The Stand-Up Theologian
James Cary, BBC comedy writer, author and touring stand-up theologian is on a never-ending quest to understand comedy, the Bible, culture and the church.
The Stand-Up Theologian
Is Your Life a Movie or a Sitcom?
In the very first episode, James Cary, the Stand-Up Theologian, is joined by former Popcorn Parenting podcast co-host Nate Morgan Locke for a lively conversation that jumps from Back to the Futureand Star Wars Episode I to sitcoms, storytelling, and even evangelistic preaching. Along the way, James confesses he only cares about story for the jokes—one reason he became a comedy writer—and explains why he loves jazz but not Charlie Parker. Nate tackles the monomyth, Into the Woods, and Save the Cat, before asking whether life is more like a movie or a sitcom, what you’d wish for if you met a genie, and why sitcom specials always send the cast on holiday. We also explore what links Just William to Porridge, why sitcoms are not movies, and how to overcome “main character syndrome,” all while reflecting on last episodes, franchises, and the peculiar art of storytelling.
Nate explains why Narnia is a TERRIBLE franchise:
James talks Clement and Frenais about Porridge and Just William:
If you want episode 2 with Dr Andy Bannister on whether Atheism is funny any more, become a Loyal Lollard via The Wycliffe Papers. HERE.
Thank you.
Speaker 00:Hello, James Cary here. Welcome to the very first episode of the Stand Up Theologian podcast with me, James Cary, because I'm the Stand Up Theologian. In this episode, I'm talking to Nate Morgan-Locke, who is implausibly a reformed mythologist. We talk about why I'm only interested in stories for the jokes, and that's why I became a comedy writer. Why I love jazz, but don't like Charlie Parker. The monomyth, we go into the woods to save the cat. Look at why sitcoms are not movies. The topic that I will preach on if you invite me to give an evangelistic talk at your church and whether your life is a movie or a sitcom. Plus we've got what links Just William to porridge, why sitcom movie specials always send their characters on holiday and lots more besides. Hope you enjoy this. It's the first one. Be gentle.
Unknown:Music
Speaker 00:I am joined for the first inaugural episode by an erstwhile podcasting co-host of mine. He is the co-host, was the co-host of the Popcorn Parenting podcast. His name is Nate Morgan-Lock. He is a reformed mythologist. He will greet you and tell us what on earth that is. Hello, Nate.
Speaker 01:Hello. Whoop, whoop. It's great to be here. Round of applause. Thank you for having me. Reformed mythologist is the perfect demonstration of my contrarian nature because it's the combination of two words that frustrate, annoy and terrify two different groups of people. There are people who are terrified by the word reformed, believing it to be cold, calculated and mean. And then there are people who like the word reformed who are terrified by the word mythologist because it sounds like you're about to go off with the fairies and lose something of value. So yeah, right there, overlap, reformed and mythologist. You'll find me wearing a baseball cap and posse Yeah,
Speaker 00:and talking about movies likely as not and story. We'll get into that. But as you were saying there, that does remind me of a joke that I often make whenever I see a united reformed church. And I always think that the chances of anything being both united and reformed seem extremely unlikely to me. We won't get into that, although that is theology. This is the Stand Up Theologian podcast. We are kicking off by talking about story and movies. But let's start with little Nate Morgan-Lock. sat there on the carpet, staring up at a blinking screen or getting in a car, going to a cinema or theatre, as they oddly call it in the States. Theatre is where actors turn up and pretend. So what did you go and see that made you realise, oh, wow, this is something. You were compelled by story and in particular movie.
