I quite often start writing or think of my book whilst I’m still coming to the end of the book before. And I remember being in Waterloo Station and watching a whole bunch of.

Mostly women. I mean, men were there, but I tend to focus on what women are up to. Uh, saying goodbye to their friends, saying goodbye to their lovers, getting on trains, saying hello to all those people coming off trains. So there was a sort of stream of consciousness going on and I was definitely looking at it, but I.

Was already trying to feel a way into a character who did have some kind of emotional instability and physical instability. You heard straight away that she sofa surfed. In the end, the character and both of you, and I’m really talking around this ’cause I’m really trying not to give a spoiler, but. She’s as mad as a box of frogs in some ways.

Sorry, very terrible thing to say, but I don’t think I’m offending any books as frogs yet. But she has a very deep rooted problem, uh, she goes missing in this book. And there are two women that go missing in this book and, and both of them are very deep rooted problem. I was feeling my way into that.

Laura: So you didn’t have an equivalent of her then?

You didn’t go, well, I’m gonna make her 10 years younger and have a different name. But it’s

Adele: No. Do you know, in fact, she didn’t become Art. She was a management consultant, one of them. And the other one was a sort of woman who’d married well about married a younger man. So didn’t work at all. But both of them were incredibly organized.

The only thing they had. In common with this character is they had, as I say, some emotional instability in their early part of their lives. So they were still reacting to that, and I would say that was the only thing they had in common really.

Laura: So are you not tempted to maybe sort of put her aside and then drop her into another?

Adele: Do you know? Many, many of my characters in my books are. Slightly bonkers. And I think that was, Hmm. Uh, well, you know, it makes a good psychological thriller to have a, a unstable narrator. I mean, it does. And I, I think at the time with both of you, I wanted to move away from that. But I have written a woman since that I think could be this woman.

I don’t think she is to be abandoned. I think there’s a lot of ideas and a lot of people in my head that may or may not come out in the future. And, and I like her. I like that stream of consciousness. She’s like a, a sort of slightly mad, low down at heel Mrs. Dalloway, isn’t she just out there saying her thing?

Laura: Well, I was reading it going, this is like everyone I know Yeah. People, people of a certain age. Um, just go, yeah, that’s basically, that could be me. Well, time for another off cut. Now. Tell us about this one, please.

Adele: Well, this one it’s called the warning and it’s a short story I wrote when I was 12 in 1981.

Actor 2: Don’t be daft. Chris, you don’t want to go in there. Yes, I do. Why? I wanted to read my cards. You know, tell me if I meet a tall, dark stranger. They began to giggle. Then as Chris was so headstrong, she went along in inside the stage green caravan. It was dark. In the center of the room, there was a round table with a green and white spotted tablecloth.

At the back of the table, a woman with jet black hair sat. She frightened. Chris, sit down child. Don’t be scared. The fortune teller spoke in a clear voice. I’m not scared. Chris tried to be as confident as she sounded. The fortune teller chuckled. Chris, how’d you know my name? Chris asked. Again. The fortune teller chuckled, but did not reply.

Child, the fortune teller continued child. I cannot answer your question because all I see on the cards is one thing. What is it? Death Chris let out a whimper despite herself. Your death where when? I can’t say exactly, but child, be careful of the number. 8 0 1 and the color red. This is my warning. Chris didn’t listen to anymore.

She ran. Ran out of the caravan. Straight into Sue. Hey, what’s the hurry? I’ve just been on the eggs with You’ll never guess who? Steve Carter Sue walked briskly in the night air. Hey, is there anything wrong? What did the fortune teller say? Oh, nothing much. Just that I’d meet some guy. It’s probably Steve.

He’s asked us around his house tomorrow to play some records. That’s nice. Hey, I thought you’d be thrilled, ecstatic, or at least pleased. I’m said Chris, and normally she would’ve been. The next day was Saturday. Chris woke up and looked at our clock, nine 20. Heck, she’d have to hurry. She was meeting Sue at 10.

Chris dashed out of our house, bang, splat into Sue. Hi. Hi. I’m sorry I’m late, but don’t worry you’re not. They walked and talked as they set off towards Steve’s. This is, it said Sue with a grin. Chris looked up the steps at the red door with a brass. 8 0 1 hung above the letter box. The fortune teller’s warning came back to her.

Beware of the number 8 0 1 and the color red. Chris began to run. Chris, come back, Sue, yelled, frantically, look out. But Sue’s yelling could not be heard above the noise of the traffic. The young girl had no chance. The driver of the red bus number 8 0 1 couldn’t stop

Adele: laughing so hard right now.

Laura: Um,

Adele: yes. I didn’t really get the brief on this. I really, that’s not showcasing my best work is it? That is just giving everybody a big giggle. But

Laura: this is really important ’cause this is what you were writing at. 12, there’s not many 12 year olds that will be able to write something quite as coherent and complete and, um, with a twist at the end, or two twists as it turns out.

Very, I impressive that double twist. Double twist. I’m always,

Adele: I still do a double twist. Uh, maybe Do you think I read it squirming because I’ve always thought. I was a good writer and always thought it was my thing at school, and I found this in an excise book, and I just thought it was really funny because I didn’t think it was very good.

When I look back, I think my 12-year-old son probably wrote better. He’s not 12 now, he’s 24 now, but I think when he was 12 he was writing way better than that, but I might inflated ego with the distance of past. I thought I was great and looking back at it, no, not that great. Average.

Laura: Oh, I dunno. Well, I think you’re probably comparing your 12-year-old self.

Thank you. And what you know today to be good writing and, and you can pick out points that are maybe false with a, a weakness maybe. I mean, my only issue is it with, it was possibly that you’ve never been to a fortune teller before, because that’s not generally how they operate. Sense. They don’t tend to say things like, I see one word death and can you imagine?

Adele: So adorable. Dramatic, isn’t it? You know, it’s got everything in there. There’s a romance, there’s a bus, there’s a fortune tell of everything’s going on. I mean, that could be, that could be several short stories, really, couldn’t it? Yeah.

Laura: I was impressed with that. I thought you, you sent it to me to go Look, look, see how clever I was when I was young.

Adele: Oh gosh. No. But I suppose it did point out that I always wanted to be a writer. Yes. Well, I was gonna ask you. I really always did. Yeah.

Laura: What were you like at school? Were you really good at English, et cetera?

Adele: I was. I was good at. I tried. Yeah. And

Laura: were you good at everything or just was English clearly the way forward?

Uh, well

Adele: even English wasn’t clearly the way forward ’cause I’m dyslexic. Oh. So I think I had lots of imagination and I had a fair amount of confidence and I liked school and I liked my friends and we had a good giggle, but I think it came back over and over again ’cause I hid it very, very well. You know, I was clever enough to be able to hide it, so I did hide my dyslexia.

I didn’t even know I had dyslexia. I just thought I was really, really rubbish at spelling out. My di dyslexia wasn’t um, diagnosed until I was 21, about a month after I’d graduated. Oh, right. So I just. Spent a long time thinking, why doesn’t it stick with me the way it does with other people? And I just put it down to my northernness that people would say, spell it, how you say it?

And I thought, well, I have, I just have said it. But it said, uh, how I speak was different to a lot of other people. I was then meeting who had sort of queen received English, and I absolutely didn’t because there was all of that going on. And actually, the other thing about dyslexia, people think, oh, it’s about bad spelling.

And it, it’s that it’s not, it’s not just about that. It’s so complicated and so confusing, and you don’t know why you’re not like anyone else. And you don’t understand why you might have known something the minute it was being taught to you. You really got in, you really understand it. And then when you try and write it down or explain it back to someone, you can’t.

Laura: Mm.

Adele: And that was all part of it. Um, and my left and right was very bad and lots of things were confusing for me. But on the other hand, I do to this day now believe that my dyslexia. Helped me think around things more creatively and made me who I am. So I’m actually very grateful that I had it. But going back to the question of how did I do at school, I would say I was a mixed bag.

’cause I could go. To one exam and get the highest mark in the class quite comfortably, and I could go again to another exam and get the lowest mark in the class quite comfortably, depending on how stressed I was and Oh, really? Okay. How the dyslexia was kicking in and Yeah, so I wasn’t. Particularly consistent, but I tried so hard that it tended to get me quite far, you know, the kid in the class that underlined everything and put borders around everything and drew little pictures and um, you know, and I did that with all my English story.

I really liked art as well. So I did that with all my English, uh, homework assignments. It was illustrated. I tried so hard. I actually am quite good at. Mass. Mm-hmm. Um, sport was a real letdown for me. I hated sport and I was really bad at that. But you know, I was at a local comp where sport was sort of two hours a week and nobody cared.

So you could get away with not being good at sport in my school.

Laura: Well, listen, 25 books in 25 years, we are not worried about whether you’re good at netball. Exactly. That’s not an issue. Right. Well, moving on now. Let’s have your next off cut, please.

Adele: Uh, this is from 1988 when I was at university, and it is a clip from my second year dissertation.

Actor 3: Seduction is a theme which recurs in literature. Psychoanalytic and feminist critics argue that in literature, whether the woman is the seducer or seduced, she’s portrayed as more sinful than the male protagonists. Critics suggest Adam and Eve precipitated a literary tradition, which mistrusts women. The female seducer Seducable is condemned as unnaturally, aggressive, and simultaneously ruined.

Where did these stereotypes originate from? What is their purpose? I have decided to carefully examine four female literary characters who were subjected to the temptation of seduction. The characters are Middleton’s Beatrice from the Changeling. 1622 Milton’s Eve from Paradise Lost 1667 and Richardson’s Pamela 1740 And Hardee’s Tess from Tess of the Villes 1895.

The genres play epic poem. Epistolary novel and novel are unified by the aspects of the archetype seduction, which they have in common. Seduction is physical and spiritual. To seduce is to lead astray, tempt into sin or a crime. Corrupt persuade a person into abandonment of principles, especially chastity or allegiance, persuaded by tempting ness or attractiveness.

All the women are seduced either physically or spiritually. They are all part of a triangular relationship of one female, two males. All texts depict several seductions. The texts are written by males primarily considering a female point of view. I wish to consider if surface similarities justify the claim that the Biblical Eve as archetypal seducer is perceptible in all sexually subverting females, and why these common elements reoccur in the fallen woman myth I.

Laura: Fun stuff there.

Adele: Yet again, I’m cringing. As I say, I didn’t realize the brief was to put me in a good light. This is definitely not doing that.

Laura: No, no. This is, again, it shows that you have a serious academic background. You gave it some serious thought. Were you doing English at university? It sounds like you were.

I was, but English was your degree. Where were you? Where did Le you go? Lester? And how did you find university? Were you very social or were you sort of cloistered away being academic? What kind of teenager were you?

Adele: Uh, I was very social. I was very, very social. Yeah, I was very, very social until the final year really, when I thought I better do some work.

But I’m laughing a lot at the ambition of that, you know, four genres, three centuries, all the great works. Oh, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna do them all. I’m gonna do them all. I think, um, what that shows is I didn’t know how much. I didn’t know. And I think that was quite interesting about me ’cause I, you know, first generation university and all of that.

So I really didn’t know what to expect And um, I actually, and this is, I’m just telling you all my failures all at once, but I had applied to university the way everybody does through uh, you know, through in those days cca. Mm-hmm. And I’d have five rejections which nobody could understand because I was, you know, I dunno, I’d done gold dv You predicted to

Laura: get AS and stuff I imagine?

Yeah, and I’d done

Adele: gold DV. You know, done, um, a student, sorry, gold Duke of Edinburgh. Yeah. Who did the gold Duke. Oh. Oh goodness. And I did student governor and I was, I was as swaty as they got in our, in our little comp, you know, and you

Laura: got five rejections. How did that that happen? And I got five rejections.

Adele: Well, how it happened, well, first of all, if you remember back, you, in those days, you hand wrote your replication and I’m dyslexic, and they didn’t know. So it will have been littered with mistakes. Mm-hmm. You know, we didn’t pick up on. Mm-hmm. But secondly, because I had no idea how university worked, I thought she went there to learn things.

Now I understand that’s not necessarily always the case. So I knew I wanted to do English, but I thought, gosh, this would be a great opportunity to learn something new as well. So maybe if I went to York, they’re really good at music, I could do English and music, and if I went to Warwick for example, I could do.

English and acting. And if I went to East Anglia, I could do English and art. And so I applied for five very different courses, which obviously we all know shows a lack of focus, which actually I do have, um, lack of focus. So, you know, fair, fair that I was pulled out on that one. Um, and so they just said, God, this kid doesn’t know what she wants.

Or, or you know, maybe it was the spelling, how

Laura: wrong they turned out to be. How wrong? 25 books in 25 years. Hilarious. They, they have no idea. I

Adele: mean, I think it’s quite fun. I mean, it wasn’t fun at the time. It was heartbreaking at the time. Everybody else was getting offers and my headmaster and to his credit said, well, you’ll get the grades and then you’ll be able to have your pick.

You’ll go through clearing and you’ll have your pick. And there were two places. In clearing available Royal Holloway and New uh, and New Bedford. And this one, uh, Leicester. And I went to Leicester ’cause it wasn’t as far away. And I went to uni and I met amazing people there who are still my best friends.

Now I’ve got, you know, great people from Leicester University and I’m so. Prior to the friendships I made there, but I think I was very, very, very unprepared for what that experience would be.

Laura: Who were you at 18, 19, 20. What were your, ’cause obviously you’re in between living at your parents’ house and then getting a job and settling down into the rat race.

Who were you at that age? Who did you want to be? Who are you dreaming of being at that point? I was

Adele: definitely dreaming of being a writer. I was quite artsy. I had this. My hair’s actually supernaturally curly, even though I now always blow dry it to a smoother version. But I had this sort of big pre ruffle light hair going on.

I was always in my dunes and my dms. I was quite this sort of. Screaming feminist slash I’m a pre ruff light muse. I mean, what is that? If not a split personality? I didn’t, you know, I was trying everything out, which I think excellent is. Yeah, it is excellent. It’s exactly what young people should do when they go to university.

I was trying out lots of different versions of me. I think I’d like, I mean, you’d have to ask the other people I went to uni with, but I didn’t take myself particularly. Seriously. I don’t think, you know, I tried lots of, I dunno, clubs and things and I, you know, I had

Laura: a gigle. I had Gigle Yes. As we all did.

Yeah,

Adele: exactly. And um, and I had a giggle and it was fun.

Laura: But you dreamed of being a novelist specifically or just. You didn’t know exactly. Maybe you’d be a journalist, maybe you’d be a novelist, A researcher. A novelist. A novelist. You already knew that. Never,

Adele: yeah. Never crossed my mind to, in fact, funny story.

I thought I had kept it a massive secret though, because everybody, there’s 40 people on that English course back then, and I think everybody probably wanted to be a novelist, so I felt slightly embarra. Because, you know, it’s a, it’s a relatively vain thing to think you want to be, that you think you have something to say that other people should read.

And I was self-conscious of it and, and didn’t want to say it. And then many, many years later, ’cause I wasn’t published until I was 30, but when I did get my book deal and I rang up all my friends and told them, I went, you could be so surprised ’cause such a secret. No one ever knew this about me until the last person they said.

No, every time you got drunk you would say a funny in office. Every single time you would bang on about it and you were so boring and you’d tell us your parts and they were really boring and we didn’t wanna know. But you’d do it. And the funny thing is, obviously I blanked that out. The next day I get up smiling, thinking my little secret was still mine, Kar.

Uh, so yeah, funny old days. Yes.

Laura: And you never worry about running out of ideas. Kind of after 25 books that you’ve written, are you still as hopeful and positive about it as you were at 1819? Do you still think Yep. I’ve still got loads to say.

Adele: Uh, well, interestingly, no. Interestingly, I think I’m. I’m in a better place now than I was then, I think 18 or 19.

I desperately wanted to be a writer, but nothing had ever happened to me or nothing I was prepared to talk about. Um, and even if I was prepared to talk about it, I didn’t really have the skillset to, to do that. Um, but the skillset being. Uh, genuine empathy for other people’s points of view. Um, so, which I think is a really important skill for a novelist.

Laura: Yeah,

Adele: so I think now I have more to say. I’ve, I’ve been a mother, I’ve been a, a wife twice. I’ve, um, had friendships come and go. I, I’ve had. Great successes and huge disappointments. I’ve had gains and losses. I’ve more to say now than I did then. So I don’t worry about running out of ideas. I think I’m in a particular situation now where I’m writing psychological thrillers and I am very much known for my twists and my twists and my twist.

So I think people read me waiting for a twist and I keep saying there may not be one. That might be the twist. That’s the twist. Yes. Yes. That might be the twist. I might give you a book that isn’t twisty, turny, because I might decide that’s what I want to write next because not all my ideas are necessarily psychological thrillers.

I know the one that comes out in 2025. It’s a psychological thriller. I know the one that is in 2026 is ’cause I’m two thirds of the way through writing that one. I don’t know. Beyond that, I don’t know if I will keep always writing psychological thrillers. I always say, I think I’ll run outta time before I run out of ideas.

I often have three or four ideas in a in a year, and I have to sort of drill down on them and make sure they’re not just short stories and they’re really genuinely and novel. And sometimes this year, 2020 book was one of those times where I really wanted to do. Two books I couldn’t choose and I, I started one and then I changed my mind and then I went back to it and then I changed my mind.

I could have done either one

Laura: and could the second book be 20, 27 or it might be, yeah, let’s

Adele: face it, that might, it’s sitting there, isn’t it? It’s asking for me to give it its attention, but there was also a reason I left it alone. And actually I’m quite brutal. If there is a reason, if there’s something and even a tiny thing that is a reason I abandon something.

Then it probably needs to stay abandoned. I’m quite the ruthless editor.

Laura: Okay, let’s move on now. Your next off cut, please. What’s this one?

Adele: This is my second off cut called the warning, but this one is a poem and I wrote it in 2002

Actor 3: to disallow the possibility of too much happiness. I married to protect myself from unadulterated pleasure.

I settled to safeguard from unreasonable horror. I paired. To avoid being alone on a dance floor at 40, you’ll marry like a diamond as big as the Ritz. You came along to fill up my tits. I was always so careful and sensible. Licentious behavior was indefensible paid my taxes crossed at the green man. Now I fuck you.

Whenever I can. My lips are sore, my thoughts are raw. Whenever we say goodbye, I just want more. I’m perpetually wet between the thighs. What we are doing isn’t, especially wise, it’s sticky and tricky, but I don’t want it to stop. If ever you ask my knickers, I’ll drop. I love you.

Laura: Goodness me.

Adele: You’re allowed to laugh. I do.

Laura: Yes. Yes. We, we all went, crikey. That was, um, well, I dunno, I’m,

Adele: I, I mean, it’s hilarious that I put it out there for you to have it. First of all, can I just say that there’s this fact that I’ve got two called the warning. I obviously spend my entire life worrying about stuff, don’t I?

Oh, don’t do that. Don’t

Laura: do that. From the age of 12 to the age of whatever that was, 20 something. Yeah. Yes. You’re busy warning people about different things. Yeah. But, um, this poem is surprising content aside. To me. It reads like two poems joined together. It’s like you’d written the first. Poem fairly sort of hardened and cynical and, and, you know, realistic about relationships.

And then like somebody called you out and you’d gone off for a drink or something, or possibly something else, I don’t know. But you come back maybe two or three drinks, uh, worse for wear. Yeah. And you’ve completely forgotten about your basic theme and you’ve been distracted by a lovely man.

Adele: I think that’s very possible.

Laura: You don’t remember? I mean,

Adele: I feel that’s my life. No, well, I do. I know exactly when this is written. So I think what happened is it was two parts of my divorce process, so I think it may not have been a quick couple of drinks and straight back to it, but, um. The poem. I mean, oh yeah. It was, uh, it was more that I would’ve written the bitter sad stuff.

And then the very first night I went out after my divorce, I met my now husband, which is unusual. I, I understand that.

Laura: The very first night you went out,

Adele: I had, oh, I had one night being single. Hilarious. Technically single. You are

Laura: kidding.

Adele: I know, I know. Weird. So I, I mentioned that I was, you know. It was a surprise that to me, that I was a single mom and I had a 10 month old baby.

And then when the baby was, I dunno, 13 months, so not much in it, three months. Um, my friend had a birthday party. She said, you’ve got to come out. You can’t still stay in the house. You know you can’t stay in the house forever. And I was like, literally have nothing to wear than maternity clothes. And she said, oh no, you we’ll go out.

We’ll go out, we’ll go shopping. And I remember buying these. Brown leather trousers from whistles. Oh, I still own them. Very lovely. And I had every objection here. I was like, oh, I can’t, because you know I haven’t got a babysitter. She said, oh, I’ve got a babysitter. And uh, so her babysitter sat for both our babies and we all went out.

Six women that had all had babies a year ago, and. All of the others announced their pregnancy and they were all there with the husbands. And I announced my divorce and said, you know, well he left me, you know, a while back and um, and I feel like rubbish. And then I turned around and there was this. Guy across the crowded room and I just thought, no, he’s hot.

Yeah. Oh, word. And I thought he’s hot. I think that will help tonight. And yeah, and everyone And then the romance for want a better term that sort of. Followed. The very intense were months that followed. Everybody kept saying to me, you do know that this is your rebound shag. You do know this isn’t gonna make it, and this isn’t gonna be a big deal.

Don’t lose your head, don’t lose your heart. Don’t fall for him. And I just thought, no, I have fallen for him. This is it. He’s amazing. I, and now we’ve been married 21 years.

Laura: Wow. That’s a story and a half. That one, isn’t it?

Adele: Fantastic. So I suspect there were two poems shoved together. I’ve, funnily enough, never tried to get my poems published and I think No.

Having heard that one broadcast live, yeah. I never should.

Laura: Well, well, you know, I would say don’t, don’t give up the day job. Your day job is doing so well. You so well you. Exactly. Yeah. Don’t really need to. Fun. It’s,

Adele: it’s fun that, um, it’s out there. And, and you know, the, the fact that I obviously was looking for a different way to express myself.

’cause obviously I could have, I could have done prose and actually did go on to write a, a book about mine and Jim’s relationship.

Laura: Oh, which one is that?

Adele: I, so. Oh, it’s called the other women’s shoes. Yeah, the other women’s shoes. It’s almost a word for word account. Yeah. I mean, you will now recognize the night that I’ve just described is, is in that book.

Oh, wow. Um, the only thing I do is split my character into two different women and I give myself two children. I only had one. But other than that, it’s pretty much the same thing.

Laura: Right.

Adele: Um, anyway, that aside, I do think that’s hilarious that that poem has now had an earring and I felt I’ve always wanted it to have an earring to read secretly.

Secretly I have because I was so right about him and everyone told me I was wrong and I was, you know, obviously to start with just a lot of pent up passion. Let’s go with passion. But, um, but it quickly moved on to something very deep and very important to me. So I think it’s quite fun that that’s now had its little moment, even though I accept that it’s, it’s never gonna make it into an anthology.

Laura: Did you write a lot of poetry then?

Adele: Mm. I think I’ve done 12 in my life.

Laura: Oh, I see.

Adele: Yeah. Not a lot. I think he can see that, that it needs some practice. I think I could work on that skill before we, uh, we, we rush out to try and publish them. And I think also I do write them. It’s hilarious that you said you probably went out for a drink and came back.

’cause that is. When I write them, so well done. Good spot. Yes, Ralph.

Laura: Oh, how satisfying that is. Oh, excellent. Okay. Well, right. Let’s move on to your next off cut. Now what’s this one?

Adele: Well, this is an earlier poem, so this is one of the 12. Really getting them out. Yeah, but can I say, in my defense, I think everything else I’ve ever written other than my poems has been published.

If I’ve tried for it to be published, it’s been published, so that’s why the poems are getting an airing. But this one was written in 1989 and it’s called The Ruse. I was at university at the time.

Actor 2: Would I want you if I were first? I would not. The savage satire that you are pulls me in pounding. You are appalling at articulating, expressing.

I deliberately try to confuse. But this is just a ruse as we both long to be understood, and yet it is this coldness, this icy fjord that you are impenetrable aquamarine. So beautiful, so terrible. It is all of these things that I need and want you deliberately try to confuse, but this is just a ruse. As we both long to be good.

Laura: This one’s slightly less shocking. Um, but you wrote to me, uh, when, well, it was, the note I received with this poem was when you were dating an unknowable, posh boy. This was at university, was it?

Adele: Yes. Yes. I didn’t confess far too much.

Laura: Yes. Does the Un Noble posh boy know that he was a subject of a poem?

Adele: I very much doubt it.

I don’t think the un noble, posh boy would even still know my name. Um, oh, well he must now, I suppose he may now, he might have got, yes, I think you rings bell. Uh, but I don’t think I was very important to him at all. I think I had a phase, definite phase sort of thinking, oh, I’ve gotta get out there and.

Meet posh boys. ’cause I never had, I’d obviously, you know, as I’ve mentioned, I went to a comp and all my boyfriends had went from there. And I found them fascinating for a while. And then I literally found them unknowable. Couldn’t get through to them. They wouldn’t talk to me and they, they wouldn’t tell me how they were feeling.

And, but at first, I think there was a stage where I found that. Fascinating. It’s probably a thing to do with self-confidence and lack of when you’re quite young. ’cause I think as you get older you should be able to say, gosh, if you can’t tell me what you’re thinking and feeling, perhaps this isn’t for us.

Mm. But uh, uh, in 1989, I did not have that in my vocabulary.

Laura: You’ve sort of gone on, haven’t you? The unknowability of others seems to be something you write about a lot in your novels regarding sort of truth and fidelity that seems to come up. I do quite a lot. I think

Adele: there’s, I think all of these. Um, off cuts.

They’ve got something of that. Even that crazy, terrible dissertation, which can I say, I’ve got a two one in all my life. I’ve always been shocked at that two. One thinking I should have been a first. I’ve now listened to that dissertation. What can I say? I’ve noticed that dissertation. I was like, look, it wasn’t a third girl, uh, because it was shocking.

Uh, so all of this, this sort of recapping it. Very good for me. But yes, I think I am interested in fidelity and infidelity. I think it’s one of the few things that we have. That we select as a moral code for no other reason than we select to do it. There isn’t really anymore, there isn’t really a sort of evolutionary path that tells us that this is what we should do.

I can see where there would’ve been in the past, but I think most of us would still opt for it if we can.

Laura: Yes, of course we would

Adele: still opt to know and to be known and to remain faithful. And yet nearly all of my books are about people. The struggle with that.

Laura: Oh, I suppose that’s the interesting part of conflict, isn’t it, the Unknowability.

Mm-hmm. Of others, but that was the subject of a lot of your books, but your 17th novel, the Image of You where one woman tries to discover the truth about the man that her twin sister’s fallen in love with. Mm-hmm. That definitely seems to be on that subject. That particular novel has been made into a film.

Adele: Yes.

Laura: Yeah, tell me about that. You didn’t write the screenplay for this one, did you? But No, I

Adele: didn’t, but I worked on it. I worked with, um, Christopher, who was fantastic and we worked on it through, uh, lockdown, which was great to have a project. And I worked very hard on. On the exec producing. So getting it made, uh, exec producer can be anything, as I’m sure loads of your listeners know, it can be anything from, you know, you throw in money.

I didn’t do that. You throw in time. I absolutely did do that. Mm-hmm. Because the producer that had opted the book in the first place, I remember sort of talking to him through lockdown saying, oh, every. You know, nobody’s doing anything and everybody’s locked down and it’s gonna disappear. And he said to me, well the thing is, Adele, nobody will ever care about this as much as you, everybody’s got lots of projects on, you are the one that can make this happen or not.

And I found that really empowering.

Laura: Mm-hmm.

Adele: And it had never crossed my mind that I could be the one that could make that happen or not. Which is odd. ’cause actually, if you think about being a novelist, all you do is make something from nothing. Exactly.

Laura: Yeah.

Adele: Um. But I really enjoyed the process and, uh, and I’m proud of the film.

It’s a, it’s, uh, a fun popcorny version of a. Psychological thriller. It isn’t a dark, nasty, psychological thriller, although arguably really nasty things happen. But they happen in a relatively tongue in cheek way, which is, is the vibe of the book and trying to get that. So sort of

Laura: romcom as far as films are concerned, would you say?

Uh, well,

Adele: interestingly, you see, this is interesting because the image of you was. Uh, the crossover book from romcom to psychological thrillers in terms of the genre, when I was writing and I had written quite a dark ending, and at the time, my publisher at the time said, oh, we feel that’s a big jump from where you are at now.

Can you soften your ending? And I did. And then when it, the book was. Being turned into a film, I said, oh, don’t read the book. Here is the ending, and, and pitch the ending that I’d I’d originally wanted, which is much darker because you need to have a genre. If you’re going to go into film, you can’t say, oh, it’s a bit of a hybrid.

You can do that in reading and writing because. People give you their time, their undivided, 15 hours, 20 hours, however long it might take them to read a book. They’re giving you the undivided time. But in a film, you’ve got, you know, an hour and a half. So you need to be able to say to the producers, it’s in this genre.

So I, I shoved it quite firmly into psychological thriller, but with a bit of fun. Twists and tongue and cheek and, and I think, I think it’s successful. I like it.

Laura: Why was that novel, the one that you chose? ’cause you’d written 17 up to that point. So what was the particular draw of turning that one into a film?

I

Adele: think it was a relatively commercial decision, actually, that I knew psychological thrillers were being bought up by producers. And at that time that was me going into psychological thrillers. I had a couple that were very new, still one read, written one that. Just come out the week I was approached. So this one had a little bit more of the sales behind it, and I was able to say, look, it’s sold x amount of books already.

Um, it, it’s, it’s this idea. Off we go. And actually, it’s a really strong idea, isn’t it? I think everybody loves the idea of our identical twins and we’re fascinated by them because, you know, they can. You know, spoiler boat, not spoiler. Uh, they can play each other and they can, uh, they have things in common.

They have differences that are, you know, this whole going back to the knowability and not knowability of a person. And if you, if your twin doesn’t know you, who does, you know? So I thought there’s a lot of mileage in it. And actually it took. Three years from, from being sold as an option to getting it made.

So, you know, there’s always that. By then I was three years done. Maybe I would’ve chosen something different by then. ’cause I had other books out with other sales records. But at the time it was just a sensible choice.

Laura: Okay. Right. We’ve come to your final off cut. Tell us about this one please.

Adele: This is an off cut from my 25th and most recent novel, our Beautiful Mess, which is published in 2025.

Actor 4: At first he’d been scared of it. Yes. Actually fucking scared of the money because they called it a reward. They said it was a thank you for not calling the police. That was bad enough. He didn’t spend it, at least not at first, but the second time they found him, they said it was a loan. He tried to hand it back then it was still in the envelope.

They laughed and said there was interest on the loan. But I never borrowed anything off you. You have our money. You’ve had it a month, now you’ve given it back. What do you call that if not a loan? I never asked for it. They just shrugged. You owe 800 pounds. What? That’s stupid. Where am I gonna get 800 pounds?

What’s the interest rate you are charging? But the question was idiotic. He knew that they said he could clear things if he delivered something for them. Started talking about interest rates. If only he’d done that in the first place. Taken out a credit card to think. He used to think 24% was too much interest to pay.

They said he owed them more than 10 times the original sum. Now it kept going up. No matter what he did, he had no idea how they calculated the interest. He doubted there was an exact rate, a hundred percent fucked 30 times over. Wasn’t a processable mathematical formula. He wasn’t a fucking idiot. He knew that he wasn’t going to be delivering pizza for the sort of money they’d loaned him.

But the first job was a message, something that can’t be sent in a text. The second job was a document. Papers. He decided not to open the envelope even though it wasn’t sealed. He thought it was a test. Could he be trusted also, he didn’t wanna look. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Right. He’d assumed it might be dodgy accounts or something.

The next package he was instructed to pick up was different. No instructions as to where it should be delivered. Were texted. The package had the words open me, scratched on with a blue biro, all in capitals, uneven letters that looked like they were scratched out by someone uncomfortable holding a pen at school, but happy to carve their name on the desktop with a pen knife.

He didn’t open the envelope, not straight away. He dipped into a coffee chain, went into the Scuzzy Lu that was supposed to be for customer’s use only when the door was securely locked behind him. He looked inside the packet. The notes were dirty, used. He counted them 2000 pounds, A lot of money. His instructions were to take this and bring another package back.

If he did, as he was told he was buying drugs, he was a dealer.

Laura: I thought we’d add some, uh, testosterone to the reading team there. Just, uh, excellent. There’s too much estrogen flowing through this particular episode, but this passage, was it just this passage that was cut out or the whole idea of this character becoming a drug dealer? What, what’s the story behind this offcut?

Adele: Well, this is an off cut that I did myself. I quite often, um, I mentioned I, I self-edit a lot. I think by the time I. Give my book a I’m, I’m pretty much hoping it’s, it’s done deal. So at the beginning I sort of overwrite and I might have ideas and I quite often get as far as sort of 50, 60, 70,000 words and then could reduce it by as much as a half, which does horrify some people.

But for me it’s just the way I get into it. So this is a character called Zach. Zach is still in my book. He is really important. And it’s funny though, you’re right, we are talking, um. From a female point of view a lot in this, uh, podcast, but in fact I actually often write from a male point of view, and I often have male characters, but he’s a, he’s quite a young one.

He’s only 20 and. He in the actual finished book Our Beautiful Mess. He is a character that has a secret that is life-threatening. Uh, he has got himself involved in something way above anything he can deal with, and it is to do with drugs, but it’s nothing to do with alone. I decided that was all too complicated and I just even hearing it then I was like, oh, thank God I cut this.

So, yeah, so, so it was just, there’s, there’s some nice bits in there. You know, I can’t remember the numbers, but he, he talks about the mathematical formula that he can’t do, which is how fucked he is. Yeah. And I think that’s a nice concept and that, that carries through with Zach. He is out of his depth and he’s struggling, but it isn’t a sort of small turn loan.

He. Gets in something much more vicious. And actually I can’t tell you what, but he gets into something much more vicious, much faster into the novel where this all seemed a bit slow burn. And I thought like, I don’t really care. If I don’t care, nobody else cares. Um, so yeah. So that’s the only reason that this was taken out.

Laura: Now this is a belated sequel. The book Our Beautiful Mess. ’cause if I’ve got this right, um, this is the sequel to the first book you ever wrote. Is that right?

Adele: It is in a way, I suppose. So the very first book I ever wrote was, um, about a woman called Connie. And at the time she was nearly 30. And all my audiences, as you can imagine, were women of about that age, or some men, but mostly women, and the book’s called Playing Away, and it’s about a woman who.

