The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

The Comedy Godfather Speaks! Comedy Gold with Jon Plowman, 'The Comedy Producers' Comedy Producer!' on an Extraordinary Career in British TV Comedy

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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Every TV Sitcom yo've ever loved has been touched by this man's genius! 

What does it take to shepherding some of the most beloved British comedy shows from idea to cultural phenomenon? Jon Plowman OBE—the executive producer behind The Office, Absolutely Fabulous, Vicar of Dibley, Inside No. 9, and countless other comedy classics—offers a rare glimpse into the creative chaos that birthed these iconic programs.

From surviving a motorcycle accident that landed him in the hospital (with a parade of celebrities visiting his bedside) to the surreal experience of being interviewed for Oxford University by candlelight during a power outage, Plowman's journey through British television is as unexpected as it is enlightening. His revelation about arriving at a meeting with French and Saunders three weeks before filming to find their "script" consisted of merely four Post-it notes on a wall surrounded by celebrity magazines speaks volumes about the creative genius he helped nurture throughout his career.

The most valuable lesson from Plowman's storied career might be his philosophy of "never shouting cut"—allowing the moments between scripted lines and official filming to capture spontaneous comedy gold. This approach led to some of the most memorable moments in shows like Absolutely Fabulous, where improvisation flourished in the spaces between what was written and what naturally emerged on set.

Beyond the humorous anecdotes—including the delightfully absurd story of settling a dispute between David Walliams and Matt Lucas about the appropriate size of a certain stain on a jacket lapel during a Little Britain sketch—lies Plowman's profound insight into recognizing and cultivating comedy genius. Whether championing Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's revolutionary mockumentary format for The Office or supporting Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's anthology vision for Inside No. 9 against network pressures, Plowman's instinct for spotting innovation has shaped decades of entertainment.

Ready to discover how the most iconic British comedy shows made it from concept to screen? Listen now and learn from the man Matt Lucas dubbed "The Godfather of Comedy."

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)

Thanks for listening!

Chris Grimes:

Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the Clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.

Chris Grimes:

Welcome to a very exciting trophy day in the Good Listening To Show Stories of Distinction and Genius. I'm thrilled and delighted to the point of almost some wee coming out to welcome John Plowman, obe. You're also known as Philip John Plowman. I know you know that A bit. Norman Stanley, yeah, matt Lucas has called you back in the day the godfather of comedy. You're an OBE and I thought when I started to research you I knew about you anyway. But I thought, oh, blinking heck, which is the OBE? Because you've actually comedy produced practically everything I've watched since.

Jon Plowman:

I did it Well, either comedy produced or exec produced, and exec produced is different. Exec produced is you're the person people ring to moan at. What they're producing is trying to get it in on time and on budget.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, but I mean, it's just all the televisual bangers you can possibly think of the Office Ab Fab Vicar of Dibley Dibley, dibley Dibley. I'm so excited I can barely speak, but anyway, I got in touch with you about a year ago on LinkedIn and, if I may say you're a complete pussycat. You said yes straight away.

Jon Plowman:

I'm a sucker, a egotist B sucker.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, and thank you for both of those endeavors, because I'm thrilled to have you here. It is my great. So how's morale? What's your story of the day, john Plowman?

Jon Plowman:

Story of the day is I'm amazed that I'm here, because I always have this fear with computer things that something will mean that it breaks. You know that something I press will mean that the computer starts smoking or that it just goes black and me and nothing else are ever seen again.

Chris Grimes:

So hooray yeah, and may I commend you if your head of it it hasn't happened yes, you were here early. If I can just blow some extra happy, and you see, can I congratulate you on your head of it, who wasn't seven years old? He's your partner, and how old is your partner?

Jon Plowman:

Same age as I am.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, and if I may, yes, would you like to tell us how old you are?

Jon Plowman:

Oh, I'm 71. God help us. Yes.

Chris Grimes:

You started comedy producing circa 1980, I believe it was with the Russell Harty show, and then the rest really is history.

Jon Plowman:

Yeah, I would say that I started a little bit before that because I started doing something I got paid for first at the royal court theater in london and that was on a comedy that was on a revival of what the butler saw by joe orton um, directed by lind, who thankfully employed me as his assistant. So I started a bit earlier really.

Chris Grimes:

Of course and being 71, you did start a lot earlier. I get that, but the really extraordinary thing is that you know everything that I have loved watching on TV.

Jon Plowman:

Your name all my life has been on the end of the credits and that's why I'm almost entirely jealous of John Lloyd for that, because I think he made everything. I watched.

Chris Grimes:

Okay, so that's the Dad's Army sort of territory. That was the sort of he didn't do Blackadder, Ah right, Sure. Oh, and talking of Blackadder, Ben Elton I saw a week ago and I met Jeff Posner on the same event. And should we cover off a story where Jeff Posner had a request for you?

Jon Plowman:

Yeah, go on.

Chris Grimes:

Jeff Posner said. And when I said oh, I'm going to be meeting and working with John Plowman in a week, he said oh, ask him to tell you the story of David Walliams' jacket.

Jon Plowman:

So over to you this is during a recording of Little Britain, and the sketch is being recorded. One afternoon I didn't know this I'm in my office, being head of the department, I think. At the time Phone goes could you come down to settle an argument between Matt and Dave, which might or might not have been the first time that had happened. And so I went down and the contentious thing was it was a sketch in which the Prime Minister and this could not be maybe more topical the Prime Minister is having a meeting with the American president, and they may or may not be doing the beast with two backs, as it were. Yes, I don't see that. They go off into their office and anyway, and when, uh, the let me get this right Well, I guess it must've been Dave comes out. Um, let me get this right. Well, I guess it must have been Dave comes out. He has a stain on his jacket lapel.

Chris Grimes:

A Monica Luinzi-esque type stain.

Jon Plowman:

You might say that I couldn't possibly anyway. And they said the contentious question was how big could this stain be? To which I said and I think it was solomon-esque I said it should be big enough to be noticeable, uh, and clear what it is, but not so big that it's offensive, and I think that's the role of the executive producer.

