The Apprentice: You're Nicked...

Right, excuse the awful title, this is basically about the brand spanking new series of extended, reality, job interview show The Apprentice which is focusing on business(wo)men who have lost out in the recession. From unemployed graduates to failed entrepreneurs, the new series boasts an extensiev array of downtrodden, desperate candidates. So, as victims of the cruel cycle of business, surely this year's collection of candidates will display a good deal more humility and quiet determination? Well no. It would appear that despite the numerous failings and setbacks, the new contestants are the usual bunch of appalling, arrogant arseholes.

A 21 year old telecoms entrepreneur introduces himselves as "Stuart Baggs - the brand", another, Christopher Farrell, conveniently hid a weapons conviction and the fact that he was currently on bail for alleged fraud, yet another draws comparisons between herself and a Lamborghini (expensive, flashy and ultimately pointless given the laws in this country, presumably). It's the usual ragtag bunch of crisp-suited egotists and delusional, Machiavellian capitalists, with the odd loveable idiot thrown in for good measure.

Actually let's go back to Farrell, an ex-Army sniper who claims that he carries over his 'killer instinct' into the world of business (and apparently his personal life given some of the allegations made by his former wife in the article). Should there be a backlash about his involvement in the show? After all, most successful businessmen are fraudsters. Just look at Madoff and Conrad Black and... oh, hang on...

As I was writing this article, my attention was drawn (by the excellent Tom Searle, no less) to this candidate. Not quite sure how he aims to prove that he originally invented the bendy bus (possibly in the same way that I, as a young man, wrote a sketch about Captain Oates that I later found out basically covered the same ground and one written by Lee and Herring when I was a mere slip of a lad). The factfile goes on: 'Sacked from his first job making ice-cream at Haagen Dazs,' (it doesn't say why but presumably they let you take home one tub to eat in front of the telly whilst weeping profusely) 'Alex later found his forte in telecommunications'. I'm not entirely convinced that telecommunications counts as a 'forte', regardless of the fact that at least 3 of the other candidates also list this (just before the bit where it says they're unemployed).

Essentially, it looks a cracker of a series. A genuine criminal, a brilliantly delusional 21 year old and an equally misguided man sacked by Haagen Dazs are just the tip of the iceberg. Roll on next Wednesday as the wisened finger of truth shatters its first, already largely recession-ruined, life.

Theory...

To paraphrase a great quote, the problem with writing comedy is that it takes up all your time. Sitting at a desk and trying to come up with funnies is a lot of harder than it sounds. Even if you're a regular Oscar Wilde in conversation, when attempting to come up with comedy that will work in an isolated context in front of any number of strangers, you will experience no end of despair, exhaustion and general annoyance. Add to this the fact that you have to be able to create new material and perform old material regardless of what's happening in your life and how you're feeling and you're left with a fairly complicated art form (yeah, this is one of those needlessly pretentious posts).

When writing comedy for, say, a sitcom or a play you can think of a few jokes that arise from the premise and situation and then frame the story around them, you can focus on the narrative and hope the jokes bloom organically from it or you can do the same gag for 30 years. Ideally you will have a combination of the first two (and possibly the third, if all else fails). In many ways attempting to formulate a stand-up set is very similar. Ideally a theme will run throughout the set (although this isn't always apparent) and each gag/one-liner/anecdote will link back to it. Alternatively, you can deconstruct these conventions and create comedy from the pencilled in workings of a gag that you forgot to rub out.

Musical comedy, in my experience, often reaches the point where you have one brilliant line and a tune but no real structure. Instead of taking the Leonard Cohen route of writing poetry and then fitting them to music, I usually just come up with the one cracking couplet and a jangly chord sequence and graft from there. I'm sure that more accomplished musical comedians have a far superior working method to mine.

Essentially, the main point of this is that writing comedy is very hard and it's exceptionally easy to take good comedy for granted, so, if nothing else, have a think about the work that goes in to that knob gag or that bit where someone told a lie about a current member of government. Or don't. It might ruin it for you. I don't know.

Mooks...

Yes, the Spooks series blog will happen... for nothing if not appalling laziness and lack of inspiration on my part. If you don't watch it, then I like to think that this is an able substitute. (If you missed part one of the blog, it can be found here)

I'll start with This Week's Topical Touchstone as it played an enormous part in the episode. Oil barons and crises dominated the 60 minutes, as the spies attempted to foil an attempt on the life of morally questionable Robert Westhouse. As it happened, last week's theory about Beth being killed off was brushed aside before the credits (a lot of action pre-credits in Spooks, if it was American ((or Downton Abbey)) there would almost certainly have to be adverts after the opening titles...) as, despite being involved in a lift-based bloodbath she was able to snaffle a phone from a dead man's hand and get back up for some espionage action once Lucas arrived on the scene.

After the credits finally arrived we were treated to a quick title screen simply saying "Lucas" an indication that this episode would be one of those convoluted affairs so beloved of big budget American dramas where we experience events from multiple perspectives (though technically Kurosawa's Rashomon deserves the credit/blame). The episode was very complicated as we discovered that not only did Westhouse have his own assassin on hand to counter the attempt on his life but the assassins responsible for the lift massacre were in fact attempting to kill Beth, who had sold out the brother of one of the killers to the authorities.

