My Comedy Career: Arabella McGuigan

Arabella McGuigan is the producer of Still Up, the new comedy starring Antonia Thomas and Craig Roberts which launches on Apple TV+ this Friday. Here she talks about what her job entails.

Tell us what you do in your job.

As producers, we're generally first onto the job and last off.

Whether I'm freelance producing or exec'ing it all starts with the scripts - weeks working with writers, honing characters, stories and jokes on the page. Trying to take in notes from commissioners and all over. Casting, when it first comes to life and you find out if these scripts might just work... Then recruiting the team.

A super-experienced producer once said to me that it'll all be OK if you just make two right decisions - the line producer and the director. Not quite that simple, but true!

One of the best things is the range it requires from me, from joke crafting to landing cast chemistry to defining what works about a music cue. It's a joy of scripted telly, the anticipation of prep, exhaustion/satisfaction/craziness of shoot, and precision/respite of post.

How did you first get involved in the comedy industry?

I got my break as script secretary on Knowing Me, Knowing You, the first Partridge series. Which put me in an improv/rehearsal room with Armando Iannucci and that whole gang, recording and making notes of everything, then trying to make sense of it. It was a kind of back door insight into script editing, exciting and mind-boggling, and convinced me that comedy was my thing.

What key skills do you need to be able to do your job well?

An eye for what could be a really great script - and the analysis and sense of character to help make it even better. And an eye for the visual, and rhythm, and comic timing. And people skills. Then persuasiveness, charm, bloodymindedness, diplomacy. And a lot of patience.

What has been your biggest career achievement to date?

I'm lucky enough to have been involved in a lot of great shows (some easier than others!) and I'm incredibly proud of Still Up. It has a strongly British comic tone yet feels like it'll travel around the world: equally emotional, real-feeling and very funny. Great writing, cracking performances, beautifully crafted by an outstanding team. I'm most proud of all of them.

What did I learn? Don't drink too much coffee towards the end of a shoot 'day' at 3am. That'll make you an insomniac.

And what has been the biggest challenge/disappointment?

It's always the pilots that you think are brilliant and don't get picked up. Overcoming it? Working out how to reversion that brilliant idea and talent into something else. That, and the old, 'we're great, they're mad' mantra is good as short-term relief!

Talk us through a typical day.

One thing about being in on the whole, looong process, is the variety. Prep, Production, Post - all totally different. A typical location shoot day on Still Up might start with 'breakfast' at 2pm, with 'how are yous?' to the whole unit base between mouthfuls of bacon roll. Then it's the plate-spinning process of being on set to help with script and performance, whilst simultaneously locking everything in place for tomorrow and next week: decisions with locations, design, costume, make-up, and sitting down at the desk to watch casting tapes for roles still to come. And wondering why no one in the outside world is replying to your emails... until you remember it's 'lunchtime' at midnight and they all left their desks 6 hours ago.

On the work-life balance, we have to take what we can get. At least a virtue of late-night finishes is later starts - so getting to take the kids to school in the morning and walking the dog.

Tell us a trick/secret/resource that you use to make your job quicker/easier.

Once you're in production, don't think you need to be in the detail of every decision on the show (that way a breakdown lies). That's why you have excellent HODs [heads of department], who love it and understand it just as much as you do.

If you could change one thing about the comedy industry, what would it be?

The perception that British comedy TV doesn't travel internationally - it blatantly does!

What tips would you give for anyone looking to work in your area of the industry?

Be true to what you love - pick those projects - because it's a long way to go from start to finish.

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Still Up is on Apple TV+ from Friday. tv.apple.com