Welcome to the sixth edition of ‘Meet the Writers.’ This week’s interviewee is Bex Moran, better known to the BCG as Dolly Dagger.
Bex has had sketches broadcast on BBC Radio 7’s ‘Tilt’, was a finalist in the BBC New Talent comedy competition and had a sketch short-listed for the Channel 4 ‘Gags to Go’ comp last year. She also performs stand-up and has been involved in a live sketch act.
Bex describes herself as "maybe not so impressive as previous contributors to Meet the Writers, but probably with much nicer hair."
Thanks for agreeing to speak with us, Bex. Actually, let me drop that façade right now. There is no us - only me. And when I’m done with this interview I’m going to sculpt odd little models of you and get all weird with them.
I was recently urged by a reader to interview some writers outside of the middle class, white male demographic. You describe yourself as a working class female though you are, you admit ashamedly, white. Just how white are you?
I’m blonde, which I believe is one down from albinos on the whiteness scale. I'm not very white at the moment though. Sitting in the garden all day 'working' on ideas means I'm getting quite tan. My life is so tough. By the way, this is for the BCG isn't it? Not the BNP?
Nein.
Why don’t you share with me the best joke you’ve written, bearing in mind that, as a woman, you’ll need to try especially hard to impress me.
I actually do a bit in my stand-up set about being part-German that always seems to go down well. It's about being a bit mean to my husband. He says I'm like a Nazi; harsh but fair......haired.
It relies on delivery that one! It looks really crap on the written page. I seem to often have Nazis in my material...and serious illness, insanity, loneliness, death, nuclear war, murder, etc. I like to laugh about scary depressing subjects.
I enjoy injecting Labradors with bleach. Do what you love, I say.
As a stand up comedian, how deep is the yawning chasm of your soul that it needs to be filled with the laughter of total strangers?
I wouldn't class myself as a stand-up. Apparently you have to perform eight nights a week for five years without earning a penny to be called one, and then - and only then - you may get paid twenty quid to go on after the act that's just stormed it, in some half empty room above a dodgy pub in Middlesex. Then repeat that for another ten years. I want to be on the radio or TV (though you're not supposed to admit that).
I actually quite dislike doing it (stand-up that is). I'm just a masochist rather than a show-off. Though it's good getting instant gut-instinct feedback on your material, even if sometimes it's gasps of shock. I prefer being part of a live sketch double-act, it's more fun being other characters.
As for making people laugh, it is quite addictive. When I was twelve I made my friend laugh so much she wet herself and it was quite thrilling. Or is that a bit pervy? It certainly makes you feel a weeny bit powerful. I would say all my friends are very funny (I wouldn't hang around with them otherwise) but I was the one at school doing impressions of the teachers (what a cliché) or when we had to write a play in Latin (it was that sort of school) I remember writing something which had Lionel Blair falling into a coma and waking up in ancient Rome, only to make history by accidently igniting his highly-laquered hair and causing Rome to burn to the ground, when really he was supposed to be miming 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" to Una Stubbs. I played Lionel. In fact I might call my autobiography that... I wrote a lot of plays as a schoolgirl. I remember co-writing a parody of a Carry-On film with a friend - which just turned out as a Carry-On film as they're impossible to parody. I also wrote lots of plays, including a comedy version of the Nativity, which were just means of casting myself alongside Billy Idol (not a known comedy actor I know, but was always my choice of leading man).
But you never know if anyone outside friends who get all the in-jokes find your stuff funny. The first comedy competition I entered was the BBC Witty & Twisted one in 2006. I'd been making little comedy films in my spare time for a couple of months previously. I sent in a five minute audio clip and a pitch I wrote when I had been drinking and was amazed to be shortlisted and invited to workshops and to then submit a final script. I was really pleased someone else liked my stuff (though the feedback I got was somewhere along the lines of 'really funny but a bit sick') even if I didn't win (pleased to say the winner was pretty good and was nominated for a Sony award) it was very encouraging and I decided to give comedy a go.
By the way, I used to have a Labrador. He got terribly ill. When he died he smelled like a swimming pool.
Talking of school productions – in mine I played the part of the apple in the Garden of Eden. I’m sorry to report that the snake got all the best lines.
That just went in my notebook. Tell me, are you the kind of writer who carries a notebook?
Yes, always! I jot down anything funny that comes to mind or things I overhear that make me laugh. Half of it turns out to be 'you had to be there' type stuff, but loads of it I use. I got the note-making habit from my days as a fashion journalist.
I also like getting into character, writing a basic monologue outline and then recording myself talking as this person, just rambling on. I love the Alan Bennett Talking Heads and Marion and Geoff - natural dialogue and characters gradually revealing themselves (not in that way). Often they'll be something good in the adlibs that I'll later use and I'll discard the parts written beforehand. I have about six A4 notebooks full of ideas or just odd lines which I refer to when I start a new project or sketch.
Tell us, what’s the most awkward place you’ve thought of a good joke and had to write it down? I expect washing the dishes or something.
I once came out of a doctor's consulting room, sat back down in the waiting room and wrote down what just happened. I can't believe what some doctors have said and done.... like Harold Shipman.
My family are used to me writing down stuff they say. They expect it now. My father is unintentionally hilarious; he's Scottish and a cross between Rab C Nesbitt and Victor Meldrew. I also get loads of material from my sister. Like the time I told her Mohammed Ali had Parkinson's disease and she asked me if he'd caught it from him when he appeared on his chat show.
I wish my sister was funny but there’s nothing funny about a dead person. Until they bob back to the surface and make gas.
As a woman in a man's world, do you have any advice for other lovely lady writers?
Yeah, don't think of yourself as a woman in a man's world. Just try to be as funny as you can without referring to periods, chocolate or shoes. And step away from the Sex and the City DVD box set and the Corrine Bailey Rae CD and the Bridget Jones films and all that 'chick' crap. I must admit I have been guilty of having "oh, it's a female comic on next, she must be shit" feelings, so I know any audience may feel the same. That’s why you have to try even harder to have good material. But there are some brilliant female comedy performer/writers out there like Josie Long and Issy Suttie (recently seen as Dobby in Peep Show) and my faves Caroline Aherne and Julia Davis. Also being female, in live performance at least, is a chance to get away with some more shocking material sometimes. I would also like to point out that it's a myth that men don't find women being funny attractive...you'd be surprised! Though they don't appreciate you making jokes about their efforts during certain intimate moments.
Talking of copulation and such, are you getting tired of me asking all these vagina-centric questions?
No, but I've contacted the police.
Thanks for taking the time, Bex. Now go treat yourself to a foot spa or something.
While waiting to hear back from about her sitcom pilot, Bex is currently putting together a sketch podcast with her writing/performing partner.
Last week’s ‘Meet the Writers’ was with John Warburton
Keep 'um coming
