[Door opens]
HEAD OF DRAMA: Oh. Winstone. Err, I don't thik we had a meeting booked...?
WINSTONE: Yes, lovely thanks, I'll have an espresso. So, I heard you were looking for some new drama for the channel next season, and here I am!
HOD: Mmm-hm.
WINSTONE: I have got a brilliant little idea for you; seriously, it's so heroically awesome, you could put a hat on it, and call it Napoleon. A French hat, obviously. Not berets, those other ones. Oh, what are they called, again?
HOD: [Sigh] What about the show?
WINSTONE: How about a bit of sci-fi, always ratings winner?
HOD: Ah, yes. Well, that's probably not what we're in the market for, so-
WINSTONE: Don't mess about! You've bought loads of sci-fi shows off me.
HOD: Indeed. And, not to put to fine a point on it, none of them have really lived up to your pitch.
WINSTONE: How do you mean?
HOD: Well, let's take last autumn. You promised us a gritty police procedural based in a high-tech far future community.
WINSTONE: And I delivered it.
HOD: No you didn't. You delivered CSI: Utopia. It was a drama about two futuristic policemen with access to phenomenally advanced peace-keeping technology, granted, but in a very real sense it was also a show in which two men sat around an office because there's no crime in a perfect society. For twelve episodes.
WINSTONE: Yeah, but sometimes one of them got a bit annoyed that they had nothing to do.
HOD: Yes, for a while. Until he decided he didn't mind that much, because he lived
WINSTONE: [Joining in with HOD] in a perfect society. Yeah, well, that was original programming, wasn't it?
HOD: No. No, it wasn't. None of your ideas are. You just steal existing shows and shove them arbitrarily into some specious future environment. I can't believe you talked us into making that Christmas drama, Antiques Roadshow In the 25th Century. It was just two men in tinfoil talking about a Goblin teasmade.
WINSTONE: Yeah, well, that would be an antique in the future.
HOD: I know! But did it need 90 minutes to get the point across?
WINSTONE: Well, that was building suspense, for when they announce the predicted auction price.
HOD: Yes! Twelve thousand skludoes, I recall. Is that even a lot? I don't know what skludoes are!
WINSTONE: Well, it's the future, isn't it? They're hardly likely to still use old fashioned pounds, are they? Think about it, a new global community.
HOD: And that's why all the characters spoke a mixture of Taiwanese, Spanish and C++, I suppose. Look, do you know, we got more letters about that show than any other in the corporation's history.
WINSTONE: Thank you very much.
HOD: Everyone hated it, you idiot! Some of it exploded. One letter was just an angry pitbull in a padded envelope.
WINSTONE: OK, OK, I hear you. But you'll love my new idea. Honestly, it's brilliant.
HOD: You have exactly 60 seconds before I call security.
WINSTONE: OK. Well, it's the 23rd century. After decadess of pan-European war following the android uprising, Great Britain is a wasteland, the only remaining humans slaves to their mechanical masters in the nuclear waste treatment centres in what was once Yorkshire.
HOD: Go on.
WINSTONE: The series would focus on three robots who have learnt the rudiments of humanity from their charges, and strike out alone to set up camp on the black slag hills of northern England, dedicated to investigate what humanity means, and whether can save the crumbling global robocracy. It's a serious piece, no messing about.
HOD: Interesting. So how do they explore concepts of humanity?
WINSTONE: They go down the hills in a computerised bathtub. It's called Hang On, There Was A Bit Of Summer Wine Left After All! Once We've Had This, Though, It Really Is All Gone.
