Charlie Higson & Paul Whitehouse considering The Fast Show memoir
The Fast Show team are contemplating writing a "posh coffee table book" about the classic series but have been unable to agree on how truthful it should be.
Charlie Higson has revealed that he and Paul Whitehouse were approached to write the tome, which would also feature contributions from the surviving core cast members of the BBC Two sketch show, and that he has written a sample extract.
Recalling that he and Whitehouse had just started families when The Fast Show, which also starred Simon Day, John Thomson, Arabella Weir, Mark Williams and the late Caroline Aherne debuted in 1994, Higson told Day, who he was interviewing on his Scala classical music radio show, that the "juggle" of their personal and professional lives was "sometimes quite tricky".
And it was not helped by he and Whitehouse having to be "very much Mum and Dad.
"The rest of you were children in terms of having to be heavily shepherded by Paul and I" he informed his guest.
However, Whitehouse apparently baulked at him reflecting this relationship in the memoir, reportedly saying "they'll hate that, no, don't say that!", to which Higson responded, "well, what's the point of us writing the book? That's my experience of it!"
The Fast Show cast were "mercurial talents" Higson added, "flying off in all directions and Paul and I wanted to capture that and bottle it", adding structure to their nascent ideas but also "kicking you up the backsides to write stuff" he told Day.
Agreeing, the man who played characters such as eco warrior Dave Angel and Competitive Dad on the show, reflected: "You had to come in and say you can't say that, you need a catchphrase, blah, blah. Me and John would never have produced anything."
Day recalled "John doing a sketch with Mark and John saying 'I can steal this with these glasses!' 'You're not meant to steal it John, this is Mark's character'.
"A lot of egos and we all wanted to make it."
A collection of The Fast Show scripts was published in 2020. A companion book showcasing the characters also came out in 1996 during the initial run of three series.
Ultimately, Higson decided he didn't want to proceed with the memoir if they couldn't "speak honestly ... I didn't want to do a sort of light-hearted, 'hey it was great fun!' [book]."
However, both he and Day seemed to feel that Whitehouse might yet relent, with Higson concluding "maybe we'll go back to it".