Uh, falls madly in love with somebody who shouldn’t. And it, um, it wrecks her, her marriage, a very, very new marriage. And it’s about her struggling back from that. And it was, it came out in the year 2000. It was a huge hit. It was the, uh, biggest selling debut of that year. Um, and Connie set me up without Connie.

I probably wouldn’t be sat here talking to you. You know, she was amazing for me. And in the book at the time, in playing Away, she had four best friends who were really good fun and they were in the background. They all had their own problems and they own their own backstories in one thing, in another.

And I always resented that really quietly, that it eventually got put in this sort of Chiclet banner. Mm-hmm. Because when it was published, it was originally published at Penguin and the the editor at the time, and I. I swear this is true. This is an absolute true story. He said to me, would you like this published as a commercial book or a literary book?

And I said, what’s the difference? She said, A literary book will probably sell about 8,000 copies, and a commercial book will probably sell about 80,000 copies. And I thought, I’ll have that then. But it’s um, but it’s interesting, isn’t it, because it was a matter of how they were going to publish it, not the content of the book, which by that time was signed, sealed, and delivered.

Laura: So how they package it and what the cover would look like and that sort of thing.

Adele: Yes. And who they would reach out to and you know, and all that sort of thing. Interesting. Wow. Isn’t it fascinating? So it could have

Laura: been either, you could, you could could’ve been a literary author or a bestselling novelist at

Adele: that time.

I don’t think that would happen now, because I think I would’ve been edited slightly differently to be distinctly one thing or another, Uhhuh. But at that time there was a little bit more flexibility in everybody’s world and, and we weren’t quite as. Welded to genres as we are now. Anyway, at the time I wrote that book and I had all these characters and.

Over the years, I’ve sometimes gone back to pick out the best friends that were sort of the subplots and brought them forward and given them their front story. So there was a book called, uh, young Wives Tales, and that had two of the characters, Lucy and Rose in it. And then many years later, I think my 19th book, there was a book called Lies, lies, lies, which was a full on psychological thriller.

You know, prisons, murders a lot. Very, very different to my initial playing away, and yet it had those characters. I just moved them with me. I thought you can come. You are fantastic. You are complex, interesting humans, you can come with me And lives, lives, lives was actually my first number one. And so it was 19 years before I got my number one.

I was a 19 year overnight success, which I like to, you know, point out. Uh, so it was really, those characters have always been so exciting for me ’cause they were my debut and then they were my first number one. And going back to that story of. Originally, you know, she was in her thirties. I wanted to look at Connie.

Now, where is she in her midlife? Did she mature? Did she hang on to that relationship? Did they go off and you know, have a family. So I sort of wanted all of that, but I really wanted a psychological thriller. So I put. Lovely Connie’s poor family in huge jeopardy. This poor woman there, she was bouncing along in a romantic comedy.

Here she is like fighting for her life and fighting for the life of her family.

Laura: Right. And this is book number 25? Yes. Which is. Our beautiful mess. Yes. That is due out any minute now. If you happen to be listening to this podcast at the time of its initial broadcast. Yay. Well, we have come to the end of the show.

How was it for you?

Adele: I loved it. Lots of fun. I feel I haven’t really talked about my books. I just think everything I’ve told you about my like off cuts, there’s so random. Who talks about the 12-year-old writings? But it’s been so much fun to do that.

Laura: I’m very glad. I’m very glad you enjoyed. I’ve enjoyed it tremendously.

I suppose I should ask you one more question. Let’s think. Are there any offcuts that you’ve still got that you haven’t shared with us today that you think you might should have done? I actually

Adele: have a process when I write every single book I mentioned that I quite often can cut anything up to, well, my worst ever is cutting 80,000 words once.

Oh wow. But I can cut. Anything up to, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20,000 words. Uh, when I’m writing a book and what I do is I take them outta the manuscript that I’m writing and I stick them in a file that’s very creatively named bits. Um, and I just pop them in there thinking, oh gosh, if I really panic and I want them back, they’re just there.

And you know what? Over 25 years, I’ve never gone back. Pulled anything out of the bits file you never do. If it needs to be cut, it needs to be cut. Mm. So I suppose I have 25 bits files if ever you really want to dig through them. Um, but yeah, I can’t think there’s anything really great in there. So

Laura: it sounds like almost an idea that you should put them all together and see if you can make a book out of them.

Just see

Adele: what happens. You’re gonna be a really average book, wouldn’t it? Because there were all the things that didn’t make the grade. And I think it’s, I think it’s a really important thing in life. Admitting to yourself that you do things that are not up to scratch, and that’s okay. And I think that’s obviously the whole point of your podcast.

You know, there are things that, that we didn’t, that, that didn’t reach its full potential. And maybe that’s fine because we’re just learning from them and, and learning is all part of life. Everything can’t be up. Yeah.

Laura: It’s all part of the process. Yeah.

Adele: Everything can’t be perfect. Straight off. Yeah.

Laura: Yeah.

Well, it has been wonderful talking to you, Adele Parks. Thank you for sharing the contents of your Offcuts Drawer with us.

Adele: Thank you so much, Laura. I’ve loved every minute

Laura: the Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shaven with special thanks to this week’s guest, Adele Parks, MBE. The off cuts were performed by Emma Clarke, Beth Chalmers, Helen Goldwyn, and Chris Pavlo. And the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit Offcuts Drawer.com and please do subscribe, rate and review us.

Thanks for listening.

Louise: When I think about poor Miss Marriott, who was my English teacher, she used to get sort of 12, 15 page stories from me. And you know, and I, I’m never considered for a moment that, you know, it was gonna take her time to, to read them, that she must have seen my little green exercise. Sick and thought, oh no.

Laura: Hello, I’m Laura Shaven, and this is the Offcut Straw, 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 pave the way to subsequent success,

my guest for this episode is novelist Louise Candlish. She’s the author of 17 novels including Our House, the Other Passenger, and The Only Suspect With Her 18th. A Neighbor’s Guide to Murder published this month. Her 2018 novel, our House won the British Book Award for Crime and Thriller book of the year in 2019, and was adapted into a four-part ITV drama, which aired in 2022, starring Tuppens Middleton and Martin Compton.

And since then, she has written across genres including domestic suspense, psychological thrillers, and earlier in her career, romantic fiction. Several of her novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers, and her work has been translated into more than 20 languages. Louise, welcome to the Offcut Straw.

Louise: Thank you for having me.

And may I say straight away that I wouldn’t describe any of my books as romantic fiction? Oh my God, I’m the anti-romantic author, if anything. Really? Not even the first one. No. Well that was, it was, you are right. It was, it was marketed as a rom-com. But it was, it was actually a stalking story. It was a sort of, I would just.

Describe it as a sort of stalking comedy. So there were a couple of comedies in the early days, and then there were, there were sort of family dramas. I would describe my sort of middle section.

Mm-hmm.

Louise: Um, and then they segue very, very naturally into darker suspense stories. Because I had never been writing, um, stories of hope and, um,

Laura: nobody could accuse you of being too positive.

Louise: Sadly not. So it was all too easy to get darker and darker and darker. But I think I’ve always retained that, um, that satirical element, you know, that sort of comic element. And I think. That’s the kind of counterpoint to it, because actually if an academic sat down and analyzed my message, they would say that I was extremely pessimistic about society.

To, to, I mean, I kind of do it naturally. I’m making it sound as if it’s all deliberate, but I quite naturally do include some comedy in my, in my tone and my voice to, um, you know, to counteract, you know, that sort of slightly more pragmatic message. Do, do you know why you lean towards bleakness? I dunno. I, I guess I always have, and I think it’s, you know, it, maybe it’s to do with my background.

I mean my, my parents and um, family are Geordie, so, you know, you’ve got that kind of very modern sense of humor that Geordies have, and I think that’s in there. I grew up in the Midlands, which has another kind of, you know, characteristic that has the certain kind of understatement and pessimism. Now I live in South London, so you’ve got this kind of trio of influences, but it’s really hard to know.

I mean, it could be, um, you know, all the books I’ve read and all of the, the TV drama and comedy that I’ve watched over the years, just being Gen X. Yes. You know, I, I feel like I’m very typical of my generation. You know, we are. Um, sarcastic and sardonic and, you know, I think all of that comes through and, you know, we’re very much a sort of bantering generation as well.

You know, all of the things that you are sort of, you know, in inverted commas not allowed to say anymore. Gen X will say when the, you know, when we’re all together. And I think all of that comes through in, um, the voice of my characters.

Laura: Okay, well let’s get started with your first off cut. Can you tell us please, what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when it was written?

Louise: So this is a prologue I wrote in around 2022 for an as yet untitled thriller.

Beth (Actor): We have an excellent view of the scene from up here. Our faces are turned as one to the monstrous Atlantic to the figures gathered on the shore, shrunken by the high tide plen. The search and rescue boat has departed, but Isaac says it’s too dangerous to launch the helicopter.

To be honest, the bad weather is preferable to the grinding heat of previous days, but I do worry about my plane taking off safely into that horrible churning sky. I hope my flight won’t be delayed. I say, I are so egocentric. Isaac says laughing. What about the poor bastard lost out there? I hope his flight won’t be delayed either.

I say. And I flare my eyes at him. Playful. Flirtatious in a different context. We might have hooked up Isaac and me, but I’ve had bigger fish to fry, to catch and kill. First it was a hostile manager, Teo, who tipped us off about the crisis, letting us know one by one as we trooped through reception and we’d scurried up to the roof to watch like good little rubberneckers.

The alarm had been raised an hour ago by some rich Honeymooner at the Pale Hotel whose new husband was missing. No one was too bothered until his board washed ashore, but by then it was surely too late. The wife’s in a right old state. Apparently Isaac said you would be. I said agreeing. He should never have gone out alone.

He’d only had a few lessons apparently. Apparently this, apparently that. This is what happens when you run before you can walk. He added, yeah, you drown before you can swim. You are completely outrageous. Taxi for Viv, someone yells from the stairwell, and that’s me. I call back, I smile at Isaac and the others as I depart a proper goodbye gift of a smile.

I’ll never see them again. I’ll never think of them again. Serves me right that their heads turn back to the action even before my beam fades. Beyond the swell rises and grows. It’s a beautiful place. Spirits a savage place. Strange, but I felt a profound sense of belonging while I’ve been here.

Laura: That’s a very satisfying, apposite way to start a podcast about writing with an offcut called prologue.

I want some extra points for that. So we were just talking about generation X and it seems very much like that character is exactly as you described, a Gen X lady. Where was this story going to go?

Louise: Hmm. Well that was actually, um, the prologue was in fact quite a long way into the story. So it’s one of those structures where you sort of see a catastrophic moment and then you go back and discover how the character, who’s called Viv Uhhuh, um, why she’s in Bears.

And, um, you know, what havoc has she. Wrought there before she makes her a rather blithe departure. I love the, um, the reading of it sounds so clipped in 1930s and it’s actually making me think and making me remember one of the reasons why I didn’t take it on and I did something else instead. And it’s because it was very much a sort of old fashioned kind of vibe.

Ah. And the plotting alone would’ve worked a lot better before mobile phones and, you know, all of the, the various sort of apps and things we have now to track everyone. And so, you know, I was thinking, actually, this is gonna be quite tricky because I, I need to make this historical, I need to set this in the sixties maybe, or the very latest, the eighties.

And so I abandoned it. But yes, she’s quite a typical. Sort of Noirish character of mine. There’ve been a few of these 20 something girls who are on the Make.

Mm-hmm.

Louise: Who, you know, come from nothing and, um, need to find a way to better their circumstances. And this book, which I seem to remember, I was going to call the Sun Trap or something like that.

I had a few titles. This was inspired by Henry James is the Wings of the Dove, where a couple. Target a wealthy sort of res type in the hopes that the male will be able to marry her and she’s ill. And it’s a kind of, um, you know, pre prenup era. So all of these kind of elements did lead me to abandon it, but I actually hit the voice very quickly, loved the character, and also could see how easily it could be structured as well.

So, you know, maybe I’ll go back to it one day, but I think it does need to be set. Pre phones, pre-mobile phones,

Laura: do you not write novels that are set in a different time period to the present? Not

Louise: really. The only one I’ve done is the only suspect, which is partly set in the nineties. And again, that was chosen.

I went back, I kept it as close to the present days, I could, but before mobile phones would’ve had an impact on the plot. Mm. And, and the only suspect has occasionally been described as historical, which really makes me laugh. Because I think of that as extremely recent. So do I, but of course, it was 25, 30 years ago.

1995 was the year that I set part of the action. There was a heat wave that summer. I remember it very clearly and you know, it proved to be a really successful novel and is in fact going to be the next one on the, on the screen. So, Ooh, I know that you can do it. I know it’s okay. But I think the further back you go.

The more research you need and the harder it will be ultimately, if it’s ever adapted for the screen as well, which is, you know, sort of always on my mind, you know, in a hopeful way.

Right.

Louise: Um, so no, I haven’t, but maybe I

Laura: will. How much of it did you actually write? ’cause you said this prologue is not actually at the beginning of the book.

So presumably you didn’t just start in the middle or, or do you do that? Oh

Louise: no, I did. Yeah, I did. I did do that, but I had plotted out loosely what was going to happen. And then I thought, what’s an interesting way to, to enter the story? And I love entering a story at the end or in the middle. And then, you know, seeing, you know, something often fatal, um, but certainly catastrophic in some way.

And then going straight back to show. The character before it all went horribly wrong.

Laura: Have you planned it in advance? Do you plan it and then go, I’m gonna start in the middle and then go back and forward or whatever? Or do you go, I’ll start in the middle. I’m guessing it’s the middle. Who knows? We’ll see.

I dunno what’s happened before. I dunno what’s gonna happen afterwards. ’cause that seems extremely confident.

Louise: Yeah, I think I’m, yeah, I think I’m quite confident I just plunge in. Um, because for me the most important thing by far is voice. Mm-hmm. I even really fundamental important things that other authors will cite as the most important thing, like plot, character and setting.

To me, voice comes before those, obviously, voice and character are very strongly linked and they, I guess they’re the same thing actually. Um, now I’m talking about it. Mm-hmm. And generally I will, I’ll be writing from the point of view of a character or several characters. I won’t be a kind of overarching narrator.

Mm-hmm. I don’t tend to adopt. That puppeteer mode ever. Mm-hmm. So you get straight in the head under the skin of the character. So with this one, I honestly can’t remember. I certainly knew that it was going to start in London and that Viv, the character, was going to work in a department store, and that probably will be the next scene that I would’ve written, but I only ever wrote the prologue, which is after she’s done tremendous harm.

To the other two characters in the Love Triangle, and she’s making her her exit from the hostel where she’s been staying. Sounds intriguing. Do write it. Please, please, please.

Laura: Anyway, time for another off cut Now. So tell us about this one.

Louise: So this was written in 2018 and it’s a deleted scene from my novel, which at the time was called the Victim and later became our house.

Emma (Actor): Allison and I were the last to go to bed, clearing up the party debris, stacking the dishwasher, draining the ends of the Prosecco. At the top of the house. The kids were asleep, or at least resisting in relative peace and quiet. She put on the soundtrack to Betty Blue, and I lost my thoughts to the mournful sacks, the pleasurable mood of doom.

I remember seeing this at the cinema. I said we were well under age. I dunno how we got in. I’d never seen a French film before. Wonder what she looks like now. That actress. Oh, I expect she’s a middle aged crawl like us Allison said, pouring the ends of blood colored drinks down the sink. Canna, just say how well you’ve done this weekend, darling.

It’s been a tough time for you this whole year. It certainly has. I picked it a pat of green icing that had hardened on the floor tile like concrete. A suburban life goes on, doesn’t it? The Trinity Avenue hole is greater than the sum of its parts. Aristotle, she said, though, I don’t think he knew about Trinity Avenue.

The street was a true home. I thought with a gust of sentimentality. I wasn’t prepared for. Weekends like this might begin as an escape from older eyes, but they tended to end as a reinforcement of its gravitational pull, the unalterable correctness of our place at its center. Did you, oh, you made me jump Kirsty.

She stood in the doorway in spotted pajamas. I just remembered. She said the clocks go back tonight. So it’s not one, it’s only midnight. Me’s gone to bed. She says goodnight. One for the road. Alison offered pouring, cursing a drink without waiting for an answer. You know, I’ve always thought that this will be a great time to commit a crime.

When everyone’s confused about the actual hour, it’d mess up a bys. Witnesses had forget whether the time had gone forwards or backwards. An autopsy is pretty accurate regarding time of death. I said, I love how you assume someone’s gonna die. Allison laughed. It was an odd thing because we were only doing what we’d done for years, a nightcap after the Halloween party, the finale of the holiday.

But the scene had an end of an era mood about it, as if tomorrow we had to surrender ourselves for a witness protection program or less. Melodramatically. Allison had announced plans to sell the cottage to next year. I raised my half empty glass, and when Allison looked up, her agreement was too simple, too immediate to be sincere, and I thought with complete clarity, we won’t do this again.

The sense of loss was briefly unbearable.

Laura: So why was this cut?

Louise: Oh my God. Well, I don’t know. I, well, I kind of know and um, I’m now thinking it sounds so familiar to me because deleted scenes are just as familiar as the ones that stay in the book. So I’m now thinking, have I got this wrong? And was that cut? Because it feels like it’s almost. The profound sort of center of the novel.

And for those who’ve read it, they’ll immediately know who all the characters are. I certainly know that I, I had to do some cutting because the book was quite long and, you know, that was very much establishing the mood and the character. So this is from the early part of the book, is it? It’s got, it’s actually from, it’s the middle section, which again is, you know, it’s hard and you know, sometimes.

Can can be thought to drag by editors. So I’d imagine there was that element, you know, let’s move on. Because while they are basically on a mom’s holiday during half term, and they do it every year and it’s Halloween and they have a Halloween party, but while this is happening, something criminals going on in fees.

In London. And so it is a really, really important time. And so maybe I thought that that conversation about a crime being committed when the clocks change, maybe I felt like that was being too obvious about telling us what was happening. The other thing I remember is that, um, and this happens a lot with me, is I’m really bad with timelines.

And this came out in the edit and I remember thinking, oh, no. Again, this is me putting myself into the book because I remember Betty Blue and I remember going to the cinema to see Betty Blue, and then I had to remind myself that I was older than the characters I was writing, and that they would’ve been just far too young to have gone to see Betty Blue.

They would never have got in. They would’ve been under 10. And so, um, so rather than changing the movie, I obviously, um, just deleted the whole scene, but, but to me it’s really special to hear it because the Betty Blue soundtrack was. The music I listened to when I wrote our House. Oh. So, um, you know, it really set the, the mood for the book, which is full of melancholy.

You know, it was, as you mentioned in your intro, won prizes for Thriller of the Year and crime and Thriller book awards. But for me it was a tragedy. It was a love story, gone horribly wrong, wrapped in a, in a crime novel.

Mm.

Laura: Uh, but do you have one particular, like the Betty Blue, uh, music was what you listened through throughout the writing of that book, and maybe you have another piece of music or another selection of music, there’s a mood background to the writing of a particular book, or do you just generally listen to music and it could be jazz one day or classical next day or whatever.

This isn’t the Betty Blue Book.

Louise: No. No, and I, and actually I don’t really listen to music when I’m writing. It’s. More when I’m thinking or in, you know, the off hours with the, the new book, A Neighbor’s Guide to Murder. That’s probably my first book where music isn’t incredibly important. Normally, you know, the kind of music, the characters, like the only suspect, which I mentioned, um, set in the nineties, you know, that’s got a, a playlist.

Mm-hmm.

Louise: That’s very easy to follow. Of the nineties classics and

Laura: But you don’t listen to them yourself as you are writing. They don’t, they don’t inform the mood or they do. Yeah, they

Louise: do. They do. I might do. Yeah. Absolutely. And, um, thinking about Our House, I think that there’s one scene where Bram is listening to Portishead Sour Times, and I would’ve ly listened to that.

And it, it does inform the mood, absolutely. But it’s not every book and it’s, I don’t really have a process that I follow with every book. And as I say, my most. Recent book, I’m not associating with music at all. Mm-hmm. I did have a whole subplot where the narrator Gwen, who’s a 70-year-old retired woman, had a Rod Stewart obsession.

And so, you know, I had a whole scene planned where she goes to the O2 to see him with her 20 something friend Pixie as the book’s about an age gap relationship, an age gap. Friendship. Mm-hmm. Among other things. But in the end, I just thought, well, actually, I think this is for my own amusement. I’m not really sure what that’s going to add to the reader’s understanding of Gwen.

So, you know, it begins a self-indulgence and sometimes it does pervade the whole mood of the book, and sometimes it’s just for me, and then I’ll just, I’ll just ditch it. Interesting. Let’s move on now and what’s your next soft cut? Oh my goodness. So this one is an excerpt from a story I wrote in 1981 when I was at school called Murder in the Alps.

Beth (Actor): Marella smiled happily to herself. She loved life in the Alps. The sky was blue, the snow glistening in the sunlight, and everything seemed perfect. Everything except Livy. That was. Glanced at her sister and felt worried Livy was sitting on a ledge, readymade from the rock looking the picture of misery.

Marella had had enough look, she shouted, making Livy jump. I dunno what’s got into you this week, and frankly I don’t care, but I wish you wouldn’t try and ruin mine. And Dan’s holiday as well as your own. Livy looked up at her with pure hatred. I’m so sorry. She replied sarcastically. Am I upsetting you? I had no idea.

You are jealous, aren’t you? More shouted. You can’t bear me to love Dane and him to love me. You are pathetic. Really pathetic. Livy unkempt her skis from her boots and said defiantly. Well, since I’m so pathetic, you can go on your stupid walk on your own. Morela sighed an exasperation. They were getting nowhere standing on the top of a mountain shouting at each other.

She too sat down and gazed at the snowy slopes below her back to Livy. Livy looked up seething with jealousy. Her sister was only about five meters away, sitting still and silent. Livy knew this was the moment. There would never be another as good as this. She picked up a ski and stood up without making a sound.

This is it. Then, Marella, she thought, gritting her teeth. You’ll never see your darling Dane again. She crept up behind her sister and lifted the ski over her shoulder. Suddenly more turned and gasped with surprise and horror. No, Livy, please know you’re crazy. The ski came down and hit her on the head with a terrific force.

She gave a pathetic groan, then fell slowly into the snow. She was without doubt dead for a moment. Livy felt no emotion. She just stood like a robot, staring at more’s limp, lifeless body. Then she thought of Dane and felt happy. Now she could have Dane and Marella couldn’t again. She looked at the dead body, lying in the snow you’ve had all you deserve.

Dear Marella, she said aloud. Suddenly the sound of an approaching cable car caught her attention quickly. She came to her senses and began kicking snow over Marla’s body. She then attached her skis to her boots and set off down the mountain. She didn’t feel in the least bit guilty. Just terribly pleased and satisfied.

Leah (Actor): Grade a teacher’s comment, very well written, but avoid melodrama.

Laura: Um, do you have a sister by any chance?

Louise: Oh my God, I’m crying with laughter at that. That is absolutely hilarious. Um, I do, yes. My sister Jane and, um, yes, she’s not,

Laura: she’s not your, uh, your muse for this in any way. Your inspiration.

Louise: I dunno. I mean, maybe she was, I don’t think either of us had boyfriends ’cause I was 12 at that age when she’s only 18 months older than me.

But um, yeah, for those who haven’t gathered the motive for this, this grizzly murder is just that one. One sister’s got a boyfriend that the other one wants. Oh my God. That is just hilarious. And also, I should tell you that I’ve got the book in front of me, that exercise book, and it comes with an illustration of You did an illustration.

Yes. Oh my word. I did an illustration of mountains and then there’s a cable car. That runs between these two peaks in my little illustration and the ca, the cable card does, um, come up later in the story when there’s another death.

Laura: Oh my God. That was quite a long story. It was almost self-contained.

You’re telling me It’s sort of

Louise: so it’s a little novella. Oh, that’s, yeah, that’s an excerpt. This was about 10 pages long. I mean, when I think about Poor Miss Marriott, who was my English teacher, she used to get sort of 12, 15 page stories. From me and you know, and I, I never considered for a moment that, you know, it was gonna take her time to, to read them, but she must have seen my little green exercise book and thought, oh no.

Oh, I bet she was thrilled.

Laura: It sounds like you were an amazing child to have in class looking under a novelist there. And then, although I had say my favorite line there, she was without doubt dead. That is, I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard, like in any of the off cuts we’ve ever done.

Louise: It’s just so funny, isn’t it?

And the fact that she’s. She’s only pleased and satisfied. Yes. Not guilty, not ashamed or in any way traumatized. Just immensely pleased and satisfied.

Laura: Yes. Well, I mean, it’s, it’s obviously it is a very simplistic, you know, it’s a 12-year-old view and there are obviously things that are stated that, that are obvious and wouldn’t be stated by you as a novelist, but still it’s very much got the bones of a thriller novel.

Louise: Totally. And what’s really, really funny and fascinating for me is. Seeing the influences because my influences at that time would’ve been Agatha Christi. So you can see the kind of death on the Nile mm-hmm. Type melodrama, yeah. In there. But also, um, you know, the glamor of shows like Dallas and Dynasty.

Right. ’cause yeah, because I lived in North Hampton, which, um, you know, isn’t a terribly glamor. Place, and it may be more glamorous now, but certainly in the early eighties it was a Midlands industrial town and I don’t think we even had any restaurants at that time. I’m sure it’s very different now. And so all of my access to glamor was through books and tv.

And so even their names, there’s no way I would’ve had a more in my school or a, or a Livy. You know, they’re all kind of American sounding names. Ah, yes, yes. So, yeah. And Dane. I mean, there would not have been a Dane that is very American in my circle. Yeah. It’s so for me, I can see, I can really see the, um, the influences and, you know, and also I hadn’t traveled at all.

I don’t think I’d left the country at that point. Mm-hmm. Um, so the Alps would’ve been to me impossibly glamorous. Oh,

Laura: so this isn’t based on any kind of memory of having gone skiing? No.

Louise: It’s not a school trip. No. No. Gosh, no. I mean, I, I don’t ski now. I mean, I have been skiing, but No, not until my twenties.

You know, I had a very, um, small town upbringing where I didn’t really leave the, the area even to, to go to London until I went to university. So, yeah, it’s really fun to imagine 12-year-old me watching Dallas and then, you know, turning to my English homework. Do you know what the prompt was

Laura: for the homework?

Did they give you the title? What I did on my holidays? For example?

Louise: No, no. Any prompt that I was given, I would turn it into a story of murder and melodrama.

Laura: How brilliant were you actually? Did you become a goth or an when you were Oh, a teenager. Oh my god, this

Louise: is so hilarious. No, the um, my aforementioned sister Jane, was the queen goth of Northampton.

She was a goth, but I was a tennis nut, so we used to walk to school together and I would wear tennis. Kit and she would wear a wedding dress dyed black. We were quite a famous pair of sisters.

Laura: Goodness, that sounds like the beginning of a novel in its own right. That’s incredible. So your sister looked like she had the dark side, but you all dressed in tennis whites and bouncing around with no doubt.

Your hair in a ponytail. Yeah. You were the one that was secretly planning murders. Yes. Underneath it all. Isn’t

Louise: that interesting? Because I actually think that that is true. I think I’m a much darker person, but she looked very dark. She, you know, she had all the appearances of being, you know, sort of returned from the dead and you know, was in a big gang of goths.

And I seem to remember her boyfriend, who wasn’t called Dane, had a coffin. He had a coffin in his, in his flat.

Laura: That’s just brilliant. No, that’s very funny. Oh my word. What an interesting family you have. Louise. Oh my goodness. Um, right then. Well, let’s move on. Next off Cut please. What’s this one?

Louise: So this is called the Gurs, and it’s from 2022 and it’s a pilot for a TV drama,

Leah (Actor): Mitchell Flat Day Saturday.

And Mitchell, middle aged, low key, casually dressed. Rings Sarah’s doorbell, tradesman’s van at the curb. He glances about him. Obviously not familiar with the street. The door is opened by Sarah in jeans and a t-shirt. Makeup free

Emma (Actor): Ewen. Hi. Come in.

Marcus (Actor): I’m sorry I’m late. Traffic was horrendous on the ring road.

Emma (Actor): Oh, you should try

Marcus (Actor): not having

Emma (Actor): a

Marcus (Actor): car.

Emma (Actor): The morning bus I sway. You could walk on your hands faster.

Leah (Actor): She wraps on Evie’s door as they pass calls out with classic divorced parent cheer

Emma (Actor): Dad’s here. Sorry. It’s a bit of a mess. We’re still getting sorted.

Leah (Actor): They enter the tiny dim living room and Sarah opens the curtains to reveal a cozy, colorful space.

Only one or two unpacked boxes remaining. She sits but you and stands,

Marcus (Actor): how did she get on

Leah (Actor): this

Marcus (Actor): week? She hasn’t answered my messages

Emma (Actor): really well. Already slaving over the textbooks every night.

Marcus (Actor): Sounds like a laugh a minute.

Emma (Actor): Ah, she’s off to a party tonight though. The cool crowd. Since When’s

Marcus (Actor): Evie been in the cool crowd?

Emma (Actor): Well, this is the whole point of moving to a new town. You can reinvent yourself. Okay, so maybe I know the mum of the cool kids.

Marcus (Actor): There it is. In like Flynn. What’s that supposed to mean? It’s just you’re on a mission, aren’t you? You won’t stop till she’s at Oxford or wherever.

Emma (Actor): I don’t think going to a party gets you into Oxford.

Come on. You know how clever she is. Why shouldn’t she aim high?

Marcus (Actor): Of course she should. I just don’t get why you want this over what you had, what we had.

Leah (Actor): Is that school really worth it? They look accusingly at each other. The civilized veneer has well and truly cracked. Don’t do this ewen. What

Emma (Actor): make out like the school is why we split up.

It’s not fair on Evie and it’s also not true.

Marcus (Actor): Look, if she’s happy, I’m happy

Emma (Actor): she is. You know this other mom, we were friends at school. It’s a bit of a shock seeing her again. What’s she called? Nikki, the American

Marcus (Actor): girl. Isn’t that a bit awkward?

Leah (Actor): Well, I’m hoping it won’t have to be. No. I’d be careful if I are you.

Hi dad. Evie enters and Yuen wraps his arms around her sensing how much his daughter needs this hug. Yuen catches Sarah’s eye, quizzical exterior, more cliff common and interior. Uber night, Saturday as night darkens. The common empty and unsettling a taxi crawls along the west side. Sarah and Evie both dressed up.

Peer out in search of the Walden residence.

Emma (Actor): 35. This is it. Bloody hell. Evie. Look at it. It’s like selling sunset

Leah (Actor): as the cab pulls up a security light flicks on illuminating a grand electric gate to the side of the house. A pair of Gulliver students are tapping at the entry pad.

Beth (Actor): Oh, that’s my entrance.

I’ve got the Cobra. Martha, want me to come in with you?

Emma (Actor): Make sure it works. No, you mad

Leah (Actor): fine.

Emma (Actor): Go Have a great time.

Leah (Actor): Evie scrambles out and Sarah watches her head up the drive before the cat falls away.

Emma (Actor): You too, mom.

Leah (Actor): You too.

Laura: So this is interesting. Tell us about the premise. Is this a thriller as well?

Louise: Um, yes. It’s, it’s a drama. So this was, um, a TV project that I worked on for a long time with a TV company called Red who are No More. Um, and it was inspired by the, everyone’s invited. Sex scandal in the schools that blew up around that time and led to a, you know, extremely shocking Ofsted report.

It was a huge story where it was discovered that boys in quite young boys, but certainly sort of senior school had been. Treating girls in a sexually inappropriate way, sometimes assaulting them, asking for nude pictures, and basically just making the atmosphere extremely uncomfortable and at times criminal.

And so there were a number of investigations in the schools, some of them quite high profile schools. And, um, and the government got involved and like so many other things it, it didn’t really go away because it’s all linked to porn. And, you know, the age at which. Boys start watching it. And the nature of porn now, which is very different from back in the day, uh, much more violent.

Um, and so, you know, I was really shocked. And also just sort of, you know, I, I, I felt unusually interested in a current affairs story. And so when, um, my agent suggested that I built a drama around it, an original drama, it just. Felt completely right. And so I did, and it came together very quickly. All of the characters.

I planned eight parts. I worked very closely with a development executive who was absolutely brilliant because I was so lucky I’d never written a, a script before and I had a kind of one-on-one tutor.

Hmm.

Louise: And it was really, really good fun to do and such a fantastic learning experience. But like so many.

Other TV projects, nothing happened and it hasn’t been made. So, you know, so it’s a, that was a lesson in itself with a, when you are writing a book, you know, when I write a book, I have a contract. I know there is going to be a project at the end of it and, you know, it might be a bestseller or it might not, but the story is shared and it’s there for people to access.

But with a TV project, it’s speculative. You know, I put in easily as much work into the gulls, um, as it was called. As I would’ve done a novel during that period, and yet, you know, there’s nothing. This is all, there is your lovely recording, which is so interesting to, to see which scene you’ve picked from the, the pilot, um, between the two estranged parents rather than the kids.

Part of the issue with selling it was that I had a 50 50 mix between the parents’ lives and the teenager’s lives, which kind of placed it a little bit too much in a gray area. So, you know, some broadcasters would say we love it, but can it be more kids, more like euphoria? Mm-hmm. And then others would say, Ooh, you know, can we minimize the teens and focus on the adults?

Like big little eyes. So it kind of fell between two camps, but I’m still very proud of it and I’m hoping actually to, if, um. We can get past the legalities of it. I’m hoping to be able to take it back and transform it into a novel.

Laura: I was about to say, surely that’s the obvious next step, isn’t it? Yes,

Louise: I think so.

The, but I think that the problem with being inspired by something very current and zeitgeisty, which everyone’s invited, you know, this campaign for, you know, school survivors of peer abuse. That’s old news now. You know, five years old now. And so I think what I would probably do is structure the community.

I’d keep the community in the characters, and I’d probably structure it around a different crime and possibly relegate the peer on peer crime to a subplot. I have to have a think about it, but it does. As someone who could only previously. Written things that had then been published. I’ve never had any novels sort of sitting in a drawer that haven’t been published.

Mm. It’s, it was actually quite hard for me to find off cuts because everything I’ve written has been published. So this is the first time I’ve done a huge project that hasn’t seen the light of day. And so, you know, it was really character building. I was very disappointed. Mm. And, um, you know, and had to sort of try and bounce back from that.

So it’s been, it’s, it’s a good one to include because it’s a re it really does show you that, you know, it doesn’t matter how successful you are, um, you, you get rejections all the time. And also writing this script came very easily and I now think, well, you know, had this been in the hands of an experience, screenwriter, you know, maybe it felt easy because it.