Chris Grimes:

so, summed up right there, that's it the thin dividing line between genius and disaster. I love that.

Jon Plowman:

Maybe. Yes, you went onto the floor and you sought things out.

Chris Grimes:

Thank you. And Tony Head, of course, I remember, was playing the part of the Prime Minister. He was yes, yes, thank you for sharing that story. I, just before we started, I said is that something I can ask you? Yes, yes, I can tell you that story, so thank you for sharing that.

Jon Plowman:

All right.

Chris Grimes:

So thank you for sharing your story of the day. It is my great delight and pleasure to now curate you through the journey and the structure of the good listening to show. It's the show in which just to position this for our audience, the billions that are watching on the old interweb. It's the show in which I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers and also personal heroes into a clearing or serious happy place of my guests, choosing as they all share with us their stories of distinction and genius. You fit right in, john, to all of those endeavors, particularly the comedy genius bit. So let's get you on the open road. Any questions before we start that? No, not yet like that. John plowman, executive producer, where is what is a clearing for you? Where would you say you go to get clutter free, inspirational and able to think?

Jon Plowman:

well, there were two or three places I thought of. One is, we have a house in somerset, we have a seat in the garden. I thought, well, maybe. Uh. The other was a place called sherrard's wood in wellin in hertfordshire, which was where I went when I was tiny and indeed I remember it being a place where I first saw a, a dumped porn magazine, uh.

Jon Plowman:

So the place I'm actually going for is, but is in the french pyrenees, uh, in a département called the ariège, near, well, at the end of a village called Bouzard, and I think I'm in a hammock there above the house, under a plum tree which, believe it or not, does have plums, and look, I'm looking kind of straight down the valley of the Belong, and at the end, which has just, it has a little river going through it, it also has a road, and on the right-hand side of me is a mountain called the Musayu and legend has it, or myth, that it's called Musayu.

Jon Plowman:

And legend has it, or myth, that it's called Musayu because it used to be a place where there were a lot of bears and, if you were sensible, you called the bear Monsieur and Monsieur's got somehow extrapolated over the years into Musayu and you called him Monsieur Bear, if you had any sense, and you tried to be polite to the bear, so he didn't eat. So that's over there, and in front of me is the highest mountain in the area, which is called Montvalier, and usually not always, but usually it has a bit of snow on the top, and it also has the french border somewhere near, the french, spanish border somewhere near.

Chris Grimes:

so I'm in a hammock, uh, under a plum tree oh, can I just thank you for painting the most glorious vista. That was storytelling magic. Right there we, we skirted over the dumped pornography magazine that was back in the day, dumped plums, and yes, there's some connection between the magazine and plums, but we won't go there now. So thank you for the hammock. That's brilliant. I'm now going to arrive a bit deliberately, existentially Waiting for Godot-esque, with a tree now next to your hammock, if I may, and I'm going to shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. How'd you like these apples?

Chris Grimes:

And this is where you've been kind enough, john Plowman, comedy executive producer and comedy legend, to have thought about four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention and borrow from the film up. That will be a bit, oh squirrels, you know what are? Your shiny object syndrome that you never fail to distract you. And then the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you. It's not a memory test, I was just reminding the audience what this is. You look relieved, and so now it's up to you to shake the canopy of your tree as you see fit well, as I see if it involves.

Jon Plowman:

In some cases the things that fall out of the tree are people and in other cases they're things lovely make sense, and thank you for your research in this.

Chris Grimes:

All of this it's. I'm really chuffed with how much you've obviously so things that uh shaped.

Jon Plowman:

We could start with the earliest television I did, which was at Granada, not, as some will think, the motorway service station, but the television station in Manchester, and the first thing I worked on was a Saturday morning kids' show. Some may remember a show called Tiswars. This was Tiswars' summer replacement. It was called Fun Factory and, believe me, it wasn't. Oh the irony I love that.

Jon Plowman:

And I was one of a number of researchers on the show and also in Vision curiously, I mean to go straight into anyway, uh, in vision, because all the researchers had to wear different colored boiler suits in order to push uh small children around well, not small, not very small children, but but reasonably large children around from place to place to make sure the cameras and everything got them. And amongst the not necessarily wonderful television that occurred was the first TV appearance by a man called Jeremy Beadle God help us who was doing the things that only jeremy beetle can do, which involve a tiny hand and uh and and a normal size hand. And one of the other people who was on the show was a man called gary who's, who was the sort of dj on the yeah, and he clearly I don't know his attitude to children was, was, was questionable, not in a kind of dodgy way, but just in a kind of. He somehow thought he was superior, uh, and so there was at the time a band called, believe it or not, vaughn to lose. Andughan Toulouse was a punkish band and Vaughan Toulouse was the lead singer, and Gary and Vaughan Toulouse had a bet that Gary wouldn't say the word bollocks. Live on television on Saturday morning to a childlike audience. Gary lost the bet and was almost immediately sacked and replaced by somebody.

Jon Plowman:

Anyway, anyway, anyway. So that's the beginning of my television career.

Chris Grimes:

It was obviously very formative and seminal because it was the moment of like extraordinary juxtapositions going on on set in the chaos of entertainment and and and little did I realize that a lot of television is chaos and entertainment in sometimes equal measures, sometimes not.

Jon Plowman:

Another one is getting into ox Oxford University. I was very lucky enough to how I ever achieved this from state school in Wellington City to get into Oxford to read English. I shall never know. A story I absolutely remember is that my interview to get into Oxford took place during a power cut, and during this power cut we were in the dark in a room where I was sitting at a desk where in front of me, quite a long way in front of me, were three or possibly four professors. They had candles. I didn't, and I think that's the reason I got in, because they could sort of hear me but not see me. I think the other reason I got in was the usual thing of thinking oh hooray, here's somebody who's not from a public school and doesn't really know what he's talking about, so we'd better take him in.

Chris Grimes:

And also it's, historically and brilliantly the housing days of Oxford, because back in the day it would have all been by candlelight, but of course this was a power grid.

