Thursday 30 March 2006

Chain Reaction

Have a listen to this if you get the chance. It’s the latest edition of Radio 4’s Chain Reaction where, ‘instead of a regular host, last week's guest becomes this week's interviewer’. In this edition Bill Bailey interviews Simon Pegg.

Chappelle Live Review

Here’s a review of Dave Chappelle live in San Francisco. For a comedy review it’s pretty in depth. I get the feeling from the writer that he really wanted to dislike Chappelle but found that he couldn’t.

A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man

Frank Vincent has written a book on being a man’s man. Vincent is one of those actors where you know the face but not the name. he has starred in several Martin Scorsese movies including a memorable turn as Billy Batts in Goodfellas “Go get you fuckin’ shoe shine box”. You may also recognise his face from a car advert he did a couple of years ago. He stars in the new season of The Sopranos which has just started in the States.

Anyway here’s an interview where he and his co-author Steven PriggĂ© talk about the book.

Dr. Earnest Parrot Presents Demetri Martin

Here’s a short bit about Demetri Martin’s new show "Dr. Earnest Parrot Presents Demetri Martin". This should be the show he takes to this year’s Edinburgh Festival. He's currently in talks with Dreamworks about a movie.

YOMG Rehearsal Photos II

The final rehearsal for the new Glue indicates that things might be a little bit ramshackle come Friday night. Dazza seemed to have picked up a few prima donna antics since his name was featured in The List.

Anyway I’m sure it’ll all come good come showtime. Photos below. Feel free to leave your comments.













Wednesday 29 March 2006

Life Is For Suing, Apparently


Rather pathetically, Livingston have started whining about getting relegated before it’s even happened.

Having put together one of the worst quality sides in SPL history, Livi Chairman Pearse Flynn is now moaning that St Mirren, runaway leaders of Division One, shouldn’t be allowed promotion because they don’t have the requisite under-soil heating SPL rules state you must have to enter.

I’d have some sympathy for Livingston had they not themselves escaped relegation last year by making highly questionable “consultancy” and “expenses” payments to Moroccan international Hassan Kachloul, who they had supposedly signed as an amateur.

Dundee, who eventually did go down after a Kachloul inspired Livi rallied, failed in their bid to have this bit or rule-bending taken into account.

It’s a bit rich to start moaning about other teams not quite following the rules in this light then, especially when you are talking about a team who have amassed 12 measly points all season.

In football terms, I can’t recall a team more deserving of the drop in all my days of watching the game.

And, it should be about the football really, shouldn’t it?

Just Desserts


Bookies apparently took it in the neck this week when news was leaked to several sources by the English FA that inexplicably popular pub rock outfit Embrace were to record the official dirge to over-optimism that will be the England World Cup song.

"By delaying the announcement, insiders were given the opportunity to take advantage of their knowledge and help themselves to free money from bookies taking bets.” Said a spokesman for poor old William Hills, which never takes money vulnerable people can’t afford to spend ever of course.

Aw diddums, you have to feel for them eh?

Talking Arse...


While most writers are concentrating on the Viera v Fabregas showdown that stood out as the central theme of last nights game between Arsenal and Juventus, the UK press have typically missed a much more interesting point, one that goes to the heart of the weary clichés and prejudices still inherent in the British game.

West Ham manager Alan Pardew, not a man to miss an opportunity to talk a lot of tosh, said last week that he was disappointed that Arsenal rarely fielded a team featuring any players from England. The valid point used to justify such talk is that no English players means bad news for the international team and fine, I’ll give him that.

But there is a suggestion implicit in such criticism that foreign players are merely talented mercenaries, with no regard for their clubs; that they lack the same passion the fans have for the team.

This was proved to be utter nonsense in last nights dazzling performance by the London side as a team who featured no Englishmen, led by a French manager did the English game proud by sweeping a tough Juventus team aside in a swashbuckling 2-0 win.

The team spirit and the passion to win was obvious, the players’ appreciation for the fans and for what the win could potentially mean for the club plain for all to see.

Now of course the papers are all full of praise for a young side who have done English football proud, a marked lesson in how all can be forgiven in football so long as you win.

The bottom line is that a team of foreigners can become just that, a team, as has been proved time and again.

But in the English game, there is still this lingering, jingoistic belief that English is somehow always best, or at least preferable.