Speaker 01:Yeah. So I think the first film that probably got me me by the scruff of the neck was back to the future oh and i don't actually remember where what circumstances i was in when i watched the film how old i was or anything like that i just know that if i think what is the very essence of cinema think of a movie i'll probably think back to the future
Speaker 00:why give us a bit more why because it sounds like that one it went straight in it didn't touch the science it was like yeah
Speaker 01:yeah nothing but net as the basketball players say Yeah, it was just, here's a character who I'm totally behind, who's doing something that I think is incredibly cool. And I'm desperate for him to succeed. And it just got all this exciting stuff happening in it, whether it's 1985 or 1955, or it's a DeLorean, or it's a... I
Speaker 00:mean, the DeLorean is the coolest looking car, but apparently it's an absolute dog. Yeah, yeah. But it looks incredible. I rewatched it recently with my kids who are now old enough to appreciate movies like that, or at least not mind having their dad insist you have to watch this movie. The thing that caught me every time through all three movies in the trilogy was the ability of Michael J. Fox to act surprised about every six minutes and Doc as well. They're just constantly jaws on floor. And it's so funny because we all know what happens because we've seen it before. probably so many times but there's so much whoa doc
Speaker 03:doc
Speaker 00:oh my you know it's like so much um the bit where he runs down the street having just been sent back to the future and the way doc sort of viscerally reacts in shock um physically it's it's just incredible it's such great physical acting but it's all on the screen it's all on the table it's just a great movie and all three stand up the second one's a harder watch but it's still pretty good and i think the third one's quite you know just pretty much the same first movie the same as the first movie in some ways but um so yeah i i have that's probably on my list of top tens at least yeah
Speaker 01:and it's you know spielberg so you know probably somewhere connected to that is is jurassic park and then thinking okay so that was the first time loads of that kind of very kind of um standard uh response for here were some massive movies movies from the 80s and 90s that just made me go oh that looks really really cool and right just the world is drawing me in in a way that nothing else quite has
Speaker 00:and at what point did you sort of realize why you liked it i mean i used to do another podcast called sitcom geeks and occasionally we would talk to writers and ask them at what point did you realize what i'm watching has been written by somebody and i could do that you know you weren't thinking at the age of 12 I'll become a reformed mythologist. That's not a thing. It's still not a thing, even though you made it a thing.
Speaker 01:Not at all.
Speaker 00:But sort of at what point did you realise there's something special happening here? This isn't just... This doesn't just happen.
Speaker 01:Oh, I think the first time I was aware that films... films came out and got released and you could have a conversation about whether it was a good idea or not was probably as late as Star Wars Episode 1. That was probably the first film that I was conscious of there being a bit of anticipation about it coming out. So there's loads of other stuff where I'd seen some merchandising for films and I was just going to go in there. But here was a film that was coming out which had a massive conversation that was already ongoing and then a bunch of people who had expectations and then you know initially were just crushed by what they've seen
Speaker 00:mostly yeah
Speaker 01:there was a lot around that which was oh there is a guy called george lucas and he's trying to make decisions and decide where to take this yeah range of characters and and the storytelling yeah
Speaker 00:I don't know what it was for me for movies. Cause I, you know, I have to be honest, I'm a half hour sitcom guy and therefore I just knew that, well, I wanted to understand how comedy worked. So for me it wasn't story and it's in some ways it still isn't, I'm not as interested in story as I am in jokes. And the reason I'm interested in jokes, the reason I became a writer is because if you want to understand jokes, you have to understand words and how they work and how it's written. So that's how I ended up becoming, a comedy writer and you know I'd love to ask you about story and the monomyth and the hero's journey but preface that by saying we sort of inherently know a lot of this and when I started out as a sitcom writer as a comedy writer in the late 90s I'll be honest I was a relatively successful sitcom writer for quite a long time I had no idea about three act structures I had no idea about inside incidents or anything like that. I wrote my first episode of a sitcom called Think the Unthinkable for Radio 4. It got nominated for a Sony Radio Award. I had no idea what I was doing, but I'd listened to a lot of comedies. I'd watched a lot of comedies. And I just thought, well, it's just sort of like that, isn't it? Scenes are about a minute and a half or two minutes. If it's boring and no one's laughing, you should probably want to cut that. It wasn't a very complicated thing. And then since the internet and since writers and screenwriting courses suddenly I've got people telling me about inciting incidents and how many acts does your sitcom have which I would say one but we'll get on to that in a minute it's the second act that's all we do in sitcoms that's a sneak preview so it's worth prefacing the fact that this is all I think fairly recent in the last 20 years people have been talking about this increasingly as the writing industry has become an industry in itself