Jon Plowman:

Yeah, it's not that long ago. There was electricity available normally, but on this occasion it wasn't.

Chris Grimes:

So there's this sort of comedy of disruption there, because it wasn't the usual or the norm, and that's what surprised everybody. And then you were surprised to get in.

Jon Plowman:

Exactly. The next place I was surprised to get in was the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square in London where, for some reason, I was taken on by a brilliant director called lindsey anderson, who some may or may not remember made a wonderful film called, if we started, michael mcdowell um and involved uh, essentially involved six formers at a public school shooting, the headmaster, amongst other people. It's a very good film. He was a very good director, he was a very good theatre director and he was a very good film director and I was fantastically lucky. I cannot quite understand why this guy from Welling was put into this very prestigious theatre in I was going to say in the West End, not in the West End in Chelsea, but I was offered a place by a man called Oscar Lewinstein who ran the court at the time. Now I have to be careful here, because this end of the story will involve people that your audience may or may not have heard of.

Jon Plowman:

The person in this instance is Mel Smith. Mel Smith was one half of a comedy duo, smith and Jones, the other half being Griff Rees-Jones, a good mate, and Mel had been an assistant director at the Royal Court just about six months before me and he was good and knew what he was doing. But he also got very easily and very quickly bored because his job there had been looking after something bizarre called the Tokyo Kid Brothers, which was a Japanese theatre company. And Mel, you know, was a very energetic and lively guy and didn't really want, you know, these guys knew what they were doing. They went onto the stage, they did what they did, they came off, you know. So Mel didn't really have anything to do and Oscar Lewinstein, when he talked to me about joining the court, said I can only offer you a job if you promise not to be like Mel Smith.

Chris Grimes:

What was the position you were offered? Was it sort of an the Royal Court?

Jon Plowman:

had a very good assistant director scheme and the point of the assistant director scheme was partly to do things in the theatre upstairs, which was the little theatre above the main theatre, and was also to assist with productions being done by older and greater people than us, as it were, in the scarcity and in fact the person this was. You know, it was all weird, but I remember the weirdest thing almost of the Royal Court experience was being summoned to the Royal Court by somebody coming into stay with me, the pub I was working in. I was working in a pub in the evenings where at lunchtime a play I had written uh, was going on, and this lady came into the, to the bar because I was working behind the bar just in order to make enough money for the train home and stuff. Anyway, I was behind the bar and this very nice lady who turned out to be Oscar Lewinstein's PA came in and said is there any chance you could come in tomorrow and meet Albert? And I, in my relative naivety, said Albert who? She said Albert Finney.

Jon Plowman:

Albert Finney was also directing a Joe Orton play in the season. Albert decided against me. Fair enough, albert decided against me. But next in line was Lindsay Anderson, who was perfectly happy. I think perfectly happy because lindsey was a very he was a dynamic guy and he knew exactly what he was doing. And I remember him once saying that he'd had an assistant who had refused to go and get him a chop beef, chopped liver sandwich from the uh, from the bar opposite the theatre in Soho. And because he'd refused that, lindsay had fired him. And I just thought, well, yeah, stupid guy really, because you know, if a salt beef sandwich helps the production by allowing Lindsay to be there and direct this thing, then I'll go and get my salt beef sandwich.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, it's first jobs that really really, it's those doors that first open, sliding doors, sliding doors, moments of your life.

Jon Plowman:

And they are, because they're the things that lead to other things. Yes, because having done something at the Royal Court, that means that the next person you go and say any chance of a job doesn't think, oh my God, this person doesn't know what they're doing. They think, oh, somewhere nice has employed him. The fact that he might have been rubbish at that place, yes, doesn't matter, you've got a bit of a stamp, you know.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, and did I make this up, but you knew Mel Smith before because he directed you in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Jon Plowman:

He did. Well, yeah, that sounds far grander than it is. I knew Mel because Mel and I were at university at exactly the same time. He was at New College, oxford. I was at University College, oxford, and Mel directed a production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, yes. After which he refused. He said he was going to refuse to ever cast me in anything again, because he'd cast me as Leontes and do I mean Leontes, old man in Hamlet? Help me, polonius, polonius. He'd cast me as Polonius. Sorry, memory game. He'd cast me as Polonius, and the keen ride amongst you may remember that Polonius doesn't have a very big part, and so I thought I know how I can make this a bit better for me, not for the audience.

Jon Plowman:

Not for anybody else, not for anybody studying. Anyway, I know how I can do this I can put some talcum powder in my hair gray hair old guy and it means that every time I bump into anybody there will be clouds out of my head. Anyway, I then decided that really he hadn't got enough lines and that a way maybe of increasing the number of lines was by saying all the lines more than once. My first entrance, I think, was the ambassadors. Anyway, let's go with what the line was. The ambassadors from Norway, my good leader, joyfully arrived. I decided it was better and showed age to march. The ambassadors from Norway, my good leader, are joyfully arrived. So, having lost any sense of artistic credibility, it all having gone out of, the way, or Iambic pentameter.

Chris Grimes:

I love that. Mel said I'll never cast you in anything again.

Jon Plowman:

In fact, later that same year he did, but that's because he was a good guy, mel saying I'll never cast you in anything again. In fact, later that same year he did, but that's because he was a good guy.

Chris Grimes:

You ended up doing Smith and Jones, so I think the partnership in heaven he'd forgiven us. That's a lovely, so I've eeked it out of you. You'd forgotten that, but it's back in. So we're still in the canopy of the tree doing the four things that have shaped you.

Jon Plowman:

We've had two very profound we've done the royal court, we've done telly, we've done getting into oxford. The one last one, I guess, is meeting my partner, who I met in 19 at oxford a long, long, long long time ago. And I met him via. I mean, he was an undergraduate and so was I, but I'd very stupidly promised a little theatre group who went from Oxford every year to the Edinburgh Festival. I promised that I would write a play.