By Pardew’s logic, a team of 11 Englishmen would have gone out last night and it would be ok if they got stuffed as it would have provided English players with valuable experience.

I doubt you’d get a single Arsenal fan to agree with that one. It is the fans who truly underpin the clubs identity afterall.

Here’s last nights team sheet, North London heroes one and all:

Jens Lehmann (Germany), Emmanuel Eboue (Ivory Coast), Philippe Senderos (Switzerland), Kolo Toure (Ivory Coast), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Mathieu Flamini (France), Aleksandr Hleb (Belarus), Robert Pires (France), Jose Antonio Reyes (Spain) (Robin van Persie (Holland)), Gilberto Silva (Brazil), Thierry Henry (France)

Weekly One Neck

One Neck is ill.

It's All Over...

The 1,000th post was celebrating the news that Arrested Development had been saved. Ten posts on and we're mourning its loss. This tells us that creator Mitchell Hurwitz has walked away from the show, which means that Showtime won't pick it up as his involvement was a dealbreaker. I don't think it'd be the same without him anyway.

I am genuinely sad as Arrested Development was one of the funniest TV shows ever made. It sits alongside Seinfeld, Cheers and the peak years of The Simpsons.

Variety article here.

YOMG Rehearsal Photos

We have only two rehearsals to come up with the new Glue show this time. There’s a handful of new sketches to learn and with Anne-Marie being absent this time round there’s a few new parts for people.

Below is a selection of photographs from the first rehearsal, last night.










Tuesday 28 March 2006

Edinburgh Stand

I made yet another return to stand-up last night at the Edinburgh Stand. So just quickly…I had tea at Zest as recommended by Nicola. It was very nice, I had the Chicken Tikka Masala, but the waiter did try to upsell me at every turn. Obviously he thought ‘here comes money’ as I wandered in the door. Like I say though the food was very nice, though at 12 quid for one course and a diet coke it’s not cheap.

As for The Stand itself it was all right. I was on second, so I didn’t have long to hang about before going on. I went down all right. The polished stuff that I knew worked went down well, but the crowd didn’t really go with me for the last minute or two where I did stuff that I hadn’t worked out quite so thoroughly But not to worry it scores a comfortable 2-1 victory. (I rate all my gigs in terms of football scores as The Housemartins also used to do. Go have a look at the Where Are They Now page, in particular drummer Hugh Whittaker’s entry.)

As for the other acts. There were f course some stinkers. I think Reg Anderson knows fine well that he tells ancient jokes and that’s what makes the audience really go for him. He did one that my Dad told me when I was six. However Reg did also do a bit of (bad) balloon folding.

There was an act on the bill who seriously told the joke “when I told people I wanted to be a comedian they laughed…they’re not laughing now”.

I left before the headline went on in order to get an earlier bus back. below are a handful of photographs including my set list prompt.




Isaac DeLacy Montague, Riverboat Gambler

You really need to see the next underrehearsed You Owe Me Glue to understand what this is about, but here's Isaac DeLacy Montague, Riverboat Gambler.

When The World Says Talk To The Hand...


Even though I’m trying (and currently failing) to quit smoking, I now can’t have a fag most places even if I wanted one. Fine, that’s ok.

Then we find out that because of industrial action, we can’t use the rehearsal facility we booked for the show tonight.

Tom phoned community letting who arrange booking of the rooms and they can’t tell us whether or not the place will be open tonight.

Tom phones but can’t get through.

So to cheer myself up, I go to get a packet of crisps out of the machine. I can’t; its exact change only.

I return to my desk, but can’t be bothered doing any work.

We’re turning into a real can’t do society

Tom has now been in touch with Langside Hall. The Jannie there can't tell him if he's on strike or not. We're to call back after 4. I wonder what they'll tell us then eh?

Sunday 26 March 2006

An Interview with James Burrows

This is a link to an audio interview on NPR with Cheers co-creator James Burrows. Burrows should be familiar to you from being the director on almost every 3 camera US sitcom there's been in the last 30 years.

Friday 24 March 2006

'A One Man Clash'

Here is an interview with Billy Bragg. He has recently issued a whole load of his old albums on remastered CD and with the odd DVD thrown in.

Radio Sketch Shows

Well done to Cowards, who have landed a Radio 4 pilot. I saw them at the Edinburgh Festival last year and they really do deserve a shot at having a show on the radio and/or the telly.

