Backstage... At The Cambridge Footlights

[alan strang]

Garam PMd to request this but I imagine a few more people would also like to see a copy which isn't a tiny, murky Real file streaming from eccentric webspace. So, for y'all, here's an avi:

Backstage... At The Cambridge Footlights, ITV Anglia, 1997 (171mb)

Not much to add here that hasn't been said on other threads. It's a 25-minute behind-the-scenes documentary about the cast of the 1997 Footlights show 'Emotional Baggage' which starred Richard Ayoade, Rebecca Morahan, John Oliver, Vicky Shepherd, Jerome Smith and Earl Spencer-Brown. It was directed by Matthew Holness.

We get to see a couple of staged-looking auditions, some initial pub-based 'writing sessions', highlights from their 'writing week' holiday in Norfolk, preparations for the staging of their first public preview. We also see one or two sketches from the show itself.

Should please everyone with an opinion on the Ayoade/Holness/Oliver clique anyway - the fans can enjoy some of their 'early work' while the more dismissive can enjoy laughing at all their pungent, career-guarding opinions on comedy.

[DuncanC]

I went to see the Footlights sporadically at the ADC. It was really Far Too Happy that I really disliked, didn't bother to come back in the interval (I'm too passive-aggressive to properly walk out) and I'm not actually sure whether I saw Emotional Baggage or not. I don't remember "The Magistrate", anyway.

[Craig Torso]

I don't remember "The Magistrate", anyway.

It's been a while since I've watched the documentary but didn't they drop Boof, The Magistrate before publicly performing it?

[alan strang]

It's been a while since I've watched the documentary but didn't they drop Boof, The Magistrate before publicly performing it?

Aye - as Ayoade explains, "We're waiting for technology to catch up with our ideas".

It'll be interesting to hear whether people consider this documentary a 'stitch-up' of the people covered or whether they think it's an accurate portrayal of their foibles. ELW10, the Mumbler and I pondered this while watching it together a while back - was there an agenda to make them look as annoying and self-serving as they come across. If so, how much of this was dictated by the amount of time the production crew suffered their presence?

Why were the doings of Rebecca "Johnnie" Johnson highlighted, despite her not actually being a part of the Footlights cast. She wrote material for the show, but otherwise she's depicted here as someone the others don't really want around, except to cook and clean for them (the scene where she drops off their "nice clean shirts" with the camera lingering on Holness' tired indifference is particularly interesting in that respect).

[chocky909]

What does it mean, "I've reached my 1GB download limit"? I've never downloaded a single shitting thing from Sendspace? Sod it.

[Garam]

That was a very unpleasant 25 minutes. It felt like I was back in my drama course (which I dropped after 3 weeks, due to people like this.) These people were all so unbelievably irritating.

Guy: "...tell me you will, so I don't worry"
Girl: "Oh my god! That is so nice!"

Yeurch. And the four-eyed guy saying that the reviews hasn't put him off his long-term goals.

Maybe they should stop Footlights for good, since there's no way anyone can enter it anymore without thinking of it as a stepping stone to television and possibly even Hollywood.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

'Audiences come with a 'make me laugh' attitude, which can work against us...'

[alan strang]

By the way, this docu was originally taped by ELW10. Shortly after it went out he sent me a letter describing its contents. So, from nine years hence, here's a page from that letter:

Joking apart, I did get incredibly fucking angry watching it. I couldn't sleep I was seething so much. The cunts! I hate them all! Especially 'John Oliver'. CUNT!!!

It went deeper than merely being pissed off at Steve Punt rip-offs. It was their stupid fucking derivative idea of what comedy is that really got to me. Y'know, doing stuff simply because it looks like comedy, not because they personally find it funny.

I take, as an illustration, a sketch called 'The Magistrate', which is the kind of skit even Will Ing would have to think twice about, I reckon. It was nicked in part from Python's 'The Bishop' - a trailer for a new crime-series, where a deep-voiced narrator repeatedly announces 'the Magistrate!', in between the magistrate in question saying amusingly nerdy things like 'you've lost four points on your car licence' and so on. Yeah, that joke. The one that's been done in five billion comedy shows from The Fast Show downwards. Well, anyway, they did it... and it was horrible.