Jon Plowman:

Why I ever thought I could or should write a play, I know not, but I somehow had come across I can't remember how I'd come across the story of JM Barrie. Now, jm Barrie was the writer of Peter Pan and had a very interesting backstory which a bit later became a television thing called the Lost Boys. So I thought I could do a play, because, a it's Scottish Edinburgh helps and B I could see a way, sort of, in which it could be done with just two people. And so I did something I've never done since and probably shouldn't have done at the time, but curiously had a connection to how we ended up doing Absolutely Fabulous. I would go to the Edinburgh University Library in the morning and sit at a desk and try and come up with something which in the afternoon we would rehearse. It's not the ideal way of constructing anything.

Jon Plowman:

Anyway, I wrote this thing and was lucky enough to get very nice reviews. I got a particularly nice review from Harold Hobson, theatre critic of the Sunday Times, who said something to the effect of the sad music of Plowman Barry and Churchill resonates through the theatres. Now, it should be said, the Plowman, plowman, easy Churchill is Carol Churchill, not Winston.

Chris Grimes:

Yep. Thanks for clarifying.

Jon Plowman:

But you know, it was a wonderful review to have. I entirely undeserved and unexpected and amazed and as a result, the play went down to the King's Head Theatre and the King's Head Theatre was where the woman came in and said would you like to come and meet Albert, you know? In other words, it rolled on.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, wonderful. So sliding doors is the recurring theme. Wonderful, so is that? Four shapeages, I believe. And now we're on to three things that inspire you, John Pound.

Jon Plowman:

Well, this is where I think I'm cheating, because there are three people rather than three things, and the three people are first, a brilliant director called Ronald Eyre. Ronald Eyre not to be confused with another brilliant director called Richard Eyre, but anyway, ron was probably the wisest man I've ever met and in many ways the nicer. He was a theatre director who did, amongst other things, a wonderful play by Dion Bukiko called London Assurance. He did a brilliant version of Mushadoo About Nothing at the Royal Shakespeare Company with Judi Dench and Donald Sinden. God help us and gone help us.

Jon Plowman:

And he did, as some of your viewers may remember or may not, a rather good television series called the Long Search, and the Long Search was a sort of it was an eight part, I think, as things were in those days um documentary series about world religion. And anyway, a good guy, a very good guy who, apart from anything else gave, gave me a rather good gag that was later used in abfab, which occurred when the dress rehearsal for a show that he was doing, I think, in Chichester, hadn't gone terribly well, and so he and his designer had a bit to drink at the end of the evening and who can blame them? And they both went out to get in the car and essentially Ron got in the wrong side of the car and, um, oh my god, somebody's stolen the steering wheel that was reincorporated beautifully into abab.

Chris Grimes:

I remember, yes by accident.

Jon Plowman:

I mean I, you know, I I hasten to add, very, very infrequently was anything put directly in by me, but I think that was Anyway. So we've got Runner, that's one. Bob Spears is the next. Bob Spears directed Absolutely Fabulous. He also directed the whole of the second series of Fawlty Towers. He also directed Dad's's army and he and I did bottom. He directed, I produced comics, represent fran lori. You know, bob knew what he was doing and he was. He was a very good director and he was a good director partly because he didn't want things. He wanted things, if possible, not to look like sitcoms. Yeah, sitcom is essentially a form where you've got a set which has got three walls. The fourth wall is the audience.

Jon Plowman:

Yeah, the cameras are between, usually, the audience and the action and that's how traditionally it's done. But Bob, rightly, didn't want everything. You know what that means is everything ends up looking a bit the same and artificial.

Jon Plowman:

Yeah ends up looking a bit the same and artificial. Yeah, and so bob became very, very good at putting cameras in bizarre places. Anyone who's seen stuff that happens in the kitchen in ab fat may have seen them via a camera that poked through the the window that was above the sink. So sappy goats, let's say, to do some washing up mothers wither, the angle is through the window, and if you then want, in a minute or two, to shoot the other way and see the sink of the kitchen, it means the camera has to move pretty quick and a bit of scenery has to go back in. But somehow that happened. Yes, somehow, bob made it happen and he was just great.

Chris Grimes:

So he created a new vocabulary, a sort of pioneering new way.

Jon Plowman:

I don't know whether it was, you know, whether it was something he'd used on lots of other things he may well have done, but I didn't start working with him until, for instance, saunders and I remember the first time he and I sort of worked together. It was going to last a few years, but the first time we worked together was he and I went down the road to a little room a pokey room, it should be said in Hammersmith, where Dawn French and Jennifer Soders were supposedly writing a series that was going to start filming in about three weeks. Let's say they knew we were coming. Bob and I went down to see what problems were they going to offer us and indeed, what joys were they going to offer us. We go into this pokey room and on the wall three, possibly four yellow post-it notes of ideas.

Chris Grimes:

As many as that.

Jon Plowman:

So as many as that? Yes, and there's work out of that. Have you got a script for these three or four ideas? Well, no, we bounce things off each other. I mean, it was startling, it was a learning experience, if nothing else, to see that this is how it was going to be and that the office was also, as people might remember, surrounded by copies of OK magazine and Hello magazine and just to plant that.

Chris Grimes:

I mean that is so seminal, the Office and everybody's consciousness, because that's crossed the Atlantic and and and and I know AbFab's global too, but I mean they're pretty iconic stuff and it must have been relatable. The four post-it notes goes way back to you being in the place where you're promising to write. You're in the library at the Edinburgh Festival promising to rehearse something.

Jon Plowman:

I didn't choose post-it notes. Then, fourth person, woody Allen, just because he's a genius and has always made me laugh and I can't understand anybody who holds anything against a man who can do stuff like sex without love is a meaningless experience. But as meaningless experiences go, it's pretty damn good. Or, I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it by not dying. And people divide mostly into the horrible and the miserable, horrible people. Well, they're blind, they're crippled, they're having a terrible time, they're handicapped in some way. Miserable people are putting together flat-packed furniture. I mean the man.

Chris Grimes:

Have you met him and told him that you admire him?

