Under the Microscope

by Dave Spikey

  Jim Doyle directed and was very gracious in letting me sit in with him on many occasions and offer my opinion on scene set-ups and performance. The end product, if I’m honest, in my opinion wasn’t as good as it might have been. It looked good on screen, the critics liked it and agreed that out of the six, it was the one with most potential for a series, but I was slightly disappointed with the edit. I thought it too often slightly missed the mark in both comedy and drama, which in turn affected the pace and ‘real’ feel of the piece.

  Initially, all signs from the BBC were good, so much so that we were fairly confident that it would get a series commission, but, at the eleventh hour, as so often happens, they went cold on it and it never happened. Another huge disappointment for me because it did have great potential and all the actors in it without exception deserved for it to continue.

  The thing about being a writer, though, is that there is always another idea just around the corner, ready to light the blue touch paper inside your head and start the gags and comedy set-ups flowing. In recent years, I’ve had three writing commissions and I’ve loved creating these new worlds and characters once again.

  My first was a comedy drama about a Sunday football team, which was obviously inspired by my love of the world of Sunday football and the players who inhabit it. I was incredibly lucky to get the great Shane Meadows on board early days through Mark Herbert at WARP films, and we assembled a cast and improvised a few scenes around the script a while back. You can see the scenes on YouTube and they’re pretty good, I think. In my opinion it’s absolutely the best thing I’ve ever written.

  I was also asked by a production company to write a synopsis concerning a group of lads who buy a vineyard in France and go out to try and make a go of it. The piece was called Sour Grapes.

  The third script commission, meanwhile, was for a script I wrote with a new friend, Terry Milligan. Titled Bringing in the Sheep, it concerns Frank, who has gone to live in a hut village in the Himalayas to find the peace and tranquillity for which he yearns. Of course, when he gets up there, it’s a nightmare! It’s kicking off every day amongst the many weird and wonderful hut-dwellers. It’s a sparkling, slightly odd script – a sort of Father Ted meets League of Gentlemen, but I know that it’s very funny. However, the feedback we’ve had so far is that it’s too ‘high concept’, which is a vague and oft-used term in commissioning, but maybe the ‘high’ relates to the Himalayas.

  Another television producer asked if we could maybe set it up Mount Snowden, missing the point completely! It really does make you wonder how they get these jobs. I explained that if he went up Mount Snowden and found his life a living hill (I mean hell), he could simply walk down or get the train, and that the whole point of him living in the Himalayas was that he was stuck there, he’d burnt his bridges and had to stay there for the foreseeable (hopefully a minimum of three series) future. The script is still doing the rounds and I still have hopes for it.

  Currently, I’m writing a comedy drama with original music called Best of Times. It’s about a young woman (Sumo) who has leukaemia, but is in remission, and who is searching, with the aid of her friends and community, for a suitable bone marrow donor. It’s all hands to the pump as her friends leave no stone unturned in their search for Sumo’s missing mother and late father’s twin brother. They organize donor drives, and her closest friend and soon-to-be boyfriend, Paps, who works in telesales, tries phoning every person in the directory with her uncle’s name – pity he’s called Tom Jones, but hey, it’s only a matter of time. There is a massive twist at the end and it’s coming together very well. I’ve had a few pieces of music written for it already, courtesy of my good friends Sean and Harry.

  They do say write about what you know, and this project combines knowledge gained from my work in haematology, my kid brother’s long, courageous battle with lymphoma (more on that later) and my ex-wife’s work in organ donation. I want to highlight the need for more donors of both organs and bone marrow/stem cells – and to highlight through the vivacious Sumo a fact that we noticed in the hospital labs, which was that the patients had a much better prognosis if they were upbeat and positive in their approach to their battle with their disease. Patients who could still laugh and who had a bright disposition and outlook always did so much better than those who became introspective and self-pitying.

  Lastly, I want to highlight that there have been tremendous advances in the treatment of the malignant blood diseases and that where once, not too long ago, there was no hope, there is now, thankfully, much hope.

  TV Tales

  IN 2005, I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a team captain on a new quiz show called 8 Out of 10 Cats, which was based on the results of national surveys such as ‘What is Birmingham’s favourite vegetable?’ (It’s not the oven chip or Jasper Carrott, as you might expect, but the onion.) Having become a familiar face to TV viewers, and with my stand-up background thrown in for good measure, the producers very flatteringly thought I’d be a good fit with the show. Jimmy Carr was lined up to host and Sean Lock was to be the other team captain, and as they are two of my favourite comedians, I jumped at the chance.

  The programme, of course, went on to become a great success and was a fantastic experience. I did four series and met some great people from all walks of the entertainment world, including one of my all-time comedy heroes, Joan Rivers, who was on my team twice. Joan Rivers sat next to me! I brought in my battered copy of her autobiography Enter Talking and sheepishly, during a gap in filming, asked if she would sign it, which she did and added a lovely message.

  It was a great show to do for many reasons, not least the excellent team at Zeppotron/Endemol, including Ruth Phillips, Richard Osman and the script associates, especially Dom and Aiden, who were always encouraging and supportive. I left ‘by mutual consent’ as they say after series four – because I wasn’t enjoying it any more and it showed. I’d had a lot of stress in my personal life, which I’ll outline later, but that should never creep into your work and I was poor in series four.