I mean, I can't really communicate how bad it was, to be honest. But it was just the fact that you saw the two cunts writing the thing, sitting in a daylight-filled bar, giggling into their lager. You got the picture? Ugh. And John Oliver, who is the spitting image of David Baddiel (intentionally of course), is there with his pencil and notepad suggesting the lines with a grandiose smugness that made me really ill, and his mate (the blandest man ever) is there, with his jumper and his shoes, salivating over the comic genius he sees before him. Cunt, cunt, CUNT!

And then you see a bit of the show, where they dance to a series of 'ironic' pieces of music. Y'know, like Nick Hancock used to do? And Rowan Atkinson? Only, because they assume this to be weally hilawious in itself, they don't bother actually making the dances remotely amusing. So it's just two cunts moving around to the theme from 'Ski Sunday' for five minutes. With 'yup, we're comedians!' expressions. It's painful.

They also have three girl-ones with them, all of whom have no talent whatsoever. You see one of them auditioning, where she has to do some improv, and she's shit... but the president (who looks like a fifteen year-old John Lloyd) can be heard wheezily guffawing at everything she says. And this serves only to make her improv even worse.

It's the complete lack of imagination that fucks me off. The total ignorance of Wilmut-matters (what's the betting they all love Friends). The complete disregard for any kind of oddness (unless it's got overtones of 'Yup, this is our surreal bit - we worked this out when we were pissed'), or any kind of genuine, heart-felt laffs. The fear of vocabulary, too... that's the worst thing. The fact that all the sketches are just sketches about sketches. It's the most offensive thing I've ever seen.

And John Oliver is the worst. Or the one that got to me the most. With his hair.

[neveragain]

There was a SOTCAA article about the whole doc as well, wasn't there? Does that still exist?

[alan strang]

There was a SOTCAA article about the whole doc as well, wasn't there? Does that still exist?

This article mentions it as part of a bunch of other arguments, but there was never a full piece.

[infinitemonkeys]

By the way, this docu was originally taped by ELW10. Shortly after it went out he sent me a letter describing its contents. So, from nine years hence, here's a page from that letter:

Joking apart, I did get incredibly fucking angry watching it. I couldn't sleep I was seething so much. The cunts! I hate them all! Especially 'John Oliver'. CUNT!!!

It went deeper than merely being pissed off at Steve Punt rip-offs. It was their stupid fucking derivative idea of what comedy is that really got to me. Y'know, doing stuff simply because it looks like comedy, not because they personally find it funny.

I take, as an illustration, a sketch called 'The Magistrate', which is the kind of skit even Will Ing would have to think twice about, I reckon. It was nicked in part from Python's 'The Bishop' - a trailer for a new crime-series, where a deep-voiced narrator repeatedly announces 'the Magistrate!', in between the magistrate in question saying amusingly nerdy things like 'you've lost four points on your car licence' and so on. Yeah, that joke. The one that's been done in five billion comedy shows from The Fast Show downwards. Well, anyway, they did it... and it was horrible.

I mean, I can't really communicate how bad it was, to be honest. But it was just the fact that you saw the two cunts writing the thing, sitting in a daylight-filled bar, giggling into their lager. You got the picture? Ugh. And John Oliver, who is the spitting image of David Baddiel (intentionally of course), is there with his pencil and notepad suggesting the lines with a grandiose smugness that made me really ill, and his mate (the blandest man ever) is there, with his jumper and his shoes, salivating over the comic genius he sees before him. Cunt, cunt, CUNT!

And then you see a bit of the show, where they dance to a series of 'ironic' pieces of music. Y'know, like Nick Hancock used to do? And Rowan Atkinson? Only, because they assume this to be weally hilawious in itself, they don't bother actually making the dances remotely amusing. So it's just two cunts moving around to the theme from 'Ski Sunday' for five minutes. With 'yup, we're comedians!' expressions. It's painful.