Speaker 01:yeah yeah to get people to write their own screenplay or write their own novels Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff around that. You're right. When you're enjoying a story, you're not really thinking about the structure of it, the architecture of the plot or anything like that. You're just going, well, this, of course, this is what is going to happen or needs to happen because it's intuitive. And I think it's intuitive both because story and it's inbuilt into human beings. And so we have a kind of innate understanding understanding especially me it's innate yeah very good but also because we're so shaped by though the examples of particular genres and styles and media for sharing stories anyway so you were so familiar with all those sitcoms that it was just natural of course that's how you do it a little bit like you know when kids I don't know how they teach tennis but when someone's first picks up a tennis racket they aren't being taught what the mechanics of a serve are they just go well I've watched Wimbledon on the telly and they just sort of throw it up and then they just go whack it and try and hit it into the correct part of the court so there is an intuitive nature to that and then of course you can if you really want to you know take it on seriously you're going to get a coach who's going to talk you through well actually your arm isn't coming far enough back in order to get the power and you're throw is a bit wonky and there are things then you can work on but story is inbuilt into human beings that's how we've been made and then if we consume a lot of particular media types then we have a sense of where this ought to go we kind of follow the natural trajectory of the story and you only mess around with that if you're either trying to be a bit awkward or you
Speaker 00:you're making an art house movie and frankly no one's watching it
Speaker 01:yeah no one asked you to mess around with this genre it was fine just you know conventions are okay
Speaker 00:yeah it's a bit like the sort of jazz oh it's the notes that they're not playing it's like oh okay and it's the sheer number of notes they're playing instead it's like okay I don't want I mean I'm a huge jazz fan but I there's a point at which jazz becomes weird and annoying roundabout Charlie Parker I don't I'm not a huge Charlie Parker fan he's just sort of right on the cusp of hmm not wild about that but it was so interesting actually I mean I was at a gig the other day because what you're talking about is the oughtness and I was at a gig the other day it was the Ronnie Scott's band except they were in Froome in Somerset where I'm from I was born in Froome proper job but it was the Grand Memorial Theatre in Froome and it's was where I'd seen Ken Dodd many years ago do as a stand-up comedian he did three and a half hours on stage
Speaker 01:you know his dad's dog's dead
Speaker 00:Ken Dodd's dad's dog's dead so there was a drum solo which kind of went on and on and on and on to the point where the band obviously this is they didn't walk off in disgust they slowly walked away from the stage and just left the drummer drumming and of course he started doing all kinds of things around the beat but with his left foot I think he was just still
Speaker 01:Okay.
Speaker 00:And everything else was going on around it. And he just sort of managed to keep that. And I don't even know if that beat itself disappeared at one point. But it was in our heads. And it was almost like this is an immutable law of the universe that this person has established. And if he just suddenly stopped... It would just be like putting a glass of water on the edge of a table and walking away. You know, it's like, you know,
Speaker 02:it
Speaker 00:was fascinating, the oughtness of it. There is something about the rhythm of the universe, the oughtness. It taps into our souls, our image bearing of godness. So why don't we try to get there from the monomyth. What's the monomyth? It sounds like the worst superhero in the world.
Speaker 01:So very quick introduction to the monomyth. It's sometimes called the hero's journey. It's basically co-divided by Joseph Campbell in his 1948 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Speaker 00:He's not the soup guy,
Speaker 01:different
Speaker 00:Campbell. No, although the soup of
Speaker 01:story.
Speaker 00:The Hero with a Thousand Soups. How many varieties of Campbell's soup are there?
Speaker 01:The Hero with 57 varieties. That's
Speaker 00:Heinz's journey.
Speaker 01:So he's a big... fan of Carl Jung and Carl Jung is arguing for the collective unconscious and the archetypes and that all human beings have kind of tapped into this reality which we all kind of carry with us and no one quite knows why and so Joseph Campbell studies various myths, folk tales, fables etc from around the world and then argues that they all share a similar plot structure and he then defines this as the hero's journey which typically begins with the hero at home in the known world they receive a call to adventure which they may choose to refuse for a time but then they will go across the threshold from the known into the unknown world face a series of trials possibly an ordeal in the inmost cave and then they will grab a boon and they will return back across the threshold into the known world with the boon that they might bestow it and become the master of the two realms so it's a kind of story clock is basically how you draw it and that was a pretty major contribution to the whole screenwriting industry because that is what inspires George Lucas to create his razzle dazzle Saturday matinee western set in space a long time ago
Speaker 00:yeah I'm holding in my hat this is an audio podcast there isn't a video version of it but I've just scraped it on the microphone by accident. There's a book here called Into the Woods by John York, which I have to say I've not finished, but essentially the first hundred pages or so is dynamite and that it kind of gives a bit more detail on that. And there's another much more readable, slightly chirpily annoying book called Save the Cat, which is essentially a blueprint for a Hollywood movie, which is essentially, because we can be tricked into thinking that this is a Western way of telling stories. And actually what I'm hearing from you is the fact that Joseph Campbell really studied stories from around the world, that this wasn't just a... Is that right?