It wasn’t quite good enough. I just don’t know because I think the idea was very sound. Mm-hmm. But it was really lovely to try another format, another form of writing. And I always love writing dialogue and I always believe in, you know, showing through dialogue rather than telling what’s going on. And so, you know, TV is the perfect way of doing that.

Laura: Or you could break yourself in gently and do radio.

Louise: Yes. Yeah. Oh, I’d love to write a, a radio play. I love radio. Dramatizations of novels is one of my favorite forms. Um, I absolutely Could the Gallers be

Laura: a five part or I, I dunno, I dunno what the format are these days.

Louise: Yes. Or

Laura: an afternoon play.

Louise: Yes. Maybe. I mean, I only wrote the, it’s an eight episode.

Um. A series and, and I only wrote the pilot. I only wrote episode one. And you only write the rest if it’s commissioned and it wasn’t commissioned. Yeah. But all of the planning is there, all of the plotting. If this was a novel or anything else, I wouldn’t have to do any relotting. It was. Really interesting compared to my novel process.

My thriller writing process is very much kind of loosely plan it, know what the crime is, who’s done it, all the mechanisms sort of in my head, and then I just get going to find the voice. But with this, every single minute of every single episode was plotted. Well, hopefully, hopefully it’ll be

Laura: resurrected in one or multiple formats going forward.

I hope

Louise: so. I hope so. It’s an important story and you know, it hasn’t yet been told in, you know, any, any depth I don’t think. Well time for another off cut. Now what have we got? So this is a book idea I called the residents and I wrote it in around 2020.

Leah (Actor): The residence is an aspirational collection of Riverside apartments where city meets suburb.

Where domestic bliss has been curated to the last detail where you can’t fail to live your best life, they say nothing when you sign up about the threat of murder in a cafe across the road from a West London coroner’s court, three witnesses share a table. They are linked by their association with the residents, the development that promised dream living, but delivered a nightmare.

Just three months after the first renters moved in, a woman named Marina met her death in one of the apartments, and the police have been asking questions ever since. Lois is the neighbor whose husband’s erratic behavior derailed her hopes for a new start, for their young family, and placed her at the scene of the tragedy.

Bridget is the building manager. A former police victim advocate whose attachment to her work and interest in Marina was starting to blur lines even before the fatal event. And Tom is the accidental player, all his worldly possessions in the bag at his feet. He’d moved into the unit next door to Marina only two weeks before her death, and was the last person to see her alive.

Just hours later, the coroner delivers a verdict of accidental death and the police investigation is closed. Life for the residence resumes, but Bridget won’t let go. It’s her job to pay attention to detail and the details in Marina’s death. Don’t add up. Instinct tells her the answers lie with those fellow witnesses, Lois and Tom.

But no sooner does she try to reconnect with them, then they’re gone. It soon becomes clear that whoever warned them off intends the same disappearing act for her because something’s going on at the residence so monstrous that it makes people like them expendable. It makes murder look like child’s play.

Laura: Ooh, this is a document that book I did. Who is this for? Is this to inspire you or was it as a treatment to sell

Louise: to a publisher? Yeah, this was for me, so I am before all else an ideas person, so you know, I would love to spend my day just generating ideas. And not actually completing the projects. And so I’ve got, over the years, there’ve been lots of these to the extent that when I was looking for them, I’ve thrown lots away.

Some of them it was like I’d never seen them before. I couldn’t remember them. It’s um, I always start a new novel with a blurb and I think it’s the former copywriter in me that I just like to crystallize. The main plot theme, you know, the mood, just how is it gonna be, the elevator pitch, you know, just a couple of paragraphs.

And so I’ll often start that way and then just abandon the idea. And this one is really interesting and the reason I chose it because it’s a classic case of it just being all style and no substance. I didn’t know what the monstrous crime was, um, going on behind the scenes and obviously you dumping.

Yeah. Yeah. Or Cass under ING one of the two. Yes. Yeah. Well,

Laura: it’s called the residence.

Louise: Yeah, it was, it was just an empty shell of an idea and it wasn’t going anywhere. It didn’t ignite that kind of feeling that gets ignited when I know something’s got legs. It just didn’t have legs. But having said that. I did know what it was going to be built around, and it was going to be built around a particular Hitchcockian trick that I had wanted to try for a while, and I didn’t give up on that element.

I actually used that in my novel, the Only Suspect. So I think that this must have been around the time that I was thinking about the only suspect, because I used the trick that I’d planned for the residents and I also. Took the character name of Marina. So it must have been how my mind was working before I decided to write the Only Suspect.

So it’s actually quite, you know, for any writers listening to this or creative writing students it, you know, it just shows you that it’s well worth putting those early ideas down because they lead you to the right idea. And I’ve always found getting it on paper and trying to crystallize it in a blurb or a short synopsis is very helpful.

Even if I then go straight onto something else, somehow it just kind of solidifies the idea a bit. So yeah, I mean, it sounds great, but there was nothing behind it. I think. I love the idea of a kind of Ballard style, you know, sinister apartment block and a way of drawing the characters together, but ultimately it wasn’t going anywhere.

Mm.

Laura: That’s an interesting idea that you write the pitch for it before you actually have the substance. It’s normally the other way around.

Louise: Yes, it is. And it does help you kind of see if it’s a strong enough idea. Mm. Because you know, in publishing and, and tv, the hook is everything. You know, sometimes book order will, will take place on the basis of the hook because not every retail buyer is going to be able to read every book before deciding which ones they’re going to stock.

Mm-hmm. You know, book sellers need to be intrigued and they know as well that. They’re gonna be hand selling books and they need to be able to say in a couple of lines what it’s about. And so that’s how I approach it. And then I sort of build around it. You get the first, yeah. Yeah.

Laura: Property is quite a theme in your books.

I noticed that when I read our holiday. And then the other passenger. Yes. Um, I thought as a middle class, middle-aged woman, I was going, she’s speaking to me. Property prices, property values, people being priced out or not. And then of course, the residents comes up. Property seems to well people’s home. I suppose it makes sense.

But your latest book that is out, I believe any day now, is called A Neighbor’s Guide to Murder. So that also has a kind of property implication there if you’re talking about someone who lives next door to you. Yes, absolutely. Does it have

Louise: a property element too? It does, yes. And in fact, um, how interesting that we’ve, that you’ve just said straight from the residents, because this is an apartment block.

So obviously it was, it’s been sitting there in my mind, but this is a Mansion block in a Neighbor’s Guide to Murder. It’s one of those swanky, you know, Edwardian mansion blocks, um, full of people who care deeply about rules and restrictions and service charges, et cetera. And this is where, where the, with 70-year-old narrator Gwen.

Lives and meets the, um, young girl Pixie who’s renting a room from her neighbor, Alec. So this is, again, it has a property theme and this is the first time I think I’ve tackled the rental crisis. I mean, I’m doing so through the eyes of someone who does own their own property, but Gwen has in her circle, pixie, who falls into an extremely.

Unpleasant rental arrangement with Alec. Mm-hmm. And she also has her son who is in his thirties and he’s boomeranged back. So he’s living with her rent-free and has a right old pain and she doesn’t know when he’s going to leave. She’s also got a daughter who has abandoned her. Sort of former activist instincts to become a trad wife.

So she’s sort of, you know, living off this rich banker boyfriend. And then there’s also in the building, the Nepo baby daughter of Gwen’s friend Dee, to whom everything has come easy through connections. And you know, she’s the only one of the young people featured who doesn’t need to worry about where her rent’s coming from.

Emma (Actor): Right.

Louise: So yeah, this was the first time I wanted to, to think about how it feels to be in your twenties and, you know, ’cause I love, I love generational conflict stories and I love those kind of age gap relationships and friendships. And so regular readers of mine will see some of my pet. Peeves and my pet subjects cropping up, but in I think quite a different tone for me, this book has got a real sort of notes on a scandal vibe to it with this sort of slightly odd narrator who has got some murky stuff in her past that she’s atoning for and you know, her interference in this 20 something neighbors.

Life is, you know, deeply inappropriate. And she, you know, she puts two and two together and makes 25 and scandal erupts in the building. And eventually as the, as the title suggests, a murder takes place. So, yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff going on in this book, but there you’ve only got one narrator. So, you know, let me just warn readers that, you know, there, there could be other sides to the story that you are not hearing.

Ah.

Laura: Right. Well, we’ve come to your final off cut. Tell us about this one, please.

Louise: So this is another excerpt from a story I wrote at school. It’s called A Long Walk, and was written in 1982

Beth (Actor): when the Ress roughly awakened me. At first, I didn’t remember for my thoughts were in drowsy disorder. Then it dawned upon me today was the day, the last day.

The day when after 19 years and four months, my whole existence would come to a slow, painful, and merciless halt. I felt a strange, calm flood my body as I stretched my filthy limbs clad in the once beautiful white gown, which had now become indecently torn and stained and ugly. Brown. All good things must come to an end.

Mocked the ress, watching me with a crooked grin. My eyes were focusing on that hideously disproportionately large head with its wild eyes, but my thoughts were elsewhere remembering, almost understanding why Celia had done it, but not quite. My face didn’t betray a flicker of the emotion, which the twisted mind of the ress would’ve gleefully, pounced upon, but my mind lost its calm and suddenly became desperate.

Surely, surely Celia would never be able to live with such intense guilt with the knowledge of having murdered one and convicted another. Surely she would never live as a free, happy human being again. The hours passed cruelly slow, and throughout the same thoughts occupied my mind. Celia, standing with a pistol in her gloved hand, her eyes flashing and her face contorted with jealousy as she regarded the glittering ring on my finger.

Then Roderick drawn and white falling to the floor as the blood steeped into his sandy hair. Celia screaming, hurling the pistol into my hands and sobbing an endless stream of tears onto roderick’s lifeless face.

Leah (Actor): Grade A minus. Teacher’s comment. Avoid allowing your style to become as melodramatic as your subject matter.

Laura: Well, this is positively, uh, Barack. I, I feel like I need to know what led up to this imprisonment and why is her dress presumably a, a white wedding dress stained brown, or do I not want to know? I don’t.

Louise: Why use one adjective when you can use two, three, or four? Is, is my takeaway from this. I can’t remember, um, whether it’s a wedding dress or not, but she has been framed for the murder of Roderick

Laura: Roderick.

Great

Louise: name. Yes. Another great, great name and another jealous act. From a sort of pubescent child who had never met a boy, probably let alone had a, had a romantic encounter. Very funny. Her, her rival wasn’t a sister again, was it? No. No, it wasn’t a sister. Just checking. No, but I’m now seeing in this. Um, this is a whole other anecdote, but very briefly, when I was 12, I got in trouble with the police.

I was in this sort of little crime ring. Exciting. Yeah. And my parents found out the, the police came to the house actually to caution me, and I was grounded for a whole summer. And, um, the, you know, the whole school summer holiday, which is six weeks, I wasn’t allowed out except to go to the library with the goth sister.

I don’t think she was a goth yet then, but she had to accompany me and supervise me, right? And so that summer I read the complete works of Aha Christi and. Maybe not the complete works, but certainly at least 40 Barbara Cartland. Oh my word. And so, yeah, so I think that there’s some Barbara Cartland in this one, don’t you?

I’ve

Laura: not read a lot of Barbara Cartland, I’m afraid. I hope my hands up there. No, but I was thinking more Duchess of mouthy, to be honest.

Louise: I probably was studying the Bronte’s. Maybe at school by then I might have been doing Jane ey or something. So there is a sort of gothic feel to it,

Laura: right? I mean, I dunno how violent Barbara Cartland gets.

If she gets violent, then possibly,

Louise: yes. Well, they’re historical romances. So Roderick sounds like a Barbara Cartland sort of name.

Ah.

Louise: To me. And then you’ve got the death on the Nile type influence in there as well. You know, the glittering ring and the gloved hand. And you know, I loved all those sort of costume details.

And as you mentioned, the filthy brown dress

Laura: stained, the stained brown dress st. It was white stained brown. That’s the specificity of that. Maybe my eyebrows hit the top of my head when I read that. And the drowsy

Louise: disorder. And nice phrase, the disproportionately, disproportionately large head.

Oh my God. Was there a

Laura: happy ending? I mean, I dread to ask, but there have been a happy ending for this. Of course. Yes. Because

Louise: again, this is only a small fragment of a 12 page story for Miss Marriot. Mm-hmm. And, um, yes, she’s freed. She has a last minute pardon,

Laura: changes her dress, I hope. Yeah,

Louise: I think they might bring her a, a new dress and say, come, you can take those filthy rags off now.

Laura: Wow. And what I really liked about this, and the other one was the teacher’s note. Yes. Miss Marriott, I presume again, is it? Yes.

Louise: Miss Marriot? Yes.

Laura: Would you say Miss Marriott had any particular influence on your writing style? I mean, she, she feels like she’s a constant throughout this program. If nothing else, she’s my English

Louise: teacher for years and years and, you know, we haven’t been in touch since my writing career began, and I have tried to google her, but it’s very hard with misses because they tend to marry and then change their name.

So I haven’t been able to track her down. For whatever reason, she’s not felt that she’s wanted to contact me. She probably fears I’ll start sending her stories that she asking, asking for an A.

Laura: I’d like to read her notes in the margins. It,

Louise: yeah, I think she was an amazing influence because, not in terms of, you know, I didn’t read any of her work, or she didn’t really, I mean, she tried to reign in the melodrama, but she wasn’t successful.

I continued to, you know, get more and more melodramatic, but she was just. Very encouraging and obviously allowing me to do these ridiculously long stories for when she probably only asked for a couple of pages to get people to use adjectives. And you know, she never said, look, this is too long, or this isn’t what, what I wanted, wanted.

Well, I imagine she

Laura: would’ve been delighted. Delighted to have a child that is that interested and is that imaginative and is that committed to, to creativity? I imagine there weren’t many kids in your class

Louise: doing that. No. Oh, there definitely weren’t. I mean, this is. Just the tip of the iceberg. There’s loads more.

There’s one called The Mirror of the Future, which we, which I, what’s a

Laura: great title?

Louise: Oh, my word. And again, there’s an illustration for the title and the two Rs in mirror are back to back, like ab, like the bees in Abba.

Laura: Very clever. Yeah. It’s all there. Oh yes. 12-year-old Louise. She was a, a bestselling novelist waiting to happen there.

She was. Fantastic. Right. Well, we’ve come to the end of the show. How was it for you?

Louise: Oh, it was so much fun. I mean, I’ve literally cried with laughter, so you know, it doesn’t get better than that. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

Laura: Well, it has been fabulous talking to you, Louise Kish. Thank you for sharing the contents of your Offcut straw with us.

Louise: Thank you for asking me to.

Laura: The Offcut straw was devised and presented by me, Laura Shaven. With special thanks to this week’s guest, Louise Kish. The offcuts were performed by Leah Marks, Emma Clark, Beth Chalmers, and Marcus Hutton. And the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit offcut straw Do com and please do subscribe, rate and review us.

Thanks, listen.

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 multi-award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster Jay Rayner. Although he’s written columns and features on subjects across all aspects of modern life, he is probably best known for his pieces about food and drink, having been The Observer’s restaurant critic for the past 20 years. On the airwaves, he’s been the host of Radio 4’s Kitchen Cabinet since 2012, and on television, his numerous appearances include being a judge in multiple series of Masterchef, being the resident food expert on BBC’s The One Show, and in the US, he was a part of the expert panel on Top Chef Masters for Bravo. As a writer of books, he’s published four novels and seven works of non-fiction, and his latest work, My Last Supper, has just come out in paperback. His book, A Greedy Man in a Hungry World About the Challenges of Food Security in the 21st Century, became a one-man show which toured Britain for 18 months and resulted in him giving evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Food, the Environment and Rural Affairs. Add to that his many live shows playing jazz piano with the Jay Rayner Quartet. And you have a man who may possibly have been subject to puns on the phrase, if music be the food of love, one too many times. Jay Rayner, welcome to The Offcuts Drawer.

Lovely to be here. I’m slightly exhausted by listening to that account of me.

Well, you shouldn’t be so damn productive. That’s your own fault. Has anybody actually used that phrase, if music be the food of love?

I suspect they have. I mean, it’s my own fault because when we started gigging as the Jay Rayner quartet, one of the selling points was that, you know, people know me through food. So we’d do a whole bunch of songs that are food related. So the original show was called A Night Of Food And Agony. It might still be called that actually. And so if there are any puns like that to be made, you know, I’m entirely responsible for them.

Well, let’s start with the basics. What do you need to have around you when you write?

Well, the bluntest answer to that is is because I have been a print journalist, you’ve allude to the fact that I’ve written on almost everything. People know me as a writer who writes restaurant reviews and writes about food, but I have covered literally everything apart from sport. And even then I once wrote about the All-Amateur Natural Bodybuilding Championships. And one of the, I’m gonna say it’s a skill, one of the skills of the inveterate print journalist is I can write anywhere. And I have done. If you give me a device, I can sit there and write. And in fact, on occasion back in the old days when I was a hardcore news journalist, I could actually dictate it off the top of my head. I didn’t do that very often. It wasn’t great. So in reality, I can write anywhere, but I’m talking to you today from my desk, which is the front upstairs room of the house in Brixton that I’ve lived in for over 20 years. It has a large desk. It has all the stuff. I mean, it’s just, you know, it’s just a bleeding office. What can I tell you?

Okay, let’s kick off with your first offcut. Can you tell us what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when it was written?

This is an outtake from my latest book, My Last Supper, which is a piece of nonfiction about my pursuit of my last meal on earth. And it was first published last year in 2019.

I have seen only three dead bodies in my life, which strikes me as remarkable for a 50 something man. Everybody who has ever lived has also died or will do so. It is to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, the only certainty in life along with taxes. And you can dodge the latter with the help of a devious accountant. Nobody can help you dodge death, not even a devious doctor. And yet just three, two of whom belong to my parents. Death is the part of life we hide from. The other body belonged to a middle-aged man with a luxurious mustache. He was staying at the same hotel as my family in Southern Portugal in the late seventies. He was a weak swimmer. After a good lunch, he went in the water, got out of his depth, panicked and had a heart attack. By the time I saw him, his body was out of the pool and was being worked on by two men pumping his chest. I would have been 11 or 12, old enough to recognise the futility of what was going on down there. I remember looking down from one of the balconies that ringed the pool as a hot afternoon gave way to the long shadows of early evening and being struck by how different he didn’t look. Take away the men trying to restart his heart and he was just a chap, asleep poolside. The fact that this was the body of a dead man was more a concept than anything tangible. With my mother, it was obvious. Claire had taken her time about dying. It was an emergency operation on her bowel that had put her in hospital and from which she never recovered, slipping between intensive care, isolation rooms and for a short period, her bedroom at home. One day to cheer her up, I called up Scots in Mayfair, one of London’s great seafood restaurants and a place she loved. Scots did not do takeaways, but I asked if they might make an exception, both for me and, more importantly, my old mum. The life of a restaurant critic is, of course, one long line of perks. There surely had to be another. So it proved. They put freshly cooked blinis, a tiny glass bowl of chopped shallots and another of crumbled egg yolk onto a Scots branded plate and then added to the side a small tin of caviar. The whole plate was wrapped up in cling film to keep everything in place for the journey to North London.

Well, this book’s already published. So what happened to this section? Why didn’t it make the final cut?

I don’t think it made the final cut because it was just a bit gloomy, actually. I think I felt it was performative in me going on about death. No, obviously both my parents have died. And at times I have written pieces for The Observer, the newspaper for which I write, on both of them. A long piece for my mother because Claire Rayner was well known and a prominent figure. And they got me to write sort of 3,000 words when she died. And I wrote a smaller piece on my father around food. And people always congratulate you when you write movingly about the death of a parent. And my view is that if you cannot write well about that subject, you have no business being a writer because the material is so strong, frankly. That sounds kind of cynical and all of that. And I think after writing this passage, I looked at and felt I’d done it to death, literally, figuratively enough already with the dead parents. The death of my mother appeared in a previous book. It was just too much. I mean, listening to it, I have to say, nice piece of writing. The prose is all there. It’s almost, dare I say, it’s involving. But just because something sounds nice doesn’t mean it has a place in the narrative. And so it needed to be cut.

But the book itself is called My Last Supper. The implication of the title is it’s about death. So if it doesn’t involve the death of your parents, Keith, tell us what it does involve.

Yeah, well, it doesn’t involve the death of me either. So the opening, it makes the point, you’ve mentioned that I do live shows and the first one, A Greedy Man In A Hungry World, led to others, one around terrible restaurant experiences called My Dining Hell, and another one called The Ten Food Commandments, which I play a kind of culinary Moses. And I’d always have a question and answer session. And so, always, literally, I mean, well, I’d go 95% of the time. When we get to the question and answer, someone put their hand up and say, imagine you’re on death row, what would your last meal be? And I became intrigued by the question because I thought I’d always say, if I was on death row, I’d have lost my appetite. And that actually, that’s not what you’re being asked. What you’re being asked is if you were to prepare a meal that was the sum of all your parts, that represented you and all your appetites and your urges and your passions, what would you have? And that I thought was very interesting. So it is memoir. It’s about looking at those foods that talk to me through memoir. And obviously at the end of it, I’m still alive. Death is around it slightly, particularly in the intro, when I talk about all those various proper candidates for one who are the people least suited to eating it. But actually, I have to say, I was doing this show, the show that’s around this one, My Last Supper, right up to the point of lockdown. And the idea of doing a show about last meals on earth in the teeth of a murderous pandemic, it’s not really a brilliant sales job, is it? I’ve already done it at a drive-in. So yeah, it’s actually, I hope, an uplifting journey through life and food and memory and emotion and family and all of that stuff. Which again, is probably another reason why I decided to cut this, just didn’t think it needed to be there.

Now you’ve covered all sorts of different subjects in your journalistic career. Why or how did you end up specializing in food and drink?

Why did I accept the job of going out to restaurants on somebody else’s expenses and…

Oh, it was offered to you. You didn’t…

I mean, that’s the honest answer. So I went out to lunch with the editor of The Observer Magazine in 1999. And she said that the then restaurant critic, Kate Flett, was moving on to be the TV critic, which meant they had a vacancy. And literally in that instance, say, well, that’s a job you can’t apply for, but I’d like to do it. I had this vision. Could you imagine one of those in the old days media ads would turn up in The Guardian on Mondays and wanted restaurant critic? Could you imagine the pile of applications? You wouldn’t actually, you know, you wouldn’t ask for applications. I just put my hand up and said, I’d like to do it. You’ve known me a long time, Laura. I’ve always been a chunky chap. I like my lunch. I like my dinner. I’m part of a noisy Northwest London Jewish family communicated through food. I spent my own money in restaurants. And I thought, here’s something I could write about. I didn’t anticipate just what a good fit it would be or what a lucky time it would be to go into the job because it was the beginning of a major restaurant boom. But I also found in the subject so much more than just aesthetics. It’s not about how things taste. It’s about emotions and who we are. And the brilliant thing about a good restaurant is it stops the world and places you somewhere else. So yeah, and that was it. I didn’t intend to go on for 20 years. Various times I said, I should quit and get back to serious journalism, but well, that hasn’t happened.

It is serious journalism, isn’t it?

Well, actually, in my case, I shouldn’t be so disposed of myself because I still remain a reporter. And certainly through lockdown, I was doing an awful lot of proper old-fashioned reporting. I’ve been on that paper, The Observer, for 24 years, and they have long memories, and they know that they can send me out with a notebook and tell me to go and do some news stories. So I have been doing a lot of stuff around coronavirus and its impact on various elements of society. So yeah, you’re right. I’m still doing serious journalism, and then I’m writing restaurant reviews, which I hope are entertaining.

Well, the lack of mortgage, presumably, is a good indication that it is.

Oh no, my parents died, left me a legacy. Let’s not pretend.

You know that’s how it happens.

Check my privilege. I just have, I’ve got loads of it.

Okay, time for another offcut now. Tell us about this one.

This is a clip from Bluff, an unfinished novel I was working on around 1998.

Danny Sacks didn’t plan to be a hitman. As a child, before poker, long before handguns, he had imagined other lives. As the person on the television who told everybody the weather he’d chosen for the next day. Or the man outside their house with the broom and the trolley who kept the streets neat and tidy in autumn. He liked neat and tidy. None of his thoughts turned to killing. It was not what nice Jewish boys from the London suburbs did. It was not even what the nasty Jewish boys from the London suburbs did. They became accountants or quantity surveyors or if they had truly gone to the bad, Sheropodists, destined to measure out their lives in sliced verrucas and corns. Even they did not become murderers. When he was little, his mother also had dreams for her son. But they were fantasies based more on unrealized ambitions for herself than for him. She had wanted a life of Persian rugs, two inches thick, of wedgewood crockery and silver cutlery. Instead, she lived with carpet tiles and lino, willow pattern and stainless steel. She looked to her son to provide that which she had never obtained. Sylvia Sacks imagined newspaper announcements of her Daniel’s achievements, of his victories over death in the operating theatre. She imagined glowing descriptions of his supple cross-examinations in the High Court. Each would include the passing reference she craved. It was so vivid, she could even visualize the serif typography, the drop of the comma after her boy’s name and then her own immortalisation. Mr Daniel Sacks, son of Sylvia and Bernard Sacks of Kingsbury, triumphed yesterday. This was all she now wanted, to live her life as a subclause.

That’s a really lovely little piece that actually.

Isn’t it? So should we have a moment’s mourning while I explain what Bluff was?

I’m rather hoping there’s good news, but okay, tell us about the novel.

All right, so I need to go back here. I published my first novel, a novel called The Marble Kiss in 1994, when I was in my late 20s. And it was a somewhat complex art history romance thriller set in the present day in the 15th century, because that’s what you write when you’re 26. And it was nicely received, didn’t break any bestseller lists or anything. We’ve got shortlisted for a good award and all of that. I then had a problem with the second one, which we’ll come to. At which point an agent said to me, what do you really want to write about? And it was an interesting question, because I realized I’d written by that point, two novels that I’d never have gone into a shop and bought. And this dawning realization that I was writing stuff I myself wouldn’t buy was very, very important. And out of that came a novel called Day of Atonement, a big hulking lump of Judaica, which took my very secular family by surprise. It was the story of two chaps, Mal Jones and, oh, I forgot the name of my characters. Anyway, two chaps who meet down the side of what is quite clearly Stonegrove Synagogue in age where one, Rosh Hashanah, sneaked around the side for a fag. One has a machine for taking the fat off chicken soup. The other one has a business mind and they go into business. And it tells the story of their life from sort of the late 60s to the 90s. And it’s really, it’s the portrait of a friendship and it is really quite Jewish. And it worked very, very nicely. I’m very proud of that book because I wrote it when I was very young and it’s got a real emotional heart in it. And I needed to come up with a follow-up to that. And that follow-up was this book that we just heard a section from called Bluff. Now, Bluff was kind of a good idea and maybe a terrible one. I wrote 50,000 words of it and the truth is that no publisher wanted to publish it, which suggested it wasn’t necessarily as good an idea as I thought it was. But it was about a guy called Danny Sax who was terrible at poker, continued to play poker, but in another life was brilliant at bluffing because he was a hitman who never killed anyone. He managed to convince his victims to let him remove their identities from the world. It was a sort of caper really. And I liked the idea of a Jewish hitman with all his neuroses. I’d found that voice in Day of Atonement quite successfully and I liked it again for this. And at the heart of it was what happens to a fake hitman when someone is sent to kill him. It was kind of a romp. That was the idea. It was gonna be a romp. It was gonna be one eye on the gallery. It was a lot of comedy. And I think you can sense that in the passage you just heard. But as I say, no publisher wanted it. And this sort of gets to the meat of, I suppose what your podcast is, The Offcuts Drawer. How do we feel about that after the amount of work it takes? It takes a lot of work to write 50,000 words of a novel. And it was painful at the time. It is never anything but painful, but you kind of have to accept, I think, that if 15 publishers have passed, you’re not necessarily robbing the culture of something that needed to be there. And so, you know, it was hard, but I kind of accepted it. It’s certainly not one of those projects that I’ve gone back to over the years thinking, hmm, I really should revive that.

Well, very sanguine of you, I must admit.

Well, you know, I was thinking about this when you asked me if I’d do this. And the truth is, although I’m, you know, quite a neurotic in certain ways, I am quite sanguine about this stuff. You write and you write and you write, and writing doesn’t exist unless somebody’s read it. And you cannot protest that everybody’s missed the point if everybody’s saying no. And that’s not to say that maybe some people might have enjoyed bluff if it had ever been completed and read. But nobody has a right to be published. And I know this drives certain writers who are finding it tough to get published, absolutely not, but you don’t. You have to make an argument for yourself on the page, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. And if a lot of publishers look at it and go, no, I mean, obviously there are all the stories of books that were turned down time and time again and then went on to be great classics. But in the main, I think you have to take it on the chin.

Okay, time for your next offcut. Can you tell us what this is, please?

Right, well, this is actually from a piece of journalism written in 2003. It’s from a newspaper feature that never got published about a drag queen called Lady Ding.

Lady Ding couldn’t be at the Welsh Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras in Cardiff this year, but she still managed to stop the show. For 10 minutes on that last Saturday in August, the screen at the side of the stage was filled with video footage of her act. All gold and lacquered hair and massive shoulder pads and crooked grin. There was no audio, but they smothered the silence with Nobody Does It Like Me, sung by Martine McCutcheon. Lady Ding would have liked that, her friend said. When it came to singing, she would always find the wrong way to do it. That was part of the act, the forgotten words and the lousy voice and the scowl at the indignity of it all. When the video had finished and the music had faded, the crowd of 35,000 cheered. Gold balloons held by Ding’s family and friends in the crowd were released to float away on the afternoon breeze and Cardiff’s gay community said a last goodbye to one of the greatest drag queens the city had ever seen. Three weeks earlier, the body of Jason Massier, the man who created and performed Lady Ding, had been found floating in reeds at the edge of Panavane pond near his home village of Markham, high up in the valleys. He was 32 years old. The death of someone so young is always a tragedy, but anyone talking to Lady Ding’s fans over the past few weeks would have understood something deeper too. A sense of an opportunity that had been stolen from them, of the chance that they had lost to enjoy the success which should have been hers. She was one of the most talented drag queens I’ve ever seen, said Chris Marshall, who’s managed gay bars all over Britain and now runs Cardiff’s King’s Cross pub where she performed so often. Not just one of the most talented in Cardiff, but anywhere. Kerry Dupree, the Welsh drag queen who has already made it onto the national stage and knows what it takes to get there, agrees. Jason had created a real character. He’d thought about it. He wasn’t just a puff in a frock. There’s too much of that in drag today. Jason had something.

So who was this written for?

So this was written for The Observer and was a classic example of, if I made my name anywhere in journalism before writing restaurant reviews, of the sort of work I did, which was the long form feature where you take a small news story that you’ve found in the in briefs, perhaps in the Western Mail or whatever, in this case, a Cardiff newspaper, and you say, well, there’s something bigger in this. There’s a bigger story. So I spent maybe, I think, three days in Cardiff, on the ground to research this. And as it says, it’s the story of this chap who performed as a drag queen called Lady Ding, suffered from depression and killed himself. And it was clear that he was much more than just another drag queen on the scene because the whole of the Cardiff Lesbian Gay Pride stopped that year to celebrate him. And I went to Cardiff and I spoke to his friends and I went to the bars that he’d performed at. And I even went high up into the valleys where he’d been born. I had these fascinating conversations because I don’t know about you, but I, at that point, this is 2003, so we’re going back nearly 20 years. I’d assumed the valleys to be very conservative places. And there was this intriguing line where it said, nobody cares up here whether you’re gay or you’re straight. Life is on a knife edge. It’s a struggle and, you know, who you’re having sex with is of no interest to anybody at all. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. So it was about taking a small story and turning it, giving it its due, giving it its space to breathe. And I did a lot of these three to 5,000 word features where you’re trying to breathe real life into a story. And the reality is I included this because I would say 98% of my journalism, possibly more, gets into print. Not always the way. Back in my freelance career, when I was right at the beginning, I’d lose a few pieces along the way. I wouldn’t make it, it would be spiked. But this is one of the very rare, big features, for whatever reason, never made it into the features well of The Observer Magazine.

Do you know why?

Well, it’s a funny old thing, the features well. The editors of magazines are trying to create a gallery. Even now in the age of online, they have to think in terms of the object, the printed object in their hands, then whatever else happens, it goes online. And it’s always about getting the mix right. And I think week by week, this story never found its place in the well. And until eventually, after about nine months, we all had to put our hands up and go, well, it’s dead, isn’t it? Because, you know, journalism ages. They were apologetic, but not vastly apologetic because that is newspapers. There are times when things don’t make it into print. You go off, you write, and you get paid for it. And it doesn’t happen. But I think, weirdly, this one has always stung slightly more than some of the bigger projects that we’re talking about today.

As that article shows, you do cover a lot of subjects, and you’re writing about mental health issues. You got your nomination for a mental health media award. Was this sort of part of it, because the suicide element?

So with those awards, sometimes you have to look at an accident of how many pieces you happen to have written in any one year. And this really was about a person’s story rather than the mental health issues, although obviously they played a part. But I think in one particular year, I’d written about mental health issues inside Holloway prison. I’d written another piece about a change in government policy on access to medication and permissions and so forth. And that’s the way of being a, you know, a jobbing journalist. You can end up with little specialisms. And then suddenly you seem to be the guy who’s, you know, heading off to Whitemore prison to interview someone. So just happenstance. But no, with this one, I think it really was about a personality, about an individual and about a milieu, drag, you know, we’re all across drag now. Thanks to RuPaul and so forth. We think we know what that is. But back in 2003, it would have been very much more niche.

Next offcut, please. What’s this one?

This is the opening to The Memory Man, a completely finished and unpublished novel written in around 1995.

