by Dave Spikey
The class was very excited and had sorted themselves out into teams of five, as on the TV show. I stood behind a desk placed in front of the blackboard, upon which was chalked the outline for the game and each question’s top answers. I called the first two contestants up to the desk, and they shook hands and stood on either side facing each other. I asked if they understood the rules and they said they did and everyone started cheering. I said that the only difference was that we didn’t have the electric gadgetry of the TV show and so if they knew the answer, they should bang the desk. They nodded and off we went. This was the first question – I kid you not.
Me: In the Industrial Revolution, a series of canals was excavated in order to facilitate water transport of coal from the pits and cotton from the docks to the hundreds of mills in our region. One of these canals was the Leeds–Liverpool canal, which joined together two British cities. Which cities? (Honestly.)
I stood back anticipating a swift response – nothing! I mean nothing, apart from a cacophony of noise and shouting and frustrated banging of the foreheads by our protagonists. The shouting escalated until one of the contestants smashed his hand down hard.
Me: Yes?
Him: Bangladesh.
(I stand looking at him in disbelief as he turns with questioning eyes to his teammates, one of whom shouts out.)
Teammate: No! Bang the desk, bang the desk – you dick.
2. I opened a garden centre and was having the guided tour when I was stopped by a few teenagers stood by a sundial. The tallest, spottiest one, who had his black tracksuit bottoms tucked into brown shoes (when was that ever a good look?) and a Burberry baseball cap perched on his head at a jaunty angle, said, ‘Hey mister, what’s this, then?’
I thought, ‘He’s got to be fourteen, fifteen – how can he not know?’ I said, ‘It’s a sundial.’
‘What does it do?’ he asked.
I said, ‘Well, you see that there’s a circular dial, and it’s calibrated all the way round? Well, they’re minutes and the Roman numerals are hours, right? And this angular metal central arm here will cast a shadow dependent upon where the sun is in the sky, and if you look where the shadow is on the calibrated dial, it will tell you the time.’
And he studied it for a moment, then looked back at me with raised eyebrows and said, ‘I dunno, what will they think of next?’
I have another good friend who teaches in primary school. It’s all he’s ever wanted to do and on the whole he loves it. He asked me to come in and present some awards and to have a look round. I was happy to do so and after I presented the award, he let me sit in a class of six-year-olds as they had a lesson of natural history, during which he played a DVD of some of the world’s biggest animals. The children sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the television: beautiful, innocent, naive, wide-eyed with excitement.
In retrospect, my friend should have had misgivings as soon as the new DVD he’d withdrawn from the library started with the credit, ‘Filmed in Xiudeng Zoo, Szechuan, China,’ because they aren’t renowned for their animal-rights record over there, are they? Rather than sitting at the back of the class with me, he should have positioned himself a lot nearer the ‘pause’ button – as subsequent events served to underline.
First, there was a huge spider; massive, it was, and hairy and horrible. I’m not a spider fan. Have you ever relaxed soaking in the bath and convinced yourself that a big, big spider is watching you from behind the overflow? If you look closely, you can see its beady eyes.
It was news to me that there are 3,000 spiders for every person on the planet and I don’t want mine; so if anyone out there does, they can have them. I’ve had an aversion to spiders since I was nine and my sister pulled all the legs off one and gave it me to eat as a raisin.
Then this snake appeared. As I say, the DVD was called The World’s Biggest Animals and this snake was, well, definitely one of the world’s biggest animals, I reckon. It was enormous both in length and girth, and the kids squirmed and shuddered as it slithered around – and then it was feeding time. You are way ahead of me, aren’t you?
Yes, a keeper in the zoo came to the enclosure and tossed a little puppy in with the snake. A little, fluffy, cuddly puppy – and all the children are saying, ‘Aww, little puppy, nice puppy, nice puppy,’ and the snake is also thinking something similar as it approaches the puppy. My friend is now running like Steve Austin in slow motion towards the DVD player, he mouths a slow-motion, ‘No-o-o—o!’ but it’s too late as the snake opens its enormous jaws and … GULP! Swallows the puppy in one, and it’s suddenly like a cartoon because this snake is lying there with this puppy-shaped lump about a third of the way down.