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah. So he's drawing from all sorts of different things that most of us would never have heard of. So whether it's Native American myth or it's Aboriginal kind of dream state kind of characters. I mean, he's definitely onto something. And I think, you know, I know why. And that's because... i'm a christian but not everything quite fits as he might want it to and that's possibly because he's sort of put the cart before the horse really so for him the jesus story is just one example of this thing rather than being the kind of myth becoming fact which is gs lewis's great contribution um so all the discussion that's happening around you know what to do with all these world religions and how are they all connected And then, of course, Campbell pops up to say, hey, it's okay. There's just one big story structure. And if you want to become a famous Hollywood screenwriter, just follow this plan. And then it gets popularized, as you say, into those other books. Although the John York one, he's basically debating like five or six different theories on how many acts there are, whether it's three or five, or I think there's a four-act version. Yeah. And then there's Freitag. Is it Freitag? Is that his name?
Speaker 00:I've got Freitag Pyramids, Exposition, Complications, Climax, Falling Action, Catastrophe. I mean, in a way, I think that is another version of the hero's journey because essentially the climax is the very bottom of the circle, as it were. And then it's about the journey back, isn't it? So somebody was saying that it's a different way of storytelling because the climax is in the middle. But actually I'm not sure whether that holds true. I just think it's a question of where you put the middle of the story.
Speaker 01:It's a little bit like, you know, if you can tell the difference between a fork and a knife and a spoon, it doesn't really matter what order they go in your drawer in the kitchen. People might have strong views about that, where the teaspoons go, but essentially you're just recognising that there are certain parts of stories which connect together in certain ways. And then what we do with those in different media and different conventions of storytelling is that we tend to use them in a particular way. And I want to get into the thing you mentioned earlier on about the idea that a sitcom is very, very different from a movie because a sitcom is all act two.
Speaker 00:Yes. Yeah, well, let's get into that. And the way in is essentially is to look at... I'm fading out of me into me. Hello. I think this podcast is going okay, but I'm just interrupting myself to tell you that you could go and have a look at my website, jamescary.co.uk. And there you will see details of my new show, God, the Bible and Everything, which is touring the UK in 2026. It is what I call stand-up theology. It's a funny show. It's aimed at everybody, not just Christians. There are laughs and there are some really interesting things in it too. People seem to be really liking it. And if you go to my website, you'll find out more details, jamescary.co.uk. There's also links in the show notes to that and a bunch of other things. And I'll interrupt myself a bit more later on. Let's get back to it. The way in is essentially is to look at the hero's journey as a journey for the hero rather than a story structure. Because I think it's sometimes quite confusing that you think the story must be structured this way.
Speaker 02:And
Speaker 00:actually, you need to know who is the protagonist and how are they changed by their ordeal. And so as they cross the threshold into the woods where there are lions and tigers and bears and possibly titans. in men and anything else you like along the yellow brick road or witches there are temptations trials ordeals and then there's the dark night of the soul and then the death of the old self there's something that the hero needs to let go of or change or admit that they previously been reluctant to admit in order to get out of the woods or unable to begin the journey back home again
Speaker 02:from
Speaker 00:a comedy point of view this is where your character is well what we used to say on the sitcom geeks podcast there were 222 episodes if you want to go and catch up on them we stopped doing them just over a year ago but we used to talk about the all is lost moment it's that moment where you've got nothing everything's stripped away it's just you we can't possibly achieve what we set out to achieve we had a clear quest we knew what we had to do by when and we failed But hang on, sorry, what's that? Oh, no, that six isn't a six, it's a nine. That's the thing. And again, that's a plot solution, but actually needs to be a character solution, which is I now have to admit that the thing that got me here, the thing that I wouldn't let go of is the thing that I need to let go of. And that involves some kind of transformation. And that's in the hero's journey as well with the mentor, isn't it? There's often like a mentor figure. who offers advice in Parks and Recreation, that would be Ron Swanson, implausibly. In 30 Rock, that would be Jack Donaghy. In my own show, Bluestone 42, that would be the Colonel. It's not a character you necessarily instinctively put in because sometimes it's better that your character doesn't have a mentor because they just end up flailing around. It becomes much funnier. But the hero's journey gives somebody a three-act structure and you can call it five if you want and there are different ways to do it. slice it yeah but the fact is they have an epiphany a realization and they need to change
Speaker 02:and
Speaker 00:once they have changed once they've let go of that thing once they've realized i mean what would the toy story 2 version for me toy story 2 is a perfect movie there's absolutely nothing wrong with it that moment where he realizes that he bears his owner's image you know or name he's got andy on him he belongs to someone and that he doesn't need to keep running Yeah. Yeah. a setup it's the premise of the show
Speaker 03:yeah
Speaker 00:act three is the final episode that never works very well because all the characters don't change and the 200 episodes in the middle
Speaker 02:yeah
Speaker 00:are basically the same episode because people tend not to change
Speaker 02:yeah
Speaker 00:so that's why sometimes when i'm used to be giving advice to people about sitcom writing i would say to them if you're thinking about character development stop it Don't.