Radio 4 are also recording The Hollow Men, who already have a TV show in America.

Mamet on TV

I found this on the Writers Guild Blog, linked below. It’s David Mamet on writing for television. Mamet has a new series called The Unit on TV in the States at the moment.

More on Cheers

I’m bigging up Ken Levine’s site again. Following on from yesterday’s post on writing Cheers outlines, today he tells us what all the former Cheers writers are doing.

Remember to have a look at the comments on the posts as well as sometimes there’s some good stuff hidden away in there.

It's Showtime

For Talking Pish’s 1000th post it should be something pretty special. Doesn’t get much specialer than this. Not confirmed, of course but reports suggest Arrested Development has been saved.

From the lips of Jason Bateman.

“Showtime has picked up the show for 2 years at 12 episodes a year with a third year option.”

Have a read at the story here.

In other AD news the season 3 DVD has been postponed, though it can still be pre-ordered.

This is a good 'separating fact from fiction' article about AD from The Hollywood Reporter.

Chernobyl: This Place is Dead

Tommy has posted a really good article on the Chernobyl disaster over at This Place is Dead.

Thursday 23 March 2006

John Turturro @ the NFT

Another writing link. Here’s an interview with John Turturro at the NFT after a showing of his new film Romance and Cigarettes.

Screenwriting Links

I've been meaning to post some of these links for a while now. There’s some interesting stuff about screenwriting at Alligators in a Helicopter.

Danny Stack has a lot of good and informative stuff on writing for television in Britain. And this guy is one of the writers on Green Wing.

This is perhaps the best of the links on offer. There are lots of interesting writing links at the excellent Writers Guild Blog. This includes interviews and competitions.

And from it here’s a link of note. Rob Long’s podcast. (Though that link may only work if you are using Firefox.) Rob Long was, along with his writing partner Dan Staley a writer on Cheers. He wrote a book about his screenwriting experiences called Conversations With My Agent. I saw it turned into a play at the Edinburgh Festival several years ago.

Some of you may remember this site, Query Letters I Love. I think we were all on this before the days of Talking Pish. A producer takes the most amusing query letters and screenplay pitches and posts them. There's always some gold in there.

Logline: A street racer uncovers a broken artifact while working in a museum warehouse, which releases a banished ninja spirit into his body. They must learn to work together in order to prevent a ninja sorcerer from unleashing an ancient demon plague upon humanity.


Things They Won't Tell You at Film School
does what it says on the label and provides some interesting insight into the world of trying to get a movei off the ground.

Finally, for now on screenwriting, here is Complications Ensue. I may put some more writing links on in the next day or two.

Hello Paedos, Please Leave

I’m beginning to wish that I hadn’t bothered trying to find out where our readers came from and what the most popular links are. Have a look at the picture below for yesterday’s stats.

Can I just say here and now, if you have arrived here during a search for anything of a less than legal nature, please leave. As much as you may enjoy our daft links and caustic patter, please leave. Herring worker lovers you are very welcome.

Official - Beards are Cool

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times all about the resurgence of beards. Ironic since that I have just shaved mine off.

Wednesday 22 March 2006

Happy Glueiversary


You Owe Me Glue was first performed at The 13th Note a year ago today.

Several dozen copies of the DVD from that show are still available for purchase.

Our next show, on the 31st of this month at Blackfriars promises to be the usual mixture of poorly rehearsed hilarity, drinking and nervous exhaustion.

Weekly One Neck

Here is the second of our regular One Neck cartoons. All comments on the Neck's work are welcome, but remember to leave your name. And if you are One Neck yourself, stop pretending to be your own critic.

Rehab for the Fat Guy

I came across this guy on the BBC and thought it was an interesting thing, so I’m posting it here. Steve Vaught is walking across America in order to lose weight, though he’s made a few other discoveries in the course of his journey.

It makes my decision to get the bus instead of walking into work this morning seem pretty gutless.

Have a read at his reasons for doing it. It makes for some eye opening reading.

Breaking Cheers Stories

And we're back to Mr Ken Levine's site to see how he broke Cheers stories.

Since I'm now linking to him almost daily I thought I would post a bit more about him. Here's his writing, producing and directing resume, as found on Site and Sound.

He's promising Cheers stories for the next 3 days.

