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Archives for February 2012

David Walliams' Mr Stink Comes to Â鶹Éç One

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Candice Lo | 08:00 UK time, Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Mr Stink book cover Ìý

"Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it was correct English to say he stinked,
then he stinked as well…"

David Walliams' best-selling children's novel Mr Stink is set to come alive as a comedy drama for all the family on Â鶹Éç One later this year.

The touching, twisted and hilarious tale tells of Mr Stink, who is befriended by a local girl Chloe. Chloe sees Mr Stink every day, but she's never spoken to him, which isn't surprising, because he's a tramp, and he stinks.

ÌýMr Stink illustrations by Quentin Blake

When it looks like Mr Stink might be driven out of town, Chloe hides her unusual friend in her garden shed. As she struggles to make sure no one sniffs out Mr Stink, her dad tries to hide a secret of his own, and the stage is set for an epic family confrontation. There is also one other person with an extraordinary secret: it turns out that there is more to Mr Stink than meets the eye… or nose.

David Walliams, who will play the role of the Prime Minister in the show,Ìýsays: "I am beyond thrilled that Â鶹Éç One is adapting my children's book 'Mr Stink' into a family film. I have written the script, and can't wait to see actors bring it to life." Â鶹Éç One Controller Danny Cohen added: "Mr Stink is a heart-warming, nose-clenching and funny tale which will appeal to viewers of all ages. It's brilliant to be working with David to bring his magical tale to Â鶹Éç One." Mark Freeland, Head of Comedy, finishes the stinky love-in by saying: "I am delighted that the Â鶹Éç is continuing its relationship with the multi-talented David Walliams. Mr Stink has become an instant classic and it's so exciting to see it come to life on TV. Both my children would echo that. But then they both want parts, so…"

Episode Zero & The Mice

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Suzy Grant | 13:30 UK time, Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Roger and Val sitting at the kitchen table.

Roger and Val Have Just Got In returned to our screens on Wednesday 8th February. Beth Kilcoyne co-wrote the show with her sister Emma, and stopped by to talk to us series two:

Beginning to write a second series of Roger & Val was like trying to get a swing-boat started: hard, which is why the man on the swing-boats gives you a push and you catch the rhythm with the rope. But there was no one outside: just me & Emma, not swinging, with 2 ropes. We began. It's a series about distraction: what do you do to get through? We decided to look at Roger being at home all day and focus his neurosis on the washing: "Val? I've got that stain out of your purple blouse" one unmemorable line I remember, as the Tribunal was pointedly ignored. We wrote and wrote, hour after hour, and got to the end, where the stain had come out of the blouse, but, hanging up to dry like a headless person, it gave Val a shock.

It was awful. Dreary. Dull. The characters didn't even sound like Roger & Val; they sounded like people doing an imitation of Roger & Val. I tried to be hopeful it had "just come out wrong", excusing myself with the fact that you can't CUT in R&V, and I'd forgotten the difficulty. But the next draft was even worse; they were now sounding labored, eg. Roger droning on that mozzarella cheese in a packet feels like a ganglion. Over-thought, turgid, flat-footed drivel, leading up to Val's decision to actually apply for the Deputy Headship and Roger opening his Tribunal mail. I couldn't understand why all of a sudden the show said nothing, apart from Roger thought the dirty clothes is an ideal environment for growing mushrooms.

At about this time my house got infested with mice; I saw one in the bathroom, which next day got caught in a trap, so I was hopeful it had been acting alone. No one would believe this if you put it in a script, but the day we handed in the first draft about the washing, I opened my own washer. There was a... thing on the rubber rim. All its fur had been hideously washed off but the tail was still on, grey, shiny, dead but for once clean, tufts of black fur skidded round it and no doubt in among my clothes, which I couldn't throw out because they were all my best ones. Aaaurrgh - visceral - on me. I didn't dare look for its eyes. I retched, and started hopping from foot to foot, stating the obvious but in a weird chant: "There is a mouse in the washer, mouse in the washer, a MOUSE!" to which my partner unwisely replied, "What's the matter? It's dead."