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 00:yeah. Your character doesn't develop. They don't change. Yeah. And newsflash, people don't change.
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 00:And that's why, to me, sitcom is, although it looks very contrived and cartoonish, it's actually a much better description of the world and your life experience than a movie. Yeah. Because you know what people are going to say before they've said it. You know how people are going to react. And they very rarely disappoint you. Yeah. don't do what you expect. So that's why there's this oil and water problem when people charge off to write a sitcom. They essentially get bogged down in the hero's journey. It's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 01:no, no. And it is interesting to me that sitcoms are what people go back to for sort of comfort in a way. So, you know, the things that have been watched more than anything else ever on Netflix are like Friends and The Office or something and That's what people want because there's a familiarity and it doesn't confront you in any way. It's not trying to make you into a better person. It's not trying to really teach you anything. It's just saying that there are people like this, aren't there? And you know some of them and they're probably sitting next to you on the sofa. And that is the overwhelming experience that we have of life is this thing where things don't really change. so it is interesting that all of this I mean whether it's renewed enthusiasm in the hero's journey and plot structure or whether it's just that I've personally you know started looking for it but it seems interesting that there's such a growth in conversation around these meta narratives with the great heroic adventures and epics and you go from the known into the unknown and back again when apparently according to Mr. Lyotard, who I think was a postmodernist. Postmodernism and the culture in which we live is suspicious of metanarrative. So we don't believe there's any great overarching story that makes sense of history and the world and reality and cosmos. We think, okay, it's all pretty accidental. Choose your own adventure. Life is what you make of it. So then we're confronted with the mundanity of life on the one hand and then these incredible yearnings to be part of some grand narrative that has real meaning and change is possible and all that sort of stuff. And so what people typically then do is that they just cast themselves as the main character in human history and I'm off on my quest. And if epic fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien aren't going to work, I'll just use video games as my new kind of model for thinking about my own life when in actual fact, as you say, a sitcom is far better as a model for thinking about your life because the people stay in the same place, they have the same conversations and they don't really change. That's more what your life is like but it probably isn't a sufficient explanation of life, the universe and everything.
Speaker 00:Yes, that's right. So we're in a sitcom but we're slightly yearning to be in a movie and if anyone ever asks me to give an evangelistic talk for their church or whatever and I am available although I would rather be funny for an hour than be an evangelist but such is my gifting but I'm very happy to do both so do get in touch what I always choose to preach on is Mark 10 the rich young ruler is your life a movie or is your life a sitcom and I think this for me is where everything kind of connects because the only possibility of genuine character transformation and change is through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit so you have a rich young man who's desperate for eternal life he runs up to Jesus kneels down in front of him and says what must I do to inherit eternal life he gets to list the commandments the commandments he lists although he doesn't say all of them and he he thinks he's a good person he's kept all of them but jesus can see that he hasn't listed the commandment which is you shall have no other gods before me and that this guy worships money and we don't know why he worships money because money is not particularly good motivator we'll we'll come back to that in a moment but he can't let go of his money and therefore even Even though he's given a chance for eternal life, talking to literally the incarnation of God himself, who is able to calm storms with a word and raise the dead. Jesus says, sell everything you have and give it to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven, I think. And he walks away sad because he had great wealth. So the question I ask at the end of that talk is, are you in a movie or are you in a sitcom? Are you going to essentially follow Jesus who offers you a chance to change? Or are you going to essentially go back into sitcom mode and just go through the same process every week for the rest of your life? And that makes you the joke. It's not a great You know what I mean? You're the joke in this, which is a shame because you don't have to be.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:You can get out. You can break, get out of the matrix, different illustration, if you follow Jesus. And for me, that's where the two cross and overlap.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:That's how you get off the guinea pig's wheel.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Take the red pill and
Speaker 00:be part
Speaker 01:of the movie. Yeah.