Jon Plowman:

No, I never have and I wish I had and I dare say I never will. But he is a genius. No, I never have and I wish I had, and I dare say I never will. But he is a genius. Yes, I mean to have made the number of films he's made, and for none of them I'm trying to think. Now can I name any. Maybe half of one film is not as good as it might be, but otherwise they're great, and some of them are beyond great.

Chris Grimes:

It's sort of comedy gold, which is a resonance of your own. Sorry, it's a resonance of your own.

Jon Plowman:

I mean I've made two films I think Well, three, if you count one hundreds of years ago with Richard Burton. So they're my three people who've inspired me.

Chris Grimes:

Now we're on to the Two Squirrels. What are your, oh squirrels? Borrow from the film Up. The two is your monsters of distraction, sometimes called shiny object syndrome. So what never fails to stop you in your tracks, John Plowman.

Jon Plowman:

This may sound sad in a way, because I've already mentioned them, but Dawn and Jennifer, for instance, always, never, fail to stop me in their tracks and sort of tie them up with Bob Spears and also to tie them up with a question you haven't asked me but maybe will ask me at some point is the sort of advice I remember is never shout cut. As soon as you shout cut, everything stops.

Chris Grimes:

Yes.

Jon Plowman:

Never shout cut until you absolutely have to, until you're using too much film and you're going to have to pay a vast amount of money. Some of the best things, certainly, that Dawn and Jennifer ever did were in the moments between reaching the bottom of the page of script and the point where bob uh shouted cat um. Memorable examples being there's this early-ish sketch where the two of them play the women who hire out animals to television. That that's pretty good to begin with, but anyway, the people who hire, and they've got a llama that looks just like the Bee Gees. Anyway, they do in a television documentary kind of a way, a piece to camera explaining about dogs and how this cat looks like and this dog looks like.

Jon Plowman:

And there comes a point where we're at the end of the sketch and Bob doesn't shout, he just lets it roll just to see if there's anything else to be got him out of this. And what he gets? Entirely unrehearsed, entirely never spoken about, dawn um deciding that well, this, I mean this is a bizarre existential moment, but she's decided. And well, she knows that the dog and cat poo on the ground, yeah, is in fact made of chocolate. So she does what any self-respect would she reaches down, takes some starts to eat it. Now you could say and I think I can even remember having to say yes, of course we apologise to everybody who's ever been involved in, you know, with children who have accidentally lost. I understand we should never have done that, but it's a sort of joyous moment.

Chris Grimes:

Of true spontaneity and going full post-it note, it's still the middle of something.

Jon Plowman:

You're there. You know what I mean. Yes, you're in the moment. You're in the moment, and so it's a good thing to keep that moment going as long as you can.

Chris Grimes:

To have French and Saunders as one of your squirrels is fantastic.

Jon Plowman:

A second squirrel, Again two squirrels, rhys Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, with whom I did Well, no, that's silly they did, and I watched while we did Inside no 9. We did Inside no 9, having done the League of Gentlemen with Rhys and Steve and Mark, and then Psychoville with recent Stephen Mark With recent Stephen Mark in one episode, but otherwise not. And at the end of that I remember we went to the controller of BBC Two, who was a nice lady at the time. I mean not to say she's not a nice lady now.

Jon Plowman:

Anyway, we went to her and you could tell that there was a sort of oh God, it's these people again and their weirdnesses. Oh well, some people tell me that the weirdnesses are pretty good, will tell me that the weirdnesses are pretty good. And so Rhys and Steve essentially said what we'd like to do is a series of one-off 30-minute things, sort of Tales of the Unexpected, yes, and sometimes Tales of the Incredibly Unexpected. And at least at the very beginning, she said well, look, could you do that and could you keep an eye out for the episode that's going to become the next series? So in other words, it's a series of pilots really.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, yes, or the commonality of Inside No.9 and all the sort of surreal possibilities, but actually youality of Inside no 9 and all the sort of surreal possibilities.

Jon Plowman:

But actually you think about Inside no 9, there aren't many things where you think oh yeah, I'd love another five episodes of people being murdered. I'd love another five episodes of strangeness.

Chris Grimes:

Yes.

Jon Plowman:

So, in a way, what they wanted to do and rightly so was have a go at lots of different things. Yes, and the reason I've got them on the list is because they are sort of schools. I remember the joy, as it were, of every time a new Insider no 9 script would arrive, Because you were reading, you know it's lovely, somebody's given you a lovely present and you think, how the hell are we going to do that? And there were only a couple where we thought we can't do that. There was one not their fault, just time and money. There was one set in a sort of ghost train through a hall of mirrors and it just filming that with cameras and keeping the camera. You know, it just looked wildly A, impossible, B, expensive, so you didn't even try that, it was just they said, alright, we'll go and write something else.

Jon Plowman:

And what was remarkable was their ability to write something else. I mean not just to write six episodes, but maybe to write another one, just because they had to. You know, it's extraordinary.

Chris Grimes:

And that whole Inside no 9 chapter has only just come to an end. And now there's the theatre, there's the stage, now, and they've done nine series for God's sake, yes, yes.

Jon Plowman:

And they all said oh well, we'll finish after nine series and that means we did. What are nine sixes? I see them from Fifty-four. Thank you very much. That's why I know it came in on budget. Fifty-four episodes yes, I think there might be a 55, 55th somewhere other. There's a live one. We did. You know the joy of getting a new script of that yes, was brilliant.

Chris Grimes:

And always a perpetual squirrel. They always, I suppose, whenever, whenever they knock on your door, that's all the squirrels are here. What, what have they brought? What nuts do they bring? How fantastic we're. On to the one quirky or unusual fact about you. This is the 54321. A quirky or unusual fact about you, john Plowman. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.

Jon Plowman:

Okay, things you couldn't know. Okay, when I was doing Russell Harty's programme, russell Harty's programme, russell Harty's programme was done from the Greenwood Theatre. Now the Greenwood Theatre is in the grounds of Guy's Hospital and is so-called because and this may be a mistake and is so-called because and this may be a mistake a surgeon, I think, left in his will that a new theatre should be built. He didn't specify whether this should be an operating theatre or a theatre theatre. It was built as quite a nice theatre theatre, which viewers will have seen a lot on earlier versions of Question Time when hosted by the Vicar of Dimbleby, as we know.