Here is a lad sitting in the long grass, arse damp, knees muddy. He tries to hold his breath, one hand squeezing his tummy as though grabbing the air in the palm of his hand to keep it there. He doesn’t want to make a noise, doesn’t want to frighten the animal any more than necessary. When he does breathe, he can hear a growling inside his nostrils, the cavities wet and stuffed up from the sobs of a few minutes before. Here then am I, nine years old, bottom lip bitten between teeth, the only witness to the killing of a friend. In the field, twenty feet in front of me, the animal lies flat, a gulping, snorting carcass in waiting, neck tensed, its spindle-thin legs splayed hard before it, the broken one at the back turned away, useless. Papa has the gun, the rifle butt wedged into his armpit like a crutch. He tries to position the end of the barrel just behind the animal’s eye. That’s where it has to be, he says, to be quick. He wants to do it with one bullet. Why pay for two when you can do it with one? Bullets cost money, he says. So do goats, I think, but I don’t say it out loud. He doesn’t want to know how much goats cost. A pistol would be better, something small and hand-sized instead of this tree-trunk lump of wood and metal which keeps slipping off her fur and bearing its steel snout in the earth. Each time he has to lift the barrel up and clean the mud out of the hole, sticking his little finger up there in the way he does when he’s digging around in his ears for wax. And when he does it, taking his hand off her shoulder to turn the weapon around in his hands, she flaps and twitches in the grass, like some big fat cod dumped on a quayside. I wanted to help hold her, just so she knew I was there, one hand on her side where you can feel the ribs and the deep thump of her heart. But Papa wouldn’t have it. I had to be back here, watching. Now the gun is clean again. He gets down on one knee, uses the other to guide the barrel into place, closes an eye as though taking aim, even though he can’t miss. I want to tell him that he’s hurting her by pushing the gun down so hard, but I know it’s just because he doesn’t want it to slip off again. And anyway, I don’t want to stop him. I just want him to do it now. And then there’s a bang, and some smoke, and Papa shouts shit and falls backwards and she twitches one last time, a puddle of thick black goo dribbles out of her head onto the grass. Beatrice is dead. I think about crying, but I don’t feel like it anymore.

Was this written before your first published novel?

No, that’s the hilarious thing. Most people’s unpublished novel is the first one they write. This is my second, which is quite funny. Well, at the time, I thought I had struck lucky in 92. 92 was a big year for me. I won Young Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards, and publishers started showing interest in me. They said, do you want to write a novel? Because anybody who had a byline in a newspaper, they immediately thought you wanted to write a novel. At first, I’d said no. And then I came up with a couple of chapters, which became my first novel, The Marble Kiss, that art history romance thriller, and it was bought by Pam McMillan in a two book deal, get me, for a modest two book deal. And The Marble Kiss did, as I say, all right. It got some nice, appreciative reviews, it got shortlisted for an award, but it didn’t sell very many. But then I had to write the next one under the two book deal. And one summer, my wife and I, Pat and I had gone off, still without kids, we’d gone off to the south of France one summer and there was a traveling circus and it was clearly a family circus and, you know, the circus, it was tiny and the circus animals were goats. And they were much loved goats because clearly they were source of milk as well as performers. And the clown was the 10 year old kid who frankly looked a bit miserable to be doing this again. And I sat there watching this thinking, oh, there must be a novel in telling this story, you’re meant to be in the circus, you’re meant to be exciting, but actually you’re bored and you’re miserable and you don’t want to be here from the point of view of a 10 year old. Now, at that point, I then in, I don’t want to be down on myself as a young man, but it all got a bit baroque. So the story and actually, I have to say, I do think there is quality to this book, The Memory Man. It’s about a kid who is part of a circus traveling through Vichy, France during the Second World War, and something happens. He gets drawn in to resistance work and stuff to do with French Jews being rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Cut to the present day, it was a time slip, and there’s a very, very old man who’s being brought to trial as a Nazi war criminal in France, and he has gone and acquired for himself a lawyer, and the lawyer is actually the kid who was in the circus.

Is that the big reveal?

It’s sort of the big reveal, and he’s the child who ran away from the circus to be boring. He wanted to be a lawyer. He wanted to be dull, and he gets drawn back into the history of his childhood and the Holocaust in France. It’s not unambitious, and it’s about memory and memory acts and all of that. And what happened, I completed this book, and I’d been through many editors at Pan Macmillan. Eventually, the boss of Pan Macmillan would apologize to me for this. I went through five editors between signing that two book deal and then finally parting company with them. They said that they had decided to cancel something like 20 book contracts where the advances were 10 grand or less, which included mine. And so they canceled the contract. And I got paid my whacking four-figure sum. And then it went out. My then agent sent it around and nobody wanted to publish it. What can I tell you, Laura? Nobody wanted it. That was hard. That was very, very hard. But it was also the beginning of an understanding, as I say, it’s an interesting book. And every now and then I look at it and think maybe there’s a way to get this published. But at one point, I had an absolutely appalling idea. Should I confess my appalling idea?

Absolutely.

All right, because I didn’t do it. So it’s fine. But I had this idea. What would happen if I resubmitted this under the pseudonym, what should we call it, Danielle Schwartz or something, a young Jewish woman who is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and then see what would happen?

But surely, as a North London Jew, you must have some Holocaust survivor stuff in your past.

Oh, yeah, we’ve all got a bit of that, but I don’t think that’s how I was known. But anyway, there’s a whole book. And interestingly, my dear old ma, who wrote about 50 novels herself, always said that that was the one that she felt had got away. But I made it almost a point of principle. I am a grown up writer. I will let it go. And I did let it go.

Right. Well, we’re time for another Offcut now, what have we got?

Right. Now, this only sort of fits into the title Offcuts, if you’re being very pessimistic, but we’ll let it sit there. It’s from a theatre play, the first draft of which I wrote in 2010, the most recent draft I wrote in 2019. It’s called The Devil’s Interval.

My dad was the classic scholarship boy, first person from his lot to go to grammar school. So exams were a big thing. And if he passed them, it meant he was supposed to be there, became addicted, got him into some college to do business studies, all of that. Swear he became an accountant just because of all the exams there were.

Play quietly, love. Your dad’s studying.

He was always studying.

If you’ve got certificates, no one can ever argue.

Ferg begins to play a classical medley.

But dad, there’s got to be more to all this than just passing grade seven.

Of course, lad, plenty more.

It’s called grade eight.

At the back, a light piece of cocktail bar piano jazz starts up. Ferg stands to address the audience.

You remember I told Sam I’d never made it to grade eight. Funny story. A week before my grade eight exam, I hiked my guts out across Dartmoor as part of this Duke of Edinburgh gold award thing I was on. Right at the end, just as I was about to finish the job, I was given this signed chit to prove I’d done the task. Now, for my dad, pieces of paper were like pages from the holy bloody Bible. I had to take it back to show dad or he simply wouldn’t believe I’d done it. So I’m holding on to this piece of paper for dear life, stumbling down off the moor like I’m six pints down at closing time and that knackered. And I’m on this path by stream. Of course there’s a sudden gust of wind, isn’t there? And bang, the paper’s out of my hand. There it is in the stream. I dive at it like I’m rugby tackling the piece of paper because I have to show it to dad. Have to. Hit the deck with massive force. Throw my hand into the water to break my fall and I smash it against a rock so hard I know it’s broken. No question. Actually, it’s not a very funny story, is it?

He gets to his feet, walks to the piano and slams his fists against the keyboard, bringing the music to a halt.

My sodding old man!

Tell us the story of The Devil’s Interval from 2010 to today.

Right, so around 2009, 2010, I started doing an awful lot of TV work. Somewhere along the line, Laura, I gathered a bit of work and became, I don’t know, well known. I was bloody busy and I felt like I didn’t own myself anymore and I wanted something that was mine. I needed to write something that was mine. I have, as you mentioned, I play jazz piano and I have done for a very long time. And I’ve done a jazz piano night class at Goldsmiths a few years before, but I’ve been intrigued by the dynamic in the room. The way, you know, at night classes, people bring their stories in with them. And I saw a piece of theater in there. So that’s what The Devil’s Interval is. It’s a story of a jazz piano night class, five students, one teacher, three pianos. And the key is every single actor on that stage plays, which creates some issues, it has to be said, but that was the idea. And each of the students has a moment when they come forward and tells their story. Imagine it as a kind of jazz solo. There’s also an overarching narrative to this. I worked on it with a dear friend of mine, Joe Thompson, who’s another jazz pianist, a very, very fine jazz pianist. And it has gone through six drafts, which is not that unusual in theater, it has to be said. I mean, you know, you have a history in theater too, and you know that. The Devil’s Interval, by the way, is the sharpened fourth or the flattened fifth. The Roman Catholic Church regarded it as evil, and it’s one of the key tones in jazz, which is marvelous. And at various times, it has come very close to being produced. We had a slot at the Watford Palace, which is a great, you know, just outside London theater. And they were ready to produce it, but we needed extra money to be able to take it into town, and we needed the right cast to be able to take it into town. We’ve had some very good names attached to it over the years. Then another director came on, he was very keen, and he was gonna take it to another place and another director, and it’s, you know, it’s a classic story, and it was revived again, which is why I did the sixth draft in 2019. It’s gone through various versions, long, short, such is the way of things. I still think it’s a real goer. I mean, this is not, I think we know, this is not the moment in which to be trying to get pieces of theater on stage, but I wrote it because I wanted to sit in the theater and watch it. And the idea, the way the music plays, the way you actually watch the actors, the musicians compose in real time, that was the idea.

Sorry, they have to not only play the piano and act, but they have to compose.

Well, the idea was that as we get deeper into it, they would start properly improvising. We’d worked out a boot camp for them. Obviously every single one of the actors had to have a history with jazz, or at least piano. I mean, they didn’t have to be jazz pianists. They just had to play jazz pianists, but we reckoned between us, we could get them there. It’s a very ambitious piece, but not in terms of theater. I was very careful to make sure it was one set and the asset, three pianos, well, look after them and you can flog them off again. Afterwards, I had many conversations with producers over the years saying, and the great thing is, you can sell the pianos on. Early on, I was asked if I would sit on a panel at the National Theater to talk about Arnold Wesker’s The Kitchen. So you can imagine that, you know, Rayner, the restaurant critic, the observer, would have quite a good view on Wesker’s The Kitchen. And I agreed to do it. And they said, there’s a stipend, there’s a fee, 150 quid. I said, I’ll waive my fee, but I’ll trade you a moment sitting on a panel on stage for a coffee with Sebastian Born, the literary manager of the National Theater. And they agreed. So I took Bashbourne out, people probably don’t know the name, but he was in his time, the literary gatekeeper at the National. And I took him out for coffee and described this play. And actually, in a moment of, I think, great control, I didn’t do this until we were on the third draft. And I described what the idea was. And he said, so you think you’re writing this? And then I did the thing which must make any literary manager’s blood run cold. I went, no, here it is, and pushed the script across the table. Bash was very, very supportive. He said, it’s not right for the National, but I really think this has got something. And he put us in touch with Endless Producers. And so it goes. Over the years, it’s gone through lots of offices and never quite made it. And that’s why I say I might be cheating in putting it in The Offcuts Drawer because I’m not quite ready to say that that’s gone.

Well, at the moment it is an offcut, at the time of broadcast it will be an offcut, but who knows, maybe as a direct result of being on The Offcuts Drawer, it ceases to be one, which would be marvelous.

I can happily send it. I have it in PDF and Word format. And I think it would be a great night in theater. And that’s why I wrote it.

All right, then time for your final offcut now.

This is an outtake from my novel, The Apologist, brackets probably my most successful novel, which was published in 2004.

One night, desperate for someone, well, damn it, anyone to accept my apology, I returned alone to the bar where I had met Mandy and Tracy. I had it all worked out. I would identify the most attractive single woman in the room. I would approach her hesitantly, tell her she looked terribly familiar. Were you by any chance part of the French delegation at the African Union Congress in Kinshasa? You weren’t? Gosh, that’s weird. You really are the spitting image of a Parisian woman I met there. My prey, of course, would recognize me and be bowled over by my glossy pattern of celebrity and power. She would ask me to breathe hotly in her ear. Breathing hotly was my new party trick. With these introductions made, all I had to do was slip into bed with her and then treat her terribly badly the next morning. I had no doubt that my newfound sleekness and confidence would enable me to do this. What woman could resist such an approach with its heady mixture of African exotica and French sophistication? All of them, as it happened. The first one said, nice try kiddo, but you’re playing a little out of your league, don’t you think? The second one said, excuse me sir, but just my own reference, where exactly on my face is the word schmuck tattoo? Schmuck tattooed. Which was better than the response from the third woman. She didn’t say anything. She just laughed at me, grabbed her bag and her coat and ran from the bar, still hooting to herself as she clacked her way down the street on vertiginous heels.

Another lovely little piece there, really like that. Why was this not included in the book?

Because a little bit like the very first except we heard, it was over-egging the pudding. I’d already done this gag in a number of ways. So to explain, the apologist began, I was watching an episode of Friends, and it was the one where Monica admits that she’d once been fat, and Chandler admits that he once finished with a girl because she got fat, and Monica makes him go and apologize, and he apologized, and he comes back and he says, gee, if I’d known how good apologizing made me feel, I’d have started doing it years ago. And I turned to my long-suffering partner who was used to me saying this and said, there’s a novel in that, someone who apologizes because they like how it makes them feel. So the apologist is about a restaurant critic, yay, called Mark Bassett, who is renowned for his very negative reviews until one of the chefs he reviews apparently commits suicide as a result of the review. So he goes off and he apologizes to the widow, and it’s an all-around positive experience, and he feels brilliant about himself as a result of that apology. And he decides to apologize for everything he’s ever done wrong, just because he likes the emotional rollercoaster. So you get an insight into his life because he goes around apologizing to everybody, the kid he was horrible to when he was eight years old, the girlfriend he did wrong, all of that. And eventually a video of him apologizing to one particular friend goes viral and becomes so successful that he is appointed chief apologist to the United Nations to travel the world apologizing for the sins of colonialism, slavery. It invented this concept of penitential engagement, the whole academic discipline and captured a moment. And it is a broad political satire with a heart, dare I say it, and is without doubt the most successful book I’ve ever written. It was translated into over a dozen languages. At one point, Brad Pitt was going to produce the film version of it. I even sold a website for ridiculous sums of money. I mean, it was the whole roller coaster. The bit that we’ve just heard, he digs into his role as chief apologist to the United Nations and finds that it’s not quite emotionally satisfying enough apologizing in a political environment. So he needs to go back and create some crimes for which he can apologize on a personal level. And so he’s wandering around trying to trip people up and apologize to them.

I see, when I read that, when we heard that clip and he says, all I have to do is treat her abysmally the next morning. I think he obviously have missed a bit about that’s how you get a girl. You’ve got to be mean to her.

No, no, no, no. He just wanted something to apologize for. And because he’s now an international political celebrity, he’s getting some, he’s never to have any luck in bed, but now he’s sexy and fancy and everybody wants him. And so he thinks he’s really it. It is a classic first person narrator novel in that it’s all about the unreliable narrator who’s not quite clocking what’s going on around him. And this bit will have come out because it was over egging the pudding. And perhaps because it may have made you think just a little too poorly of Mark Bassett, the chief apologist of the United Nations.

And the character Mark Bassett, the restaurant critic.

Yeah, go on.

Is he you?

He was significantly me in certain ways. I mean, not because his personal story doesn’t have my parentage or whatever, but certain of my body issues and stuff from when I was a kid, I’d certainly mind my own life for that to create the bundle of insecurities. Yeah, I threw more of myself into that book than I did any other.

Right, final question. Are there any offcuts that you’ve still got that you haven’t shared with us today?

That is an interesting question. I don’t think there are. I mean, I have been… Some people might think that one and a half novels and a whole play that’s been through six drafts, the other bits are sort of smaller and tangential, is quite a lot to have in The Offcuts Drawer. In a writing career of over 30 years, I don’t think it is, actually. I think I’ve been either very fortunate or just blessed with huge unending reserves of talent. If you think of yourself. One or the other, one or the other. You know, I haven’t lost that much along the way. There’s quite a lot of studio-based TV proposals that have never seen the light of day. Probably at least a dozen of those, but we’ve all got those.

Yes, we have.

So I don’t think they really count. So I genuinely think I’m quite fortunate. That said, you know, there’s, what, 150, 200,000 words of unpublished stuff. But then to put that in context, I probably write anywhere between 100 and 200,000 words a year. So it’s livable.

And as for the Memory Man that we heard earlier, have you thought about repurposing it? Could you maybe turn it into a radio play or a film script?

I’ve occasionally toyed with that, but my appetite for going back to something that I wrote well over 20 years ago is limited, if I’m honest. I’d much rather just move on. I genuinely don’t think that I have deprived the culture of anything. Most books, however grand and great we think they are, move down the river, don’t they? They just pass us by and we read them and we enjoy them at the time, however successful they are. The Apologist has a life beyond itself. But for the most part, what we write is just part of the culture that passes by. So I don’t look at The Memory Man, I don’t look at Bluff and think, oh, that’s a waste. I think it’s more important just to keep going, moving forward.

I suppose you have got a sufficient body of work behind you to be able to go, look, I created all of this and that was shared with the public successfully. So maybe you don’t miss The Memory Man and Bluff that much.

No, I don’t.

If you’ve written one or two, you might go, oh, I’d like a bigger body for the amount of work I put in.

Yeah, I don’t think in those terms. I don’t think, oh, I’m, you know, one of the hilarious things is that Claire, my late mother, she published over a hundred books. And when you are faced by that body of work, don’t even think about competing. I was the one who was responsible for voxing them all up and putting them all into storage. I still have a copy of every single edition is in storage. And I remember voxing it all up and putting it in the lock up, the secure lock up, and stepping back from these big piles of cardboard boxes and thinking, and this is not to dismiss her body of work because Claire was, you know, very important work, but thinking, just remind yourself, this is how it ends with, you know, a dozen large cardboard boxes in a lock up. So we live our lives in the moment and it’s about enjoying the process of writing and being a writer rather than one eye on what you might not have completed.

And on that profound note, I think we’ll end it there. It’s been lovely to talk to you, Jay Rayner. Thank you for sharing the contents of your Offcuts Drawer with us.

It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you. The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Jay Rayner. The Offcuts were performed by Keith Wickham, Christopher Kent, Toby Longworth and Rachel Atkins, 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.

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.

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 pave the way to subsequent success. My guest this week is author Mark Billingham. Mark worked as an actor, a TV writer, and a stand-up comedian before his first crime novel, Sleepyhead, was published in 2001, becoming an instant bestseller in the UK. His subsequent series of novels featuring London-based detective Tom Thorne now totals 16 books with the 17th Cry Baby due out imminently. Mark is also the author of the standalone thrillers In The Dark, Rush Of Blood, and Die Of Shame. His television writing includes several children’s series that he also starred in, Harry’s Mad, What’s That Noise, Made Marion and Her Merry Men, and Night School, and a series based on the Thorne novels in 2010 starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne. Words like master and masterpiece are regularly flung about in his reviews, although possibly not quite as many times as the word grizzly. Mark Billingham, welcome to The Offcuts Drawer.

Hello, thank you for having me.

Are you happy with grizzly as an adjective? Was that what you were going for when you started?

I don’t think it applies as much now as it did when I started. I certainly think the books were a lot more grizzly, a lot more violent, you know, 10 or 15 years ago than they are now. And I think that’s because I hope it’s because I’m a better writer than I was then. And I think I’ve learned that less is more and you don’t have to throw the kitchen sink at everything. And a reader’s imagination is a far more powerful weapon than anything a writer can come up with. So, yeah, I think grizzly would have been fair enough when I started, certainly.

Well, let’s start with the basics. What do you need to have around you when you write?

Oh, God, I am one of those people who can only really write in my office at home. I’m terrible at writing on the go. I can’t write in hotel rooms or on trains. And I suppose the things I need around me are the terrible things I’m looking at as I look around me right now. Far more Beatles toys than any grown man should have. Yeah, you know, like yellow submarine figures and any bit of memorabilia, that kind of stuff. I’m looking right now at a stuffed woodpecker and an old ventriloquist doll and oh my god, some old figures from Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and a huge standee of Elvis Costello. No. Well, I don’t know until you take them away from me. All I know is that I can’t sit and write in a sort of soulless hotel room. I can scribble a few notes in a notebook. You know, I can go, oh, must do that in Chapter 12 or whatever. But I can’t actually sit and put a book together anywhere but here.

Well, let’s kick off with your first off-cut. Can you tell us what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when it was written?

Well, this is a clip from a novel I eventually abandoned in favour of what actually became my first published novel. This is called The Mechanic and it was written in around 1999.

He was a stone cold mechanic out of Miami with a job to do. Just a regular killing, just some punk who was going to get what was coming to him. It would be a snip. The train now standing at Platform 2 is the 1237 to Coventry calling at Adderley Park, Stetchford, Lee Hall, Marston Green. He downed two fingers of beam and checked the glock strapped beneath his left arm. The weight of it felt good, like an old friend. Hampton in Arden, Barkswell, Tile Hill and Coventry. He slapped a five on a ten for the bartender and slid off the bar stool. It was time for work. Travellers are reminded that there is no buffet service available on this train. We apologize again. The man was late. He might have to slap him around a little later on, once the job was done. The man had lousy timekeeping habits, but he had a bag of money. And he had the name of the poor sap who had an appointment with the Glock. Nobody ever beat the Glock. He smiled. Beat the Glock. Good one. Andy! Maybe he’d do the beat the Glock routine for the guy he was going to ice. Give the poor mutter belly laugh before he bought the farm. Andy! Oh, sorry, Keith. I was— Yeah, course you were. Where the fuck have you been? I said half twelve under the clock. It’s nearly twenty-two. Christ, what have you come as? Andy Bagnell self-consciously pulled his shirt down over his beer-gut and adjusted his ponytail. We’re supposed to be inconspicuous, you dozy prat. I am inconspicuous. In a Hawaiian shirt? You look like you’ve puked up on it. This is from Florida. Trevor got it when he took our Karen and the kids to Disney World. Doody wasn’t listening. He was staring across the busy station concourse towards the public toilets. Bagnell watched him and, for want of anything better to do, he stared as well.

So tell us about this mechanic then. What was it about?

Well, it was a comedy caper set on the Birmingham Canal system. I’m from Birmingham. I thought I should write about the city I grew up in. So it was this sort of comedy caper where this guy imagines himself as some noirish character and talks in this ludicrous way all the time. Actually gets involved in this horrible caper where he robbed somebody in the toilets at New Street Station. I wrote about probably five or six thousand words of it at the same time as I was writing five or six thousand words of what became that first novel Sleepyhead. I sent them both off to the one person I knew in publishing who said ditch the funny one. Now, well, it may well be because it wasn’t remotely funny. I do not know, but what I since learned, what I subsequently learned was that publishers are quite scared of humorous books, which is a bit sad really. I mean, later that year, I actually went to a crime writing convention where one of the sessions was called, Does Humor Hurt Your Sales Figures? I’ve never forgotten that. I suppose it’s because it’s such a subjective thing. And an editor might read a book and think, well, I think that’s hilarious, but will anybody else? Or I don’t find it funny, but maybe that’s just me. And so the safest thing is to just reject it. And when you think about the incredible history of brilliant humorous writing we’ve got in this country, it’s really, really sad that that should be the case. But, you know, you can count the number of bestselling, humorous writers on the fingers of one hand. It does seem to be something people are a bit afraid of. So I went with The Grizzly One and The Mechanic never saw the light of day. I did look at it again, obviously, when I dug it out for your show and thought, you know what, one day I might finish this. I should have done that during lockdown. That’s what I should have done.

But why were you starting two books at once? I mean, you’ve not published any before, and most people have enough trouble coming up with the first book. So how come two?

Well, it’s certainly something I’ve never done since. I wish I could tell you. I don’t know. I mean, I definitely had had the idea for what became Sleepyhead, the grizzly serial killer novel. But because I was still working as a stand up at that time, and I love crime fiction, so it seemed natural to at least try a comedy crime novel. And they’re incredibly hard. They’re incredibly hard. It’s like the comedy horror film. I kind of think you can’t be both. You can certainly put humour into a crime novel, into anything. I would not want to read a book that doesn’t have some humour in it because it would just be irredeemably bleak. But a book that just sets out to make you laugh is a very tough ask, I think.

Absolutely. But it’s just the fact that you decided to start them both at the same time, or pretty much the same time. What were you thinking? I’m going to write two books.

I’ll send two books off to publishers to see what they think.

You must be incredibly dedicated and disciplined to be able to sit down and go, I’ve never written before, I’m going to do two.

It was a discipline that I maybe had 20 years ago, but I certainly don’t have it now. I mean, I don’t have more than one idea at one time. I was doing a thing the other day when somebody said, what do you do with all the ideas you reject? And I went, I’ve never rejected an idea. You know, I just kind of go, that’ll do. Let’s write that, you know.

So this one just disappeared. You didn’t look at it again.

No, I didn’t. I didn’t look at it again until really, really recently. And actually I’m really quite happy with it because there’s way more of it than was read out. And I kind of think one of these days I’ll get around to finishing it. And even if my editor went, well, it’s not really what you’re known for, I’m sure I could find somebody who put it out somewhere. Also the idea of any kind of crime fiction set in Birmingham, I started to feel was problematic because by that time I wasn’t living there anymore. And I think it’s easier to write about the streets you walk down. And that accent, I did have a problem with that accent.

But nowadays you’ve got more Peaky Blinders, of course.

Yeah, nowadays it’s become trendy. My name’s Tom Thorne, mate, you’re nicked. It just felt easier to make him a Londoner.

Let’s move on to your second offcut. Can you tell us about this, please?

Oh, well, this is a treatment, in inverted commas, for a spoof TV magazine show called It’s Bizarre. And I think I wrote this sometime in the mid 1990s.

Presenters, Valentine and Cordelia Trevelyan, married. He, overweight, flamboyant, effete. She, skinny, blonde, distant, both very gothic. It’s Bizarre is a 30-minute magazine programme dealing with all aspects of the paranormal, with features on everything from telekinesis to yetis, and articles ranging from the spiritual to the downright eccentric. It has a regular cast of slightly off-the-wall presenters who are actors and play all this completely straight. Features include Coincidence Corner. The Trevelyan sit in wing-backed leather chairs and regale the viewers with tales of coincidence to boggle the mind. On June 17, 1972, 14-year-old Colin Hoxton was appearing on the BBC quiz show, Ask The Family. One question involved the identification of an object photographed from a strange angle. Colin correctly identified the object, Cheesecake. At precisely that moment, 3,000 miles away in Houston, Texas, a man was struck and killed by a slice of cheesecake dropped from the 14th floor of a skyscraper, the dead man’s name, Robert Robinson. Bizarre but true, a series of astonishing facts. All the ties worn by film 93 presenter Barry Norman are made from the wool of a single sheep. It’s Bizarre obviously has its tongue firmly in its cheek, but although the format is preordained and many of the initial articles and features are scripted, the great strength of the show is that much of the content would be viewer driven. It’s Bizarre is in many ways a That’s Life of the paranormal, although of course unlike That’s Life, it is interesting and funny.

Ooh, that’s a bit snarky.

Oh dear.

Not a fan of That’s Life, hey?

No, well, I certainly was when Cyril Fletcher was doing his odd odes and humorous vegetables and all that kind of stuff. Jake Thackeray used to perform on That’s Life and, you know, Jake Thackeray is a huge idol of mine. So that was, yeah, that was a bit pointlessly nasty. And, you know, yes, I think I introduced it as a treatment. That’s probably overstating the case. I think this was a few pages scribbled in a notebook.

They were very tidily scribbled. It wasn’t, you’d obviously thought it out. There were no spelling mistakes or ink blocks or anything like that.

I’m very neat. I’m very neat and organized. Well, I think this was definitely a period in my writing life. So this is, you know, five years before I started trying to write a novel. So I’m writing a bit for television and largely hating it, doing kids’ shows and, you know, collaborate lots and lots of in inverted commas collaborating, which just means writing by committee quite often. So there’s a lot of that going on. And I was just in that period of which, which every freelance writer is in of just throwing as much shit at the wall as you can until something sticks. And, you know, this is, this is from the notebook of shit to throw at walls. And God knows, maybe I’d eaten a bit too much cheese one night and just sort of woke up and thought, God, I quite like some of it.

Yes.

I quite like some of it. I quite like that coincidence corner story.

Yeah, I like the wool of Barry, Barry Norman’s ties.

I’d watch it.

Yeah.

Or maybe I wouldn’t. I think it was, do you know what? It was also in that period of television where, you know, the kind of late night shows that seem to be very much designed for people coming home from the pub. And you just turn them on and watch any old nonsense, you know, with the kebab and you know, three cheese to the wind. And I think I thought, yeah, I can come up with something like that. Clearly, I couldn’t and can’t. That was my best attempt. I don’t think it never got submitted. I mean, I didn’t ever show it to anybody, I don’t think.

Oh, oh, I see. Oh, that’s quite disappointing. I’d be very interested in their feedback. What they would say about why it wouldn’t work. So what kind of television and reading and culture basically were you a fan of when you were growing up?

Oh, lots of crime stuff. I always drawn to anything with violence and car chases and, you know, the Sweeney, all the American stuff, Kojak and Columbo, of which I remain. You know, it is the greatest cop show ever made. And you can argue with me. I’m curious.

Why is it the best?

Oh, my God. Well, you just have to look at the people that worked on it. You know, far from anything else. I mean, Spielberg directed the pilot. You had people like Steven Bochco, who went on to great Hill Street Blues. Jonathan Demme, who directed Silence Of The Lambs. Incredible people behind the scenes. And the people that created it, Levinson and Lincoln, actually based it on Crime And Punishment. And they wanted their detective to be like the detective in Crime And Punishment, the constable or whatever it is. And it’s actually a show about class. You know, when you think about it, it’s about this working stiff, who the villain always underestimates. And the villain is always an architect, a classical musician, you know, a TV chef. They’re always somebody from the sort of upper classes.

And he’s just this working stiff.

Yeah, very high status. And they underestimate him and they don’t imagine that he’s got a mind like Steel Trap. And what it did, of course, most famously, was to completely invert the classic format of a crime drama where you knew exactly who the killer was and exactly how they’d done it in the first five minutes. And the rest of the show is this sort of dance of death between Columbo and this villain. How is he going to catch him? What’s the mistake the villain’s going to make? It’s a show I’ve always loved. And of course, Peter Falk. Peter Falk. And I got to do a… I made a documentary about the show a few years ago on radio and got to interview him, not long before he died. So somewhere on tape, I do have that man saying, one more thing, Mr. Billingham. And that, you know, I can go to my grave a happy man.

So what kind of family were you from? Do you have a history in your family of performers or creators, or were you the first?

No, God. No, absolutely not. Yeah, I was the first. Just big show off. And it has just been what’s lawfully called a career is just an attempt to show off and avoid a proper job. You know, I’m now showing off writing books. It’s still a performance. I’ve always been a performer of one sort or another. And it just, you know, from that first moment, I was at the kind of school where it was easy to be a bit anonymous if you weren’t a brilliant sportsman or a brilliant scholar. And I was neither of those things. And then the school play came along. And from the moment I got cast as the artful Dodger in Oliver, that was it. That was me sorted. That’s all I ever wanted to do, really.

Well, time for your next off-cut. Can you tell us what this is, please?

Well, I mentioned stand up. This is a piece of stand up material that I wrote in around 2001. I’m not sure I ever performed it, but it’s about complaining.

Are you having a good time? Okay, by and large. But would you say so if you weren’t? There’s certain things that British do very well. Obviously, there’s queuing, talking about the weather, and choking at major sporting events. But one thing we cannot do is complain. We’re shit at it. Some clumsy twat sends me sprawling in the street. I stand up and say sorry. Sorry? It’s at its worst in restaurants. Not only are we shit at complaining, we’re hugely embarrassed if somebody else does. Now, I happen to be married to one of this country’s few truly great complainers. She bloody loves it. I’m easily pleased in restaurants. You can slap a plate of food in front of me that’s cold or burned or bears no resemblance whatsoever to the thing I actually ordered. Basically, something the third chef has vomited onto the plate. The waiter says, is everything all right, sir? And I’m like, lovely. Couldn’t be better. Thank you so much. My wife is slightly different. If we go out for a meal, she’s not had a good night unless she’s changed tables three times, sent back the starter and called the head waiter a cunt. I mean, I do complain, but for some reason, it’s inversely proportional to the amount of money I’m spending. If I’m out celebrating in a flash restaurant, I’m Mr. Weedy. I’m Monsieur Iselie Pleased. If I’ve spent £35 on a Chateaubriand, you can stick a turd on a plate in front of me and I’m like, oh yum, that’s perfect. Put me in a greasy spoon on the other hand. I mean, get me in McDonald’s and suddenly I’m cocky fucking dick. Excuse me, my good man, but my sesame seed bun is a tad undercooked and these chicken McNuggets are an absolute mcfucking disgrace. Talking of which, posh people should not be allowed in McDonald’s. They just open one in Hampstead and eating in there is a fucking nightmare. Posh people and fast food is not a good mix. They just don’t understand the concept. You stand there in the queue behind Jeremy and Amanda with little Georgina and Freddie in tow, but do they decide like the rest of us what to order in advance? Do they bother to consult the huge fuck off menu above the counter? No, you’re stuck behind these fuckers. You’re in a hurry. They get to the front, the 14 year old serving says, can I help you? And they’re like, yeah, what’s good today? Nothing’s good. It’s McDonald’s for Christ’s sake. Now order something quick and fuck off. But no, they stand there discussing the menu and then the kid with the stars on his badge makes the fatal mistake of asking them if there’s anything they’d like to drink. No, McDonald’s does not have a fucking wine waiter.

Goodness me. So you didn’t perform much in front of children, I’m guessing.

No, and it’s weird the way, again, that was dug up from an old notebook, that you actually write the swear words in. It’s really bizarre. Like you think, well, you know, that will just come when I perform it. You know, I’ll be riffing and improvising and that stuff will sort itself out. No, I actually wrote in every fucking and I was hoping when, you know, because I kind of knew you’d play that. I was hoping you’d have sort of dubbed in some audience laughter.

No, that would sound awful.

Yeah, it would, wouldn’t it? I mean, any stand-up routine written down is a bit odd, isn’t it? But no, I think I either never did it or I did it once and it died and I never did it again.

I thought it was pretty basic, not basic, but you know.

It was basic. No, completely basic.

No, but basic in as much as it should do fine. It may not be blindingly brilliant, but there are some good jokes in there. I could see audiences laughing at that.

Late night, very drunk at the comedy store. They’d have to be. I think by the time I wrote that, I was already falling out of love with stand-up or either the books had started to do better because there was a few years when they overlapped.

There was a crossover.