They also have three girl-ones with them, all of whom have no talent whatsoever. You see one of them auditioning, where she has to do some improv, and she's shit... but the president (who looks like a fifteen year-old John Lloyd) can be heard wheezily guffawing at everything she says. And this serves only to make her improv even worse.

It's the complete lack of imagination that fucks me off. The total ignorance of Wilmut-matters (what's the betting they all love Friends). The complete disregard for any kind of oddness (unless it's got overtones of 'Yup, this is our surreal bit - we worked this out when we were pissed'), or any kind of genuine, heart-felt laffs. The fear of vocabulary, too... that's the worst thing. The fact that all the sketches are just sketches about sketches. It's the most offensive thing I've ever seen.

And John Oliver is the worst. Or the one that got to me the most. With his hair.

Oh dear oh dear. I think this Ward 10 person really needs to calm down and worry about more important things.

Am I wrong?

[alan strang]

Am I wrong?

Usually, aye.

[alan strang]

Heh heh - you wrote for Radio 4's 'We Know Everything' too. You're doing it deliberately aren't you!

Anyway, another Footlights-y download here, from the same year as 'Backstage':

Best Footlights Forward - BBC Radio 2, 05/07/97 (53.3mb)

A pretty decent documentary looking back at 50 years of the society presented by Graeme Garden. Plenty of clips and lots of great interviewees, including Bill Oddie, Jonathan James-Moore, Clive Anderson, Douglas Adams, etc...

...and, towards the end - bringing everything "up to date" - John Oliver and Richard Ayoade (then touted as a 'double act') and more behind-the-scenes stuff at the 'Emotional Baggage' preparations.

[neveragain]

There was a SOTCAA...

This article...

Ah thanks alan, funnily enough I remember a full article that dissected the entire documentary in transcript form (much like the dissection of Radio 4's Tragi-comedy Mark Lawson shite) although I freely admit that this may well have been another documentary about another modern Edinburgh Fringe altogether. And, incidentally, I think ELW10's well within his rights to get so vexed.

[gloria]

By the way, this docu was originally taped by ELW10. Shortly after it went out he sent me a letter describing its contents. So, from nine years hence, here's a page from that letter:

Joking apart, I did get incredibly fucking angry watching it. I couldn't sleep I was seething so much. The cunts! I hate them all! Especially 'John Oliver'. CUNT!!!

It went deeper than merely being pissed off at Steve Punt rip-offs. It was their stupid fucking derivative idea of what comedy is that really got to me. Y'know, doing stuff simply because it looks like comedy, not because they personally find it funny.

I take, as an illustration, a sketch called 'The Magistrate', which is the kind of skit even Will Ing would have to think twice about, I reckon. It was nicked in part from Python's 'The Bishop' - a trailer for a new crime-series, where a deep-voiced narrator repeatedly announces 'the Magistrate!', in between the magistrate in question saying amusingly nerdy things like 'you've lost four points on your car licence' and so on. Yeah, that joke. The one that's been done in five billion comedy shows from The Fast Show downwards. Well, anyway, they did it... and it was horrible.

I mean, I can't really communicate how bad it was, to be honest. But it was just the fact that you saw the two cunts writing the thing, sitting in a daylight-filled bar, giggling into their lager. You got the picture? Ugh. And John Oliver, who is the spitting image of David Baddiel (intentionally of course), is there with his pencil and notepad suggesting the lines with a grandiose smugness that made me really ill, and his mate (the blandest man ever) is there, with his jumper and his shoes, salivating over the comic genius he sees before him. Cunt, cunt, CUNT!

And then you see a bit of the show, where they dance to a series of 'ironic' pieces of music. Y'know, like Nick Hancock used to do? And Rowan Atkinson? Only, because they assume this to be weally hilawious in itself, they don't bother actually making the dances remotely amusing. So it's just two cunts moving around to the theme from 'Ski Sunday' for five minutes. With 'yup, we're comedians!' expressions. It's painful.