Speaker 00:Me again. If you've made it this far, you're doing very well. Thanks very much. In which case, you'll probably like a thing I do every Thursday called the Wycliffe Papers. It is jokes for those who are serious about the Bible. There are lots of funny headlines. Why don't you go and have a look? There's a link in the show notes. I don't want to spoil them by reading them out because they're meant to be kind of read rather than read aloud, I think. Maybe I'll try reading some out in the future. But anyway, go and have a look at the Wycliffe Papers and subscribe. And then every Thursday lunchtime, you'll get some fairly niche bible jokes that only people like you will understand and you'll both find them funny and probably slightly superior for enjoying them too so why not go along and get a bit of that smug satisfaction as well as some belly laughs i hope at the Wycliffe Papers right let's get back to the show so going back to money well I think I had to give a talk about money and I chose not to talk about the rich young ruler but to talk about King Solomon and King Solomon is asked by God I will give you anything that's like proper genie you have one wish i will grant it to you i've got a bit there's a i think it's a very funny scene and i've got a bit about that in my show which i might drop onto the audio of this particular episode god says to solomon what what do you want and solomon says well i need to know how to be king i need wisdom and god says very well i will make you wise as god continues to speak you're there and realising that Solomon's just thinking, oh, hang on, I think I might have gotten this wrong. So God says this, the Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, since you have asked for this and not for long life, what? Nor wealth for yourself. Oh, I didn't. Nor have asked for the death of your enemies. I could have had the death of my enemies. I didn't know that was on the table. So, okay, I'll start again. Powers of invisibility. Can I have that? Can I fly? No, no, I will give you... a wise and discerning heart. Oh, great. I've got wisdom. Stupid wisdom. I'm not even going to have any enemies. What is the fun in that? I sometimes think maybe he asked for wisdom because with 700 wives every year, there'd be that question. And where will you be spending Christmas this year? Oh, I don't know. He must have spent his whole reign either on a stag weekend or on a honeymoon. But for me, money reveals character. So it's interesting asking these kids if you had unlimited If I could offer you anything, what would you want? All that reveals is your character and actually your idol. What is that one thing you're holding onto? Or what is that one thing that you really want? And for some people, money is about control. If I have money, I can get people to do what I want. If I have money, I never have to ask anyone else for money. I've got security. If I have money, I can be ostentatious. People will respect me. There are loads of things that money does, which is why it's such an interesting topic. But the actual... amount of money and what it can do is slightly arbitrary and it's no plot is ever about the money it's never about the money yeah
Speaker 01:yeah and i like that the money reveals character because one of the i like to when i'm doing seminars on what on earth is a reform mythologist anyway one of the things i do is to get people to just define what a story is and so i kind of get them to answer that and then i sort of collect you know the best ones and then use mockery as a teaching tool because of course they've only had two minutes or three minutes to think about it whereas I've done that a few times but one of the best I have my own definition which is it's perspective on a person in a plot and I sort of unpack those but one of the best definitions I've heard of story is character revealed through struggle and so you've got this character and you're going to put them through hell to see what they're like you're going to have a kind of refining fire of what it is and And it seems as though the sudden appearance of great wealth is itself a kind of refining, or it discloses who someone is. It reveals their heart.
Speaker 00:It's like an accelerant. It's like pouring petrol on a flame. It's suddenly going to go. It'll become like itself, only more so.
Speaker 01:And the fact that the character is about desire, as you've already mentioned, and desire meeting with the obstacles of the story, and whether the desire within the character is strong enough to overcome those obstacles which means that i was overjoyed when i discovered the very first words of jesus in mark's sorry in john's gospel are what do you want and that is kind of you know because with any character whether you're writing a sitcom or a or a movie or a epic fantasy novel it's it's kind of irrelevant what you know they look like how old they are whatever it is what do they they want, what is it that is driving them and what are they prepared to do to get it? And that's, so just in terms of the whole kind of how does storytelling reflect on life and how can we use the things that storytellers have learned to help us think about life? I do think that's such a key one that Jesus basically asks, what do you want? He's trying to get at the heart of the issue The issue of the heart.
