Day 64. The pipes are calling (5/3/19)

Interesting sort of day today. Interesting for me that is.

I started the day with a definite intention of what I was going to do. I was going to watch a film. Because I have one of the few jobs in the world where you can genuinely say, "I'm going to watch one of the greatest films ever made by human beings, and it's genuinely work."

Two hours in front of a film I love with a notebook. And good reason to do it. It's for a thing. A secret thing I can't tell you about. One of those things where you come up with a high concept, run that high concept past your wife and trust her completely when she says "Oh yes, that's what you do next" because she's right about stuff like this.

One of those things that she's talking about a few days after with details she thinks will fit, while you're going "It's not even in my mind at the moment, I've got (this) to do on Those Two Weeks and (this) to do on Comeback. And then I might go onto this other thing."

But that other thing slips back and you think, I need to do THAT thing but I need to watch this film to do it.

But that film isn't on Sky. Or Netflix. I mean, I can buy it on Amazon and have it sit on the account but that's not as convenient.

So I ordered the Blu Ray. For eight quid. And it's coming tonight. Ordered at 11am, arriving between 6 and 8pm. Which is one of the reasons I don't work in a record shop anymore. God knows, we may have tax related concerns about some companies but they're bloody handy when you want to buy something without getting off your arse.

So I had to do something else.

And that something else involved taking some characters who have only ever existed in one room and making them move around the world a bit.

(And this is where we put the Soundtrack: bit. It's Elvis. All day. Whenever I work on anything Comeback Special related I listen to Elvis, nothing but Elvis. At this very moment it's his version of Danny Boy. I've just put it on again. Just that voice and a guitar. Danny Boy is the saddest song ever written anyway and it was my dad's party piece when he was a kid. Played at my Grandma's funeral. I'm not sure if I'll make it to the end of the second play in one piece but, Jesus, it's bloody magnificent.)

I've been working on the much delayed TV/Film script for Comeback. Opening up the world a bit, moving it round, trying to be less theatrical. Which is hard for me, because I like dialogue. Lots of dialogue, dialogue all over the place, overwriting because that's how people talk, at least that's how I talk. You may be aware of this fact.

What happened was this:

I submitted an entry to a BBC Writers' Room thing (wow, Elvis doing Earth Angel, how have I never listened to this box set before? I've had it about 15 bloody years), the 'Screenplay First' award. I was long listed. Not shortlisted but last 30 from about 500? Happy with that. Got to sit in a BBC office in London and pitch film ideas. Which is as great as you'd imagine.

And one of the things I'd sent in, as a supporting material, to prove I could actually write, was the script for The Comeback Special. Sent in before we staged the first version. And there was this guy who read it. Script editor on Eastenders. Left that job to produce at a company who've done a fair bit of TV that you would recognise if I thought it were professional to tell you who they were. TV and film. Good stuff, stuff I've watched.

He contacted me on Twitter. "I've been looking for your agent details but can't find them."

There was a fairly obvious reason for that. I don't have one. We started talking directly.

"Have you thought about doing the story 'this way' for TV?"

No, I hadn't. But I did. Thought long and hard and had a few ideas.

So we had a meeting. On the 14th December 2016. I know this because I had the meeting in the afternoon then went to see Hightown Pirates play at Water Rats in the evening. Had a really good day and night out.

Sat in a production company office in London and talked about my work and what could be done with it. For two hours.

Over Xmas 2016 I ran up a few plot breakdowns, episode synopses, hour long pilot episode full script.

And he liked some of it but had some notes that he thought would make it better.

So I ran another full script.

Again, he enjoyed it but there were still things he thought needed doing with it. First amongst these being making it more TV and less stagey. Scenes shorter, snappier. The hardest thing in the world for me, short and snappy. You can tell that from this page.

He was about to start work on an HBO series. (Told you, high level stuff). So he couldn't go any further with this but he gave some really good notes and left the door open.

And then I had some plays to work on and only one writing day a week and this was one of those things that slipped away.

Until this morning.

It's been chipped away at a few times now. And I'm back in the chipping. So I've taken these characters who've only ever talked for ages in one small room and I've moved them round a bit and I've reassured myself that, should I write longer scenes, well, 'Him & Her' and 'Mum' never left their location and were brilliant, the episode of 'Haunting of Hill House' that was basically three single scenes across an hour was the best of the series by a mile and the first scene of the pilot episode of Friends was 17 pages long.

And that did okay.

So, when you finally see two scallies and the ghost of Elvis wandering round Netflix or Amazon or BBC3, you know that it started again today because the film I wanted to watch wasn't immediately available.

And with those words, the package appears.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?