  I never really ‘enjoyed’ the show as such anyway, in all honesty, as I found it incredibly stressful. It sort of took over my life because I’d be constantly looking at newspapers and television for topical news stories that might come up in the big opening round. I’m not a quick-thinking comic; well, I am in the pub amongst my mates, I’m incredibly quick on the funny line and a skewed take on events, but up against other, sharper comics, I’m a second or two too slow, and that’s a long time in comedy. To compensate, I’d over-prepare, writing lots of gags about whatever the week’s big news stories were, even though I knew there were only five questions and if two big stories broke on the day of the show, I’d be stuffed. I am so in envy of quick-witted comics, who appear to be funny on the spot or view a subject from left-field, and Sean Lock is a master at this.

  I also have a problem in general with gags that are based on personal attacks on people in the public eye and because of the nature of the quiz, there was plenty of opportunity to do this. I find that not only are the ‘celebs’, politicians, royal family etc. easy targets, but also they can’t answer back. We can’t believe everything we read or hear in the news, so why have a pop at people who can’t defend themselves?

  The main criticism I received from the producers was that I was too generous and should fight to get my material in, rather than letting other guests dominate, but I was always of the opinion that we were making an entertainment show and so everyone should get their best lines in. I didn’t like the growing competitive element of the show, where even your own teammates interrupted you to get their lines in first. I found that incredibly rude and ungracious; we’re all in this to do well and entertain, and yes, of course there needs to be an edge, but that needn’t exclude basic generosity.

  I suppose you might say that I highlight these aspects because they weren’t my strong suit and I struggled. Having said that, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

  A s
hort while later, out of the blue, I landed another TV opportunity which was much more my sort of thing. To my complete surprise, I was offered the job of hosting the new, revamped series of Bullseye.

  I turned it down at first. I thought it could turn out to be a bit of a poisoned chalice because for generations of fans of the show out there, there could be only one man who could host the show and that was Jim Bowen. After discussions with the television people and the quiz creator, however, it became clear that for one reason or another Jim wouldn’t be hosting the new series, and so I thought, ‘Well, sod it! It might as well be me then.’

  It was filmed at Yorkshire TV and I had a wonderful time doing it, thanks to the brilliant crew and production team. It was literally laugh-aminute over there, and working with the darts legend that is Tony Green was the icing on the cake.

  It was quite a surreal experience at first: hosting a show that you’ve been a fan of for so many years. A show that was a Sunday teatime institution throughout the country. Before every show, Tony and I would stand backstage before the audience came in and record ‘Bully’s Prize Board’, how mad was that? I used to pinch myself when Tony shouted, ‘In ONE!’ and I would read from the list of typical Bullseye prizes, ‘Make finding lost treasure an absolute pleasure with this Viking metal detector!’ ‘In TWO!’ ‘If you’re going to stew it, you’re gonna need this cruet.’ (Kay wrote that one.) A cruet set in a twenty-first-century game show!

  The production lads wrote most of the prize descriptions in this style and slipped the odd saucy one in. I remember one prize was a yellow inflatable jet-ski (how brilliant is that?). My line was, ‘It’s the only thing yellow I want in my pool.’ The naughtiest one was for a Brevill grill, which was, ‘If browning your meat is your idea of a treat, you’ll love this grill!’

  My good mate Steve Royle came over and did the studio warm-up for me, which was brilliant. He also helped me with some of the interview questions required for the contestants and their ‘interesting’ experiences, ‘unusual’ hobbies and ‘funny’ stories.

  Actually, we did have some bizarre stories – and I pass on here the most bizarre of the lot. Two girls were on the show and they had a funny story about something that had happened while they were getting ready to go out for a night on the town. One of the girls told me that they had a sort of ritual where her friend came round to her house and they had a drink of wine and had a bath together! Rum enough there, but there was so much more to the story.

  She told me that one night her friend had weed in the bath water for a laugh (?!), so guess what she’d done? I said that I couldn’t imagine and she said, ‘I did a poo!’

  Total silence in the studio, she carried on undeterred, ‘… and it floated towards her.’ They are both laughing hysterically now and, as Jimmy Cricket would say, there’s more. She said, ‘So I scooped it up and rubbed it on her breasts.’

  Okay, now that is one of the most offensive, disgusting stories I have ever heard – but even more shocking was that they thought it was (a) hilarious (b) acceptable behaviour and (c) okay to recount to millions of viewers on television!

  Another favourite concerned a bloke who was a bus inspector. I said that I was surprised that there was still a need for inspectors because all buses seemed to operate a pay-the-driver-on-boarding system and he replied, ‘I know! They’re the buggers we’re after.’ I often wonder how that was received in the bus depot the day after the show went out!

  We recorded forty shows and they went well, I think. I got good reviews and The Times reviewer wrote a very flattering piece and said I was the natural successor to Jim Bowen, which is an immense compliment. Weird thing is that they are constantly re-running them on Challenge TV, together with my Chain Letters shows of fourteen years ago!