There was definitely a crossover and it actually became a practical thing as much as anything in that I was starting to have to travel quite a lot to promote the books. And you can’t work as a stand-up without an awful lot of traveling up and down the motorway, two nights in Leicester, three nights in Nottingham, whatever it might be. So I had a young family and I just wasn’t seeing them. And by that time, I’d already been doing stand-up for at least 20 years. And I just thought, really? Well, in 1987. No, no, not by the time I wrote… When did I write that? When was that? That was about 2001. 1997? Okay, I’d been doing it 15 years by then. And I just kind of had enough. It’s a very good job for a single person. I always think that. And if you’re perfectly happy to… Especially if you’ve got an agent and you’re happy for them to say, here’s your schedule for March, here’s your schedule for April, you’re doing these clubs. You can’t do that when you’ve got a family and you’ve got to sit down with diaries. It’s like a military operation trying to figure out what you’re doing. And I’d had enough of sitting in grotty dressing rooms at 3 o’clock in the morning. I mean, I still miss that 20 minutes on stage. I do. I still miss that buzz you get from that, which is a buzz you can’t get anywhere else. And I get some jollies from doing similar things at book festivals and trying to sneak in as many knob jokes as I can into a discussion about literature. But I don’t really miss the rest. I still hang out with comics all the time. I play poker every week with a bunch of comics who keep me up with what’s happening on the circuit. But that was the most embarrassing bit of old stuff I dug out for you, I think.

No, there’s nothing embarrassing about it.

Oh, there’s worse to come, is there? Yes, much, much worse.

Yes. 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. I was going to say that Stand Up influenced your novel writing because I read somewhere, well, obviously, Tom Thorne is named after fellow Stand Up, Paul Thorne, apparently. Does he know that?

Yes, he does. And there are also characters in the books called Brigstock, Kitson, Holland. It’s certainly in all the early books. I mean, Thorne’s lasted 20 years, but in all the early books, lots of the characters are named after Stand Ups I was working with.

Do they know that?

Yeah, they do. And I would regularly just get asked, can you put me in this? Can you put… The only time I’ve ever asked was when, now, who was it I made? Who was it I made into a hideous paedophile? It will come to me. It will come to me.

I know plenty of comics who would jump at the chance.

Yeah, but that’s the only time I actually asked permission. I thought, you do need to know what I’m gonna do with your character’s name. Yeah, no, I did a lot of that by then. But it did, if I’m guessing where you’re going with this question, Stand Up did really influence the writing later on, because, you know, as you know, you can’t walk out on stage at the comedy store and go, stick with me, I’ll get funny in about 10 minutes. You’ve got to be funny straight away. And I knew I had to engage the reader straight away and keep them engaged and build towards climax and all that sort of stuff. But also, crime writing uses a lot of the same techniques, you know, in terms of the reveal, the pullback and reveal. When you reveal certain bits of information, the timing is very important. Crime novels are full of punchlines. They’re just really dark ones.

And also, I imagine the maverick, hard drinking, hard living rule breaker, the cliche of the stand-up comedian has quite a lot in common with the cliche of the hard-bitten thriller detective. So, probably not a huge leap to make.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. But one of the things you realize quite quickly about that cliche is that it’s an archetype that you can throw away if you want, but you might be in danger. You can decide you want to write a western, in which you have a cowboy who doesn’t have a hat or a horse or a gun, but he’s probably not a cowboy. You know, there are certain boxes you do have to tick. And there are certainly a lot of things you can do within the genre, and there’s no limits to it. You can, you know, write crime novels, set in space. You can do whatever you want. But there are certain boxes you’ve got to tick, I think.

Right, well, let’s have another off-cut. Tell us about this one, please.

Well, it’s another treatment for a TV show, for a TV panel show from the Throwing Shits At The Wall Notebook of the mid-90s, and this one’s called Hot Air.

Chairman Dickie Branston, DB, overseas crew selection and flight. Flight always, ultimately doomed, crew doomed, DB always survives to fly again next week. Only one celeb will survive the fated balloon journey, different route every week. Panel, four celebs, round one, crew selection. Each panelist given two celebs, broadly speaking, a goodie, much loved public figure, and a baddie, a figure the public love to hate. Up to panelist which one they want to promote and which one they want to ground. One minute to vigorously defend the one they want to see grounded and attack the celeb they want to see stepping into the basket. So Stephen Fry gets Saddam Hussein and Glenn Hoddle. Tony Banks gets Naomi Campbell and Tim Henman. Francis Edmonds gets Chris Evans and Frank Bruno. Panelist gets Tony Blair and Silla Black. At end of round one, DB awards points for originality, wit and good questions and selects the four members of the crew. Now each panellist for the duration of the flight becomes that celeb, vigorously defending their alter ego in the face of an assortment of on-board crises. Round two, altitude. The balloon is losing altitude and we need to lose a crew member. Rather like an old-fashioned balloon debate, it’s strictly every person for themselves and while each in theory has a chance to speak on why they shouldn’t be callously thrown overboard, swiftly degenerates into a free-for-all with DB trying to keep peace as we descend into vicious insult, scurrilous rumour, lying and blatant self-interest. Political figures tend to thrive in this round. At end of round, DB decides which crew member to sacrifice and four becomes three. Round three, dinner time. Crew are starving. One has to become the on-board meal, but which? Each celeb has to actively pursue one another describing how they like them cooked and eaten, with points for originality, recipe-wise and imagination. Ultimate decision, as always, is DB’s. At end of round, one crew member becomes dinner, down to two. Final round, hot air. Each of final two compete to lift balloon. How much hot air can they generate by waffling about their lives, loves, careers, while being shamelessly heckled and sidetracked by other panellists? Losing celeb is yoiked overboard. The celeb-winning panellist is announced, end of flight, with losers to nominate future flight crews for future flights. According to the notes on your script, there were three possible titles for this. Hot Air, which is the one you’ve gone with, Flight To Nowhere or Celebrity Plane Crash. Now that’s the one I like the best. That’s such a bad taste title. I love it.

It is. I still quite like it. Yeah, no, I still like it. Again, I think that would be, you know, one of those programs on Channel 4 or Channel 5 now that you came in after the pub and stuck on. And it’s fatally flawed. Even listening to it, you can see it because when it started, I thought, oh, that’s quite interesting. But then the idea that these panelists have to pretend to be Chris Evans or Cilla Black or boy, those names, all those people that were big celebs back then.

Half of the people are dead.

Yes, I know.

You see, it really does date it. You’ve got names like Tony Banks.

Tony Banks.

On the back of…

And I presume, I mean, Tony Banks, the MP and not Tony Banks, the keyboard player at Genesis.

Presumably, he’s the political figure who would thrive in all that lying.

But I think I looked at it in the cold light of day and went, you cannot be serious. You really think somebody’s going to make that?

Well, they would make it nowadays.

Well, that’s the thing. I do look at some of the stuff that’s on now. I mean, the way panel games have kind of gone with that degree of sort of craziness and bad taste and yeah.

Well, now you’re Mark Billingham, bestselling novelist.

Yeah, I might have more of a chance now.

Obviously, you’ve done a lot of television writing. This was a panel show. I couldn’t find any reference to any panel shows that you’ve written for. You’re mainly children’s television, weren’t you?

I was doing the air. I was doing a lot of kids’ TV drama and animation. I mean, some of which was quite good. But when you’re writing animation, the money for these shows comes from all over the world, from a dozen different countries. So you would get a dozen different sets of notes. You’d put a script in and then you get, here’s a note from France. Here are the notes from Lithuania. Here are the notes from Eurovision. And eventually, you’d go, can you put that stuff back in to the eighth draft that you took out two drafts ago? And you’d start going, life is too short. It really was tremendously hard work just to write a half hour episode of an animated kids show. And some were more fun than others, but eventually I just got heartily sick of it.

But it was while you were writing Night School in 1997 that I believe you and your writing partner had the personal experience of crime violence. I wondered, was that what made you shift from the television children’s writing to crime novels?

I don’t know whether it was quite as clinical as that. What I can certainly say is that when I did start writing the novels, which was only two years later or 18 months later, that fed directly into it.

So what exactly happened?

Definitely. We were attacked and held hostage in our hotel room. We were in Manchester working on this show, Night School, and we’d gone out the first couple of nights, gone out on the town. On the third night, we said, right, let’s stay in and we’ve got to do some work on the script. So you come over to my room. We’ll watch, I remember it was on the telly, we’ll watch ER and we’ll watch University Challenge and we’ll have food delivered to the room. We had pizza and a beer for a fiver each. We were sitting in my room watching telly, talking about the filming we were due to do tomorrow, and there’s a knock on the door. I went, oh, that’s going to be room service, come for the trays. I opened the door just without thinking, and it was three guys in balaclavas who just burst in and beat the shit out of us and put bags over our heads and tied us up and ran around Manchester with our debit cards and took whatever they could take, cash and phones and watches and just threatened to kill us for three hours, held us in there for three hours because this happened at about nine o’clock and they needed to use the cash point cards either side of midnight so they could get two days worth of money. And yeah, it was truly, truly horrible and when I started writing, I thought I want to write about victims and I want to write about what it’s like to be properly afraid, you know, not sitting on a roller coaster afraid, but am I going to see my wife and kids again afraid? So yeah, it definitely, it fed into becoming a crime rights.

Did they ever get caught?

Oh, God, no. No, no, no, no. You know, there was all the police were there sealing all the rooms off and CID were there going and actually they’d never heard of anything like it happening. But it was quite a serious crime. You know, they had gone down for some hard time, these lads. And about one really interesting little detail that I think I put in a book somewhere, quite a few things that happened. I used it as a direct plot point in my second book, but they wouldn’t let us into the room. Obviously, we were put up somewhere else and the room was sealed off. But afterwards, we needed to go back into the room to get a few things. I needed to get some clothes or whatever and I said, can I go back into the room? And I went back into the bathroom and there’s no way to put this delicately, but the people that were holding us hostage had made rather a mess in the bathroom. Just in a way that made it very obvious to me they were as terrified as we were.

Oh, really?

It was a strange little detail, but they had…

So many questions. I can’t actually formulate one of them.

I know. I know. And they got nothing out of it. I mean, what did they get? A few hundred quid and a couple of phones and risking… And why you?

And also, why two people? Surely there’s more of a risk. Surely choose one person.

Well, I think what the police did conclude was that it was some kind of inside job in that they got them on CCTV coming into the hotel and it wasn’t like they wandered around randomly knocking on doors. They came straight up to whatever floor I was on and came straight to my room because I’d ordered room service. But I just think they just knocked on the door thinking that if I get… Because there were no spy holes in the door. And if I’d gone, who is it? They’d just have said room service. And as it is, I just opened the door without… And this was the time I was still working as a standup. I was staying in a lot of hotels. To this day, I don’t feel particularly safe in a hotel. Somebody says, hello, come to change your bed or whatever. I’m like, yeah, I want ID. I want you to sit. I’m not letting you in. You just don’t expect something like that to happen in a hotel room, do you? That was one of the reasons it was so shocking. And weird, little weird details that… I was the one that answered the door. So I answered the door and the guy smacked me in the face and I kind of ran back into the room and these three guys burst in balaclavas. And my mate, Pete, who was sitting in the chair in the corner, literally jumped out of his chair. You know that expression, he jumped out of his chair. I saw him. There was no part of it making contact with the floor or the chair, but it was bonkers. And I think they thought we were a couple, which is the other kind of interesting little detail because at one point they said, give us your pin number or we’ll hurt you. And I was going, oh, oh, oh, oh, I don’t know. And they went, no, give us your pin number or we’ll hurt your mate. And all I was thinking was, hurt my mate. Just fine. We’re not we’re not an item. Yeah, there we are.

God, how dramatic and interesting.

As brushes with violent crime go, it wasn’t too bad.

No. And you lived to tell the tale quite a few times.

I did live to tell the tale and get a few books out of it.

Right. So let’s have one more off-cut. Tell us about this one now.

Well, talking about violence, this is an article I wrote about the notorious murderer Ian Brady in 2017.

It was, of course, the terrible suffering inflicted on their victims by Brady and Hindley that led to their notoriety as the very personification of evil. And while I find it easy to understand the celebration, first of Hindley’s death in 1992 and now her partners, there is one word which has cropped up repeatedly in much of the coverage that, I must confess, makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Monster. For me, it is a word that is too easily trotted out, too convenient. It implies a creature that is somehow otherworldly or supernatural, and sadly Ian Brady was anything but that. It’s a categorisation that allows us to put the likes of Brady and Hindley in a box marked Not Us to point and shudder and say, that’s what monsters look like. I do not have the slightest doubt that Ian Brady was clinically insane. He saw visions and heard voices. That in no way excuses his heinous crimes or diminishes the unimaginable suffering endured by his victims or their loved ones, but elevating these incomprehensible acts to almost mythic levels of evil, while perhaps making them easier to process, is not helpful to any of us in the long run. There have been others who have committed crimes as dreadful as Ian Brady’s. Robert Black, four young girls, raped and murdered. Mohammed Bijay, 16 young boys, raped and murdered. Javed Iqbal, over a hundred boys, aged 6 to 16, raped and murdered. And it would be naive to believe that there won’t be more. It must be at least arguable that defining such criminals quite as simply as we often do, could hinder attempts to prevent such atrocities in the future. In researching the Moors murders, it was actually the actions of Myra Hindley, rather than those of Brady that disturbed me the most. Not because she was a woman, which seems to me the reason she attracted so much opprobrium until her death. That was not, after all, how women were supposed to behave. It went against the laws of nature. It was rather because while Brady’s murderous perversions were rooted in psychopathy, I could find no evidence whatsoever that the same applied to Hindley. Put simply, she did what she did because she loved Ian Brady, because she wanted to please him, which is something I will never understand.

So tell us about this article, then.

Well, this was, again, an article commissioned just after Ian Brady had died, and an article that never ran because I don’t think it was quite what the paper wanted. I think they wanted a kind of response to Brady’s death, similar to the ones I’d seen in an awful lot of the coverage, which was, you know, good riddance to an evil monster. And I wanted to write something a bit more thoughtful than that. I’d already made a documentary about Brady and Hindley some years before that. And I started formulating the kind of stuff that was in that article. I mean, bizarrely, during the making of that program, Brady wrote to me. He wrote me a letter while he was still alive, which is very disturbing. I remember my wife wanted me to destroy it, didn’t want it in the house.

What did it say?

Well, he first of all, he wanted me to know what a terrible time he was having. Well, you know, boo hoo, Ian. But he also wanted to let me know in a kind of real Hannibal Lecter kind of way, how clever he was, literally how clever he was, telling me what his IQ was. It was really important to him that I realized what a smart bloke he was. It was very, very weird. But yeah, in researching that program, I came to the conclusion that Brady was properly bonkers, properly, properly bonkers, but that she wasn’t. And it was all rather odd, also great, wonderful little things emerged. You know, he was apparently on this hunger strike for years before he died. Various people that had personal connections with him, you know, prison guards and so on, were happy to tell me that he secretly hid cream eggs and would stuff his face with cream eggs when nobody was looking. Who would have thought that? But now I stand by it. He lied even about the hunger strike. I mean, I stand by every word of that article, actually. I did think it was a little unseemly, the coverage. And not remotely useful. We do the same thing with any one of these, you know, whether it’s Shipman or Fred and Rose West, we go, they’re monsters and put them in that box over there. That’s what they look like. They’re not us. They’re not. Yes, they are. You know, they’re the bloke next door and the friendly doctor and the neighborhood builder. And, you know, you can’t see them coming. And people always pop up at the woodwork whenever something like this happens. They go, yeah, I always knew they were a wrong one, that bloke next door. No, you didn’t. Of course you didn’t. You know, that’s the whole reason they were able to get away with it for so long. And I just, the word monster, the word evil, I don’t think those words are helpful.

So you never met him then when you were doing the menu making the documentary?

He, I think the program makers approached him. God, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been in plenty of prisons in the course of, you know, 20 years writing about crime fiction, done stuff with prisoners and whatever. But that, I’m not sure I could have done that. I’m not sure I could sit and talk to him.

Have you ever interviewed people who have committed the sort of crimes that your villains do?

Yeah.

You’ve managed to actually interview these people.

Yes, I have. Yes, I have. And it’s very, very odd. Very, very odd. The best example is a man called Christian Bala, who was a Polish killer.

He was Polish or the people he killed were Polish?

No, he was Polish. Yeah, these serial killers, they all have these weird little quirks with him.

He didn’t like Poles.

He didn’t like people from Poland. No, he was a Polish killer and it was a very notorious case that had been unsolved for many years. Horrible, brutal, brutal murder. And he then wrote a book. He wrote like a novel in which it became clear that it was him. And he was like, again, had this vastly overestimating his own intelligence and his own skill and whatever. And eventually some cops went, hang on a minute, the stuff that happens in this book is awfully familiar. And he ended up getting caught and whatever. And he became a sort of big, cool celeb. But yeah, so I did a documentary about him and I got to go and interview him in prison in Poland. And it was horrible. I mean, he was just, he did have a kind of, you know, much as I’ve said, I don’t like the words monster and evil. He wasn’t like sitting and talking to a normal person. I mean, yeah, it was like sitting to somebody who’s been in prison for a few years. And so that’s always, you know, people become institutionalized. But because this was the BBC, we were making this, he seemed to think that I could help him in some way. You know, I want you to tell my story. I want you to get this out there so that, you know, the truth will be known. Not the truth that I’m not a killer, because everybody, including him, you know, acknowledged it by that point, but that the world will see my genius.

Oh, gosh. Because that was his angle, was it?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, he’s quite convinced that this book, which is called A Mock, it’s called A Mock.

Should we be publicising this?

No, it’s just, trust me, you know, it’s garbage. But he’s convinced it’s a great work of philosophic literature. But yeah, whenever I’ve been into prisons, for whatever reason it is, you never come out particularly cheery. But I don’t think that’s the point.

Right. Time for your final offcut. Tell us about this one.

Yes. Well, I’ve always fancied myself as a songwriter, God forbid. These are the lyrics for a song, I don’t know what you’ve done with this. These are the lyrics for a song which I wrote only last year in 2019. One of many attempts at writing a country standard. This is called The Taste.

When the bottle is laid down upon the table, as I pull across the glass and start to pour, everything I need is right there on the label. Every flavor that a drinker has in store, dark and smoky, honey sweet, it just don’t matter. Not the grain, the malt, the barley or the blend. I can drink it neat, I can drink it down with water. It always tastes the same way in the end. It tastes of the woman I lost and the pain that cost a life I don’t deserve to see. A nice shot of shame and a kick of blame and the man I was supposed to be. The friends I knew and it tastes of you and the money I blew when I was betting. Whatever it says on the bottle, it tastes of forgetting. Around me I see love and I hear laughter. The workings of the whiskey and the beer. But I will never taste a sweet hereafter, so I’ll keep drinking till the memories disappear. It tastes of the woman I lost and the pain that cost and lies that came so easily. Blood, sweat and tears and wasted years with a hint of all the misery. The friends I knew and it tastes of you and now I’m through with the ways I was set in. Whatever it says on the bottle, it tastes of forgetting. Whatever it says on the bottle, it tastes of forgetting.

So what do you say to that?

Well, they’re very, very nicely read. Obviously it needs a pedal steel and a bass.

I thought it worked quite well as a poem.

It has been made into a demo with some music and stuff. Yeah, this has always been a dream. It used to be a songwriter and I’m a huge fan of country music as is my detective. Couple of years ago, I did a put a show together with a brilliant country Americana act called My Darling Clementine, where I wrote a story based around some of their songs and we toured it. We toured around the country and so I was reading the story, they were playing the songs and it was a whole thing.

Did you join in with being a musician or were you just the narrator?

Yeah, I read the story and then at the very end, I came on and did a song with them. Yeah, I’m getting those kicks now as part of a band called The Fun Lovin Crime Writers.

Great name. Great name.

Yeah, isn’t it? There’s six of us and we are of course, crime writers. Three of us, and I’m not one of them, are brilliant, brilliant, proper musicians. The other three of us are just clinging on. Stuart Neville, Irish crime writer, Stuart Neville on guitar, who’s a guitar god. I mean, he’s probably brilliant. Doug Johnston, similarly on drums and Luca Vesta on bass. Then there’s me, Val McDermid and Chris Brookmire up front, and me and Chris thrashed at our guitars and Val sings. And we started this off as a bit of fun two years ago, just to do at festivals and stuff. And then last summer we played Glastonbury. Last summer we were on the acoustic stage at Glastonbury. So it’s all got a bit silly, got a bit out of hand. And we had a big tour. We had a big spring tour that the pandemic managed to put the kibosh on. But yeah, we just do cover versions. We’re a party band. We do cover versions of songs about murder. That’s the gimmick. So songs about crime and murder, you know, I Fought The Law, Falsom Prison Blues, Psycho Killer, you know, that kind of stuff. But-

What about original material?

No, we couldn’t, no, no, no, no. That’s absolutely off the table because if six of us, we’re all writers, can you imagine six of us going, I’ve written a song. No, I’ve written a song. Your song’s shit. I’ve written, you know, it would never work. So we just stick to those cover versions. But secretly I harbor this desire that, you know, I can one day write a country standard and that somebody, I’m going to get a call going, X wants to record one of your songs. I mean, most of the people I’d like to record them are long dead, of course, you know, George Jones and Johnny Cash and all those kind of people. But yeah, it’s something I just do in my spare time is write songs that never see the light of day.

Well, you’ve got to have a hobby, I suppose.

Yeah, I mean, you know, well, recently, I’ve discovered jigsaws thanks to the pandemic. But they’re all music based jigsaws, album covers and stuff. But but no, songwriting is a major passion of mine. I mean, I love the perfect pop song or country song, just two minutes, 45 seconds that can tell you a brilliant story. You know, I love songs that tell stories owed to Billy Joe by Bobby Gentry. You know what I mean? The end of which you just go, what? Hey, what was he throwing off the bridge? Oh, my God. Yeah. Any song that tells a brilliant story, I love.

Do you think that’s what you’re going to be aiming for in the future? I mean, you’ve got 20 books now. Is it not time to make another change, perhaps?

I only if I don’t want to make a living anymore. It’s quite a bold move, Laura. Quite a big step.

The thing is, you’ve been quite dramatic and you went from you wrote two books when you’ve never written a book before. You’re somebody clearly who can make things happen when it needs to be done. You’re not someone who sits around and waits for someone to come to them. So I’m just imagining you’re probably…

Yeah.

All right. Don’t give up the day job as such.

Again, it’s such a weird thing to think that writing these stories has become the day job. I mean, it is the best job in the world and you’ve got to treat it like a job, but it’s not, you know, it’s just telling stories. When my kids are annoyed at me, I’ll just go, oh, shut up, get up to your office and write another one of your stupid stories. And it doesn’t matter how many times I tell them that those little stories have put shoes on their feet, pay for their phones in case they’re listening. You know, no, I do love it. I absolutely love it. Well, I don’t necessarily love the writing, I always love the sitting down and doing the writing. But I love all the perks. I love the, I love standing up at stage on a book festival and gobbling off about it. Events in bookshops and book festivals and, and the stuff with The Fun Lovin Crime Writers. It’s just been a joy. It’s showing off. It’s a showing off bit. You know, the writing has become the job. And you can’t always enjoy your job, can you? Especially when people dig out all the old shit that was never deemed good enough.

Well, to be fair, you were the one who sent it to me because my final question would be, are there any off cuts that you’ve still got that you didn’t share with us today?

There are some bits of old stand up, I think, scribbled in that stand up notebook that, oh boy, no, I couldn’t bear to see the light of day.

That bad?

That bad. Because even when I looked at that one that you did, the one about complaining, I thought, yeah, I know, like you said, probably could get away with that if the audience were drunk enough. But there were bits when I just, what were you thinking? Why did you think anybody would find that remotely funny? I suppose you’ve always got to think you get better at stuff, haven’t you? So I mean, I know that when we first spoke about it, you were like, oh, stuff you wrote when you were a kid or whatever. And I remember the first thing I ever wrote. And if it had been written down, if I could have found it, I would have sent it in. It was a Sherlock Holmes pastiche play that I wrote at school when I was about 12, called The Case Of Sherlock Houses. See what I did there? Genius, genius. The Case Of Sherlock Houses and The Golden Goosberry. I can still remember all of it. That was it. And I put it up in front of the class. Well, me too, but I couldn’t find it. I don’t think I’m not sure. It must have been written down in a school exercise book.

That sounds wonderful. Nervous laughter there.

Yeah, very nervous.

Well, Mark Billingham, it’s been absolutely fabulous to talk to you today. Thank you so much for sharing the contents of your Offcuts Drawer with us.

Thank you very much. It’s been a hoot.

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Mark Billingham. The Offcuts were performed by Emma Clarke, Chris Pavlo, Keith Wickham and Chris Kent, 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.

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 writer and producer Bill Dare. If you’ve been a regular listener to BBC Radio Comedy over the last 20 years, or you’re a fan of topical, sketch and satire shows on TV, you will doubtless have heard his name on a regular basis. He was the brains behind the 90s comedy sensation, The Mary Whitehouse Experience, the show that introduced the concept Comedy is the New Rock and Roll to the UK when it stars Rob Newman and David Baddiel were the first comedians to fill a gig at the Wembley Arena. He produced eight series of spitting image and created Dead Ringers and The Now Show. With numerous entertainment shows like I’ve Never Seen Star Wars under his belt and comedies he’s written like Brian Gulliver’s Travels and The Secret World, he’s also turned his hand to plays and fiction. And his third novel, The Billion Pound Lie, was published last year. The Standard called his work superb. The Times, quite brilliant. Bill Dare, welcome to The Offcuts Drawer.

I think it’s good to be here. I am actually quite terrified.

What are you terrified of?

I’m terrified of all this work that I’m exposing, most of which should probably never see the light of day. I mean, it’s either been rejected by me or rejected by someone else. So, you know, my knees are shaking.

Well, the first question I always ask is where do you keep your offcuts? What is your virtual bottom draw look like?

Well, I’m old enough to have actually, you know, the old-fashioned kind of bottom draw. I’ve got a big plastic box or even two, really, that I’ve kept a lot of the stuff I wrote on, you know, typewriters. And then I do also have the various stages of bottom draw. I’ve also got stuff on my computer. I’ve got things on DVD or CD or various forms. But I don’t really like kind of delving into the past very much. I don’t often go into to look at old photographs.

Well, this show may not be much fun for you then, as that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Well, it’s going to be very informative. And you never know, there might be something in it where I think, actually, you know, maybe that wasn’t too bad.

Well, let’s get started with your first off-cut. Can you tell us what it’s called, what genre it was written for, and when you wrote it?

This is called We Could Be Heroes. It’s a sitcom pilot script for either radio or TV, and it was written in around 2012.

Hello? Are you a superhero? No, no superheroes here, none at all. Who is this?

I’ll give you a clue.

Nothing.

I was the school keepy-uppy champion.

Not placing you.

Could lick my own elbows?

Still nothing.

Smell the sour milk.

Tony Morphitus. What was that smell?

The sour milk smell?

Yes. That was sour milk.

My mum thought it was full of friendly bacteria. They only seemed friendly.

I heard you’ve become a superhero. No.

Ben said you had. He messaged me on Facebook.

Well, he was lying.

You can’t fly.

Supposing I could fly, it does not make me a superhero. Do you know why? Because a hero makes some sort of personal sacrifice and faces danger on behalf of someone else. I don’t do good deeds. I don’t even recycle, which in Muswell Hill is worse than murder. You sound a bit annoyed. Because I am quite annoyed.

But you can fly. Actually fly just by waving your hands.

Tony, I’ve only been able to fly or ascend for two days and now I’m supposed to be a superhero.

But you can fly.

If you say that again, You’ll vaporize me? I can’t vaporize. Oh. Oh, that’s disappointed you, has it? Oh, I am so sorry, I can’t vaporize.

I can’t pretend I’m not a little disappointed.

This is so typical of Britain. I have a unique talent but you focus on the negative. I now know how Adele must feel.

Will you rescue me? I’m in peril.

How?

Um, hanging from a tall building.

Location?

Not sure yet.

Right, I’m going.

Morning, Fenton.

Oh, Izzy, I would prefer it if you didn’t come into the kitchen wearing only your underwear.

Why? I’m in non-visible mode.

Yes, but seeing a bra and knickers putting the kettle on is, well, it’s disconcerting and, if you must know, a little provocative.

A pair of empty knickers.

Well, they’re not empty, are they? They just look empty. Your bra, you know, it sort of shifts around in a manner that tells me that there’s something inside it. Two things, actually. Two, it’s a reminder that you are a woman, something that most of the time I’m completely oblivious to.

So, tell us more about this particular project. What was the original plan for this script?

Well, it was meant to be a sitcom for radio or TV, but I think I was going to start it on radio. And it was sort of asking the question, what would really happen if people actually got superpowers? You know, they wouldn’t necessarily go around helping people.

Did you actually send the script to anyone? How far did it get in the production process?

It got, I think it was actually commissioned, to my shame, as a script only. And I think in those days, and probably still now, you sort of get a first half fee. And I took the first half fee. And then I don’t think I ever sent the script in or I might have sent various versions. But in the end, I think it was me who wasn’t very happy with it. Couldn’t quite, I just didn’t quite believe in it enough.

Right.

To really want to commit to six episodes.

So it just sort of faded away.

Faded away, yes. But I did read it again recently because of this show. And I thought, actually, there is something in it. There is something in it. It kind of reminded me a little bit of the Big Bang Theory in its tone. And there were some good jokes. So, you know, it might be one of those that I look at again.

Right. Now, comedy is your specialty. It’s the genre you’re most known for. How did that come about? Were you always a big comedy fan?

I’ve never been a comedy fan, actually. I probably watched and listened to less comedy than probably the average person. I enjoy it, but I’m not a nerd about it. And there’s probably not a single series that I’ve watched all of. And I can’t quote you from my favorite shows at all.

So you’re never a fan of Monty Python or The Goons?

I liked Monty Python. I really liked it. Especially as a teenager, definitely. I suppose that was the one that I really, really did want to watch. But I’m not nerdy about comedy at all. I think quite a lot of people who work in comedy don’t watch that much of it.

But what about listening to it, considering you do an awful lot of work on the radio? Did you listen to The Goons?

I’m not quite that old, Laura. I’ve never heard The Goons. I tell you what did have a big effect on me is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. When that came on, and I do have a connection to that, I did think, wow, that’s the sort of thing I’d like to write one day.

Your connection obviously is your father was the voice of the book. Your father was Peter Jones. But when you first heard Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it was the comedy itself that you appreciated, was it?

The fact that my father did the voice gave it a personal connection, but I think I would have loved it anyway. And just the way radio can create pictures in the mind was a revelation to me.

Did you ever want to be a comedian yourself?

I think I sort of fantasized about it now and again, but it was the writing of it that drew me more than the performance aspect. The performance aspect absolutely terrified me. So I think given the choice, I think I’d rather have written for a comedian than be one myself. And when I do audience shows, like most producers, I go and do a little warm up. And yeah, I’ve got a sort of half a dozen jokes, but I don’t even enjoy that. I find that quite nerve wracking. And it’s probably the thing I least like about producing radio shows actually.

Well, time for your next off cut. Can you tell us what it is?

I can. This is a letter I wrote to the Evening Standard newspaper in 1972 when I was 12.

Dear Evening Standard, A friend of mine at summer camp said this to me. I like being at boarding school because at day school, once you’ve done your homework and watched TV, there’s not time to play. I thought this would be a good idea for your cartoonist. Please send check to William Jones, aged 12.

Now, that’s quite an unusual piece of writing. We don’t normally have something that’s quite that old in the show. But this wasn’t quite the earliest piece of writing that we could find. There was a poem you wrote when you were nine. Can you tell us about that?

This is just something that I found and probably claimed to have written. There was an old lady from Kent whose nose was remarkably bent. One day, they suppose, she followed her nose and nobody knows where she went. That was something I plagiarized and sent to, I think it was either Wizard or Chopper comic. And they published it and they sent me a Spirograph as a reward. Spirograph was a drawing game. I don’t know if you know what Spirograph is.

I remember, tragically, I do remember what Spirograph is.

Which I was quite pleased with.

Great toy.

That was my first sort of published work, albeit plagiarized.

And that was the first time you submitted your writing and got paid for it. Do you think that was what first gave you the idea of writing being a way to earn money for the future?

Yes. I think the Letter to the Evening Standard did because I got £2 for it.

Really?

And I actually looked up how much that would be worth now. It’s about £25. And my dad said that I should invest it in premium bonds. So, yes, I had a kind of the connection between writing and money was probably laid in those early days.

So what was your home life like? Were your parents very big personalities?

My father, despite being quite famous, was quite reserved. He didn’t have a lot of showbiz friends coming around. And it was kind of tricky because one year he’d be on television and be quite famous and people would go, oh, your dad’s on the telly. Then the next year, perhaps he wouldn’t be. And people say, well, why isn’t your dad on the telly anymore? He used to be famous. Sometimes he was in shows that I thought were kind of quite embarrassing because, as you know, as an actor, you don’t always get to choose what you’re in. You have to sort of do what pays the rent. So it would be in things that were a little bit embarrassing. In fact, there was one occasion, it was 1975. I was 15, and my dad took a role in a film called Confessions of a Pop Performer. Yeah, it’s a sort of X-rated carry-on. You imagine carry-on, but with bare naked bodies.

Yeah, was Robin Asquith in it by any chance?

Robin Asquith was in it, and my dad, I remember my dad got the script and said, Oh, this is terrible, but you know, it’s money. And he was so naive that he decided to take the whole family to the premiere. Bearing in mind, I was 15, my brother was 16, 17, my sister was about 19, my mother, very strong feminist, and we all sat there absolutely cringing at all these sex scenes. And my dad, and I completely believe him, just never realized how explicit it was going to be because in the script it says something like, and now a sexy romp or something like that, it didn’t go into any detail. So he never got the idea that it was going to be anything much more than a slightly cheekier carry on.

So what happened, what was it like when your dad got the job of the book in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? That must have been huge.

Well, that did change things a bit because I think I was about 16, 17 by that time. And I’d moved school and had a slightly more sophisticated friends. And we all listened to it. And that I really remember thinking, yeah, I’m really proud of that.

And then, of course, it went on to be a cult. So it sort of stuck around forever, really. It’s still very much.

Yeah, it went to TV. And the strange thing is that I think probably there were two series on radio and one on TV. And I think probably the whole thing for my dad was probably a day and a half’s work because it was just reading. But all the voiceover work that came off the back of it meant that we could live reasonably well for the next 10 years or so.

Let’s move on. Let’s hear about your next offcut, please. What is it?

This is the first chapter of The World’s Longest Suicide Note, an unpublished novel I wrote in 1996.