And the class goes very, very quiet. There’s a shocked silence for about five seconds, and then a little girl on the front row, a pretty girl with blonde hair tied in bunches with red ribbon, says very slowly and deliberately, ‘F**k – me!’
My friend does love his job, but he is constantly frustrated by the interminable health-and-safety directives. Every week we hear of some new, ridiculous rule. Kids can’t play conkers, have snowball fights or compete in sack races – just in case they get hurt.
Of course, teachers no longer want to take kids on school trips because they fear parents will sue if there’s an accident. On BBC News, a teacher said that on school trips, on average, every year, one or two children die. ‘One or two’? I hope he wasn’t a Maths teacher – one or two? How stringent was that Department of Education survey? Q. ‘How many kids died last year?’ A. ‘Well, one definitely died; the other one we might have mislaid. Having said that, it was in March and it’s September now, so what if we put 1.5?’
We used to have school trips at the end of term just prior to the summer holidays. A fleet of coaches would arrive at the school gates and it was a very exciting, yet often disappointing day, because my form went on some totally rubbish school trips; destinations that were the last place on earth you’d rather be. I don’t mean Basra (nothing like the brochures) or a Swiss Euthanasia Clinic or Midsomer or ‘The Land of Leather’ (shit rides); I mean a total letdown. We’d gather in the hall and the headmaster would announce the destinations to a mixture of cheers and jeers. When I was in 4a, this is what happened:
Headmaster: 4c – Blackpool Pleasure Beach. (Deafening cheers.) 4b – Chester Zoo. (Mixed.) 4a – Cumberland Pencil Museum. (Total silence – disbelief.)
A pencil museum?! That’s not fair! Why do the thickies in 4c get Blackpool Pleasure Beach? We worked hard to get into the ‘A’ stream and what’s the reward? All you ever wanted to know about graphite! (The first graphite ever discovered was found in the Seathwaite Valley on the side of Seathwaite Fell in Borrowdale in 1500.) I’d rather go to Madame Tussaud’s after a fire.
Dead Man Weds
ALTHOUGH I ENJOYED crafting my stand-up tours and gigs, I missed the sitcom writing process when Phoenix Nights came to an end. I still had drawers full of ideas and characters and it wasn’t long before I was inspired to put pen to paper again.
As I may have mentioned, I have always had an interest in local newspaper stories and the headlines that accompany them, which was prompted when I saw a sign outside a newsagents on my way home from the hospital one night.
The sign said ‘Dead Man Weds’. I slammed the brakes on, parked very badly, and got myself a copy of the Bolton Evening News. There indeed was the front-page headline: ‘Dead Man Weds’. You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? No sign of inverted commas around the ‘dead’, so I’m thinking, ‘Well, this is Bolton, maybe he was dead. Maybe a dead man did get married.’
I imagined the scene at the reception over a pub in Farnworth:
Wedding guest: Your Billy’s not saying much.
Bride: He’s dead.
Wedding guest: Is he?
Bride: Yeah, but we’d paid the deposit on the buffet and we’d lose that if we cancelled, so …
Of course, what had really happened was that a man had had a heart attack and was, fo
r a few seconds, technically dead, until paramedics shocked him and got it going again and he was now sufficiently recovered to get married.
But regardless of the technicalities, I was hooked. I started collecting weird and wonderful stories and headlines and on my ‘Best Medicine’ tour I always took the local paper onstage to highlight their regional stories. You may have read my book which comprises a large collection of these, accompanied by my ‘hilarious’ commentary (publisher speak). It’s called He Took My Kidney, Then Broke My Heart and did really well. I’ve had emails from people around the world saying how much they enjoyed the book, which is immensely satisfying.
The upshot of my interest and research was that I soon realized that an obvious setting for a sitcom would be a small rural newspaper office, and so I set about writing what was to become Dead Man Weds. I had an idea that every week a big story would happen in the area and that somehow, every week, the newspaper staff would contrive to miss it, reporting instead on some local non-event. I drafted in a new editor, recently forced out of a big newspaper under mysterious circumstances, and followed his attempts to get the Fogburrow Advertiser and News back on track as a serious organ.