This was all explained from 3 different viewpoints with some other bits of action thrown in. We got to see Harry get his hands dirty again as he halted Westhouse (who had also planned a coup in Nigeria... did I mention that?) in his tracks. He nabbed a briefcase full of... something (I wasn't quite paying attention at this point and was duly punished for it) and headed for the door. Meanwhile the Nigerian assassin (the original one tasked with killing Westhouse before all the other assassins turned up) aimed his gun at the door, tasked with killing the briefcase-holder. We moved into slow motion and I prepared to eat last week's words only for Beth to run into the frame and knock her boss behind a conveniently placed vehicle.

Back at HQ (they still put up where it is on the screen... surely an appalling move for a secret service...) Lucas persuades Harry to retain the services of mildy untrustworthy Beth in return for accepting the role as Section Commander (there was no haggling over pay and Lucas wasn't required to go on an ICT course). Elsewhere our hero Mr. North found time to search through some trinkets from the days before his visit to Deed Poll and, as it happens, he had been involved with Laila Rouass of Footballers' Wives and Primeval fame (she was a doctor in this... a bit like in Primeval... but a proper doctor... with a stethoscope and things...). She wasn't overly pleased to be reacquainted but then popped up again towards the end of the episode, so you make of that what you will...

Next week, the ever-present, acronymical threat of the FSB rears its ugly head and the Deed Poll business gets out of hand...

Line(s) of the Week
'... he's been to the Ukraine more times in the last 3 months than is healthy.' Harry (or something to that effect) (It's also worth noting that Harry will probably appear here every week. He gets the best lines and Peter Firth delivers them so, so well)

The Habbit...

Yeah, I know I'm getting an awful habit of being busy and not really doing adequate blog posts. Don't blame me, blame life.

Here's an article about The Hobbit to tide you over...

Friday Pictorial the Twenty Fifth: Songwriting

I'll apologise for this. It's 18 minutes long and doesn't even get to the original point I was trying to make. Too long, some would say (bastards, goldfish etc.) and it can't all be funny, can it? Also catch this one before the inevitable court case arises. You can say 'I saw that before he was bludgeoned to death by Hollywood lawyers'...




And yes, I do know it's 'Allied Carpets', thank you.

A Keg of Ideas...

Twitter is marvellous really. It can draw your attention to all sorts of remarkable things you'd never otherwise hear about. Today's remarkable thing is IdeasTap, a sort of social network for pretentious creative types like myself. It boasts a whole host of writing briefs, opportunities and even funding! Yes, funding! (it's like the grail for us - meaning that when people go "why are you wasting your life?", you can go ((in a Humphrey Ker character voice)) "um, well I just got some funding, actually, so it's not even your business or anything anyway, so shut up, you're not my mum." Or something along those lines).

The problem lies in the fact that as a young pretentious creative, one has a tendency to imagine that one is the only exciting playwright/comedy prodigy in a sea of awful 'edgy' allegorical theatre/Jack Whitehall. This myth is rather extensively debunked by checking the profiles of other people following opportunities, almost all of whom are the same age (or younger!) and have had a good deal more success. Naturally, I lay the blame for this directly at the feet of Thatcher and her "oh, why don't we just nationalise the schools, surely that won't create even more of a educational lottery" rationale. Anyway, this is making me sound far needier than I intended...

I'm not sure what the point of today's blog is, particularly, except to perhaps reiterate the difficulty of the industry for which my skills set bests suits. Bloody typical, eh?

Be A Good Sport...

Yesterday I hit a new low as a football fan. My beloved team was the victim of what is known (appallingly) in the trade as a 'cupset' as they lost to lower league opposition with an alarming display of profligacy and indolence in front of goal, spurning several hat loads of chances and going out with a whimper in a penalty shootout.

Life as a fan is never easy (unless you support Manchester United or Chelsea, in which case it's more comparable with being an Eton-educated Oxbridge graduate and wondering whether you might just be able to get into a position of power in the current government). You suffer appalling lows as your ragtag collection of overpaid mercenaries show no passion or desire and then you reach ecstatic highs as your heroes show tremendous heart to set up a plucky win against a team funded by an entire Arab country. It's never boring. Heartbreaking, infuriating, coronary-inducing, but never boring.

The season as a whole has been dire, commensurate with the state of Delhi's Commonwealth Games, really - shit flowing through the halls and a bridge collapsing (alright... even I don't really know what that last bit means). Mostly, the point is that there's a fine line between just keeping things interesting and forcing supporters to the brink of despair. The Commonwealth Games organisers are 'confident' that everything will be sorted out. Albeit a confidence not shared by the numerous big name athletes that have pulled out, the general public or even the organisers' spouses (probably). The footbridge collapse yesterday could not have come at a worse time, just as losing to Brentford on penalties could not have come at a worse time (although that would be true at any time). Just when the Delhi organisers needed to prove that they could get it together and deliver a memorable games they were given a ludicrous accident that certainly made it 'memorable', just not for the reasons that everyone had been hoping for.

Fingers crossed that by December the halls won't be flooded with excrement and a serviceable bridge (with no concerns over structural integrity) will have been erected.

The only positive? At least I'm not Titus Bramble.

(For non-sports fans he's a calamitous defender... and now a rapist... apparently)


Today's blog was brought to you by the letter 'P' for Ped Mcpartland and the tweet that started it all...