To the uncommitted browser in Smiths, you could do worse than buy this book. Someone has laid down their life so that you may read. And while you’re there, why don’t you ask them why they never know anything about the books? Ask them about this one. Have they even heard of it? Not a chance. Go to the Hove branch and ask them about Simone de Beauvoir, and they’ll tell you he doesn’t work there anymore. While you’re deciding, I have to contemplate two gargantuan tasks. First, achieving about 70,000 words of honest prose. That’s equivalent to 340 essays for Miss Fraser. And, I’ll be frank, I want to settle a few old scores. And this is the only way I know to do it. But I won’t gabble, I’ll be strictly chronological. I want this to be good. Or, at least, be minus. It’s the last thing I’ll ever do. If it stinks, then my whole life will have been for nothing. The other task ahead is self-imposed death. Not that it frightens me. At best, it’s a return to the state of pre-existence, and I don’t recall that period being particularly arduous. How to do it? I’ve dreamt that I phone a removal service, and then slip both wrists. I drain a little blood onto mum’s hand-made-in-eth-Nikistan rug, then climb into a large wooden crate. The removal man delivers it to the door of my headmaster, who was sometimes called Sod Simmons, but more often God. God hopes it’s a gift from a grateful ex-pupil who’s now a millionaire. Instead, he finds my naked body with some paper stuck to my genitals. A message is scrawled in blood. Ex-spell me now, you bastard! You did this! God collapses. Oh, how terrible I’ve been! Music swells. The end. Sadly, the dream never does end there. After some confusion, I’m sitting in a corner writing I must not commit suicide ten million times.

So, that was written in the voice of a 15-year-old, although you weren’t a teenager when you wrote it.

No.

What kind of a teenager were you? Were you very academic, for example?

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are sort of two phases, really, in my teenage life. Before I was 16, I lived in Hove because my mother decided to go to university when she was 50 and took me off to Sussex, because she went to Sussex University. And I was considered to be the thickest kid in the school. And people used to use the word bill or billish to mean stupid. So other kids would be insulted. If they said something stupid, people would say, oh, that’s so billish, you’re such a bill. I mean, it was part because I was sort of an undiagnosed dyslexic. They hadn’t really invented dyslexia then. But my story about my maths teacher, who was also my form teacher and also my careers advisor. So he knew me quite well. And we all had to go and see our careers advisor when we were 15. And I went along and he said, so Bill, what do you want to do with your life? And I said, well, I’d like to be a psychologist. And he said, you know that to be a psychologist, you have to go to university. And I said, yes, I would like to do that. He said, to do that, you will need to get A levels. And I said, well, I hope to get some A levels. He said, to get A levels, you need to stay on in sixth form. And to do that, you need to get at least three O levels. And I said, well, I’m going to really work hard and try and get three O levels. He said, OK, well, just wait there a minute. And he went to, he sorted through some index cards and he pulled out an index card and he gave it to me. And he said, that is the name of an address of a hairdressing salon in Brighton. And they are looking for a trainee hair washer. So I went from being possibly a psychologist to being a trainee hair washer in about 20 minutes. So yes, I wasn’t academic, I think, to answer your question.

You weren’t considered academic by the school, but obviously they were proved massively wrong because you did go to university, didn’t you?

I did. I went to Smiths and I found all these little books about how to pass O levels. And I just studied them for three weeks. And in fact, I got the best O level results in my form. And then I went to London and went to a different school, different group of people. And then it all changed. I mean, I had friends for the first time, really. And I was in a band and I met a girl and all that sort of thing. And that was all quite fun. And in fact, our band was quite successful. Madness supported us once.

Really?

Absolutely. About three times, I think. And it was, yeah, I would say that was a time that was, you know, what being a teenager should be, really.

Were you doing a lot of creating when you were at university? Had you started writing your comedies or bits of novels?

At uni, no, I think I just thought one day I’ll be a writer. It’s one of those things I now advise people to, you know, don’t think about doing it one day, just actually start. I wrote one play while I was at uni that never got on. I’m glad I couldn’t find that because I suspect it would have been really, really bad. And, yeah, I was into Ben Elton’s plays. He was quite an inspiration.

You were actually cast in his plays, you performed next to him. What was that like?

It was odd because, I mean, Ben Elton was an absolute force of nature at uni. He really was, I mean, everyone knew who he was and he was very prolific. He wrote about three or four plays a year and put them all on.

Did that intimidate you at all, comparing yourself to such a prolific writer?

No, because I think he was writing in such a different style. He was writing in that very, very broad, sort of almost Panto-esque style that I had no interest in writing, really.

Time for your next offcut. Tell us about this one.

This is a sketch I wrote for the TV series Alas, Smith and Jones in 1986.

In just a few moments, you will see, for the first time on any television set anywhere in the world, a talking giraffe. A giraffe who can converse, recite poetry and even sing popular tunes. At least, that is what he told us. So without more ado, please welcome Victor the Talking Giraffe. Victor?

Hello?

Ah, there you are.

When you’re ready.

Just a sec.

Any moment now, Victor will walk up this walkway here and take a seat. Great moment in the history of, well, the history of this kind of thing.

Won’t be long.

Well, you can hear it for yourselves. The uncannily human sound of Victor the Talking Giraffe.

Mel walks on dressed normally. Griff is flummoxed.

I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say it’s all done with hidden tape recorders.

What is?

The old vocalisations. Look, nothing hidden in the mouth. No wires attached or completely genuine. Go on, ask me anything you like. Surprise me, make it really hard.

I’m ready.

You throw it, I’ll catch it. All right.

Where’s the giraffe?

How many giraffes do you want?

One.

And one you have got. Tell you what, I’ll do a bit of Shakespeare.

You aren’t a giraffe.

How do you know?

Where’s the long neck, the four legs, the brown spots?

All right, all right, keep your tights on.

The big ears, the tail.

Those are all very conventional attitudes. Times are changing. Look, you’re not completely convinced.

Well, you did say talking giraffe.

And singing. The singing is important. I know. I’ll sing Bar Bar Black Sheep blindfolded. No joke. Cover my eyes and I’ll do the whole thing, start to finish. Can I give you a bit of advice? Go with it. This could make us.

You singing Bar Bar Black Sheep?

I’m the first giraffe to do it.

But you’re not.

I know. But they’re lapping it up. They are totally taken in. Powers of suggestion.

You mean they think you can sing?

They think I’m a…

He indicates the height for a giraffe.

Television is a very powerful medium. But you’ve got to believe.

But if they’ve all come to see a talking…

He also indicates the height for a giraffe.

They’re all going to be a bit disappointed with you.

All right. What do you suggest?

Well, I could just go and say, Ladies and gentlemen, we present the talking… The talking… Baldi.

No, no, no. That’s not the same. I mean, that is not going to make history.

The all talking, all singing. Baldi.

Let’s try it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the all talking, all singing. Baldi.

Medium shot to include a baby giraffe where Mel stood. It is silent.

So that was from the TV sketch show, Alas, Smith and Jones. Were you actually part of the writing team?

I wish I was, but no, that was a sketch I wrote and sent in to the producer, Jamie Ricks. And I’ve no idea whether I even got a response. But I sort of think it sort of almost works. I could do with a trim. I’d love to rewrite it now. But no, it never got on. I used to write a lot of sketches and send them in. I sent in sketches to Fry and Laurie as well. I got a very nice letter back from Stephen Fry himself saying, it’s awfully funny, but we tend to write our own material. And it was a very personal letter.

This is before you did loads of sketch writing, or is this the same time?

This is in my 20s when I spent most of my 20s as a reluctant actor. I got a job sort of by mistake. And I did a bit of acting, hoping to sort of land a big advert that would pay me a lot of money so that I could just write. And I was really trying to be a sort of playwright. I was trying to create shows, formats, anything I could really to get some kind of foothold in the world of television or entertainment. I kind of did anything I could, including writing a lot of sketches and sending them off to no avail.

Boom.

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 brand new 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. But sketch writing is the genre that you’re possibly the most known for, with The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Spitting Image, Dead Ringers. How did you actually make that shift into being a sketch writer and producer from being an actor?

Well, I did, I suppose, have a lot of practice writing sketches that never got on. And eventually I got a job as a radio comedy producer. That was the start of my actual sort of career, as opposed to just doing bits and pieces. And after doing a show called Weekending, which was the topical show of the time.

As the producer?

As the producer. I still felt that I would prefer to be writing. And I created my own sketch show actually called Life, Death and Sex with Mike and Sue. Oh, yeah. In the sort of mid 90s, I think that was.

When The Mary Whitehouse Experience was early 90s, wasn’t it?

Yeah.

So that was, was that the big break for you?

The Mary Whitehouse Experience was the big break because I was actually asked to do it. I was asked just to create a show for Radio One and I could do anything I wanted. So I looked around at the kind of people who were writing, weekending and doing stand up. And I’d worked a bit with David Baddiel and Rob Newman. So I got Punts and Dennis. Also, I asked Joe Brand and I remember after we’d done a few shows, and we did really push our luck quite a few times with the sort of consent. I was summoned to the, I think it was like the board of directors or something at the BBC. I mean, really senior people, head of radio was there, David Hatch. And he was fuming.

Do you remember why? Do you remember what the sketch was about?

Yeah, it was, the game Shag or Die, and they referred to all kinds of religious figures and so on and…

Offense was caused?

Offense was caused. But only in the BBC, because I went along to this big meeting and David Hatch was furious. He said he’d never been more angry in his career. And all I can say in my defense is that we have had no complaints from the public. And it was true, because it was Radio 1, it was late night Radio 1. Young people were listening, they lapped it up.

Right next, off-cut please, Bill. What is this one?

This is an extract from something called Yes, Neenakanti Really Is On The Radio. It’s a pilot written for the radio in about 2012. Yeah, and you have to imagine that it’s a ventriloquist, I guess. Yes, and her monkey puppet.

Hello, I’m Neena. And I’m Monkey. Welcome to Yes, Neenakanti Really Is On The Radio. Not for long, though. Why would you say that? You have only got a show because the mime artist cancelled. Not true. Well, they know I’m not real. I should think so. They’re not stupid. Oh, not Radio 2, then. It’s Radio 4, the station for intelligent conversation. It’s never on in your house. Mind you, I suppose it’s quite fitting. What is? Ventriloquism and radio. Both dying arts. This is a kind of suicide pact. We’re both going down together. Actually, Monk, radio is going strong. I wish it was ITV. Why? Because I can say ITV. Why can’t you say BBC? Because you’re not a good enough ventriloquist. How dare you? Radio is for people who are too ugly for television. Wandering round Broadcasting House is like a horror show. I’m the sexiest one around and I’m made of polyester. That’s so rude. Can I still swear? No, definitely not. In fact, I’ve had you fitted with a bleeper. It’ll squeak if you try and swear. You did f**king what? You stupid f**k! Can I still say f**k? No, fiddlesticks. Now that we’re on radio, we should try to be more intellectual. An intellectual ventriloquist? That’s an oxymoron. What’s an oxymoron? Well, if you don’t know what it means, why did I say it? Let’s talk about the show. We’ve got lots to look forward to tonight. I’m going to hit the bar later. Can I get me some sweet broadcasting house totty? You’re a monkey. They’re not fussy. Later, Monkey and I will be joined by some other puppets, none of whom are as good as me.

So what happened to this project then?

This was a pilot script and then a pilot program. And Nina Conti, I thought, was brilliant. And Monkey was fantastic. But Radio 4 had never heard of Nina Conti. And they said, oh, we don’t think ventriloquism should be on the radio. I tried to explain that it had been on the radio very successfully in America, very successfully in Britain. And it doesn’t really matter that you can’t see the lips not moving. It’s about two characters.

And so never got commissioned.

It was actually broadcast as a pilot, but it never got a series.

Shame.

Yeah.

Now you like to work in close collaboration with certain individuals like Nina Conti. Also, you’ve done a lot of work with Marcus Brigstocke, who you worked with on The Late Show and I’ve Never Seen Star Wars. What’s the appeal of working with one person?

You can get your shows made. That is the main appeal. If you’ve got a star, it sort of helps to get the show on. But actually, I really enjoyed working with Marcus and Nina because they’re quite collaborative. And they’ll sort of take notes or they’ll take on board ideas. But that’s a little bit unusual. I think a lot of comedians are used to working on their own and they’re used to calling all the shots. It’s not surprising. You know, they’re on their own on stage. So they can be quite difficult to work with. So I haven’t worked with that many.

So how does the arrangement work? Do you sit and write in a room together or do you bring the ideas to them or do they bring them to you?

Well, with Nina, I remember when I first started working with her, I produced a show, a live show that she did and she took to Melbourne Comedy Festival in Edinburgh. And I think it was around that time that I said to her, have you ever tried improvising with Monkey? And she never had said I’ve never improvised anything. And I said, well, let’s try it. Let’s let’s just try it. So we went down to a local comedy club and she just started talking to the audience with Monkey and it really, really worked. And then I practiced with her sort of writing stories, improvising stories. So, you know, that was really, really collaborative. And with Marcus, yeah, I mean, you know, Marcus writes a lot himself. I mean, most of what Marcus performs, he kind of writes himself. And we had a team of writers as well. And I suppose it was more editing that I was doing.

Time for your next offcut. Can you tell us about this one, please?

This is a format document for a radio game show called Unforgettable. And I wrote it in 2015.

Unforgettable Memory Meets Mirth Unforgettable ostensibly tests memory and comprehension, but really it’s a chance to revel in amazing facts and to enjoy people trying to explain things they don’t quite understand, says the host.

What you’re about to witness is Unforgettable, the show that tests how much the brain can absorb and comprehend in just one day. My fellow Swats have had just 24 hours to learn about four fascinating topics completely new to them and to me. How much do they understand? How much can they recall? Who are the goldfish and who the elephants?

Unforgettable ostensibly tests memory and comprehension. The panellists will have been provided before the show with some really unforgettable stuff about four topics, say circus performers, human infancy, nanotechnology and viruses. And their memory and comprehension will be tested. It’s like Have I Got News For You, except instead of reading newspapers, they’ve read a few sheets of A4 and done some of their own probing and thinking. The panel don’t have to be geeks and the subjects aren’t all highbrow. Self-confessed ignoramus Kathy Burke trying to explain string theory will be funny, as will Miles Jupp trying to talk knowledgeably about the work of Coco Chanel or Ian Hislop on Eminem. Funny people with newly acquired knowledge or inspiring concepts or pop culture they aren’t down with, all trying to elucidate them, bluffing where necessary will be the engine of the show. There are bonus points for extra unforgettable facts or flights of fancy. There’s a geeky adjudicator who has really, really swatted up who can be brought in to clarify and assess. Is it a bit like QI? It’s similar territory. Just as Mock the Week, Have I Got News for You, News Quiz, etc. cover the same territory. Luckily that didn’t stop all those shows happening. Unforgettable will be tonally unique. The joy will come from people really excited about having just learnt some amazing, weird or shocking stuff. The excitement will be infectious. The facts will be astonishing. The comedy will be unforgettable.

So this got made as a pilot, didn’t it?

We made it. A very esteemed producer, David Tyler, produced it, and he also hosted it. And Marcus Brigstocke actually was one of the guests. And we all thought it went pretty well, but Radio 4 said they didn’t really understand it.

Oh.

So it never got a series.

Oh.

But it was broadcast.

Right. Right. I see. Now you’ve created a lot of different show formats that you have gone on to produce rather than just write the script for. Yeah. What is the appeal of creating a format rather than writing as such?

Well, I think I probably was influenced by the fact that my dad was in Just a Minute for, you know, since I was about six years old, I think. And he explained to me that the man, Ian Mester, who created Just a Minute, would always get his name on the end of the show and he would always get paid, even though the work he’d done, he’d done many, many years ago. So, this really stuck in my mind. So I thought, well, the thing to do surely is to think of an idea for a show and then it can run and run and run and you’ll still get paid. And it’s almost as if you’re working, but you’re not actually having to do the work. So yeah, that was part of the appeal. And I’ve always tried to think of ideas for shows.

Is the thinking up of the ideas easier or harder than writing, would you say? Is it more fun?

It’s not more fun. No, I think it’s quite hard. But I think what it is, is that it’s rare. You have to think of a lot of ideas before you think of one that actually works. I think that’s what it is. Most just aren’t even worth sending off, I think. But I have created, I suppose, I think it’s 11 or 12 shows that I’ve created one way or another.

Let’s move on to your next offcut. Can you tell us what this is, what it’s called?

This is from a novel I wrote in 2018. It’s called Sexless.

The train comes into King’s Cross, where she changes to the Metropolitan Line to Hammersmith. She takes the escalator to the main hall, and she looks to see if anyone is at the new hug hub. Two pairs in a clinch, two young men, and a young man with his arms wrapped tightly round a middle-aged woman. All have their eyes closed, their bodies firmly attached. The two men sway slightly. A smart woman of about forty sits alone on the bench. Laura approaches, aware that her intentions might be mistaken. The woman smiles and gets to her feet, her arms beginning to part. Actually, I only wanted to ask you something. The woman looks a little deeper into Laura’s eyes. I know you, don’t I? You may have seen me on Sarah Dean. Laura Dean. Oh, I’m so sorry. Don’t worry a bit. Laura is recognized a few times most days. Would it be okay if I asked you a couple of questions? I won’t attribute. Is this an interview? It’s just a little research, if that’s okay. Could I get a hug afterwards? said the woman with a chuckle. Why not? First question. Is this something you just enjoy or do you think you need it? The woman looked around the station as if the answer might be scrawled on a wall. I don’t know. There was something in her eyes that Laura had seen in crime victims. The sick, the bereaved, the abused. She would not press the point. Do you have a gender preference? Not at all. It’s not about sex, I know. And this isn’t something you would have contemplated before. Oh, no way, the woman laughed. It was an obvious point, really. Now that sex was no longer on anyone’s agenda, affection could be exchanged, mutually enjoyed, without the possibility of being groped or meeting with an unwelcome erection. It wasn’t that affection was more in demand, per se. It was just that the risks had been greatly lowered. A few more questions, and then Laura senses her interviewee is getting anxious about time. She thanks her and held out her arms. The woman steps forward. As they gently squeeze, Laura tries to monitor her feelings. Hairs from the woman’s head tickled her nose. She looked to see if commuters would glance at them, and they did, but only with casual interest. A balloon of anxiety expanded with each breath. Why couldn’t she just relax and enjoy? She felt for signs that it might be over. What was the etiquette here? One hugger gently taps the other’s back. Ah, she felt a light tap on her shoulder. Thank you, said Laura once they decoupled. Thank you. The woman bent to collect her bag, smiled and went on her way. Laura had no idea if the embrace had been successful.

So did you finish this novel?

No, I didn’t. I wrote about probably about 20,000 words of it. And, yeah, it’s about a world where all sexual desire, for some reason, disappears. And I don’t think I ever worked out quite why it’s disappeared. And I gave it to an editor friend and she referred to it as dystopian. I kind of thought, why has she assumed that it’s dystopian? Because I wanted to explore the positives of a world without sex. I think there could be a lot of great things about a world without sex. I mean, women could feel a lot safer for one thing. But one, it would be a novel without any sex, which possibly isn’t necessarily a seller. And I think people just expect if they get a book set sort of in the future where something has tampered with nature, that it’s got to be disastrous, hasn’t it?

Yeah, I suppose that is the received opinion.

You can’t say, well, we’ve tampered with nature and guess what? It’s all worked.

That’s true.

So that is the problem for the book. I mean, the one thing I could do, and if I do ever revisit it, I think I might do it as a series of short stories where for some people, the sexless world actually works and for some people, it doesn’t.

Why did you choose to write it as a novel rather than say a drama?

I think by that time, I’d written three novels and I just felt more comfortable writing a novel. The thing about a novel is that it is whatever happens, if you write a novel, it’s a complete work of art, whereas a script is not really a thing unless it’s actually made.

Obviously, writing a novel, for example, the whole process is a much less sociable affair. I understand that you obviously have complete control over it in one sense, but it is quite a lonely process, isn’t it? You have nobody else contributing to it until an editor comes along and says, change this, change that. But do you not miss the working with other people?

I do a little. I mean, when I have been writing novels, whenever I’m writing alone, I sort of want to sort of turn to a team of writers and say, well, what do you think? Is this working? And of course, they aren’t there. So in that sense, you know, it is. I also really like feedback. I’m not particularly confident about writing, so I always like to get, you know, get someone to give me an opinion.

So you show people your work as you’re writing it. You don’t wait till the end.

Yeah. In fact, I pay people to tell me it’s rubbish.

Right. So we’ve come to your final offcut. Can you tell us a little bit about that one, please?

This is called Support. It’s a pilot script for a TV series and it’s from 2014.

Scene 1. Interior. A meeting room in a church. Evening. Close up on David, a man who finds it hard to assert himself.

Hello. My name is David Bowie. No, not that one. Though I do sometimes think that planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do. Pause for titter.

Widen to reveal David is alone in the room. David has arranged some chairs in a semicircle.

Wish I was that David Bowie. Not that I want to be anyone else. Quite happy with who I am. Quite happy in my own skin. Thank you. Don’t ever state it, David, you’re here for them. Not you. Right, start again. Hello. My name is David Bowie. No, not that one. Although I do…

Tittle sequence. A group of mostly nervous looking people on the semicircle of chairs. David is trying to look in control.

Well, I think we’re all here. Mark, you don’t have a chair. There’s a fold up one there.

Is your name really David Bowie?

Yeah, I’m coming to that. No, it folds the other way. Mind your finger.

Ow!

I bought some fold up chairs at a car boot sale. I love a car boot.

I use them to sell retreads and alloys. Need any?

I think I’m all right, thanks. Cairn, isn’t it?

Anyone need any retreads or alloys?

Or the snide?

Who’s asking?

Or the knockoffs?

They’re at a knockdown price.

I could use some.

See me after. I’ll sort you out.

Right. Well, if we’re all…

I bought a lovely set of cushion covers as a car boots. Two quid.

Oh, you did well there.

Right. Is everyone settled, Mark?

Do you mind if I squeeze my chair in here?

Why don’t you sit there?

Got to think about odd numbers.

Well, don’t be daft. Sit there.

But if he doesn’t want to sit there…

He might have a syndrome.

I’d just rather sit on an even seat.

If you count round the other way, that’s seat number four.

He might have a thing about counting clockwise.

I don’t have a thing about counting clockwise.

Well sit there and have done with it.

Fine, I’ll stand.

Debbie.

I’m Sally. I’m Debbie.

Sorry, could you bring your chair in a bit?

What are the tissues for?

Oh, therefore if anyone gets a bit tearful, that can happen. It does with my other ones.

You’ve got other groups?

Divorced women, women with depression, single mothers, larger women and… women. I seem to enjoy them.

Well, we might as well start. My name is David Bowie. No, not that one.

Now this project looked like it might get made, didn’t it?

Well, we’ve got some names attached. We sent it to David Mitchell, who agreed to play the kind of main character, Mark, or no, David Bowie. I’m surprised I couldn’t remember that. And it was all set in one room. It’s really cheap. So I thought, you know, it might be in with a shout. But no, it was never made.

But it was written for television, though, wasn’t it? Not radio.

It was originally written for TV and then I did a radio version. I’m always sort of flitting between sort of radio and TV versions of things. So I never really know. Sometimes I write something and don’t even really know whether it’s a radio or TV.

Which do you prefer writing for? Which would you prefer it came out on, apart from obviously the money side?

I think my ideal is to write for radio first and then for it to move to TV, which quite a few of my shows have. That’s the ideal because you can you can really get things right on radio. And, you know, hopefully by the time it moves to TV, it’s sort of matured. What I really like is the process of radio because it’s so much quicker. I find producing particularly in TV really pretty boring. It’s very, very slow.

Right. Final question. Having revisited these old bits of writing, how do you feel about them? Are you surprised by anything you’ve heard?

I’m surprised not to have cringed more. I was expecting, I think I said at the beginning, to really hate everything that I heard. I found them not too difficult to listen to and in some cases I quite enjoyed them actually. That’s good. And the extract from Sexless, I thought sounded sort of quite cast, I thought, oh, I can just hear that on Radio 4.

Maybe that’s something you should be doing next. Finish that for Book of the Week.

Yes, we’d love to.

Oh, that’s good. So do you think you might have another stab at any of them?

I think I would possibly, I think I might look at Sexless again, the novel, and I might look at Support, the last two in fact. I might just consider whether I could give them another shot.

Well, we’re very glad to have helped. Bill Dare, thank you for opening your virtual bottom drawer and sharing your offcuts with us.

It has been enlightening. Thank you.

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with thanks to this week’s special guest, Bill Dare. The offcuts were performed by Rachel Atkins, Beth Chalmers, Toby Longworth, Chris Pavlo and Nigel Pilkington. 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.

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 writer and actress Arabella Weir. Arabella first came to public attention in the 1990s as a member of the cult sketch comedy, The Fast Show, where her memorable characters included Insecure Woman, whose catchphrase, Does My Bum Look Big In This, struck a particular chord with the British public. Since then, she has rarely been out of the spotlight. A novel of the same name became a bestseller and spawned two further novels. She’s also written a trilogy for teenagers and an autobiography called The Real Me Is Thin. She wrote and starred in the TV series Posh Nosh, which paired her with Richard E. Grant, and she is currently playing Beth in the BBC TV comedy Two Doors Down. She’s also been performing her live one-woman show Does My Mum Loom Big In This? around the UK, and once lockdown is lifted, she will hopefully be back out on the road again with it later this year. Arabella Weir, welcome to The Offcut Straw.

Welcome. Isn’t it embarrassing listening to your own lead-in?

Well, I wanted to clear it with you in case I said something that was terribly, terribly incorrect.

No, it all sounds pretty accurate.

Excellent. Well, my first question is usually and will be this time, what does your Offcut Straw look like? What’s the equivalent? Are you very good at keeping hold of your old writing material?

I’m very bad at keeping hold of it on my computer because I’m a bit sort of OCD and I’m constantly deleting emails and thinking, oh, I better delete that file. So I’m very lucky in that my agent has a copy of everything. And as I discovered when you asked me to do this, I have kept a box in my office with a copy of each script, including a script I didn’t write, but someone told me was worth a lot of money, a Doctor Who script of the episode of Doctor Who that I was in. And so, no, I’m not very good because once something has been rejected or kind of not flown, you know, namely no one’s bought it, you kind of, it feels to me like it’s got a slightly bad smell. And then you go, oh, don’t be the wanker that hangs on to the kind of, has anyone seen my hot pants that I looked so bad in? You feel like, you know, when people go, no, they were terrible. Don’t ever wear those hot pants again. So it feels a bit like you’re going, oh, I’m going to trot out that script nobody liked. And so, yes, in fact, there were many more. I could have put, you know, your way, except for they have been deleted forever and there are no copies of them. And I also do think, as you will know better than most, comedy is such a kind of of the moment thing. That doesn’t mean that comedy isn’t funny if you were, you know, Buster Keaton 100 years on or anything. It just means that some stuff you just think, oh, don’t, don’t trot that out again. Anyway.

So let’s get started with your first offcut. Can you tell us what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when you wrote it?

This is called Does My Bum Look Big In This? And it’s a theatre play written around 2001.

Jacqueline Plus casts a limbering up on stage. Jacqueline is at the back trying not to get noticed. We hear Gillian the Nazi’s harsh disembodied voice.

Okay, who hasn’t been here before?

All hands shoot up except Jacqueline’s. She shrinks knowing that she is going to be asked to demonstrate an exercise.

Right, Jacqueline, can you step to the front and show everyone the star jump?

Jacqueline doesn’t respond, studies her feet.

Jacqueline, Jacqueline?

Sorry, what?

Can you come to the front and show us the star jump?

I’m not…

Come on, don’t be shy. We’re all dying to see you.

Jacqueline goes to the front, painfully, reluctantly.

Okay, everyone, just copy Jacqueline.

All right, on the count of three, one, two, three and…

Cue music. Jacqueline star jumps. The others copy her. They start very ragged, but by the fifth or sixth jump are in time with her.

And rest.

Jacqueline talks to the audience.

Don’t worry. I know why she did that. I know what everyone was dying to see. Watch it again.

Okay, everyone, just copy Jacqueline. All right, on the count of three, one, two, three and…

Cue music. Jacqueline does her star jumps, but nobody moves. They’re transfixed by Jacqueline’s bum. Their eyes are glued to it.

It’s my bum, isn’t it? Don’t lie to me. They’re watching my bum. They’re watching that new shelf of fat above my buttocks and below my waist. They’re watching it ooze.

The cast does a synchronized oozing movement.

They’re watching it sink down and spread all over my bum.

The cast does a synchronized sinking and spreading.

I was waving down a taxi the other day.

The cast does synchronized waving down of a taxi.

And I got in the cab, and I sat down, and the shelf of fat on my upper arm was still shuddering.

The cast does synchronized shuddering with their whole bodies.

When will it end?

And rest.

See you next week.

While the rest of the cast disappear, two of them, mother and father, advance towards Jacqueline and stand over her.

It’s not my fault, of course. I had the worst possible start in life. I had a mother and a father.

So, a theatre play. Tell us more about that.

Yes.

I’m a little bit stunned by that. Is that not how you imagined it was going to be?

No, no, no, no, no. I actually found that bit of funny. I was reminded, I haven’t, obviously, I am not a complete narcissist. So, I’m not in the habit of rereading my books or work of any description. So, I’d forgotten quite how sort of neurotic she was, Jacqueline. The book was so successful that I was approached by, I mean, you know, this happens to everybody who writes anything or produces anything that’s very successful. I was approached by producers sort of saying, can you turn this into a play? And with my co-writer, John Cantor, who I wrote Posh Nosh with, we had a sort of stab at it, to him, I have to say a bit more than me. And it never got off the ground. And I’m not sure why. I think, I just had two children in very quick succession. And I think, as is the way with all these things, in my view in life is that you’ve got to have a good idea that has to stand up rather than say, here’s an idea and we’re going to get, I don’t know, Reese Witherspoon to do it. And the moment you go, oh, Reese Witherspoon’s not doing it, they go, oh, it’s a shit idea. Does it mean, so like anything with Reese Witherspoon and it is going to fly because no one’s going to get around the fact that you’ve got Reese Witherspoon in it. Now, before anybody gets excited, I’m not comparing myself to Reese Witherspoon, but the promoters were absolutely saying, you have to be in it and that involved a UK tour. So if memory serves me right, it was, they kind of went, yeah, we’ll do this and that’ll be you touring, you know, in a way that would have made them, I’m sure it would have made me money as well, but let’s not kid ourselves about who was going to make the most money. And that would have been me touring the UK, probably for something like 20 weeks. And I just had two children and it didn’t really fly, but and also, yes, John and I, because I’m, you know, I can’t sort of dismiss his contribution. We were very, what I’ve just said, we both hold to the idea that an idea has to work, not, oh, it works because it’s Arabella doing it. Do you know what I mean? So we both wanted it to be a play that would have flown, had an actress in Australia be doing it.

With the first recast.

Well, yeah, exactly, because otherwise how do you know how good it is if you’re just going, oh, just put anybody from EastEnders in it and it will work. We all know that you can sell a ticket with somebody off EastEnders reading the phone book if they’re currently in EastEnders. And that was very much not what I wanted to do. So anyway, it didn’t sort of die a death more than slightly sort of wilt. But those actors did a good job. That made me laugh that bit. You probably couldn’t say Nazi now, but still.

Let’s go back a little bit further because obviously the title Does My Bum Look Big In This? for the play came from the character’s catchphrase from The Fast Show, which is the character you created, isn’t it? When you first started doing the show, were you brought in as a writer at the beginning or were you the actor and you sort of gradually developed bits and pieces?

More like the latter. What actually happened is I knew Charlie Hickson and Paul Whitehouse from working with Harry on Harry Enfield Show, where they were sort of writers and in Paul’s case, performers, but not, I mean, Charlie’d be in the odd sketch. And then they were talking about this show that they’d had commissioned without Harry, I mean, on their own. And they kind of went, oh, you’re funny. Why don’t you come and do bits in it? But I certainly, it was all very casual. There was certainly no kind of, right, here’s your writing contract and, you know, you will be a writer performer. It was much less kind of formal than that. And then what happened is we did the first series and I was a bit more than, but sort of pretty much girl in sketch that you and I will be very familiar with. Woman in sketch or in the, I’m old enough for it, used to say mum in sketch or, you know, Harry’s girlfriend in sketch. And then we were just wrapping up doing The Fast Show and, you know, the end of the first series. And then we had these days, we had some sort of film left in the camera quite literally. So we decided to kind of do some mucking about and film it. And Paul and Charlie went, why don’t you do someone who’s like you? And I said, what do you mean like me? And they went, oh, you know, always going on about the size of her ass and everything. And I went, I don’t do that. And they went, yeah, you do. So I started sort of mucking about and did, does my bum look big in this? Literally. And if you watch the first series, if you’re a real sort of avid fan, you’ll see me do a tiny bit of it at the end of the first series. And then I applied myself. I remember thinking, you’ve got to stop mucking about. This is your big chance. So I did, I wrote proper sketches for the, you know, with properly written and typed up and, you know, conceived and presented them. And then we filmed them for the second series. And then I remember thinking, nobody in the world is going to get this character because I’m the only person in the world who thinks her whole life would be better if she had a small ass. And then the rest is history, I’m glad to say. But yeah, that’s how she all came about. And then after the third series, a publisher approached me and said, do you think you could write a novel in her voice? And I said, no. And then I thought, oh, God, no, I can’t do that because I’m more gladiatorial now. But in the old days, I used to be more kind of, don’t ask me to do anything because I won’t be able to do it. Because that was my modus operandi at school. You know, it was, set me a task and I will show you how badly I can do this. And that was kind of where I made a name for myself at school. So I’m afraid to say I would approach my career a bit like that as well. So when this publisher said, do you think you can write a book in her voice? I went, absolutely not. How could I write an entire book in that voice? And then a friend of mine actually said, you know, you always do this. You know, you always say, I’m not accepting that challenge. I bet you could write. And to be fair to him, the publisher also was very dogged about it. And then I thought, all right, well, I’ll see if I can do it. And I was able to. So I was very glad I did it.

I am very surprised that you say that your modus operandi was not doing things because Insecure Woman wasn’t the only character you created. There were at least two others that I can think of that were particularly strong, memorable. I’m guessing you were absolutely responsible for creating them.

Oh, yeah, yeah, no. All the characters you see me do where I’m the kind of central character, they’re all me. No offense. You know, the South African makeup lady and the one that is sadly still very apposite is girl who boys can’t hear. They were all mine. No, that’s because that’s what I’m saying. It was suddenly during The Fast Show, I thought don’t coast anymore. This is your chance and this is what you want to do more than anything in the world. So seize the opportunity. Don’t do a kind of, well, you know, here are a couple of sketches. You know, don’t self-sabotage, as I’ve always done. Seize the opportunity and do your best.