  Typical Bullseye question on ‘Spelling’: ‘Henry V defeated the French at the battle of Agincourt, the battle of Agincourt. Can you spell “Henry”?’

  The Spice of Life

  IN ONE MEMORABLE week in November 2005, I achieved two incredible ambitions. The first was appearing on the Royal Variety Performance in front of HRH Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and the second guesting on Parkinson.

  The Royal Variety was staged in Cardiff in 2005 and was an amazing experience for someone who, only five years before, had been working in the NHS. I couldn’t sleep the night before the show, so nervous was I, and at breakfast on the day of the performance I had to keep pinching myself after spotting yet another famous face in the dining room.

  Our breakfast took ages coming and Kay, who is incredibly impatient, kept glaring at the entrance to the kitchens behind me every time the doors opened.

  Some time later, Cliff Richard passed us on his way out. As he passed, he turned and looked quizzically at Kay, who had a strange look on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she said quietly, ‘Did he look?’ and I said, ‘Yes. Why?’ and she told me that she hadn’t realized for ages that Cliff was sitting at a table right in front of the kitchen entrance. He’d probably thought she’d been staring at him aggressively for the last twenty minutes!

  We were taken to St David’s Hall, the venue, at around 9 a.m., issued with passes and directed to my dressing room. On the way down the corridor, a double door opened just as we approached it and there was Cliff coming through. You should have seen his face when Kay passed him.

  I had to go to make-up and Kay came with me. As I sat in the chair, the bloke next to me said hello and I looked in the mirror and saw it was Cliff. Just then, Kay appeared in the background. He saw her and I swear jumped in his seat. Was this mad woman stalking him?!

  Once the show got under way, there was a technical hitch just before I was due on. I was standing in the wings when they sent for Cliff to fill in and he arrived with acoustic guitar, which he tuned in the wings, oblivious to all around him. It was pretty cramped in the wings and he accidentally leaned on Kay, then turned to apologize, saw ‘that woman’ again and went ‘Argh!’ before going onstage!

  Before that, it had been an exhausting day of sitting around for hours doing nothing, then rehearsing and then doing a technical run-through, which did provide a moment of great comedy. Shirley Bassey was headlining (obviously in Cardiff) and as she sang her final number, all the other acts wandered on to surround her. She took a bow and exited, her music kept playing as we took our bows, and she dashed under the stage and onto the lift, which would bring her up for a dramatic reappearance through the stage trapdoor. It all worked well up to this point – when the lift suddenly stuck and only Shirley’s head and shoulders appeared! She’s belting out ‘I Am What I Am’ or something similar through our legs. Very funny.

  Showtime arrived and I was on about third from the end, before Bryn Terfel and Shirley Bassey, two massive Welsh megastars. The show had dragged on through technical difficulties; I got on at around eleven o’clock, so I’d been there for fourteen hours and was dead on my feet and a total bag of nerves. Worse, the audience were all tired and bored and really just wanted Bryn and Shirley on, then they could go home.

  Michael Parkinson was supposed to go on and give me a big build-up, but there wasn’t time. He introduced me offstage and I heard a low groan from the audience before I walked on to only a smattering of applause (very rude, I remember thinking). There wasn’t a Royal Box and the Queen and Prince Philip were seated on a raised plinth in the stalls, right in the performers’ eyeline. I was now bricking it – and then I swear that the Queen looked at her watch. I think it was a Casio because her face lit up blue and she looked like a giant second-class stamp.

  The combination of tiredness and nerves resulted in me completely forgetting my set and I did ten minutes of new, brand new material about my grandma wanting one of those baths with a door in them. New untried material on the Royal Variety Show! Still, it went okay. I got away with it, as they say.

  The week afterwards, I achieved my main lifelong ambition: to walk down those stairs on Parkinson. As Michael had co-hosted the Royal Variety, we star
ted by chatting about that and I got laughs from recounting my experiences. The interview went brilliantly well, I couldn’t have asked for better, and then came the unexpected bonus of staying onstage while the other guests were interviewed and interacting with them.

  ‘Them’ being Rachel Weisz, Katie Melua and Paul McCartney! Kay had already played another blinder, mistaking Rachel Weisz for a production runner during rehearsals and asking her if she could show her where the ladies’ toilet was. While onstage in between recording breaks, we all chatted about music and I spoke with Paul McCartney, an absolute hero of mine, about our common interests of animal welfare and vegetarianism.

  One of the absolute highlights of my career.

  My Brother Pete

  I’VE LEFT THIS chapter till the end because I knew it would be the most difficult to write. I’ve mentioned Pete in places along the way, but his story and the way it impacted on my life deserves further explanation.

  I had just turned eight when Pete was born and because of the big age difference, I didn’t play a huge role in his formative years and didn’t have the same sibling relationship with him as I did with Joy, who was only three years younger than me. I left primary school while he was still a toddler and when I left grammar school, aged sixteen, he was only eight. At weekends and after school, I played out with my friends and so, unless I had to babysit him, we saw little of one another, except at family meal times and holidays.