They also have three girl-ones with them, all of whom have no talent whatsoever. You see one of them auditioning, where she has to do some improv, and she's shit... but the president (who looks like a fifteen year-old John Lloyd) can be heard wheezily guffawing at everything she says. And this serves only to make her improv even worse.

It's the complete lack of imagination that fucks me off. The total ignorance of Wilmut-matters (what's the betting they all love Friends). The complete disregard for any kind of oddness (unless it's got overtones of 'Yup, this is our surreal bit - we worked this out when we were pissed'), or any kind of genuine, heart-felt laffs. The fear of vocabulary, too... that's the worst thing. The fact that all the sketches are just sketches about sketches. It's the most offensive thing I've ever seen.

And John Oliver is the worst. Or the one that got to me the most. With his hair.

Fucking class.  I can imagine ELW10 lying awake in his bed, fuming and thumping the mattress.  I understand he and alan strang wrote a pilot for a Radio 4 comedy show that wasn't accepted.  I know the SOTCAA boys have a deep knowledge of and love for classic comedy - and the above criticisms demonstrate a true passion for comedy for its own sake - but would it be fair in any way at all to wonder if there isn't just the teensiest bit of jealousy in there?  

Don't hit me.

[alan strang]

I understand he and alan strang wrote a pilot for a Radio 4 comedy show that wasn't accepted.

Oh really? And what was that then?

[TJ]

I understand he and alan strang wrote a pilot for a Radio 4 comedy show that wasn't accepted.

Oh really? And what was that then?

"At Home With The Jon Nortons".

[The Mumbler]

That is a private letter from Lalla to alan, though.  Which wasn't intended or designed to be a public review.  Rather delighted to read it, though.

As for the 'jealousy' accusation, I also had a Radio 4 pilot rejected many years ago now.  Am I jealous of all the things that got on instead which were poor?  No, just aware of the fact that the pilot I was involved in wasn't as good as the things we liked.  And so probably deserved not to progress to a series.  

I could have written any of those Emotional Baggage sketches all too easily.  So could anyone.  But I couldn't have written On The Hour or Radio Active.

[The Mumbler]

Oh, and here;s a TX date for that Backstage doc: Monday 29 September 1997 at 2245 on ITV.  Thanks to the BFI database.

[Barney Sloane]

There was a SOTCAA...

This article...

Ah thanks alan, funnily enough I remember a full article that dissected the entire documentary in transcript form (much like the dissection of Radio 4's Tragi-comedy Mark Lawson shite) although I freely admit that this may well have been another documentary about another modern Edinburgh Fringe altogether. And, incidentally, I think ELW10's well within his rights to get so vexed.

Sounds like you're thinking of the Jon Ronson docu "Critical Condition", which followed hack-turned-aspiring-comedian Ian Shuttleworth's fortunes at Edinburgh.  I think the SOTCAA article was just a transcript rather than a dissection, though.

[neveragain]

Ah, they dissect even in their transcriptions though, that's what I love about them!

[alan strang]

"At Home With The Jon Nortons".

Nah, we couldn't get funding for that one. You're thinking of our sit-com pitch: 'My Two Mark Griffiths'.

That is a private letter from Lalla to alan, though. Which wasn't intended or designed to be a public review. Rather delighted to read it, though.

It's great isn't it. Comedy criticism in its purest form - all unsweetened gut reaction. Plus, this was nine years ago - Chris Morris had yet to go off the boil, Lee & Herring still had a TV career, Channel 4 hadn't become the Friday Night Plebfest for twats it now is. Comedy was in a much better shape all round (maybe I should paste in ELW10's far more positive and generous epistle about seeing Lucas and Walliams doing their early double act around the same time). Truly, the most annoying thing which could raise the ire of a committed comedy fan was a bunch of tossy students making excuses and Dan Gaster's irksome presence on Radio 4.