TELEVISION PRODUCING

Co-creator, Executive Producer 1995-1997 Almost Perfect (CBS)
Producer - Cheers (NBC) 1982-1984
Head Writer - MASH (CBS) 1976-1979

TELEVISION WRITING

Over 100 episodes for such shows as
Cheers
Frasier
MASH
The Simpsons
Wings
Almost Perfect
The Jeffersons

TELEVISION DIRECTING

Frasier
Wings
Just Shoot Me
Fired Up
Darma & Greg
Jenny, Ask
Harriet
Lateline
Almost Perfect
Pearl

FEATURE SCREENPLAYS

Volunteers (with Tom Hanks and John Candy) 1985

AWARDS

Primetime Emmys - 1 award, 7 nominations
Writers Guild Award for Best Script of the Year - 2 awards,
8 nominations
Humanitas Award - 1 nomination

Skip to the End

Simon Pegg says he’d like to bring Spaced back for a one hour special to "tie up all the loose ends".

This is news on his new film Hot Fuzz, including a video blog.

Monday 20 March 2006

Cheers and Sports Part Two

Here is Ken Levine’s second part of his Cheers and the best sports episodes story. Hi story about Wade Boggs is particularly amusing.

Keep going back to Ken’s site as he’s promised to tell how he would go about writing a Cheers episode.

Comedy Weekend

I saw some other comedy at the weekend. While helping out Alan with some comedy chores, on Friday night I got to see Brendon Burns play at Bluu. He performed what was more or less his Edinburgh Festival show from 2005.

The show revolves around the break up of his engagement and his quest to get Glastonbury high on legal mushrooms. The funniest bit though was maybe when he described the time he went down on a woman who had a kidney removed. He explains why that makes the situation awkward.

Afterwards I went along to the City Halls where Brendon Burns did a second set as part of Late 'N' Loud. This was a different set, some of which will become his 2006 Edinburgh Festival show.

A lot of this centred on his recent spell in rehab, where he found that in a room full of nutters he was chucked out for being the nutter.

He was probably funnier at the late show. He was a little bit looser and I would say less hostile towards the audience. Though having said that he did hang about and meet folk after the first show as he punted his CDs.

Below are some photos of him in his nun’s outfit at Bluu and then racism’s favourite comedy promoter acting as compere at the City Halls.

The Late 'N' Loud crowd were quite funny once they had a few drinks in them. One guy chatting to Alan about Belle and Sebastian. “I don’t even like them”. And a mad woman dressed as a leprechaun who practically stole the show.

On Saturday I went along to see the final recording of Sabotage, again at the City Halls. They didn’t use any of our sketches for this recording. Of the cast, Grant is easily the stand out. He nicely captures that thing that Kevin McDonald says he does ‘I don’t say funny things, I say things funny’. Of the sketches Bampot High was probably my favourite.

All in all they used 6 of our sketches for recording. Which is about 50% of what we submitted, I guess that’s a high hit rate. The first show will be transmitted at the end of June.






More Triumphant Festival Glue

I think we all had a good time doing our last Glasgow International Comedy Festival show on Thursday there.

It was a good turnout and everyone seemed to like the stuff, with the usual heavy hitters like Bertie and Wrestler Guy showing up as usual.

“Waiting For Fridge Repair”, which I wasn’t sure about, and only came to life when Tom did a fix on it, also went over big as did our re-vamped version of “Fight Night On The 40”.

It was tremendously disappointing night in terms of media interest as usual, or it would have been had our friend Michael not got a bunch of his pals from SMG to come along, including actor Steve McCole (Rushmore, Rebis, and of course, Post Mortem).

He was nice enough to congratulate us after the show, and was laughing heartily throughout.

So, all in all an enjoyable experience, but we still have to work how we get this show seen by more of the “right” people.

Glue Photos

I think Fraser is going to do a You Owe Me Glue post later, but we felt it was a success. Below are some photographs. The show was filmed, so hopefully we should soon have some DVD captures for your enjoyment.


Our hi-tech lighting system.


Daz just can't stop rockin'.


This was the last night of Dazza's mullet, as he was getting it chopped off the next day.




The girls during the interval.


Fraser and 'The Arsense Wenger of Racist Comedy Promotion'.


Finally here's Moira with 'Little Baby Aileen'.