Chris Grimes:

That's a lovely moniker for Richard Dimbleby, the Vicar of Dimbleby. How clever.

Jon Plowman:

But what that meant, it being in Guy's Hospital and Guy's Hospital being near London Bridge, the offices for Russell's show were where the rest of the BBC is, or was in Shepherd's Bush. So you had to travel somehow from Shepherd's Bush in West London to Guy's Hospital in East London. Cut a long story short I'd only been doing this show for about a month and a half and I'd just come back from Manchester working at Granada, and I didn't know how you got across London reasonably quickly. So I brought with me the motorbike that I had in Manchester, I brought down to London to get across London.

Jon Plowman:

Anyway, it's got a long story. I said that before six weeks into it I arrive under the tunnels that take the trains onto London Bridge and you go through these tunnels and you come out and you're quite, but you're just by guys and you're going from darkness into light, as it were. And what I did not see, possibly, maybe, uh, was a car coming at a reasonable speed uh, across, uh, yeah, on the main road, uh, uh, and it took the ambulance about 10 minutes to arrive, even from the front of Guy's Hospital to about 100 yards from here. Anyway, I can show you the injury.

Chris Grimes:

I don't know whether You're now lifting your leg Very balletic, if I may say so, but, oh gosh, you're now showing what looks like a shark bite Exactly.

Jon Plowman:

Yes, shark bites. Isn't that my life? Anyway, I couldn't produce the show that night. I had to go to the hospital. I was in hospital. How long was I in hospital? Quite a while. And various people getting to hear about this, and particularly because of russell show, you know, odd people would pop up, uh. So russell popped up and alan bates I remember, bless him popped up, and possibly Dawn and Jen, though I'm trying to work out whether I knew them, but anyway, anyway, various relatively famous people popped up To your bedside yeah, to my bedside, and the nursing staff got quite excited about it. Oh, hooray, hooray. Oh, we could move you into a little room of your own if that would help.

Chris Grimes:

Hooray, thank you, it's all about who you know, john. You see, that's what it is.

Jon Plowman:

It's about who you know, but the thing I don't think that I've ever let on before is that the then exec producer of the show was a man called Tom Guttridge, and Tom's immediate response to me, having broken my leg and being in the hospital, his immediate response was can I get a private phone in next to John's bed so he can carry on doing the show while he's in hospital and I, tom Guttridgeidge, don't have to do it? Thankfully, uh, they couldn't get a private line in next to my bed and I was allowed to recover, but I offer that as a kind of good lord.

Chris Grimes:

I never knew that wow, and how indispensable you had become to the world of comedy. Direction are entirely disp.

Jon Plowman:

Entirely dispensable, I'm sure, and how? Even to this day, I can't believe that the accident wasn't partly because I was a bit nervous and worried about doing it.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, we have, I believe, shaken your tree. That's the clearing, and then the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now we'll stay in the clearing, move away from the tree, and next we're going to talk about alchemy and gold. John Prower and you've been curating gold most of your career, but when?

Jon Plowman:

you're at purpose and in flow. What are you absolutely happiest doing in what you're here to reveal to the world? I think I'm happiest watching rehearsals for something, and either let's pick either Absolutely Fabulous or the Vicar of Dibley. In both instances it's a joy because there isn't much doubt in the room, as it were, that we're dealing with something that's quite good. So there isn't the usual oh, oh, this will never work. Oh, I don't want to do it. Oh, couldn't I? None of that's there. That there's a good atmosphere in the place? Yes, and you're watching things being created. Jennifer, who was notoriously late delivering scripts, would say that part of the reason for that was not wanting to write it down, because once you've written it down, it's there, it's. You know, once you've written it, that's it. She would say you know, I can't make it any funnier, I can't make it better. Once I've written it down Now you might say, well, cross it out and write something else.

Chris Grimes:

Anyway, you might say that Ours not to question, um, but and actually I wouldn't say that because I love comedy, improvisation and that sort of yeah and yes and yes and what they were doing and and and it was the reason ruby would would arrive of a of a wednesday when we were doing the first sort of run-through.

Jon Plowman:

I say the first run-through, you know Sunday. The week on our fab started Sunday. Arrival of script read-through. Now, arrival of script in some instances meant, whereas a normal half-hour sitcom script is about 64 pages, some weeks 12. Half-hour sitcom script is about 64 pages, right, some weeks 12, including pages that said uh, don't worry, I'll put some jokes in later, scene 27 uh, patsy and eddie have around. Uh, you know, don't worry, I'll write it later. So by Wednesday, somehow we've got a bit more, and that's when Ruby comes in, and that's when Ruby and Jen go off into a corner and essentially rewrite the whole thing. And so maybe Thursday bear in mind, we're recording live in front of an audience, in front of 220 people, on Friday evening.

Chris Grimes:

Wow, we open on Friday.

Jon Plowman:

But there's something rather wonderful about watching the building. It's like somebody put a house up.

Chris Grimes:

The magic of rehearsal as well.

Jon Plowman:

And the Dibley magic is slightly different because it's the magic of Richard Curtis and in a way he's the opposite of Jen, in that he can write. No, that's not fair. Jen can write, but in a different way, but Richard can, as it were, commit and commit rather brilliantly. And so what one was watching there is the construction of a different sort of house. Maybe it's more like the construction of a thatched roof on top of a rather beautiful building that's already been built.

Chris Grimes:

And, if I may, I was talking to a friend about interviewing you just this morning. I went out for a coffee and some banana cakes slathered in coffee butter, nom nom nom. And he said ah, he sounds and it's lovely. I'd like to be you. You're like a a football referee, in that if it wasn't for you as a sort of comedy referee, some of the greatest matches in comedy history wouldn't have happened. So you've just described two very different processes there, how French and Saunders and Ab Fab worked, and then also you've just talked about Vicar of Dibley, which, of course, dawn French is the through line for that whereas other things and, in a way, things I'm almost proudest of my bit of, are things like w1a and and 2012.

