Friday 27 March 2015

The Secret of Comedy 4:20am

 http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article229520.ece/alternates/s615/tv-18-06-10-image-5-804567289.jpg

The secret of comedy's not what you think.

It turns out there actually are two types of people: listeners and broadcasters. Neither type is more polite than the other, although it is polite to listen. But listeners aren't being patient - they just prefer to listen.

So here's the secret: Listeners are more likely to find other listeners funny, and broadcasters self-indulgent. Broadcasters are more likely to find other broadcasters funny, and listeners self-indulgent.

In other words, someone's always going to find you self-indulgent.

Thursday 26 March 2015

Earthshock

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/2/27/1425036806584/Cyril-Nri-as-Lance-in-Cha-009.jpg

'"I adored the ending of that," says Davies. "I loved killing him, and I don't mean that cynically - it was shattering... He's just trapped. History takes its course... In soap operas, the episode I always love  best is the episode after the death - someone comes into a room and there's a hush and they'll reminisce over a pint of bitter - the after events of a death are more dramatic than the death. I was so looking forward to the first episode of Time-Flight...

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwq34gZb6z1qzhcpf.jpg

"... What do you imagine the episode's going to be like? The Doctor's going to be guilty, maybe the companions want to go home, will they build a shrine to him on some distant rock, where will the journey take them? Two flipping lines of dialogue and they go to Heathrow... it was the first time I sat up and thought, 'This is wrong'...

 

"... When I start to describe the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan going to some rocky patch, building a cairn of rocks to remember Adric by, that's already twice as dramatic as anything we got. And cheap! Not unfilmable! It's utterly bizarre that they couldn't see the drama in that."
 Russell T. Davies talking in 2013, from JN-T by Richard Marson. I've just read it. That passage stood out.

"I was always heading here." 
 Russell T. Davies speaking to the Radio Times in 2015 about Cucumber, which I could talk about all week.


"Who's that Doctor over there?" Thanks, JN-T, for alerting me to this atrocity.

Wednesday 11 March 2015