Nowadays those tossy students are being "hotly" "tipped" by idiots and virals alike as the next 'big thing' and Dan Gaster's being paid money for copying 'funny bits' out of The Sun and pasting them into the latest Have I Got News For You scripts.

Now, I suggest that something may just have gone slightly awry there.

I could have written any of those Emotional Baggage sketches all too easily.  So could anyone.

That Footlights team barely managed it.

Oh, and here;s a TX date for that Backstage doc: Monday 29 September 1997 at 2245 on ITV.

Cheers - you'll note there are none of their trademark Partridge rip-offs in any of that 'Backstage' stuff. Quite telling, that. Although 'Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Partridge' had long since been and gone by then, it wasn't until November that 'I'm Alan Partridge' aired and became stupidly popular.

In that 'popularity', I suggest, lay their 'new direction'.

[The Mumbler]

Interestingly, for its November 1997 issue, Select magazine did its 100 Great People or whatever it was called.  Morris was there, needless to say.  But Coogan was in the 'No Chance' mini-list towards the back, along with Chris Evans, people who had gone off the boil.   Complete with 'oh dears' in the direction of Tony Ferrino.

That was published in early October '97.  As you say, November 3rd, and suddenly, the wind changed again.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Some have suspected that the Backstage job was a hatchet job. I do wonder.

[Lee]

"I'm trying to think of a punchline... do we not need a punchline?"

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

It's a comedy Spinal Tap in so many ways. I love the way Rebecca Morahan talks about how it's a privilege that John and Richard allow her to join the writing weekend when she's not atually part of the team...and then it's revealed that she does all the cooking and cleaning.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Oh dear oh dear. I think this Ward 10 person really needs to calm down and worry about more important things.

Are you going to say the same thing to Gillian 'That Mitchell and Webb Sound is brilliant' Reynolds? 'Come on, there are clearly more brilliant things in the world than us - insulin, for example, or sunsets. Get some perspective...'

Or are passionate opinions OK if they're positive?

[infinitemonkeys]

Oh dear oh dear. I think this Ward 10 person really needs to calm down and worry about more important things.

Are you going to say the same thing to Gillian 'That Mitchell and Webb Sound is brilliant' Reynolds? 'Come on, there are clearly more brilliant things in the world than us - insulin, for example, or sunsets. Get some perspective...'

Or are passionate opinions OK if they're positive?

I was just shocked by how you could have a reaction so filled with absolute hatred. Your loathing of them seems so alien to me, bordering on the obsessive. You could barely sleep you were seething so much? I doubt it. But if so, you should get help.

Why are you SO driven by hate for these people, and people like them? They don't deserve such violent abuse. They were just young. I wouldn't be surprised if footage of you, or me, or fucking Satre or Einstein or Beckett or whoever, when they were nineteen would seem cringeingly awful now.

It frightens me how hateful some of you people are. Can you imagine how uncomfortable it is reading that people you know, friends of yours, people you've known for years and years, and respect and appreciate, seeing those people abused and villified and called CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT? Accused of not having a fucking soul, of being dead inside? Reading things that seem one step away from suggestions that these people be killed to save comedy? Because, what?, they don't produce the kind of stuff that appeals to you? Because they have to work on shows you may not like to earn a living?That's not criticism. That's just abuse. And it takes away from every reasoned comment on here. Be filled with passion, yes, just not with hate. Save that for something that deserves it.

And as for telling Gillian Reynolds not to like a radio show I've been in: of course not, what do you think I am, a fucking idiot?

[TJ]

So hang on, you're asking people to be lenient towards something from nine years ago on the one hand, but getting angry with something from nine years ago yourself!??!?!?

[Bert Thung]

The best argument I heard against these Garth Marenghi people was someone on here comparing it with the end spoof documentaries on Victoria Wood As Seen On TV. Both sharing similarities. Except the latter is  a benchmark setting, belly laughorama. The former a joke light, repetitive parody of nothing. The fact that Backstage shows it's made by people who like to pretend that said benchmarks don't  even exist makes it even more irksome.