Speaker 00:It's something I say a lot to scripts whenever I've read them. And I still have a script reading service if you're interested, but I don't do that much anymore. But usually, why is this not funny? Why is this not working? The protagonist doesn't want anything. The protagonist is probably passive. And one of my absolute no-nos, you need a really good reason to do this, to make your key one protagonist arrive on their first day at work. And essentially, I've read many scripts where the protagonist is shown around. Every other character is more interesting than the protagonist because they've already started. They're already in the middle. So every other character seems wacky and strange and weird and funny, whereas this new person is sort of constantly learning where the photocopier is and knows where to put the mugs and all that kind of stuff. Because they're passive and they're trying to be nice and unless they're a complete psycho in which case they're probably not right for a sitcom protagonist lead anyway but so give your characters desire and so when people are thinking of let's have an episode let's have a sitcom set in a hotel the first episode they'll think of is there's a government inspector coming so it's like oh okay so we've now got someone from the outside coming in and all the characters have to run around and react it's like no what is your character trying to do and it's often not immediately obvious so people think that Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers one of the great sitcoms of all time is sort of an angry person he's not actually an angry person he's a snob who wants to run a classy hotel
Speaker 02:and
Speaker 00:he is angry that he gets the wrong guests who are not classy who are disappointing to him so he is trying to run a classy hotel. There are a few lines which say that very
Speaker 02:explicitly.
Speaker 00:And he is not suited to running such a hotel because of his short fuse. But that's his desire. That's his wish.
Speaker 01:Hi, thanks for going out, dear. What's this? I decided, Sybil, to advertise.
Speaker 00:How much did it cost?
Speaker 01:Oh, I have 15. 40. 40? Sybil, we've got to try and attract a better class of person.
Speaker 00:Why? Well, but You're losing tone. You're making money. Yes,
Speaker 01:yes. Just? Yes, but now we can try and build up a higher class of clientele. Turn away some of that riffraff.
Speaker 00:So long as they pay their bills, Basil.
Speaker 01:This is all that matters to you, Sybil.
Speaker 00:Money! This advertisement is a waste of £40. One moment. One moment, please.
Speaker 01:Sir Richard and Lady Morris arriving this evening for two nights. You see, they saw our advertisement in Country Life.
Speaker 00:I wish they were staying a week. Well, so do
Speaker 01:I.
Speaker 00:Might pay for the ad,
Speaker 01:then. Sybil, look, if we can attract this... it's
Speaker 00:just all about being clear on what does the character really want so what does the rich young man want well actually we still don't know but whatever it is it has a price he can and he's got the money
Speaker 03:yeah
Speaker 00:so he's not going to let go contrast to Zacchaeus who immediately with different gospel who immediately throws his money I will pay back everybody four times what I've you can imagine the amount of receipts and fraudulent claims he's going to get. His life is about to become a nightmare. The rich young ruler is a contrast as well between the little children who were just beforehand, who've just come running to Jesus because they don't have anything. They're not encumbered by wealth and actually they weren't sentimental about children because children in those days were not productive and therefore they were loss leaders, they were mouths to feed. But they were accepted by Jesus because they had nothing and then blind Bartimaeus later He has a cloak. It's probably his only possession. And he throws it off and goes off and follows Jesus. So there's a whole lost and found one cloak, one careful owner. Okay, that sounds like it could be a joke on the Wycliffe Papers. So that's one reason to go there. Here's another reason. You'll find a members area. You could become a paid subscriber. And so the members area of the Wycliffe Papers is the members area for this. podcast too. A paid subscriber is what I call a loyal Lollard. Those are the followers of Wycliffe. So you'll get access to another exclusive conversation I had with Nate Morgan-Locke about AI. There's a 45 minute video of me walking from Glastonbury to Wales via Cambridge and there's early access to audio for this podcast and access to a monthly Zoom chat with me where we can talk about the kind of thing we talk about on this podcast so you could essentially be a guest on the show. Plus a bonus email every Saturday called the Wycliffe Weekender. Anyway, that's all over on the Wycliffe Papers. We've got a little bit more of the show left. Let's get back to it. Our brain knows when we're watching a movie and it lapses into that operating system. And then it knows when it's watching a sitcom and it lapses into that. And it knows when it's watching a murder mystery, which is basically a sitcom, because every episode's the same. Every episode of Death in Paradise, and I should know because I've co-written one, is exactly the same as all the others. That's what they're trying to achieve and that's what the audience wants. And that's why when I watched Castle, which was a show that was on ABC and I watched every episode on Disney Plus, I wanted every episode to be exactly like the last one because I liked the last one. But the movie doesn't do that, does it? The movie is that adventure.