Well done for being able to do that. Thank you. Loads of people, they understand that they should do that and then they don’t and they spend their whole lives going, you know what, I should have done, but you literally did the thing.

Well, quite a lot of therapy, quite a lot of therapy and quite a lot of, well, a lot of encouragement from Paul and Charlie, but basically thinking, I think I’d been around for quite a long time by then. I’ve certainly been working for about, I don’t know, certainly over 10, 12 years by then and thinking, you will be a sort of jobbing actor. I didn’t know The Fast Show was going to be so successful, but I did know that I had a chance ahead of me. So here, so I thought, take this chance because you will look back on this and go, oh yeah, well, I was a bit pissed or I didn’t bother or yeah, it was a few sketches, but I was out having fun. Yes.

Right. Well, anyway, let’s move on to your next off cut now. So tell us what this one is.

This is called English Life and it is a pilot for a radio script I wrote in, do you know, I don’t know, but let’s say sort of 10-ish years ago.

So around 2010, 2010, 2009.

2010, 2009. Who says 2009? Me.

I don’t know.

Me, I just did.

Rafe, you’ve been looking after the animals on our estate for over two years.

That’s right. It’s been a real privilege to work with these creatures.

Tell us about our wild boar.

Oh, they’re amazing. They’re truly amazing. I mean, a wild boar sow breeds once a year and the litter is born in the spring, which is just the most beautiful time to be born.

Oh yes, with the lambs and falling in love, etc.

That’s right. They mature at around 18 months, which is something I really admire because I don’t think I really matured till I was 29 and gave up drinking.

Oh, here we go.

Now, wild boar are a bit like pigs, but they’re not pigs, are they? What would happen if you crossed a boar with a pig?

That’s a really interesting question.

You’d get a big.

Right. I didn’t know they were called that.

What do you give our boar?

Well, apart from, you know, a dose of worm control, I never give any of my animals any kind of drugs. I’ve seen what they do to people. Drugs make you think you’re the only person in the world.

Well, that’s right.

And you wouldn’t want a wild boar to think it was the only wild boar in the world because then it wouldn’t breed, would it? And then it would be the only wild boar in the world, personally.

That’s right. It wouldn’t breed and it wouldn’t grow. That’s the thing about drugs. They stop you growing as a boar or as a person.

God, how depressing can you get?

Drugs are depressing. You’re right. I’ve learnt so much from these creatures and the way they live their lives. One of the things that’s so inspiring is they live their whole life outdoors.

Oh, yes. That’s very good for the complexion, isn’t it? So tell us what you give them to eat.

Well, they forage in the woodland for whatever.

But it’s organic whatever, isn’t it?

And we supplement it with root crops like potatoes and swedes.

Rafe, are you saying you’d like to live your entire life outdoors?

I think it would be an amazing opportunity, yes, but I don’t know if I’d have the inner strength.

Oh, to be honest with you, I’d miss the shops personally.

Well, if you do go native, you’re not pooing all over my estate.

Oh, don’t worry. I’d pick it up. I’d want to. That’s how you keep in touch with yourself.

I don’t want you to pick it up, damn it.

I want you to catch it before it lands. Rafe, obviously you’re coming to our Father’s Day supper.

Tell us what Father’s Day means to you.

Our son Orlando’s the most amazing achievement of my life. And it’s all because I gave up drinking.

Eh?

As soon as I gave up drinking, I was rewarded with a new life. Well, two new lives really, my own and my son’s.

Oh, that’s lovely. I suppose that’s because when you’re drinking, your sperm get a little bit tiddly too, don’t they?

What?

Yes, so they can’t find their way, they keep falling over, lose their little keys to their little front door.

Are you on drugs?

That’s exactly how it feels, Minty.

Yeah. I’m glad you laughed at the same bit, my favourite bit in it as well. Which bit? The bit about the pooing. I chose that bit because those two lines, you’re not pooing on my estate and you’ve got to catch, I want you to catch it before it lands, made me laugh. So I thought I’m using that bit. Anyway, just I’m glad you laughed at that. Anyway, so tell us about this. What was the story of this particular piece of work?

That was a script I wrote with John Cantor because John Cantor and I wrote, and I have to say it was more fun than I’ve ever had in my professional life. We wrote Posh Nosh together and Posh Nosh was my idea. I was watching, I’ve never ever watched cooking shows. I cannot understand why anybody in the world would watch cooking shows. I mean, just cook, don’t fucking watch a show. Anyway, I was watching this and I’d never seen Delia Smith before. Oops, I’m not supposed to say her name. And I just thought, bloody hell, that woman’s been lobotomized. And I thought she was so untv-ish, but it did what cooking shows always make me do, which is think, oh, bloody hell, she can just knock up a risotto in five minutes, whereas for me, it’s hours of sweat and labour, and I never have sort of bataga and all these, you know, recherche things in my fridge. Anyway, so we wrote Posh Nosh, and then we wanted to extend its life.

And Posh Nosh was a tv series, wasn’t it?

It was a tv series that I did with Richard E. Grant, and it was a spoof cookery show. And, oh my god, it was just bliss to do. And Richard played, it was sort of a little bit Fanny and Johnny Craddock. And one of the things we decided was that Richard’s character would be pissed all the time. So then we tried to make it into a radio show, which is, I know, not the normal way around, but we couldn’t get it, we were very bizarrely, we didn’t get it recommissioned on BBC. So we then tried to make it into a radio show, which everyone thought was going to be a slam dunk because it was Richard E. Grant and me, and with Joanna Lumley doing the eye dense, you know, the kind of ads for the posh nosh, in this case, English life products. And it was just when people started, you know, having bespoke picnic baskets and all that yummy mummy, you know, garden trading, cocks and cocks, all those, the white company, all those sort of lifestyle things, the whole kind of, you know, your whole lifestyle will be sort of beige and white. And so we were going to, the whole idea was that we’d create this thing called English Life. And then that was the script for it. And I still think it’s very funny. And I still think they were wrong not to commission it.

And I had a spectacular cast, though, didn’t you?

Well, it was Richard E. Grant, me, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Benedict Cumberbatch?

I think he played Rafe.

And David Tennant and Daisy Haggard were written for it.

Oh, yeah. And sorry. And David played Rafe.

And Daisy played Richard’s sister.

Yes, who was meant to be a sort of one of those, one of those girls usually called, I’m afraid, Arabella. Seeing this, oh, my God, it was like totally amazing because we went to the light at the festival and we stayed in a yurt and we had the best time. And Daisy was absolutely brilliant. Yes, I’d forgotten that it was David. It was Benedict in something else. It was, yeah, my God, what an amazing cast. And they didn’t commission it.

And you had Joanna Lumley in it as well.

Exactly. I hope somebody from Radio 4 is listening to thinking, oh, shit, we missed a chance there. And maybe they can approach us again. Because I’m sure I could get the same cast back.

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 brand new 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 the Posh Nosh characters, you say, based on a certain TV chef and Fanny and Johnny, because I was wondering, was it based perhaps on your, did you grow up in quite a Posh Nosh kind of family?

Well, I grew up in a hugely, my mother was a phenomenal snob and quite grand. She was Scottish, both my parents were Scottish, but my father came from a very modest background. He was a primary school teacher’s son, but he did very well for himself, mainly thanks to the Second World War, but I don’t think he’d have left Scotland otherwise. But having left Scotland because of the Second World War, he then, as everybody was, joined the forces and was posted to the Middle East and then fell in love with the Middle East, and because of that became a diplomat. But my mother was from a very grand Scottish family, and by the time we were living in London, there were certainly no servants and posh life, but my mother was fantastically snobby about food and people and stuff.

You weren’t doing an impression of her, particularly, were you?

No. The joke there was that my character was supposed to be, as it were, from below stairs, that Richard’s character, who was meant to be genuinely posh, like my mother, had married beneath him because he was, of course, really gay, but needed a kind of nanny character figure in his life. So he has not married my character because she’s his equal, but more because he needs a…

Housekeeper.

Well, a housekeeper. That’s exactly it. And while he goes off and does what he likes with, as it turns out, have the series been made rave. Someone who is his equal, but so no, my character, if anything, I’m playing my granny from Dumfermland, someone who was not new that she wasn’t quite up to others. And I wouldn’t insert myself there. And although my character wasn’t Scottish, she was meant to be the daughter of a publican. My god, that is probably the favourite thing in my life I’ve ever done.

Pochnosh.

Yes, and English life. And I’m going to spit tax about them not commissioning English life. Commission it now, whoever’s listening to this.

Well, I’d say it’s early days. There will be people listening, especially when they hear that the people, you can get attached to it.

Listeners, I can guarantee Richard E. Grant, David Tennant and Daisy Haggard, and if not Daisy, Lady of Your Choice. Actress Lady of Your Choice.

Right. Let’s move on to another offcut. Can you tell us about number three, please?

This is called Goodbye Yellowbit Road, and it was a pilot for a TV sitcom, which again I wrote with John Canter in, oh, I’m going to say about 2008 or nine, around then.

Interior, Paul’s flat, bedroom. The bedroom of a fussily over-decorated flat. Paul is making the bed. He puts an exotic cover over the duvet. He then carefully distributes a number of soft toys along the top of the bed. Paul is a very pretty, flamboyantly dressed 25-year-old. He is unmistakably gay.

Now, Big Ted, you know you can’t sit next to George. You two just squabble. You can sit next to silly Sue. Monkey, you’re in charge.

As Paul debates where to put a rabbit, Susan enters from the en-suite bathroom. She’s in her 30s, neatly dressed, unremarkable woman, much less pretty than Paul. She has a no-nonsense Mary Poppins quality. She wears a work suit.

I’ve left Monkey in charge today.

Well, it is his turn.

Do they know about tonight?

Yes, and they’ve promised to behave.

Susan looks nervous. Don’t worry, Mum and Dad will love you.

Do you think?

Of course. Paul taps his temples with his forefingers. It’s one of Paul and Susan’s shared gestures.

Positive thoughts.

Susan does likewise. Positive thoughts. But Susan still looks worried.

What?

Well, it’s just that… What?

You’ve never introduced them to a girlfriend before.

Oh, girlfriend, boyfriend, what does it matter?

You’re the one, that’s what matters. I am so lucky.

No, I am so lucky.

Oh no, I am so lucky.

No, no, no, I am so lucky.

No, I am so lucky.

No, I am so lucky.

Susan smiles but is a little anxious about the time this is taking.

I don’t want to be late.

OK, but…

Paul steps back, gives her an appraising look, then waggles his index fingers underneath his earlobes. Susan immediately realises she has failed to perfect her outfit.

Which ones?

Oops, heart-shaped box.

Susan takes the earrings out of a heart-shaped box by the bed and gives Paul a genuinely loving look. Paul kisses Susan and covers Rabbit’s eyes to protect it from embarrassment. Paul pops Rabbit down next to Monkey and tells them…

Be good!

So, this is interesting because did I read it on the paper or where did I get this information from? You wrote this for David Tennant. Is that right?

Yes. David is probably one of the first people, obviously only after he became famous and people started paying attention to him. But he’s probably one of the first people, certainly that I know of, that people, the papers would refer to as metrosexual. And, you know, just camp is what they meant. And, of course, David is camp. I mean, but if camp means you’re not, if you’re prepared to wear beautiful suits and beautiful clothes and be nice to women, then so be it. And it just, as I say, John and I wrote that together and we’ve both always been fascinated by, I won’t name them because it’s probably libelous, but when you meet these people or see them on telly and they’re unbelievably camp, and then they say, yes, happily married to Susan or whoever it is for years, you think, what? You can’t be heterosexual. Now that script is probably very dated, although it did make me laugh. And I suppose in a world where people were still feeling the need, and let’s face it, there are plenty out there still, but to sort of pretend to be something they’re not. I mean, we were very much not laughing at Paul’s character there because the idea was that he had been gay, but that he’d fallen in love with a woman.

Right. So he was genuinely bisexual or at this point heterosexual, whatever. At this point, heterosexual.

He wasn’t hiding anything. No, no, no. And he wasn’t pretending he hadn’t been gay. He wasn’t going, oh, I’ve seen the light, now I’m straight. He was just saying, now I’ve fallen in love with Susan. And the jokes that we were making were absolutely not about someone’s sexuality or their choices, but the jokes were about how the people in his life, because his mother was brilliantly played. We did a BBC pilot sitcom reading, which went really, really well, and his mother was absolutely brilliantly played by Anita Dobson. And the joke there was that Anita, her character, was determined to keep him gay because he went to Shirley Bassey concerts with her and went to salsa classes and she was losing him to another woman. And the other joke was that the two gay characters who were still gay, played by Steve Pemberton, and I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember who the other one was, they were all going, you’re not bisexual, you’re having an episode. And so those were the jokes. So even though it may sound dated now, there was never a kind of, isn’t it hilarious that a man is camped?

Isn’t it very on the nose right now with more fluid sexuality and everything, the fact that your character is a modern day 2020 man or 2020 person, should I say?

Yeah, it was more about, as comedy often is, about the people around the central character going, I want you to be something other than you are. And, you know, and their kind of their agenda, their agenda. Thank you very much. I can never not think of Mary Archer when I say that, because do you remember when the fragrant Mary Archer, you have to be a certain age, was asked in court the second time around when they lost, is it not true that you had issued him ultimatums? And Mary Archer said, I am not in the habit of issuing ultimata. And I thought, oh, that’s you told. Because, of course, it’s not ultimatums, it’s ultimata. Anyway. But yes, I think now two heterosexual white middle class writers might have a difficulty getting that script away. But again, it was the most fantastic cast. It was Anita Dobson, David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Steve Pemberton. Olivia Colman played Susan.

Wow. OK, well impressed.

Yes, it was. And you know what? I’m going to shame the BBC. It was about to be commissioned. And then someone went, Oh, there’s that program, Rose and whatever it was called. It was an ITV show in it was at the sort of beginning of everyone thinking Alan Davis was the second coming. And I’m not saying Alan’s no good. I’m just saying they commissioning everything that he was in. And he was supposed to be a gay man who’d fallen in love with a woman. And that was called Rose and something. And it was on ITV. And literally the BBC went, Oh, we’re not commissioning this now. And of course, now they’d commission it. But David wasn’t as famous as he now is. And neither was Steve. Anita was.

Or Olivia.

Or Olivia. Yes, quite. So another mistake they made.

Yes.

In my view.

Although I must say, I’m very surprised. Why weren’t you the mum? When I read it, I thought, well, she’s written this part for herself. She’s a very flamboyant character.

First of all, I can’t be David’s mother. Thank you very much.

I didn’t realize it was David’s.

But also, it was very important that she brought with it, and Anita is a bit older than me, she brought with it that kind of fun all the time. Oh, let’s go and get a cocktail. You know, that she brought that kind of fizz with her. And Anita’s got that and I don’t have it. I’m not saying I couldn’t have played it, but Anita, absolutely. The moment she said yes, we were just dancing around the room because we just thought that’s exactly the kind of energy that just that sort of slightly showbiz energy, you know, someone you can absolutely see going to salsa three times a week. And also she was meant to be, the idea was that they were working class. And I don’t think anyone ever looks at me in a million years and thinks I’m an East End working class woman.

Let’s move on to your next off cut, Arabella. What’s this one?

This is called Riverdeep Mountain High and it is a treatment or even a script for a musical based on the songs of the little known Tina Turner. And it must have been around 2004.

Riverdeep Mountain High A proposal for a musical featuring the songs of Tina Turner. First act. Born and raised in the small town of Nutbush, Belle dreams of becoming a famous dancer. She’s young and beautiful. She wants to leave town and make a go of it in the big city. Her ma, Mary, doesn’t want her to go. This is Nutbush, where you go to the store on Friday and church on Sunday. Mary sings Nutbush City Limits. Belle’s younger brother, Matt, not much more than a teenager at this point, doesn’t want Belle to go either. He joins in with his mother singing Nutbush City Limits. The whole community, old and young, eventually join in. Belle joins in too, but giving the song sarcastically, its small townness is exactly why she has to leave. Mary doesn’t see why Belle can’t make a success of herself right here. Belle laughs this suggestion off. She knows that big opportunities are only available in big towns. Mary has lived life in the big city and seen it all. She sings proud Mary. Belle takes over the song when it turns rocky. Mary knows that real values, lasting friendships and relationships are rare in the big city. There’s a boy in Nutbush, Nate. He loves Belle, but believes in her and wants her to pursue her dreams. Belle likes and respects him, but hasn’t fallen in love with him the way he has with her. Nate sings River Deep, Mountain High. Belle duets with him, then leaves. She has to go. Mary is very upset and makes Belle promise to write every week. Belle arrives in the big city and looks for a job. She sees an ad for dancers outside a nightclub. It’s owned by a very attractive but shady guy, Sharky. Sharky tells Belle he thinks she’s very attractive. Belle explains her ambitions. Sharky says he has big connections in the dance world, which he says he’ll use to get Belle a proper dancing job while she works as a dancer in his club. That’s fine with Belle. She knows that everyone starts out at the bottom. Explaining what he needs in the bar, Sharky sings Honky Tonk Woman. Belle learns fast and duets with him. Very soon Belle becomes bowled over by the glamorous Sharky. He’s a big city guy with big city money.

Right. So this was a musical, an idea for a musical based on the life, the songs of Tina Turner. River Deep Mountain High was its name. Clearly this was actually a good idea because Tina, the Tina Turner musical launched a couple of years ago. So you were 14 years ahead of your time.

Yes, but let’s not be in any way kidding ourselves. I’m sure people for as long as she’s been famous have been going, how can we get a musical out of this? But I think what happened, in fact, I know what happened. We Will Rock You was so successful, suddenly everyone went, that’s what we need to do. We need to get every famous artist there ever was and do a musical, if we can, based on their music. And then, of course, what they did was they started contacting the artists. And then I dare say, I don’t know, 50%, I have no idea. That sort of went, no, no, thanks. And then others went, oh, yes, please. And that’s what happened with me. The producers had been in touch with Tina Turner and she said, yes, in principle. And then they asked me to write the treatment. I don’t know why me, but maybe I knew these producers and I’d worked with them a lot. And I was a woman, obviously, and I think they thought that would be the right perspective, as indeed it should have been. And I put quite a lot of work into it. I put a lot of work into it, actually. But I freely admit that it is not my area. And I liked doing it. And obviously I love, well, not obviously, but I do love Tina Turner. But I just couldn’t get, you know, every time we sort of talked about it, I thought, I can’t, I can’t. I mean, I can do the basic story, which I did. But I don’t think I had, well, apart from anything else, I’m not black. So looking back, it probably shouldn’t ever have been me. And she does have a great story. Her own story is a fantastic story.

Have you seen the Tina Turner musical?

You’ll be very surprised to hear I haven’t. I don’t go to musicals much, but I certainly don’t go to musicals based on somebody’s oeuvre. Yeah, it wasn’t a very sort of happy project, and it didn’t really, there was a bit of sort of pushing around the plate for a while, and then it didn’t fly, and quite rightly so, because I don’t think you want a white middle class woman from North London writing Tina Turner’s story.

Well, like you say, it’s better than a white middle class man writing Tina Turner’s story.

That is the only thing that’s better than. And I dare say now, if the producers were doing it again, and I don’t know who wrote the musical, it was successful, wasn’t it? It’s still on.

Yes, it’s still on, yeah. I saw this and I thought, hold on a second, this rings a bell. Did you write the actual musical that’s in the West End? That’s what happened, yeah.

It’s my show. I’m a multimillionaire.

This is just some early notes you scribbled.

Yeah, just some early notes that I knocked out. Yeah, no. It was, I dare say, in many, many draws, in many, many houses around the country, there are people’s proposals for a musical about, insert name, you know, Roger Daltrey, I don’t know, whoever. And yes, that was my attempt at writing one for Tina Turner.

So you haven’t written any other musicals?

That’s absolutely correct, and I think it’s going to stay that way.

But we heard earlier, does my bum look big in this, the theatre play. So you’re not averse to the theatre genre. In fact, you’ve got your one woman show.

And in fact, yeah, as you say, I’ve just been doing and was halted, like many other people, by COVID. I’ve just been doing, I got about a third of the way into my UK tour of my first ever solo show.

First ever?

Does my mum loom big in this? Yes, at my age, my first ever solo show. I think I didn’t have the nerve until now, but also maybe not the material, but I absolutely loved doing it.

Is this you playing you, or do you do characters in it, this sketchy type stuff, or is it just Arabella talking to the audience?

It’s basically all about my mum and her spectacularly appalling attempts at being a parent in the first half. And then in the second half, it’s all about me as a mum and realising that it turns out it’s not that easy. Although, I mean, my mother was like off the scale bad. I mean, not like a mother at all. She literally thought it had nothing to do with her. Eating, being cared for, being protected, just it wasn’t in any way connected to her. Yeah, that’s another story.

That’s extraordinary.

Well, you’ll have to come and see the show, Laura. Yes, I must. When it’s back up and running.

When it’s back on, yes.

Which is supposed to be September this year, but looking more like next year.

So you have managed to reschedule, OK?

Oh yeah, yeah, it’s all rescheduled.

Well, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you introduce your final offcut now?

This is called Stupid Cupid, and it’s a film script that I had commissioned, paid for, or pucker, in 2005, and it was the adaptation of my book of the same name for the movies.

Interior, Priscilla’s house, which is chic bohemian, all Liberty prints and Chinese lacquer. Hat opens a bedroom door and thud. It hits the head of Sam, who was asleep on the floor. He’s hung over and wearing last night’s suit. He has a straggly beard and wild hair. He groans as he hauls himself to his feet.

Sorry.

Oh, you nearly knocked my head off.

It was an accident.

You could have knocked.

It’s my room.

Did we sleep together?

No. Good.

Sam slams the door in her face. Priscilla arrives just in time to nip Hat’s outrage in the bud.

in my room.

Sweetie, you moved out years ago. is going through a rough time, I know. I’m not having that thing at my reception.

That thing is the son of a very good friend.

I just hope you’re not sleeping with him. Oh, Priscilla. I am not. I cannot believe you are sleeping with a tramp.

I am not.

Sleeping with him.

I am not a tramp.

You shut up.

Sam flings open the door.

I am not a tramp.

You’ll have to excuse my niece. Her fiancee has run off. With her brain. That’s a great side with him.

Well, at least he didn’t want you for your body.

For your information, he did not run off. He is having some space.

That happened to my cousin. He ran off six days before the wedding.

This is four. Three. What happened?

He showed up. In a gay bar.

Hat walks off thinking, what a prat.

Hat, come back.

I didn’t want to come anyway.

Priscilla slaps him playfully. Meanwhile, hat flips open her mobile and speed dials.

Jimmy, will you please pick up the stupid phone? I have to pay these people.

So, how far did this script actually get?

Well, it got all the way. I wrote the book, which was quite successful. I say honestly, I mean, it was pretty successful. And the idea was because I don’t think I was married at the time. I can’t remember, but I’d already had my children. And it struck me, and everybody will be familiar with this, that a wedding becomes like a runaway train, no matter how small. In fact, that’s right, I was planning to get married. I already had children. I was in my 40s. I was with the father of the children. And we were just going to get married. But suddenly, everybody in my family had an opinion and you can’t do this, even though we weren’t doing. I was way too old for a kind of, you know, meringue dress and, you know, my auntie doing my whatevers. And yet suddenly had an opinion. And it occurred to me that it was a great comic tool, the idea of a wedding because of the amount of people that feel they have righteous ownership of it rather than the two people getting married. So I came up with this idea, which was loosely based on a true story of someone I knew, whose fiance dumped her a few days before for an epically expensive wedding. And she decided, this was the bit I made up, that she would keep going with the wedding and try to get him back at the same time rather than unravel it, rather than just face the truth. And I do know someone who did that, it wasn’t the husband, she tried to back out, and her parents said, we’ve already paid for the flowers, and they were £6,000. And the parents, instead of going, look, let’s lose the £6,000, they made her go through with it, a big society wedding, and she left him two weeks later. So all these sort of ideas. So anyway, I’d written the book, and then, I can’t remember the name of the production company, but a production company paid me, rather handsomely, those were the days, for the film rights, and part of the deal was that I had to be able to write the script. So I wrote the script, and that I really, really loved doing, and I loved it, yeah. I bought Final Draft, as my father would say, at a normal personal expense, and I really loved doing it, and I still think that would make a great film, because the idea is that she, you know, there’s this runaway train of the wedding, you know, florists, cake makers, dress makers, all going, right, you need to do a fitting, you need to do a last this, and she’s going, I mean, you know, you know very well, Laura, a lot of comedy is to do with sort of anxiety and tragedy and everything, she’s trying to stave off this thing that’s happened, keeping the plates in the air of all the wedding plans and get him back at the same time. So she does a lot of bonkers things to try and get him back at the same time as keeping the wedding going. And meanwhile, get someone to pretend to be him and falls in love with him.

Yes, that was the meet cute we just heard, I believe.

Yeah, I think it was, I mean, you know, maybe rom-coms have had their day. No, never, never. But I think, you know, I’m not one for necessarily saying blowing my own trumpet, but I think it stands up as a concept. Maybe the script wasn’t good enough, I’m prepared to accept that, but the concept I think stands up with the best of them, which is, you know, that is an absolutely classic farce.

Right, well, final question. Having listened to these five bits of writing, is there anything you’ve noticed, anything that surprises you, or obviously there’s a couple that you’d quite, or three of them at least, that you’d like to go back and redevelop, but was there anything that you didn’t expect to hear?

I didn’t expect any of them to still be funny. And I know this is one of those, what do you most like about yourself? Well, it’s probably got to be my fantastic figure, or maybe it’s my amazing face, which I don’t get off and ask, but I think I’m pleased. I’m pleasantly surprised by how funny the ones, most of them still are. And that makes me pleased.

So that sort of reinforces your faith in your ability to write. You were funny then, you’re funny now, sort of thing.

Yes, that’s how I’m going to put it.

Yes.

I was funny then and I’m funny now. Don’t you forget it!

Well, Arabella Weir, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for sharing the contents of your Offcuts Drawer with us.

Thank you very much indeed, Laura. It’s been a huge pleasure, as always, to talk about myself.

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with thanks to this week’s special guest, Arabella Weir. The Offcuts were performed by Rachel Atkins, Beth Chalmers, Chris Pavlo, Leah Marks, Nigel Pilkington and Keith Wickham and the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit offcutstraw.com and please do subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.

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 writer Jenny Colgan, author of over 40 romantic comedy, children’s, and science fiction books, since her first novel, Amanda’s Wedding, was published in 2000. In 2013, she won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award for Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Shop of Dreams, and then the Romantic Novelist Association Award for Comedy Novel of the Year in 2018 for The Summer Seaside Kitchen. Also writing as Jane Beaton, she created the Little School by the Sea series, described by her many fans as Mallory Towers for grownups, and for the Dr Who franchise, she’s written at least nine works under the name of JT. Colgan or Jenny T. Colgan. With her latest novels, The Bookshop on the Shore and 500 Miles from You both recently published, and Christmas at the Island Hotel coming later in the year, work ethic is clearly not an issue. Jenny Colgan, welcome to the Offcuts Drawer. 40 plus books in 20 years, that works out as two books a year. Have you got a, you must have a pretty good system worked out.

Well, I mean, some are novellas and some are for children. So they’re not all kind of full length titles. But yeah, I mean, I write two and a half thousand words a day, which if for some people seems like a lot, but if you’re a journalist or a sci-fi writer, doesn’t seem very much, about four days a week, because when my children were young, we lived in France. And in France, they don’t have school on Wednesdays. So you always take Wednesdays off. So that’s about 10,000 words a week. So, you know, you can have a first draft in about 10 weeks or so. And then a couple of months to edit and review it. So I don’t think it’s quite as, you know, it sounds like, I hate to go, you churn them out, don’t you? As if I literally just kind of, you know, I’m like that character in Little Britain that just types with a big kind of cat in her lap. How many now? Which is not the case at all. But, you know, I’m quite focused. When I wasn’t, before I had children, I would just kind of fanny about and do one book a year. And then, since I had children, of course, I was paying for every hour I wasn’t at home when someone else had to look after them.

Right.

That very much focuses the mind on how much it’s possible to get done.

Well, let’s kick off with your first off-cut. Can you tell us what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when you wrote it?

This is a poem published in the British Medical Journal called Ode to NHS Managers. And I wrote it in 1995.

I am the voice of government. As such I speak for all. This country’s people put me here. I merely heed their call. A servant of the people, I am doing all for the best as I witness the slow puncture of the NHS. As a hospital, your role is not much more than drug dispenser. You could take some business tips from being as smart as Marks and Spencer. That is, listen to your market. Try to broaden your appeal. Did you know you only interest the old and down at heel? Trendy logos are quite helpful and that tender business sells. Paying £1.59 per hour in conditions worse than hell. That was a stroke of genius and I think it’s working well. Though what’s that oozing down the wall and what’s that awful smell? And doctors were always whingers, as you very well know. All this paperwork is good for them. It keeps them on their toes. Their divorce rates and depression are nothing deeply sinister. It’s quite a bit below the norm for your average cabinet minister. As for care in the community, you’re starting now to drone. It’s the ideal smart solution for a schizoid on their own. Instead of being protected, we will send them out alone and circumnavigate the cardboard box that most of them call home. And when the country’s had enough, and when the crying’s still, and when we’ve all but given up on trying for our ill, and when the figures are cut and dried, the episodes objectified, and when the hospitals subside and everyone has neatly died, if there is left a call for who neglected national health, for who betrayed us all, then who will kindly take the blame? Who led us to this fall? Why, those who push the paper ever flowing from within. Those who must make the scalpel cuts in budget, not in skin. Those nasty suits who endlessly act cruelly, mad and viciously. The ones who most vociferously won’t play this game to win. Blame managers, don’t look at me in your last mewling lament. Well you might very well think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

This was written in 1995 when you were not yet a writer. So who were you when you wrote this?

I was an administrator in the NHS, it will not surprise you to know. And that was the first piece of writing I ever got paid for. They accepted it. They have a kind of spoof issue, the BMG, that they run every Christmas time where they run lots of bits and pieces. And I was just so excited. And it was 50 pounds in the early 90s. And that was a fortune. I was working in a hospital in Bedford and living in a nursing home. And that 50 pounds, just I remember putting the check in, and you’re not meant to put the check in the first time you get paid, are you? You’re meant to pin it to the wall. But I put it in and I spent it mentally about four times. And I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to make any money in my life.

Well, what inspired you to write it?

I mean, like most writers, I was always writing something. You know, it was rubbish, but I was doodling away and doing stuff.

So at that point, what, you had just finished university, is that right?

I left university in 92 and picked up my first job. That would have been in about 94. I joined the NHS graduate management training scheme, and then they had a big internal push on to, they’d always had management that was very similar to each other and very dry and had always been the same. And so they had this big push to go and look for slightly different people, different thinkers. So one of the people in my intake was Johnny Popper, Robert Popper’s brother, who now heads a think tank and who was the inspiration behind Friday Night Dinner. Right. You know, there’s somebody that now runs a massive income. It was full of interesting people who did, from all sorts of diverse backgrounds, all of whom were completely useless in the environment they put us in. They kind of said, go and find us some mavericks. And they did. And we all left within about six months. It was a catastrophe in many, many ways.

Were you doing your stand up at that point?

I was. Yeah, I just started. I left the hospital and I went to work for a health think tank in London, really, just to get me to London. And that’s when I started doing a kind of open, I did a Jill Edwards comedy course and I started doing open spots. I did astoundingly few, considering how much mileage I’ve subsequently had. I just wasn’t very good. And I didn’t do it enough. And I started at the same time as Chappie, of course, Chappie Keepersandy and Jimmy Carr, Jimmy, I remember, and their work ethic, Jimmy’s work ethic, do you remember? There was not a gig he would not turn up to and just go on stage and he just, every time you saw him, he was six months better than he’d been the week before. He was so brilliant. And I just didn’t have it. Although I met, one, I met some brilliant people and learned a lot. And then two, when I wrote a novel, I didn’t write to the publishers, hi, I’m an NHS administrative assistant, would you like to read my novel? I said, hi, I’m an up and coming stand up on the comedy circuit. Would you like to read my novel? And of course, that made a huge difference, really. So from that perspective, except, let me tell you, more than one hideous kind of literary event or conference or library show that I’ve been introduced as, you know, ex stand up Jenny Colgan. And I’ve done, I did like 16 gigs and you can see come out and you see these really expectant faces, you know, there is nothing less funny than someone that you’ve been told is going to be hilarious. So I’ve had some kind of real professional stand up and I’m just standing there going yeah, not really. So but it did help.

So you went from NHS to stand up to novelist.

That was the sort of, Well, I was working in NHS and the stand up was the kind of night, night job really. And of course, you know, I’d send poems all over the place, obviously.

So was it poetry that you were mainly writing at that point then?

I think I wrote a children’s story that I sent to Bloomsbury and they went, what? They very kindly wrote back, which I think these days most people don’t. But you know, you know what it’s like in your 20s, you just have a hunger for it. You know, you’re just desperate for it. And because I grew up or I was a student in Edinburgh, which meant I’d always worked the Edinburgh Festival. So I’d worked the Go to Balloon, I worked the Pleasance, I worked the Traverse for years. So I would see these other young people when they were actors, which I wasn’t, but they were creators, they were creative people talking about creative things. And, you know, John Hannah would come in, have a drink with that girl from this life. And, you know, it would just be full of amazing stuff going on. And I just wanted to be in it. I just didn’t know how or what my met you was going to be. But with that extraordinary kind of I’m 24, you know, get out of my way.

Time for another off cut. Jenny, what’s this one?

OK, number two, this is a clip from The Scientist written in 2014, which is a passionate, it says in my note, was a passionate romance, is a passionate historical romance, because I believe in this one. Set at the birthplace of atomic warfare.