I sent the script to Nicola Shindler at RED productions because I’d loved everything they’d done (Our Friends in the North, Clocking Off and Queer as Folk, to name but three) and Nicola is such a respected figure in the industry; a reputation that is well deserved. Nicola liked it and asked if she could pitch it to television commissioners and I, of course, was thrilled for her to do so. After quite a long wait and a couple of small rewrites, ITV commissioned the series.
I was over the moon and flattered that they wanted me to play the main role of Gordon Garden, the new editor. I chose ‘Gordon’ because it was my father’s name. I initially wanted to call him Gordon Gordon because I had a back story that he’d been found in a phone box as a baby with a label that simply said ‘Gordon’. Hospital staff didn’t know if this referred to his Christian name or surname, so played it safe. I can’t remember why I changed it now, but I have a vague memory of another sitcom character surfacing at the time with a similar style of name.
The great thing about Nicola and RED is that they include the writer in all stages of the production process, and so I met prospective producers and directors and had a say in the choice. We asked Sarah Smith to produce and Mark Elliot to direct. Sarah had a great pedigree, having produced the first series of The League of Gentlemen, which had been a massive hit. Sarah also co-directed and script-edited, and although we had a couple of heated discussions, she was immensely helpful and the script became a lot tighter.
Casting was quite exciting because I had a wish list assigned to each of the main characters – and in every case my first-choice actor accepted. I really wanted Michael Brandon, ‘Dempsey’ from Dempsey and Makepiece, to play the boss of GeneUS, the dodgy American company based in a weird-looking industrial plant on the surrounding moors, and we sent the script to him while he was on holiday in the Caribbean. He got back in touch quickly and said he wanted to do it; as did Johnny Vegas, the fantastic Keith Barron and the brilliant Nicola Stephenson, who I’d once – as a television extra playing a taxi driver – driven away from a screen wedding that she (the bride) had done a runner from.
We auditioned for the ‘Also starring’ roles. I really wanted Janice Connolly (Holy Mary from Phoenix Nights) to be Carol the office clerk, and she did an amazing audition so she was in. Iain McKee was superb as Duane Guffog, the aspiring thespian. The only part we struggled to cast was Gerry Stringer, the old-school journalist in the office. Gerry was apt to get flustered under pressure and was a bit of a fusspot, and we just couldn’t find anybody who nailed it – until Alan Rothwell turned up and he totally ‘got it’; not surprising, really, because he is one of this country’s finest actors in my opinion.
I was asked to suggest filming locations – and of course I pushed for anywhere within fifteen minutes of my house! Although I was lucky with the newspaper offices, which were built in an old mill near the canal in Withnall, the other locations were situated near Castleton in the Peak District, which is an area of outstanding beauty, so quite a result nonetheless.
I’m very pleased with Dead Man Weds and count the production and filming of it amongst the happiest times of my life. I think I tried too hard to cram too much into each half-hour, but I’ve watched it again recently and there are loads of gags hidden away that viewers never got to discover because ITV never repeated it, which was strange because they must have thought quite highly of it; enough to pitch it against the first series of Desperate Housewives. They were disappointed with the viewing figures, which can’t have been surprising considering the million-pound hype that accompanied Desperate Housewives.
But you know what? It’s a cracking little show. The ensemble cast bring the small town of Fogburrow to life and I got to have a sword fight with ‘Dempsey’ which was interrupted by a giant turkey – and not many people can say that.
The critics liked it too and it got really good reviews across the board, which makes ITV’s decision not to commission a second series even more surprising. I’m in the process of buying the rights back from ITV because I get so many enquiries from the general public asking where they can see it again or buy it on DVD – so watch this space.
Tom-Tom
AFTER MY DAD died, I found Mum a flat in a sheltered accommodation unit, near where I live in Chorley, so I could visit regularly and run her around, as she’d never learned to drive. It was a very nice flat and had the bonus of being in the same development in which her old friends, Mildred and Gordon, lived. Mildred had been my mum’s bridesmaid, so they went way back.