Speaker 01:And it's got to... And in a world without the movies, I think you suffer from... There is that sort of potential for... Just a narrower view of the world. Here's a bunch of things that don't change. And like I say, there's something about that hero's journey monomyth thing that is resonating because we do live in, you know, all the worlds are staged and all the men in the world are merely players. That's a quote from Shakespeare, by the way. Very good. But none of us are the lead, you know. And once you get, you know, your role confused, if you start trying to say other people's lines, that's when we get into difficulty which just actually now I mentioned Shakespeare reminds me of there's a brilliant bit of I know you like Just William and there is a Just William episode where there's a guy who comes in and he wants to teach the William and the Outlaws and the rest of their class how to do Hamlet right have you ever read this one and then Martin Jarvis's audiobook version of it is amazing I remember yeah so William's just frustrated by this guy and then ends up bringing the house down and by intentionally undermining the entire theatre production. Strong recommend, although I can't remember which particular collection of just William stories that's from, but there you go.
Speaker 00:Fun fact, when I interviewed Clement and Lafrenet, two extremely highly regarded writers who wrote Porridge, one of the great
Speaker 01:British sitcoms
Speaker 00:of all time, when they wrote their first sitcom called The Likely Lads back in the 60s, again, they were just like, What do we do? What happens every week? And in the interview that I did with them on the Sitcom Geeks podcast, I think they said, well, what happens in those William stories? I think they just sort of cribbed just William type stories because they have a natural beginning and a middle and an end. But at the end of the day, William doesn't grow up. He doesn't change. It's the same situation and it's the same again. And that's what we want. We want the same thing again.
Speaker 01:And it's perfect. because it's an endless childhood it's like that's what we want we don't want oh here's William as a 34 year old man that is a meme and that's all you know we ever wanted to be you can make one joke about oh what would it be like if William and the Outlaws were in their 40s or something but other than that just leave it
Speaker 00:yeah
Speaker 01:just keep them you know running around it's
Speaker 00:like the Simpsons how you know if the Simpsons were their real age now how old were they it's like don't don't want to know don't want to care don't even want to think about it
Speaker 01:yeah yeah we don't need Shawshank Redemption 2 and you know there are some things you can just be left
Speaker 00:you know and that that is the inherent problem with movies of sitcoms they don't work because they're trying to put a three-act structure onto onto a second act only thing which is why historically I mean it's a you it's a British thing it's not an American thing and I know there was a movie of MASH but that essentially was the beginning Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. on a journey they're not physically yes emotionally no so there was a Dad's Army movie as well
Speaker 01:I don't think anyone's listed a bunch of films I'd want to watch less
Speaker 00:yeah exactly and so that's why last ever episodes tend not to work I can only think of two examples of last episodes that are good one would be Friends where they essentially don't try to be funny they just they've all grown up and moved on yeah
Speaker 01:yeah yeah
Speaker 00:It's not like the last episode of Seinfeld, which is an absolute train wreck. And then there's the last episode of Cabin Pressure, an audio Radio 4 sitcom that is perfect. It's really, really smart, sharp, funny, and it's written by John Finnemore. So of course it's going to be the guy's ferociously talented. But in general, you can't end that thing which isn't meant to end. But like I say, our brains know to switch between the various things that we're watching. Well, I think we've probably sucked the juice out of story, sitcom and movies. We could talk about what makes a story funny. I'd love to know that. I have no idea. We could talk about a whole lot of other things, but I think we're going to leave it there. Nate, where can people find your works?
Speaker 01:Okay, so Reformed Mythologist on YouTube. That channel has been going for a couple of years now. We're just re-uploading a series of videos on Friday. franchise storytelling at the moment so there's one on harry potter star wars lord of the rings batman narnia why it's a terrible franchise uh and a couple of others and also hopefully by the time this goes out i will have completed the very short video that we're making called how to overcome main character syndrome and that leads people on to a web page where they can download the hero's creed poster so we've talked about the hero's journey i I've taken that and combined it with the Apostles' Creed and said, hey, is this a thing? And so if you want
Speaker 00:to... It is a thing. I can verify that it's a thing.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And it's a wonderful, beautiful thing.
Speaker 01:People can sign up to download the poster from there and find out more about how we develop the material over the next few months and years.
Speaker 00:I've mentioned various bits and pieces on the podcast as well. So I'll stick some links to that in the show notes. Nate Morgan-Locke, Reformed mythologist. Thank you for sharing your journey, your journey about journeys your meta journey, your reformed journey. Thank you very much.
Speaker 01:It was a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. And shall I lock the door on my way out?
Speaker 00:If you could, yeah, you need to wiggle the latch and then it... No, no, keep... Put your shoulder into it. All right. Got it now. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Make sure it clicks afterwards. Okay, is it clicking? Off now. Bye. Bye. See ya.
Unknown:Bye.