Welcome to the sixteenth edition of ‘Meet the Writers'. This week in the sad seat are James Harris and Marc Blakewill, better known to the BCG as Blakewill & Harris.
Okay, first things first: ground rules. This is my house. You see that stuffed timber wolf by the ottoman? That's my stuffed timber wolf. I come back from the toilet and catch one of you freaks popping a beer bottle in its mouth and I will personally open a tin of monster on you. You got that? Great. Now do your little twirl and bugger off.
We started off mostly writing for the stage, and within that medium we took two sketch shows to Edinburgh and managed to come away without any reviews under three stars - and we regard that as a triumph... a money-sapping, dead-end triumph, but beggars can't be choosers. Also on the stage, we've had material in over a thousand Newsrevues and ended up directing/script editing the 2005 Edinburgh show. We've also had sitcoms featured in all (I think) the Sitcom Trials Edinburgh shows and most - if not all - of the touring shows. In 2003, we decided to try telly, and amongst the soul-crushing reality of everyday rejection, we've had some victories. We were commissioned on the last two series of 2DTV, won two of the eight episodes of the Sitcom Trials ITV series, wrote for Anne Robinson on the Weakest Link, and for Charlotte Church on her C4 show. And this year we've had a few sketch credits: Headcases, Sorry I've Got No Head and the upcoming Comedy Cuts and Horrible Histories.
Animation is a tough field to break into and yet I see you've a number of animated credits to your name. And that number is two. So what's the deal? Do you guys somehow combine into one super writer and deliver super comedy to the power of two?
I think it's probably true that we do somehow combine into one writer, but that's only because no-one can remember which of us is which. We are largely interchangeable. Reformulating the question somewhat (if I may? May I? I'm just about to - I hope that's okay?): is the productivity of two writers working as a partnership greater than the same two writers working individually? (I wanted to use the word synergy there but my soul started weeping.) We'd say "yes, it is more productive". I'm not sure we write more necessarily but we think (and hope) the quality is higher. In a writing partner, you have a harsh critic, a sounding board and a ready-made audience all in one. As for being one super-entity, that's something we may investigate for tax purposes. We do have separate girlfriends though. We used to swap but there were complications.
As for animation: oddly, we are currently working on three other animation projects, though - as Jim Hacker might say - we have absolutely no particular ambition whatsoever in that area. It just seems to be coincidence. Two are being animated at the moment - one with a UK production company and some well-known voice artists and another with a Belgian producer, don'tchaknow - and the other is something that we're animating ourselves, so it'll probably never see the light of day due to technical inadequacy and incessant procrastination. But animation's good... it's the new black, you know. Especially at night.
Tell you what, why don't you waffle on about whatever takes your fancy? I'll be sat in the corner with both thumbs stuck up my arse.
I see you've written for CBBC. How does one deign to cater to the facile whims of an odorous little prune human?
Sorry, did you say something? I was busy trying to ignore some weirdo playing out a bizarre and foul sexual fantasy in the corner.
Yeah, we've done a bit of stuff for the young unwashed. But I really don't think there's much difference in writing for kids' telly than for anything else (other than the obvious swearing/nudity/overt sexual deviance thing - you'd know a bit about that, Bussell). When we were kids, we liked Blackadder, Yes Minister and all the other non-kid-specific things (okay, there was Dangermouse, of course, but adults could get that just as much as kids), and I think kids are the same today. If you try to write down to them, you'll just write crap material. We know, we've done it.
That succinct enough for you, interview Nazi?
Are you accusing me of being a holocaust denier? Or indeed a LOLocaust denier? Because I'll have you know my grandparents were at LMAOschwitz.
How did you find writing for Anne Robinson? Presumably it was your job to write her words of scorn.
It was indeed our job to help write her words of scorn - though she didn't need much prompting. It wasn't too intimidating for her - we're very easy to get on with and didn't undermine her too much. She started wearing black all the time after we finished - in mourning for her loss, I suspect.
Loss of what? Self respect? Because she had to say your jokes? Ha! Somebody call a bambulance – you just got ba-zinged!
Now you've dusted yourself off from that verbal drubbery, why don't you tell us about your despotic reign over the Sitcom Trials?
We've been involved with the Trials since 2000 when we wrote The Miranda Hart Show - which was very Terry and June, in retrospect, but never mind. We then wrote The Client with our mate Rupert Wainwright, which was pretty successful and nearly - but not quite - got us some industry interest. The Trials was great for us as, along with Newsrevue, it provided a great training in what real people find funny. Well, real fringe theatre-going people, anyway. Not quite the same thing, but hey ho. There's nowt quite like seeing your stuff performed.
With such a monstrous success rate, what would your advice be to writers wanting to see their work performed at next year's Trials?
Simon and Declan have answered this really well on their website - but basically, make sure it's got a story of sorts, write for the correct medium (i.e. a no-budget stage production) and, most importantly, cram it full of gags. From the old days of reading and voting on Sitcom Trials scripts, so many submissions fell into the trap of forgetting to give their characters funny lines! Geeky little f**kers that we were, we would count the number of potential laugh lines in our scripts, and there would typically be about 100 or more in a 15 minute script. They wouldn't all get a laugh when it was performed, obviously, but it meant the hit rate was generally good and the audience stayed interested.
Last question: Marc, I see you won the "my name comes first on the credits" contest. How did you manage to swing that? And James, why so whipped?
James: It's a travesty and I'm surprised the laws of physics allow it, but there you go. Actually, seeing as I've got such a common-as-muck name that there's even another comedy writer on this forum called James Harris. I'm quite fortunate to have a freak like Blakewill to write with, because it makes our collective name recognisable. I often get Marc to contact people who might just about vaguely know us, as they're more likely to remember his made-up-name.
Marc: So yeah, James gets whipped every time he's forced to put my name first on the header of a script. Then there are the whippings he gets for not lathering me up properly before shaving me, but that's another story.
Delicious. Thank you, Harris & Blakewill.
Last week's ‘Meet the Writers' was with Tim Walker.