At first, everything was good, but I could tell that Mum was getting increasingly bored. She soon grew fed up with a life that consisted of getting up and going down to the Spar for a paper and something for dinner, and then after dinner going down to the Spar to choose something for tea. There were occasional events organized in the social centre, but although she enjoyed some of these, it was clear that she didn’t like being on her own for the first time in fifty years or so. Not surprising, really.
Then she met Tom – and after a whirlwind romance she was moving into his house. (‘As a lodger, David! Separate rooms, purely a business arrangement.’) I was surprised, obviously, but pleased for my mum, who had been transformed overnight and once again had a spring in her step and a twinkle in her eye.
Tom is absolutely nothing like my dad. He’s a six-foot-plus, handsome, old-school, ex-guardsman and ex-police officer. He doesn’t have much of an interest in the arts or television or reading; he likes to potter and have a go at DIY and drive his motor-home or caravan to explore the Lakes and Cumbria, and sometimes further afield. He is a good man and a strong man and is a great companion for my mum, who in return is a great companion for him.
They were together a couple of years before getting married quietly at Preston registry office in 2005. Kay and I, my brother Pete and his girlfriend Sue were invited at the last minute. It was a lovely day and they look the perfect happy couple in the wedding photos.
Getting It Write
AFTER THE RELATIVE success of Dead Man Weds, I got stuck into the writing of another idea I’d had knocking about in my head for years. Based on the premise ‘write about what you know’, I wanted to write a comedy drama about a small group of painters and decorators. My dad was a painter and decorator, Kay’s dad was, her brother is and one of my best mates, Paul, is, so I certainly wasn’t short of material.
My dad used to come home and tell us stories about the house he was decorating and the behaviour and antics of the family who lived there. In conversations with the in-laws and Paul, more and more stories came to light, and I became aware of the potential of a disparate group of lads opening different front doors every week to discover and become part of the stories that lied therein. The result was Magnolia.
I based my main character on my friend Paul, who is a brill
iant bloke with a sharp wit and a heart of gold inside a rough exterior (he won’t mind me saying that). He’s a six-foot-two skinhead who is often mistaken for my minder when we go out for a drink. People approach him and say, ‘Can I speak to Dave?’ and depending on his mood he’ll say, ‘Okay’ or ‘No’ or ‘No, f**k off ’.
He is incredibly quick with a witty remark or put-down. His small business has been hit hard by the recession and he said the other day after a particularly bad week, ‘What a bloody awful week. Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, you find there’s a f***ing trapdoor.’
In Magnolia, Paul sets up a small company and recruits old mates and lads that he has recently met in prison on the painting and decorating course. On the whole, these are lads who, for a variety of reasons, would normally find it very difficult to find employment elsewhere. He gives them a second chance – but only time will tell if that trust will be repaid.
Nicola Shindler liked the script and pitched it to the BBC, where Cheryl Taylor commissioned it for the new BBC Comedy Playhouse. This was a massive thrill because it meant that now I’d written shows for Channel 4, ITV and BBC1. Comedy Playhouse showcased six different shows, all of which had the potential to be made into a series, and they seemed very keen on Magnolia.
Ralph Ineson was great as Paul, while Chris Coghill, Will Ash and Chris Bisson were totally spot on in their performances as his assorted recruits. Dawn Steele played Paul’s wife, and although I’ll admit that initially I wasn’t keen on the casting, she proved me totally wrong and her on-screen relationship with Ralph was totally believable. The wonderful Shobna Gulati played the barmaid in the local pub, who had to deal with the smarmy Gregg (Mark Benton) trying to chat her up every time he visited. Shobna is one of my absolute favourite actresses and has a brilliant gift for comedy; her timing of the withering put-downs was impeccable. We cast my big mate Steve Royle as a builder, Tom Bowler, and I played a loser known locally as Chernobyl, who wore a shell suit and rode a BMX (as they do). I was desperate for Paul to give me a job, but as I was a walking disaster with the reverse Midas touch – everything I touched turned to shit – Paul steered clear of me (at first!).