He was there. Oh, how my heart leapt, sitting at a small desk in the corner of the room in front of the blackboard. There were piles of exercise books and scraps of paper around him, and he was writing intently in one, whilst his other hand drummed repeatedly on the table. His foot tapped the floor, too. It was like he could never be still. He was a whirl of constant motion. I think that’s why he needed so much sex. It was the only thing I ever saw still him, sent to him, drag him away from that odd land he spent the rest of his life in, where everything vibrated on a quantum level, where nothing was still nor ever could be, and everything hurtled about constantly, simply in order to exist. Dick lived his entire life like that. He didn’t notice I was there until I made a small noise and moved across the threshold. Also, I wanted to shut the door behind me in case anyone passed by and saw us. I was feeling brazen, but I hadn’t completely lost my mind. His face broke into a broad smile to see me, and he put his pencil down and opened his arms. Sis, he said, and his pleasure was so obvious and unforced, I couldn’t find it in myself to ask, well, what did I even want to ask? Where had he been? I knew where he’d been. He’d been at work. Why hadn’t he stormed in my house and taken me in front of my husband? Why he hadn’t ridden up on a white horse and carried me away from all this? My feverish brain was completely fogged with lust, and I couldn’t even think straight. I put all of that nonsense out of my mind. I was here now, and he was grinning at me like someone had just given him a present. Come over here. I was just thinking about you. This was a complete lie. I had seen him. Whatever he was thinking about, you know, you and I wouldn’t understand it in a million years. In fact, whatever he was thinking about, it’s entirely possible he was the first person ever to think it. Anyway, I didn’t care about that just then. I just was so overwhelmed to see him again, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Come over here and sit down on my lap, he said. Distract me from throwing confetti. Why are you throwing confetti? As I made my way over, I noticed that the ground was indeed covered in confetti. Dick shrugged. Just a math problem. Good one, too. Why was he throwing confetti? I asked the old lady on the bed. But I knew the answer before she even said it. Fallout, said Sissy. He was calculating the trajectory of nuclear fallout.

Well, you said this was a historical romance. So did you finish writing it? What’s happened to it?

I did. I did finish it. And we just, as these things happen sometimes, we just couldn’t find a home for it. It’s quite dirty. And sometimes you think, you know, just because you’re profoundly interested in a period, you think it’s going to appeal to lots of people and it doesn’t necessarily. And there also came a point where it was just like, well, you know, there’s lots of people that read my books because they’re comforting or because they’re warm. You know, but they’re not dirty. And so do we really want to mess with people in that way who might be expecting one thing and get something else? So for all sorts of reasons, we didn’t push it, but I’m very fond of it.

So basically you’re saying this is a bit more risque than the other stuff.

Oh, it is, yeah.

You didn’t want to maybe rename yourself. You’ve been Jenny T. Colgan and JT. Colgan for science fiction. Could you not create another… Well, you could, but I mean, that’s very difficult to do.

You know, there’s a million books published every 10 seconds. And when publishers go to quite a lot of trouble to kind of build up a brand, it’s very difficult to start from scratch and say, you should read this person you’ve never heard of and that you can’t Google and it doesn’t really exist. We can’t tell you why. You know, it’s a big undertaking and I already have a very big job. So I would like one day to see it come out in some form or another. And it’s funny because both my agents in the UK and the US, both of them really loved it. But it’s just one of, it’s niche for it. Very niche. If you’re really massively into physics, yeah, exactly, kind of math porn, you know, it’s quite a small crossover diagram. But that’s alright. I’m proud of it and I’m proud I wrote it.

So it’s a full novel sitting in your drawer.

A full novel sitting in my drawer. Yeah, so it’s a kind of, you know, it’s a woman that was at the Manhattan Project in the war. She’s very old and so she’s interviewed by a contemporary woman who’s having all sorts of problems with kind of Tinder dating and kind of how the transactional nature of contemporary sexual politics compared to the extraordinary kind of power, I think, of the forbidden. I think John Fowles and the French Lieutenant’s woman, he always says, was sex sexier then? He obviously thinks that it was, you know, and that I find that interesting too.

Now, I read in an interview where you said you reckoned your big break came when you wrote Meet Me at the Cupcake Café and you credit not the romance element but the baking element for your success. Is that right?

It was certainly one of these serendipitous things that happened, which is I wrote that book just the year the first bake-off started. And the first bake-off wasn’t a massive thing. But then, of course, books are published a year after they’ve written. So it came out the following year and then the second season hit and everything kind of went a bit kind of cake-orientated bananas. It was lovely. It just gave people, a lot of people who may not have read me or who may have thought, oh, that’s, you know, she writes for young people or it’s not really for me. It opened up a much broader, wider market. So I have a massive debt and fondness for bake-off, purely by coincidence.

And are you a big baker yourself? I know there’s lots of recipes in your books. Are they genuine?

Yeah, well, I mean, at the time I was living in France. And so I had to learn to cook because you have to cook in France. You can’t buy ready meals or anything. Plus I had three kids under four, so, you know, I wasn’t going anywhere. But in France, you don’t really bake. It seemed like a really curious thing to do, because why would you? You’re not going to be better than the patisserie. And the patisserie is only like 90 metres away. So, you know, people would come around and I’d offer them a piece of cake. And, of course, French women being French women, they just go, no, merci. They don’t do what I’m supposed to do. They just go, oh, I shouldn’t. Oh, it’s so naughty. Oh, a tiny bit. You know, that. Nonsense. French women just go, well, no, I’m not going to eat cake. It’s the middle of the afternoon. What’s the matter, you crazy? So, you know, I was at a kind of slightly odd anyway in France, and then I started baking. But I think it’s comforting, and it is not difficult. You know, a nine year old can do it if you follow instructions, and I like that about it. My mother was a great cook and a baker, so I have happy memories of, you know, licking her old, you know, the spoons to her cakes. And so it’s that feeling that I was going for. You’re not going to become a master baker through reading my books. But hopefully you’ll share, you know, a little bit of the satisfaction that you get from doing it.

Right. Let’s have your next off-cut, Jenny. Tell us about this one.

This is from The Bunnies of Bromwood, a book, an entire book that I wrote when I was 10. So this would be 19, well, about 1980, 1981.

This is great, said Bath Bunny. Now I want everyone to do a length of the pool backstroke. But this isn’t a swimming lesson, complained Paris Bunny. Oh no, said Bath Bunny. Hurry up about it. Suddenly there was a scream.

Help! Help! Save me!

It was Currant Bunny, who in seeing some nice lily pads had gone over to get one, but the water was far out of her depth, and as she could not swim very well, she could only cry for help. At once Bath Bunny began to swim quickly towards her. Grabbing her, he began to get back to shore. Oh, you heavy lump! He spluttered to Currant Bunny, who had fainted. After what seemed like a year to Bath Bunny, he finally reached shallow water. He dragged poor Curranty out and began giving her the kiss of life. Oh, the poor little bunny, murmured Paris Bunny. No, I don’t want any soppy nonsense, said Cream Bunny rather sharply. She’ll be all right, so that’s an end of it. Look, she’s got a small piece of paper in her hand, said Bath Bunny. Oh, it’s probably a bit of rubbish some human has chucked in, snapped Creamy Bunny. Gosh! suddenly exclaimed Bath Bunny. Look, everyone, come and see this. Oh, what is it? asked Paris Bunny. The paper in her hand, it is a treasure map. What? said everybody. A treasure map! shouted Bath Bunny.

So there you go. What did you think of that?

Actually, my father came across it a couple of months back. It’s a whole book. There’s like about 120 pages of it, all written out in varying handwriting that I worked on for, you know, quite a lot of time. And he said, oh, I’m going to send it over. It’ll be hilarious. I was like, I know. There was a bit that I did not send you where one of the rabbits has a baby as written by a nine year old who had no idea how anybody had babies.

Oh, I’d love to have seen that.

I know. I just couldn’t. It just made me cringe so much. I tell you why, because my parents used to get drunk at dinner parties and weed it out to their friends. It was very naughty of them. But I think, you know, of course, in retrospect, they were very proud that this ridiculous child had written an entire book.

And so they should be. They were spectacular. All the different characters in there. I have to say, when I was typing that out, copying it from your handwriting, I was laughing so much at the various phrases. I thought it was lovely. It really did make me laugh. I suppose you are actually a children’s author now, so you do know your stuff. But to someone who’s not a children’s author, I thought, oh, could there be something else?

It would be funny if the only thing that was actually worth revisiting was the thing I’d written when I was nine. But yes, no, I had no idea my dad still had it because he’s moved a few times. And it was, yeah, really odd to feel, even just to feel the weight of it. Again, I was getting, my daughter’s ten and I’m going to maybe hand over to her.

So did you have a lot of projects like that? Is this a one-off work or do you have several oeuvres by the young Jenny?

There was just a lot of stuff. I remember my primary school, which was quite small, they used to hang, they don’t do this kind of thing anymore, but the pieces of work they considered to be good, they would hang outside in the corridors. And I was everywhere. There was one I’d written about a mining disaster. So everybody else was kind of writing about a lovely horse and I was writing about people dying in a mining disaster. So I do, like people that knew me then, the two things I’ll say is, oh, you know, you were always like in the papers and for writing something stupid, or we never knew what the top of your head looked like because it was always underneath a gigantic book.

So your family, do you come from a family of readers and writers?

I certainly come from a family. Well, both my parents were teachers and both my parents came from very poor backgrounds. My mother in particular, my grandfather, my mother’s father did not learn to read until he was, my mother taught him, I think, when she was an adult. So she was your archetypal working class, pushy, pushy mum, you know? Right. We can’t really afford it, but I found a guy that will teach you how to play the piano for, in return for an apple pie, you know, and that’s the guy. We’re going to the library and she took me to the library every single week. So I was first in my family to go to university, that kind of thing. So that kind of full support, but very pushy and quite snobby. And of course, that generation of working class mothers of whom, you know, a lot of us are massive beneficiaries. But then, of course, we all turned like proper bourgeois. We were really snobby. My mother’s fondness for prawn cocktail, you know, I was such a snob. I was absolutely a pub. Basically, they built us into what they desperately wanted. And then, you know, then they found us absolutely insufferable.

Right, let’s have another offcut now. What’s this one?

This is from around 2012. And it was an idea for a television series for very young children, for CBeebies, featuring Dr Puppet, which is, you can Google it, it’s a thing, Dr Puppet versions of the characters of Dr Who, specifically Matt Smith and little Amelia Pond.

It was early on a Saturday morning in Amelia Pond’s garden. And Amelia was pestering a frosty caterpillar.

Oi, no poking, he needs time.

Be a butterfly, caterpillar. Oh, he’s gone. Are you a butterfly yet?

He’s gone because of all the poking.

Maybe it’s helping butterfly?

This is the duck thing all over again.

Can I see a proper caterpillar?

There’s a lot of tentacles. I mean a lot.

Let’s go. Bye, aunt.

Sound effects of footsteps.

Tentacles, tentacles.

Oh, good, you brought the custard.

We hear the TARDIS wheeze and then the opening credit music, the children’s version of the Dr Who theme.

I’m the doctor.

And I’m Amelia Pond.

And we travel in the TARDIS to have adventures on the planet of… Amelia’s garden!

Exterior Amelia’s garden. Everything on the planet is oversized, lush and green. The doctor and Amelia are smaller than blades of grass. The doctor is standing there on his own in front of the TARDIS.

Amelia?

A huge caterpillar waddles into view, looking perturbed. Amelia is sliding down something which looks slippery and fun, but turns out to be… The caterpillar speaks.

Would you mind terribly getting off my larvae?

Well, that’s quite an intriguing idea. And when you sent it to me, it had some very cute illustrations for this. You mentioned Dr Puppet. Who’s Dr Puppet?

It’s a woman in America. She’s an animator. And on the side, she makes these unbelievably crafted versions of Dr Who. And these perfect puppet versions. You really should Google it. It’s just Dr Puppet, one word. They’re beautiful. And she makes these little stop-motion animations. But of course, it takes her forever because she’s doing it effectively in her own time. And she’s not working with the BBC. She’s just doing it as a project. And so I was like, well, I write for Dr Who. You make these amazing things. And Matt, at the time, was the doctor who’s a wonderful doctor with children. Not all the doctors work terribly well with children. Peter Capaldi is a brilliant doctor, but he’s terrifying to children. And so we got together and we had these animations and we took them along. And it was one of these things where it was instantly. So, you know, for tiny children, instead of going to a different planet, you look at a different animal every week, but you have the same relationship and the same lovely adventures. And also the other thing is before us, children never went in the TARDIS and now they do. It used to be the rule that children weren’t allowed to travel in the TARDIS, but now they are. So it was one of these things that everything about it was charming and Matt was leaving and everything was in flux and it was such a huge, it’s expensive. So even to make five or six minute films in stop motion is so expensive. So, you know, and this is why I’m quite glad I write novels really, because when you write a novel, you write it, we make some changes and then it appears in the shops, you know, if you’re trying to make TV, it relies on who’s available, what you can do, your costumes, your sets, all the rest of it. If you’re trying to make animation, it’s even more difficult. So I realise I’m in a very easy creative genre because it’s just me and a typewriter, but it is quite dispiriting. I mean, I’ve had, you know, dozens of novels published. We’ve sold screenwrites to most of them, and I’ve never had a single thing made, you know, just because it’s very, very difficult to do that. So, you know, it was always a long shot, but I could see it just be in that very classic BBC style. I’ve been something so lovely.

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 brand new podcast like this. And visit offcutstraw.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. Now, Dr Who is a big part of your writing life. When I looked on Wikipedia, you’ve either written five or nine Dr Who books. Probably both those numbers are incorrect. How many have you written for Dr Who?

Oh, goodness. Two novels about five or six novellas, two full-length audio dramas for David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and one for the very amazing Alex Kingston.

Although I find audio drama very difficult. Why?

Well, it’s very difficult. Why are the plays in Radio 4 terrible? It’s very hard. What’s that, Doctor? Well, it’s a cathedral. You can’t see it, but it’s quite complicated to build a world. Actually, I’ll tell you a very quick funny thing which you can edit out if it’s not interesting. When I was working with Big Finish or the audio drama production company, and every year they’ll do a big Doctor range of David Tennant or whoever it is. This three styles of Doctor Who story, there’s a contemporary Doctor Who story set on Earth on the present day. There’s a historical Doctor Who story set in the past that British people would understand. There’s a completely alien Doctor Who story set on a brand new alien planet, a completely different world. Those are the three types of stories that Doctor Who makes. They do three every year, one of which is contemporary home, one of which is historical, one of which is alien. Every bloody time I would be last to get it, I’d go, contemporary, please, okay, historical. And every bloody time, I got alien bloody planet. And it’s so, so you had to start from nothing. You had to start from, here’s a complete, here’s a new planet. Here’s the laws of nature of this planet. Is it underwater? Do they walk upside down? You know, you have to figure out everything. And everyone else is just running around going, oh, this is hilarious. It’s like a fake ghost. And I was like, okay, well, this is, you know, you have to make up the names for the planets and everybody’s name. And anyway, it’s, yeah, it’s really difficult. I mean, it was amazing, just like you have actors now, you know, anything you would write, David Tennant and Catherine Tate are going to make 150,000 times better. But I still didn’t feel that I was, it wasn’t, I wasn’t proud of it.

You weren’t proud of the audio drama, you mean?

No, I’m really proud of the novels. Some of the Dr Who stories I’ve written. If you are a Dr Who fan, you’ll know what picnic at Asgard means. And I wrote that, and I’m so, so, so pleased and proud of it. So I’m really proud of the novels that I’ve written. But I find the audio dramas just, just a little cringy. And just thinking, oh, this isn’t, it’s not quite what I do.

Are they very prescriptive when you write for a franchise like Dr Who? Did they say you can have this, you can’t have that? There are certain laws you have to follow?

But you, I mean, your job then is to push and push and push at what you can and can’t do. The first one I ever did is called Dark Horizons set in Viking times. And at one point, he, it’s Matt Smith again, and he jumps into the water to rescue a child and he kicks off his shoes and trousers. The doctor never removes his trousers. That’s the law. Yes, no, no trouser removal. It is, but that in its own way makes it a lot of fun. And sometimes you get to push things into what becomes canon for the show. You know that this becomes a part of what Doctor Who is. And that’s very exciting. Sometimes it’s just really annoying. I wrote a thing for Alex Kingston, who’s a River Song. And I wrote her in a sonic trowel. And then Steven Moffat wrote the Christmas edition, which has Peter Capaldi and Alex in it again. And it’s literally got the doctor going, what’s that? She goes, it’s my sonic trowel. And he goes, that’s rubbish. And all these Dr Who people are going, oh, so sorry, Steven thinks your sonic trowel is rubbish.

So close and yet so far. What a shame.

Well, I’m still in there. Steven’s a very good friend of mine. But it’s, do you know what? If you’re a real fan of something like I am of Dr Who, it’s so exciting. It’s such fun. Every time you write the Tardis of Warps, that’s the official stage direction is V-W-O-R-P-S. Every time you write the Tardis of Warps, that’s a pretty cool thing to do.

Let’s move on to your next off-cut now. Tell us about this one.

This is from Up on the Rift Tops, which is a middle school book. Let us say that’s about seven to nine year old readers, which I wrote involving my children in 2011. And it has now become the MacGuffin in the Bookshop series. And I will explain that to you after this.

I need to tell Mummy, said Wallace, looking round. And a policeman. The pigeon drew himself up to his full height, 14 centimetres, and said sternly, and what do you think your mother would say if you told her? But I could bring her up here and show her, said Wallace. And police could come in helicopters and get her. The pigeon shook his head. They’d never find the queen of the nathers. They can’t see that way. The rooftop world is only visible to those who already know. Look closer. The pigeon drew him round the four corners of the roof, pointing out distant figures. On a row of old brick houses, a chimney sweep popped gently from one to another. On a bright, shiny glass building, Wallace could make out suddenly a window cleaner, lightly stepping over complicated structures that seemed carved of ice. A young girl, her high-heeled shoes in her hands and carrying a champagne bottle was dodging chimney pots at lightning speed. And far away, across the river, Wallace could just make out white-suited doctors scrambling over the top of the great grey hospital. Our roads are not for everyone, said Robert. Your mother would not see them. The police have never seen them, although they have tried very hard. Most grown-ups belong to the world of the street. They keep their heads down, staring at the pavement, or prodding at those… those… things. They’re telephones, said Wallace. He knew grown-ups did that all the time. It made him really annoyed. Yes, said Robert. You know what happens when they do that all day? Wallace shook his head. They stop looking up. They lose all capacity for wonder. They lose their sense of the roof of the world. And sometimes they kick pigeons.

So, the word MacGuffin. If my memory of Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD extras is correct, I think I know what that is. But can you explain it anyway?

It’s the thing around which the plot hinges. And it doesn’t really matter what it is. So in Indiana Jones, it’s the Holy Grail, I guess. And it’s in Citizen Kane, it’s Rosebud, it’s the Sledge. It’s whatever the thing is. The thing is that people want, but it’s not necessarily important in itself. So yeah, it’s the thing that the characters have to go through to obtain, but what it is isn’t as important as what happens to the characters while they’re finding it.

So presumably it’s the book that is featured in the Bookshop series, is that right?

Yes, well, the summer of 2012, the Olympic summer, I was stuck in London, because my husband was at sea, with the children, and I started writing it. And it wasn’t a particularly nice summer. And I liked where we were in London, was right in the centre of town. I liked the idea that you can try and make your way over St Paul’s and right across London without putting a foot on the ground, if that was possible, only using the rooftops. And if you put a foot on the ground, then you’re stuffed. So, you know, and to make it out to Galleon Street, which I think is where they’re going, I really liked the idea. And I just put the kids in it to have them in it. And my agent at the time was just like, it’s a very difficult market, which it is, it’s a very old fashioned idea. So I don’t know what we’re going to do with it. And it’s like, okay, that’s fine. However, then when I wrote the first of the bookshop novels, which in America was called The Bookshop on the Corner, they need a priceless first edition to raise money. That’s what they need. And she stumbles upon it. And I thought, well, I’m not, I’m going to have it as this. And so she stumbles upon this amazing, flawless edition of Up on the Rooftops. And I described the cover and she’s like, oh, that amazing classic from my childhood of the children, whose feet can’t touch the ground. And someone else would come in and go, oh, do you remember the Queen of the Nethers? And they’d kind of bond over it. And that was the MacGuffin, you see. And I love the idea of having this idea of this classic book without actually having to write it or to make it that good. And then that book did extraordinarily well in Germany. And then there’s a second one called The Bookshop on the Shore, which is out now, in which it also features. Anyway, there is someone who’s written a book called Up on the Rooftops, which has no connection to it at all, that people keep ordering. And if you go and look on the Amazon page, it’s just people going, what? This is… People are expecting. And I think, I really hope this is going to come to a point where I will actually just have to write it. But there’s no way it can possibly be as good as I’ve built it up to be in the books that reference it. So anyway, if you’re reading my books and thinking, got up on the rooftop sounds great. I agree with you. However, it’s not written and that thing on Amazon, that’s not it.

So how much of it did you write?

No, a couple of it. I’ve found three chapters. I’ve had it plotted. I kind of, in my head, I really like Neil Gaiman’s Never Where, you know, where London is literally what it is. And I just really, and that set under London, and I like this as a kind of equivalent over London, so there would be a scene in the Whispering Gallery at St Paul’s and how they’d have to cross the bridges on the top and, you know, get through Canary Wharf and the pigeons would help them and the Tower of London and, you know, it just, it just felt like it still feels like fun to me or a little bit like the Snow Queen, you know, and they have to catch Delphine, who’s my youngest, who then and now is mischievous and not ever in the mood to be caught. So it was, yeah, it’s nice. Of course, I like reading it. I often write children in my books, partly because I like writing them and I think a lot of people are very bad at writing them and they write very sophisticated, wisecracking children. My pet peeve is children in books and films who are interested in the emotional lives of adults. It’s endless. It’s like, oh, how are you feeling about that? It’s like, kids, literally, you’re just a food dispensing robot there. If a kid is worried about your emotional state of mind, it’s a terrible judgment on your parenting. You know, it’s like throwing yourself downstairs in front of your kids. Don’t do it. So I’m always trying to write very accurate children. And quite often, when they were younger, I would just take the age that they were at and write it in. And it’s actually a really weirdly lovely thing to have now is a record of my children at the ages that they were. You know, it’s particularly three, four, five, because you think you’re going to remember it, but you really don’t. So I like writing children. I like their moral certainty about things.

Well time for another Offcut. Jenny, what’s this one?

This is a clip from White Maasai, oh, jinks. A musical I was collaborating on in 2013 about a true story of a Swiss German woman who married a Maasai warrior.

Exterior Africa, crush, hot, extraordinary amounts of noise and smells. Surrounded by local people, Corinne, young and fresh looking, and Marco are crowded on a dangerously lurching boat.

This is awful.

What are you talking about? It’s wonderful. It’s our holiday. Enjoy it.

But it smells.

Of life.

Of toilets.

Do you hate humans, Marco? Collectively yes. Individually.

I like.

He moves in to embrace her. But as he does so, trips over someone shopping, causing an upset, a lot of flapping and an enormous hubbub. He flounders around, making more mess and upset. An elderly man starts shouting at him as several women eye him crossly. There is a song. But Corinne isn’t looking. She is staring at a man at the very far end of the boat, like a tinger, who is ignoring all of this, instead staring out to sea. He is beautiful and dressed in full warrior clothing. Finally, he glances round to see the hubbub. Marco has slipped on some chicken crap and bursts out laughing. Everything freezes as Corinne gazes at him and he catches her eye. The song changes to something softer and less rousing. I was lost. Interior, nightfall, landing from the boat. Everyone disperses, leaving Marco and Corinne alone. Marco is nervously clutching his bum back. We’re lost. Corinne looks around, listening to the crickets. Smell the night air. Smells of burnt things, nasty burnt things. I thought there was supposed to be a bus here.

Come on, this is Africa, not Switzerland.

Yeah, I see that.

From far off comes a gentle calling noise.

So what was the plan behind this? It was quite a departure.

Well, I have a good friend called Toby Goff, who is a kind of impresario. He puts on world music events is what he does. He travels the world. He puts on a huge Cuban show. He puts on shows from Africa. He puts on shows from Brazil. And he came to Cannes. We were there and we went for breakfast. He said, look, I’ve got the rights to this book. And, you know, I’m thinking of doing something with African music. Would you be interested in writing the book for it? The words that the music fits into. And he gave me the book. And it was a huge, huge bestseller in Switzerland and Germany. I mean, the huge book. And it is about a Swiss, white Swiss German woman who goes on holiday to Africa, goes on one of these tourist events. And one of the guys who dresses up to entertain tourists, she falls in love with him and they get married and she moves to his village and eventually nearly dies in childbirth and comes back. So I was kind of, it’s interesting. It has a lot to say about a lot of different things. But you know what, it just kind of petered out. We could get the music. Toby was in Cuba. You know, all sorts of things happened. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. It was a few years ago, let me tell you. It seems very odd now, even the title. But hey-ho. I mean, the thing is, you must know this. If somebody says, why don’t you try this? Then you obviously, yes. And then you figure it out later. Theoretically, yes.

It doesn’t.

You still gave it a shot. I always think the worst thing is to not, or to choose not to try anything is also a choice, I always think.

It’s just an interesting combination. A musical, considering your main experiences, pros with a little bit of audio drama, a musical mixed with a subject matter that is quite sensitive.

It’s a choice, yes. I mean, I love musicals and I always, I wrote a libretto for an opera.

Oh, did you?

Yeah, I did. For Pimlico, not for Pimlico Opera. For, oh, I forgot the name of the opera company. Anyway, I did.

Did it get performed?

It did. And I thought this is going to be easy because I like writing rhymes, as you know. This is going to be easy. This is going to be fun. I’m going to be Stephen Fry and write Me and My Girl and, you know, make a fortune or Ben Elton or something. And that this is going to be brilliant because I love musicals. Anyway, it wasn’t brilliant. It’s terrible. It’s really hard. You know, lots of things don’t rhyme with anything. And I ended up moon spooning and tuning it much more than I had hoped.

Nothing goes obviously with Maasai, does it?

Oh, God, I didn’t even get that far. Oh, God.

Oh, can you imagine how awful it would be? Now I can’t even begin to think what you’d rhyme Maasai with.

Oh, he’s a cool guy. I don’t know. It’s terrible. Everything about it was terrible. So no, it didn’t go. And that’s all right. Another thing that is not my destiny is to write a massive, really dodgy musical. Actually, somebody’s turned, you know, the class novels that I’ve written about boarding school. That’s a musical.

Is it? Uh-huh.

I have not plucked up the courage to see it, despite being offered tickets on several occasions. Neither have I played the CD, which has been sent to me, but it does exist as a musical form. Fantastic. I know. I just can’t. I can’t listen to my own audiobooks, right? I just get too embarrassed. But do you know what I’d really love is I’d quite like to sell, quite often people sell their rights to Bollywood firms. And they will make any story that you sell into a musical, and that will become a musical. And I’ve witnessed much joy from people getting their books adapted over there. So fingers crossed.

OK, time for your final off cut. Tell us about this one, please.

This is from a thrill, really is a pitch for a thriller called The Coup, written in 20. Yeah, it was recent because it’s political. So 2018, I think.

22 Princes Street, Edinburgh is notable for a large coffee shop and an extraordinarily clear view of Edinburgh Castle right across the street, for which it is more than worth the price of a large latte, particularly on a clear windy spring day where the sky is a bright pale blue and tiny clouds scud across it, only adding to the perfection of the site. Above it were a suite of rooms with a surprisingly strong security system on the stairs, more than you would think would be needed to deter a lost coffee drinker. Behind the door, though, and the two large men standing on either side of it, was a suite of classic Georgian rooms, panelled with chandeliers and shutters on the windows currently thrown open. A figure stood near the vast marble fireplace, currently filled with a floral bouquet of lilies and pale violet thistles. He was not tall, but stood as if he were. His dark hair was thinning and cut short. He wore a pair of thin-framed glasses on a small featured face. Surprisingly, lush-lashed brown eyes peered curiously through the lenses. He was currently being dressed. On his feet were a pair of shiny black brogues laced around heavy cream wool socks with flashes either side. A short silver-haired man was fussing with a lace cravat worn over a black waistcoat with solid silver diamond-shaped buttons. A jacket fringed with briquette and the same silver buttons on the sleeves was being brushed down at the back. The pure white shirt had lacy cuffs that hung down below the black sleeves of the jacket. Beneath it was an immaculate kilt. The tartan was a fine white base, laced with red and more white on the black background, striking, almost garish. A dress tartan, something to be looked at. The dresser placed a black velvet cap with a large pluming pheasant feather sticking out of the top of it. The effect could have been ridiculous, but the atmosphere in the room was reverential. By the window dust motes bounced in the sunny air. It was a perfect day, although that meant more people out and about. But even so, everything was in place. The man sighed with happiness and moved over to the opposite wall from the fireplace and regarded himself. Bah oui, he said, pleased. Ça marche, non?

So this is called the coup as in C-O-U-P, not C-O-O. So tell us about the coup.

Oh, it was just such a fun idea. It was really kind of post-Brexit. And there is a guy, there’s a Belgian guy who for years has been marching around saying he can prove his bloodline back to the Stewart’s, therefore he’s the rightful king of Scotland. And he’s not allowed in Edinburgh Castle, which is true. He officially is not allowed in Edinburgh Castle, partly because he’s a nuisance. But I love the idea that in a state of kind of extraordinary confusion politically, that he would take over Scotland in a world where London, Westminster couldn’t give a rat’s ass, which I think they really don’t about Scotland, where you’d have the First Minister kind of being given everything she wanted, but in a way she really didn’t want, you know, and kind of as soon as it’s happening, loads of Scots, especially if the weather was nice, going, yeah, all right, we’ll give this guy. It was so funny and violent and dramatic and taking, you know, having a siege on the whole of Edinburgh Castle. And I was chatting to my friend, Hugo Rifkin, the brilliant political writer. I just, it was such a big dramatic idea and we pitched it to a few places and no one would touch it with a barge pole. It was very sticky. And actually it was my favourite rejection note that we’ve ever had, I think, was from someone at the BBC saying, we can’t risk taking this project on in case it actually happens. The likelihood of something equally stupid happening in Scottish politics could not be ruled out. So it was, it’s written there as prose, but the idea was that it would be a movie, that it would be a kind of assault on the castle, a declaration of sovereignty from when London didn’t care. But oh yeah, I know it was. It was going to be a thriller. They were going to take the castle by force. They were going to declare himself king and then he would become extraordinarily popular. London wouldn’t care, the First Minister would have to make a decision about what to do about the whole thing. So it was a kind of big daft silly.

That sounds like a brilliant idea. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t go for that. I mean, maybe you could change names and maybe not make him Belgian, make him Swiss or Italian or something.

Well, quite, yes. Any of that you could do. I know. Well, of course, at the time, the idea of having, they shot the last Avengers film in Edinburgh and the last Fast and Furious film in Edinburgh and both times it was a complete nutter habit for everybody that lives there. But, you know, it’s huge, it’s epic. You need crowds, you need people storming the city, you need people up on the battlements.

Oh, there’s CGI for that sort of thing, surely, by now.

Oh, see, Lauren, now you’re perking me. Now I want to do it again. And also, you know, I have no, I write little books about baking, you know, I have no, you know, I’m not coming into this with any chops at all. I had to accidentally, like, bump into James Cameron on a plane. Oh, that’s a terrible, you know, strategy for a career. But yeah, no, I still, I still think it was, it was just the way everybody reacted when you said, well, it’s about a king declaring Scottish independence by taking over Edinburgh Castle. And people just cringe. My agent just had her hands over her eyes. Please don’t talk to me about this.

Really, that’s so interesting. I’m so, I am very surprised. I wonder if you tried to resubmit it now.

I wonder if the reaction will be the same. Interesting. I’m tired just thinking about it.

Right, well, I mentioned at the beginning that you’ve just had two novels come out. Obviously, one of them very much just. The Bookshop on the Shore and 500 Miles from You and Christmas at the Island Hotel is coming later in the year. So presumably it’s time for a holiday now. Would you have more plans of writing projects starting now?

Well, I’ll have a book coming out this time next year, which means I’ll need to finish it by October or so. So I am writing about the lockdown, and I think we’ll need to see, because people have quite good memories of being in things like the war or living under Stalin. People tend to remember good bits about bad experiences. And I will be interested to see next year if people are quite nostalgic about the beautiful sunny days and about being at home and the birdsong and so on, and forget all the horrible stuff that was going on. And I write about isolated communities anyway. So I’m writing about an isolated community that has to decide how to behave under lockdown, essentially.

But they can’t meet each other, surely? Or can they?

Well, if you’re running a bakery, you’re a central worker. So there’s that. But also, there might be, for example, two people stranded on the island that can’t get home who are a balcony apart. I like it. I like that a lot. I think there’s potential in that. So what I’m going to do is I’m writing it. And then if it turns out next year that people really don’t, they’re just fed up of it. They just want to get back to their normal lives and really don’t want to read about it at all. Well, then, I mean, a novel is just about how people behave in a crisis situation. That’s all a novel is. So I lift out the lockdown crisis and we’ll make it a flood. We’ll do something else with it, I think. But I think the fundamentals of how isolated communities or how small communities work under crisis. So I think I’m going to focus on that and see how it goes.

Well, final question. Having listened to all of the clips of your different bits of writing over the years, is there anything you’ve noticed or anything you’re surprised by?

I think I’m slightly surprised that my tastes are broader or my interests are broader. I think this probably says a bit about the commercial world, not just of fiction, but of anything really, which is that once you hit on something people like, then there is quite a lot of pressure internationally to keep doing it. And, you know, so Ian Rankin will write Rebus novels or Stephen King will always write monster novels, you know. And that’s interesting to me that I do, you know, obviously have quite a lot of different ideas, but kind of plough quite a narrow furrow. But on the other hand, I have quite, I feel quite a kind of responsibility is a weird word, but yeah, sentiment towards my readers, you know, particularly who just say no. When I get my holiday, me and my daughter, we buy a book between us and we take it and I read it and then she reads it and that’s what we do. And it’s always nice that, but also I do feel that for me to go, well, I know you like to read books about islands, but no, shut up and sit down. You’re going to read this book about a coup. You know, it feels a bit that I wouldn’t want to do that. Does that make sense? Yes, yes. So there’s a sense that I, you know, sometimes it feels that my career runs on quite a narrow track, even though my interests are very Catholic. But actually, I wouldn’t necessarily want it any other way. I’m not prepared to go and sit through those gruesome meetings of which you must have been in thousands, of pitching and pitching to a very disinterested 24-year-old. Rather than doing something that I already know makes people happy. So it’s nice to have these side projects. And actually, it was nice to look at them again and go, you know what, I think the scientist was great. But it wasn’t, we weren’t in a position to say, hey, everyone shut up. I know you like this story, but we’re going to give you this, you know. And also, I like my job. I like doing what I do. So I wouldn’t want to throw away what I have for something which may or may not work.

So it’s a little journey to remind you of what is also in your brain.

Yes.

I can’t express it any more articulately than you and you’re the writer.

You have done it perfectly, except the poetry, I don’t think I’ll write any more of that. Or the racist music, I’ll probably stay away from that.

Oh, that’s… no way. Well, Jenny Colgan, it’s been absolutely lovely to talk to you and thank you for sharing the contents of your Offcuts Drawer with us.

Thanks, Laura.

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