We really now had taken far too much time on this now-laboured Episode 1. On its final night I went to get fish & chips, in panic. When I sat down to eat, there was an alive mouse at the bottom of the stairs. It didn't even bother to run away and I didn't bother to react, because I knew what it had come to tell me: the script was awful. I just sat there, fish and chips slopping out of my exhausted, not-screaming mouth: rock bottom.

We started Episode 2 the next day, when Dave the fantastic Mouseman called to say he had solved the problem. This script wrote like a dream - zinging out from all over the place, free and alive, both characters wholly themselves, ideas toppling over each other to get in, and Val got shortlisted for the interview. Plus we introduced the over-arching story. "What a pity this can't be Episode 1 instead of that boring one about the washing" said my Mum. Of course, it was Episode 1; we had been writing Episode 0 - the characters before we got them going again. So I am grateful to that awful script now, dreadful as it was, because it was the push outside the swing-boat for Series 2. And I never saw a mouse again.

Comedy Talent Search - Laugh Track

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Jon Aird | 13:52 UK time, Thursday, 2 February 2012

Â鶹Éç Comedy Commissioning and Â鶹Éç Writersroom have joined forces for a second nationwide talent search to find new comedy gold. If you have a big studio sitcom brewing in your mind and can tell original stories, invent characters and catchphrases that can make a live audience laugh, then send in your script.

This is an opportunity not to be missed - you may get the chance of your work performed at the and at our Sitcom Showcase at the Studio in MediaCity, Salford. You could also be in line for a comedy masterclass on how to write studio sitcoms, plus an intensive week away developing your idea hand-in-hand with Â鶹Éç comedy producers and established comedy writing talent.

Dawn French

Ìý

The amazing Dawn French will be on the panel of judges. Cheryl Taylor (Controller, Comedy Commissioning), who judged last year's Â鶹Éç writersroom comedy talent search says: "I was thrilled last year by the number of very funny and original scripts that we were asked to judge. It was a pleasure to read all of the short listed projects as was having the opportunity to meet some of their very talented authors."

The deadling for entries is Wednesday, 21 March 2012. For information on how to enter, visit the Writersroom website.

Blandings is coming!

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Suzy Grant | 10:50 UK time, Thursday, 2 February 2012

The celebrated stories of PG Wodehouse will be coming to life on Â鶹Éç One as Timothy Spall and Jennifer Saunders star in Blandings, a new comedy series written by Guy Andrews and based on Wodehouse's work.

PG Wodehouse is hailed as one of the greatest comic writers in the English Language, and Controller of Â鶹Éç One, Danny Cohen is very excited about bringing the tales to a new generation of TV viewers.

Describing the series Guy Andrews said: "Blandings Castle is dysfunction junction, the home of a chaotic family struggling to keep itself in order. Clarence Emsworth, ninth earl and master of Blandings Castle, yearns with all his soul to be left in peace; preferably in the company of his beloved pig, The Empress. But he never is. There is always someone who wants him to do something. Presiding over the blitzkrieg on his equilibrium is the baleful figure of his sister Connie, with whom he shares the house; at her shoulder is Clarence's brainless younger son Freddie and a panoply of friends, enemies, servants, spongers, private detectives, bookies and confidence tricksters.

"Only Beach, his loyal and long-suffering butler, provides consolation. Storm-battered Clarence, somehow never vanquished, occasionally makes everything right through an inspired or accidental intervention.

"For any writer, it is the rarest privilege imaginable to have Wodehouse legitimately available as source material. Instead of just stealing from him as we usually do.'

The six self-contained episodes will be set 1929, and will be filmed on location in Northern Ireland with the support of Northern Ireland Screen. Timothy Spall will play the amiable and befuddled Lord Emsworth (Clarence to his friends), with Jennifer Saunders as his indomitable sister Connie.

The series will be produced by Spencer Campbell (Cold Feet, Mad Dogs) and directed by Paul Seed (BAFTA winning Just William). The show is a co-production with Mammoth Screen and the Â鶹Éç.

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