1st Draft for the BBC 'A Table for Six' Monologu

In response to this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/table_for_six_2011.shtml

OK, I have just spewed this on to the page over the last half hour, so it is very much a rough draft. It's probably a little short, as well, and I haven't gone over the spelling and grammar, yet, but I want to get feedback to see whether or not I am pissing in to the wind. Cheers, in advance

Monologue

Maybe we could talk about modern art. I could point out that painting above the fireplace and she would see what a sensitive guy I am...how I have wonderful sensibility. Like that character in Sense & Sensibility... I can't remember her name... I think my brain is rotting at the age of 28. I can remember Lizzy from Pride & Prejudice...she walked through the mud to see her sick sister...how unbecoming... I feel so culturally naked when I am away from my cultural artefacts... I can't relax without my things. My books and films...they show my personality in ways my words just can't... and there are not many ways to drop 'The 400 Blows' into a conversation without looking like a dickhead... maybe I could tell her that the painting above the fireplace has a negative capability and hope she hasn't seen the scene in 'Manhattan' that I stole it from... having said that, do I want to meet a girl who hasn't seen 'Manhattan'? What am I talking about anyway, I don't want a girlfriend. I don't know why I came to this... getting set-up at a dinner party has to be the most awkward... thing. She is going to be a moron and I am going to have to either sit and converse with her all night or sit in silence, with the cruel glare of the rest of the party on me, thinking, 'what's wrong with him? She is a lovely looking girl. Why is he so arrogant and proud?'...like Mr Darcy. Why I have got Jane Austen on my mind tonight? Mark Twain hated Jane Austen... he wanted her body dug up so he could beat her over the head with her own shin bone. Exhume... is that the word I'm looking for? Recuse...that's when a lawyer doesn't want to represent you anymore... I learnt that from Californication... Nature V Nuture...what has shaped me more? DNA or American TV shows? Nostalgia! That's why I agreed to come tonight... I don't want a new girlfriend, I just want a handle on my memories. I want an instrument to help me remember the times I lived with her... the 2 months living above the family in the suburbs... the screaming boy that woke us up at 7:30am on a Saturday morning... the sex on the floor while the thunderstorm photographed us every 20 seconds... the broken sofa bed that made me sleep like a question mark...the simplicity of the life... every phase of my life seems more complicated than the one before... when you move on you may be painting a new picture, but you are never given new paper... you are just left to paint over what you had there before. So every layer is more complicated. I'm feeling morose. And where the hell is everyone? I didnt think I was that early. Bum de bum...de bum... touch my bum, this is life...was that the Cheeky Girls? What the f**k. In the 18th century they thought that nostalgia was an illness that had to be cured. I think they were right. I can't enjoy anything in the present, because I am always thinking about the past... things in that past that weren't even good or that enjoyable...but in my mind they inflate until I think that they were the best of times. Christ, I even look back fondly on my time working at Tesco as a trolleyboy... 5 years of hell...I really hope there is a prawn cocktail for starters, tonight... that could be a conversation starter...'so you like/dislike seafood?'... is that a conversation starter? Cos I'm not sure what the follow-up questions could be... 'you do like seafood? Including fish?'...Oh I could get into 'The Old Man & The Sea' that way...OK, if there is a fish dish we can talk about Hemingway... that would open up bullfighting, hunting... Orson Welles! And we are onto cinema! Yes! Fishdishfishdishfishdishfishdishfishdish....fush...fush...the way a New Zealander says fish is fush...Oh, someone is coming... It's a girl... an attractive girl...I dunno if it's my one...It's my one!

Very funny sections, but together they tend to ramble and through no fault of your own you tend to go from Americanism to English.

Without changing much this could be a lot sharper if it was banter. Monologues has it fans but I would prefer this as back and forth banter possibly with an American and an English person, that would do it justice.

Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ July 19 2011, 4:22 PM BST

Very funny sections, but together they tend to ramble and through no fault of your own you tend to go from Americanism to English.

Without changing much this could be a lot sharper if it was banter. Monologues has it fans but I would prefer this as back and forth banter possibly with an American and an English person, that would do it justice.

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I was kinda going for a ramble! Because it is an interior monologue as opposed to a comic monologue where a person addresses a camera. I was trying to make it like a person's thought process as he waits alone at a dinner table...no good?

Not in that format, I can see what you wanted to do, but given the tangents you go off on it would be better suited to a too and fro caper.
The writing is funny, the observations work, but it needs that ping pong thing to give it punch.

Reads more like a stream of consciousness rather than a monologue. Needs to tell more of a story.

It is an insight into the thoughts of a person who is clearly a highly anxious individual and in free flow, ergo everything that follows no matter at what angle is linked and relevant.
You need to understand that not everything has to start with once upon a time and some of the best comedy is outside of certain restraints.

It reads well as an internal dialogue and you have some good turns of phrase and a good voice, but it's aimless, in order to rein in the piece and tie up the stands I would force a point of view on all of this. A thought process your character has invested time in as oppose to the breezy navel-gazing that it currently reads as.

To me it seems the point that's buried beneath all this is Classic Art Vs Modern art... I would bring this up to the surface and concentrate on that, how you have an encylopedic knowledge of the greats yet that holds no value in this modern culture, the girl he's idley hoping to impress is more fascinated by the contents page of Heat magazine and by Lady GaGa's new facepaint and magnified cellulite shots, and you are destined to die alone surrounded by dog-eared copies of Sallinger and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

This stuff to me seems to be the conflict in your writing, people who watch monologues at the theatre would relate to this and revel in the bitter judgement of less smarter yet more popular folk, and it would provide a nice riff on this current cultural dirth we're all sinking in.

Quote: gbus @ July 19 2011, 4:10 PM BST

when you move on you may be painting a new picture, but you are never given new paper... you are just left to paint over what you had there before. So every layer is more complicated.

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This is your standout line imo. Push this up near the top and you could base your whole thing around this... By decribing the layers, first layer was the sky blue pastel shade watercolours of first love... Fourth layer was the red emulsion of heartbreak and age... etc

At the end, after much restoration the canvas rejects new coats and the existing coats are chipped and flaking away as if they never happened.

Also, an older character may give you a bit more range for such retrospection.

Good luck with the entry.

Well written and gives a good insight into the characters personality. We can tell he feels isolated not only by his unmainstream and nostalgic tastes in books and art, but that he's still stuck in the past, longing again to experience the heights of emotions that he had with a previous girlfriend. I agree that it need something extra in the mix to hold it all together, to give it more of an aim, I'm not sure the waiting for a female dinner guest to show up quite does that, perhaps it's an ex who could be expected?

Thanks for some excellent replies. I will spend the next few days rewriting. Much appreciated

Quote: gbus @ July 19 2011, 9:51 PM BST

Thanks for some excellent replies. I will spend the next few days rewriting. Much appreciated

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Not too many days I hope. You need to post these entries (no emails).

Quote: Badge @ July 20 2011, 1:18 AM BST

Not too many days I hope. You need to post these entries (no emails).

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Shit, so you do. Im in Munich, at the moment. Hmmm tomorrow will be a day of rewriting. Post by 5pm...4 days to London... bish bash bosh...