Jon Plowman:

Yes, of course. Yes, written by john morton, where, where he's just a brilliant writer yeah and and you've got. I was going to say you've got to read what's written on the page, but but in a way the comedy is comes from the fact that he's a brilliant writer writing for brilliant actors.

Chris Grimes:

And there's your own preference for anarchy, because when you did Shakespeare, which is ultimately disciplined, supposedly he's quite a good writer you're trying to double the lines of Polonius.

Jon Plowman:

Not necessarily double the lines, but double the time he's on stage saved. And I nicked that from Graham Garvey, who had a character on a show some older listeners may remember called I'm sorry, I'll read that again. I'm sorry, I'll read that again. Which became I'm sorry I haven't declared it again. Which became uh, I'm sorry I haven't declared, I'm sorry that again had a character who, who was very, very, very, very old, uh, yes, anyway, so I nicked it from a good source. Yes, so I think my, my alchemy and gold, thank you, is watching gold be created.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, and I hope you like the referee thing. It was a compliment about comedy matches. That couldn't have happened without you being the referee oh bless, Bless.

Jon Plowman:

If I understood football, I'd take it on the chin.

Chris Grimes:

So now I'm going to award you with a cake, hurrah. You like cake, john Plowman. I do like cake. Funny enough, hurrah you like cake?

Jon Plowman:

John Plowman, I do like cake. Funny enough, somebody rang up this morning and said would we like them to make a cake for tomorrow? So I will be eating cake tomorrow, whether you like it or not is it your birthday?

Chris Grimes:

no, just somebody randomly ringing up who's a good cake maker. You've got the neighbours from heaven. I love that. What type of cake have you ordered for tomorrow? Or what's your favourite type of cake, John?

Jon Plowman:

I suppose it depends on mood, but a sort of coffee sponge with a thick middle of coffee cream, something like that, and obviously coffee icing. Of course it shall be yours. Something like that.

Chris Grimes:

And obviously coffee ice. Of course it shall be yours Metaphorically. I'm working on actually trying to give people the cakes they want as well. That's the sort of new build for the day. Hopefully, I'll furnish you with a coffee cake, literally or metaphorically. Now you get to put a cherry on the cake. Now in the construct, what's your favourite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your future?

Jon Plowman:

Never give a sucker an even break.

Chris Grimes:

Never give a sucker an even break. Did you say yeah?

Jon Plowman:

I hate that. No, and I don't read it. I always remember and I'll get the quote wrong, but I always remember the first scene of the Office and I was the person who said yes to the Office somehow Wow Largely because saying no to Gervais is always tricky and I remember him coming in and saying my friend and I and my friend has been on the BBC director's course and was obviously Stephen Merchant yeah, and we've made this little bit of stuff to show you what the show will be like and it'll be great. And the confidence oozing out of the two of them, but particularly out of ricky, was extraordinary. Anyway, I always remember that thing where he's got a guy in the office and he's saying have you passed the fork lift truck?

Chris Grimes:

It's very easy for you to say Exactly.

Jon Plowman:

And then he picks up the phone and says hang on, give me a sec. And the guy says is this the guy who does the test? Does the test. He wrote the test, I gave him the job and Gervais, meanwhile, is doing a long nose, a long, I'm lying a lot nose. It's joyous. And it's joyous particularly when you get something that arrives like that yes, it's already there.

Chris Grimes:

That was in the pilot episode as well, was it? Yeah, Partly what they? The first sort of test, beta version of what they did. And again, the rest is history from that regard as well, because obviously Steve Merchant and so you've said you greenlit something that presumably he felt was a sliding door for him.

Jon Plowman:

No, the truth is I didn't greenlight it, because if you greenlight something you agree in a way to pay for it, iffy green lights are something you agree in a way to pay for it.

Chris Grimes:

all I did was take it to bbc2 and say this is jolly good, we should give it a go, and we did yes, and I'm sure you will be a sliding door for ricky gervais as well because of that as well, absolutely with the gift of hindsight. Uh, john, now what is the? Uh? What notes, help or advice might you proffer to a younger version of yourself?

Jon Plowman:

Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it, because worrying never does any good, so don't worry about it.

Chris Grimes:

Love that. And now we're ramping up shortly to talk about legacy through Shakespeare and the Seven Ages of Man's Speech, but just before we do, I've got something called Pass the Golden Baton moment, please, mr Manoring. So, having experienced this rather surreal sound storiescape for yourself, who would you most like to, mr Manoring, who would you most like to pass the golden baton along to, to keep the golden thread of the storytelling going Well, I think well, either Rhys or Steve, because they've got a lot, you know, they've done a lot and they know a lot and they're jolly good and they could try and have a baton between them, as it were.

Jon Plowman:

My friend jeff greenstein now, my friend jeff greenstein is an american and he's six foot eight. Wow, he was showrunner for will and grace and he's a very good writer and he's a very nice guy and he wrote on friends and he wrote lots of things and and, uh, will and grace was the thing he wrote for, wrote on for, yes, and was and was showrunner of and and he doesn't really. He's sort of semi-retired, but but he's sometimes gettable in england, he's not just semi-retired but he's sometimes gettable in England.

Chris Grimes:

I love that. Sometimes gettable in England Lovely. If I may be greedy, I'd love to grab both of those squirrels and bite your arm off. Both of those Wonderful and a very small world wouldn't want to hoover it, did you know? I was at the Central School of Speech and Drama the year after French and Saunders left. They did the teaching degree like me back in the day, and George Hall was he still? Yes, george Hall was the principal, but I wasn't doing the acting course at that point. I was doing the teaching degree.

Jon Plowman:

As was.

Chris Grimes:

Norman, jennifer, yes, and then one other connection I grew up in Uganda and I happened to be best friends with Adrian Edmondson's two younger brothers, matthew and Alistair, and so I met Adrian Edmondson around about that time as well.

Jon Plowman:

Yeah Right, small world.

