The Life and Times of Jeremy Spicer

The Life and Times of Jeremy Spicer (Part One)

The Life and Times of Jeremy Spicer (Part Two)

My first appearance as my latest comic creation Jeremy Spicer is out now on YouTube. The show is called The Life and Times of Jeremy Spicer, here's the blurb:

The life and times of an ex-Newsnight presenter who now spend his time languishing on his local radio station The Sound of Surrey 109.4 FM presenting The Nightly Debate with Jeremy Spicer at 1am in the morning.

Tortured by the Paxman swivel chair incident and tormented by the stations golden boy Giles Dervish. Jeremy's life is empty and devoid of any intellectual stimulus that he so craves.

Shot back in August this episode introduces the audience to Jeremy Spicer. I wrote the episode and co-directed it with Liam Taylor-Warren.

For more information on the character visit: http://jamescotter.webs.com/jeremyspicer.htm

I made it to 3 minutes.
It's like Alan Partridge written by Ingmar Bergman and performed by a Cyberman.

I would say you've written better but I'm not sure you have.

Quote: sootyj @ December 20 2009, 8:02 PM GMT

I would say you've written better but I'm not sure you have.

View original

There's no need for that Sooty.

Sorry, James, but I could only manage 3 minutes. If there's no laughs by then, I'm out.

The other main problems is that your description of the show is:

"The life and times of an ex-Newsnight presenter who now spend his time languishing on his local radio station The Sound of Surrey 109.4 FM presenting The Nightly Debate with Jeremy Spicer at 1am in the morning"

That description is essentially the description of "I'm Alan Partridge", but with some minor changes. The character himself seems to be a mix of Partridge and David Brent which blows any chances of originality out of the water.

I basically agree with Ben. You're always going to suffer with those comparisons, so the only way of getting past that is by making it damn funny; unfortunately there just wasn't enough funny there.

Nicely shot and acted well but you clutter the funny with sections that a viewer will take as granted. The opening studio shot where he gives the phone number, and other contact details is utterly irrelevant in a mockumentary. Either make a joke of it (he keeps getting the number wrong or it's the number of his last radio station etc) or let the viewer assume that these bits occur in his show. Don't clutter it in an attempt to make it too documentary than mockumentary.

The phone call (working class) is good but the naturalistic pauses etc should be shorter and he needs to be more extreme in his questioning style to create conflict, maybe? Don't imitate real life exactly, rather pick out the key parts and squeeze them in to get it denser.

Agree with everyone else, Alan Partridge comparisons will not make your task easier. I think the moment you start writing from within rather than relying so heavily on derivatives of your influences it'll make you a stronger writer. Personally, I'd list all the characteristics of Coogan or Gervais' creations and then work on a character built on all the antonyms, that way you'll be out of the shadow of your heroes.

These vids (like all other writers' projects) are just stepping stones to the next. So keep moving on, put Spicer and Good Times etc in the past and move on to the next project.

In summary, your performances are very good. You have a confidence and style that I admire but you haven't yet learnt how to use that to your advantage.

It does seem very derivative, even to the 1970s song over the closing credits. I agree with others that you need to make it different from what's already been done by your heroes, and you need to have regular gags too. It was also pretty uninteresting visually.

Like Back to Class you're also too young to play this part and that's another distraction working against you.

I am not a big admirer of your work so far James but I do admire your balls. Though I'm disappointed you haven't called it The Spicer Life. You can still have that one if you like.

SlaggA if you were sentenced to death you'd hang yourself to save the executioner the effort.

Quote: sootyj @ December 20 2009, 9:26 PM GMT

SlaggA if you were sentenced to death you'd hang yourself to save the executioner the effort.

View original

That's me to a T. Timorous as a water vole. I'm going to reply to your email tomorrow, had a hard day over here on some rewrites for a project.

I get the feeling this is going to be one of those long threads btw.

Bless most of my e-mails get forwarded straight onto the Police and the RSPCA.

I agree you are far too young to play the role but in a way it is good that you are because in about ten years time your writing will have improved, you will be just about ready to play these older roles but having played them for so long you will extra skilled at it.

I agree mostly with SlagA.

It's a Christmas miracle! And I love it!

Well I made it to the end of episode one. James you've got great production values, it's all well put together. But the humour is well none existent, there's no gags or comedic structures at all.

The whole Shirley thing by not being funny comes over as just a bit of mean bullying. This is based on Alan Partridge and the joke there is Alan is a monster constantly reflected in other people's reactions.

Also why would a reactionary like him read the Guardian?

I have to say I laughed at the you could be the new Keith Chegwin - and good to see the hair got slicked back as planned.

Quote: sootyj @ December 20 2009, 8:02 PM GMT

I made it to 3 minutes.
It's like Alan Partridge written by Ingmar Bergman and performed by a Cyberman.

I would say you've written better but I'm not sure you have.

View original

It was obvious that people were going to compare it with Alan Partridge so would I if I was a viewer but I think the key difference between Spicer and Partridge is Spicer has more self-awareness than Partridge, he's more intelligent than Partridge which makes the comedy more of a slow-burner than the laugh out loud episodes of Partridge. For more a lot of the show is comedy-drama. It's his back-story.

I think I have written better things but I am still very proud of this. It's more a acting piece then a writing piece.

POST EDITED (by SlagA): changed your use of 'then' to 'than'.