Chris Grimes:

Wouldn't want to hoover it, as they say. So thank you so much for those golden patterns. That's great. So now inspired by Shakespeare. We'll get on to that shortly, but I'd just like to do an exciting bit, which is called Show Us your QR Code, please. If the audience are watching this, I'd like to point you to and you can tell us a little bit about this. Is it every week that you're doing John Plowman's? What's Funny About?

Jon Plowman:

No, and it's wrong to call it John Plowman's, because Peter Fincham and I do this thing in peter fincham shed in notting hill. We've now done I think 24 of them, uh, something like that, and they're me and him talking to people who've had very successful comedies on telly and saying essentially why, how, what's funny about?

Chris Grimes:

So now you're dipping into your own canon for that as well, I'm assuming.

Jon Plowman:

Yeah, only because it's you know it.

Chris Grimes:

It'll be very difficult to avoid it. We've done.

Jon Plowman:

John Cleese, we've done the Dairy Girls. We've done quite a few people who we've had. We did Jonathan Lynn the other day who wrote yes, Minister, and yes, Prime Minister. You know, we've done lots of people with whom we had nothing to do.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, and what's funny about it is a regular BBC sound, and that's the QR code for that.

Jon Plowman:

On BBC Radio 4, it's just finished a series, but it was, if you're looking for it via sounds.

Chris Grimes:

I believe that's where the QR code goes. It goes to the URL on the BBC.

Jon Plowman:

Very good. And then here comes another one if you want to look at john plowman's extraordinary career like, curiously, that photograph has I can't see it really in detail, but I think it's it's very close to the hammock of the clearing. Yeah, so you may see a bit of snow on a bit of mountains in the back.

Chris Grimes:

Love that. So this is to you on Wikipedia. So I was just showing that. So what I'd like to do now, we've done the clearing the tree, the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, the alchemy, the gold, a couple of random squirrels. We're now ramping up via cake, which we've done as well, onto Shakespeare. All right, Legacy.

Jon Plowman:

Now, john Cl, when all is said and done, how would you most like to be Remembered? Well, I don't particularly want to be Remembered, but I wouldn't mind some of the shows I've done being Remembered and still funny, and I have a feeling that a few of them are, you know. I think that probably there's enough in AmFab that's kind of not of its day to still be funny in 20 years' time. And there's enough in the Vicar of Dibley, even though it will be less of an amazement that there are in Vicar's. I think there's enough in that to make it last. I hope there's enough in John Morton's stuff like 2012 and W1A, in which Hugh Vonnegut starred as modern man who runs things. Yes, he gets in a flap about it. Who runs things gets in a flap about it. Yes, Dom?

Chris Grimes:

No, of course, Josh.

Jon Plowman:

So I hope there's a bit of legacy there.

Chris Grimes:

About the true test of comedy lasting, the test of time which the greatest comedians do.

Jon Plowman:

Yes, If you think about it, I will happily watch Dad's Army of a Night when there's nothing else on, and it's on UK Gold, a station that recently employed me to make an 82-minute documentary about an absolute family.

Chris Grimes:

Your legacy is secure, if I may say so. Thank you, wonderful. And so now, as this has been your moment in the sunshine, in the Good, listening to Show John Plowman, is there anything else you'd like to say? Thank you.

Jon Plowman:

Thank you to all the people who've watched things, to all the people who have, as it were, thought that it wasn't an impossible idea that I might lead them down a reasonable path towards something or other, um, and and thank you to everybody who's listened and watched and just to reincorporate matt lucas back in the day, called you well, for reasons I understand, called you the godfather of comedy, the godfather. Yes, although I don't have a toilet but has a gun.

Chris Grimes:

Quite right too, but lots of cocaine on the system. That's the important thing, obviously. So, ladies and gentlemen, I've been Chris Grimes, but most importantly, this has been John Clowman. Thank you so much for being here. It's been a great joy, just. And thank you so much for being here. It's been a great joy. Um, just, if you would like a conversation about being in the show too, this is just a quick bit of patter about the show. The website for my show is the good listening to showcom. If you'd also like to connect with me on linkedin, you can do that too. A couple of qr codes flashing about too, but, um, just to want to say a sincere, hefty, enormous thank you to, uh well, john Plowman.

Jon Plowman:

It's been a pleasure. There's a sequence in Love and Death, a much underrated film which for me is his funniest because it's the sort of most tightly written. He didn't really like it because it happened in a foreign land, not in New York, and it's a pastiche of war and peace. There's a bit of dialogue that it's a greater honour for me. No, it's a pastiche of war and peace. There's a bit of a dialogue that it's a great honor for me. No, it's a great honor for me. No, it's a great honor. Very funny.

Chris Grimes:

Anyway, sorry, lovely. And also that was us proving that don't say cut because that was worth it. That was an extra bit of gold. Yes, exactly Right. Wonderful advice to the future, so you can leave us with your best. What's your most sage-like advice to future executive producers of comedy?

Jon Plowman:

Carry on laughing.

Chris Grimes:

Thank you very much indeed. You've been listening to the Good Listening To Show with me, chris Grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed gift an episode to capture the story of someone else, with me as your host, then you can find out how care of the series strands at the good listening to showcom website. If you'd like to connect with me on linkedin, please do so, and if you'd like to have some coaching with me care of my personal impact game changer program then you can contact me. And also about the show at chris at secondcurveuk On X and Instagram. It's at thatchrisgrimes Tune in next week for more stories from the Clearing, and don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts Boom. So I'm just back in the room quickly with John Plowman. If I could get your immediate feedback on what that was like to be in this structure, john, how was that for you?

Jon Plowman:

It was fine, thank you. No, it was very good, because it means you're not worrying about that we might be going somewhere deeply odd and devious. No, it's good to have a structure to an interview. No, it's, it's good to have a structure to an interview. I speak as someone who for years was a producer for both terry wogan and russell harvey yes, I will take that.

Chris Grimes:

Thank you very much indeed, and thank you so much for those very generous passings of the golden baton too not at all.