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 this my favourite war movie? And what's so funny about war anyway?
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James on the War Movie Theatre podcast and the website here.
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Hello, James Carey here. I am the stand-up theologian, and this is the Easter Bank holiday weekend. It's Bank Holiday Monday. And when I was a kid, they used to have Disney time because you didn't see Disney films. They were only on in the cinemas, and then they become wildly expensive VHS videotapes. And so you might have a stand-up comedian at some kind of roller coaster or theme park introducing clips from different Disney movies. Wow, that was really special, and you always hoped it was going to be a bit of a jungle book. Anyway, in this episode, I've got a couple of clips from me on other people's podcasts. I'm on the War Movie Theatre podcast talking about Good Morning Vietnam. And then I'm also on the Wit and Grit podcast talking about writing and also life lessons that you get from that. So I've got their permission to put a few bits from the episodes on so you can have a listen and then follow a link in the show notes and you'll be able to listen to the whole thing. How about that? The next voice you hear will be Rob Hutton of the War Movie Theatre Podcast.
SPEAKER_03Good morning, War Movie Theatre! Guess what we're watching this week. My name's Rob Hutton, and I'm on a mission to improve morale with an irreverent podcast about war. Under instructions to help me is a man who seems to have a massive chip on his shoulder about something. Is he about to send me to my death? Hello, Duncan Weldon. Hello, Rob, you've been practicing that opening. Actually, I haven't. I I I'm slightly worried that now my microphone's gonna be dead for the rest of the recording. Peering at us from the studio next door is a man who knows a great deal about comedy. I hope he's going to toot his horn every time he tells a joke. It's James Carey, writer on the sitcom Miranda, a self-described stand-up theologian, currently touring with his show God, the Bible and everything. And well, also writer of Bluestone 4.2, which almost takes you into our ambit.
SPEAKER_05It almost does. And also you've passed the test because you've called it 4-2, which implies that you know what the show is, because when somebody calls it Bluestone 40, bless you. Because if somebody calls it Bluestone 42, I go, Oh, they've not seen the show. Um I don't I never say anything. So it's a little secret tell that you've seen this show. Set in Afghanistan about a bomb disposal team. It's hurt locker with jokes. Does war lend itself to jokes? Completely, completely. And it's interesting that um Tony Gardner, who was in Bluestone 4.2, used to be a doctor. In fact, he did struck off and die with Philip Hammond and became sort of funny, funny comedy doctors, and then he went off to become an actor and done, but you know, did loads of other things. But his wife was still in the medical profession, and he said he got more positive comments about Bluestone 4.2 than he had about anything else from his medical friends because it had that gallows humour that gets you through.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so, you know, we we basically for Bluestone 4.2, we nicked two shows. We nicked Mash and we nicked Cheers. So in Cheers, Sam Malone is trying to cop off with uh the lady, uh Diane. Yeah, yeah. And so we've got a Sam and we've got a uh a Mash situation. So let's steal from two of the greatest sitcoms of all time, put them together and pass it off as our own.
SPEAKER_03Well, it was great fun. It's uh the BBC three, it's it's still available anywhere.
SPEAKER_05It's still on iPlayer, I think. You can go and find it on iPlayer. Um it's not suitable for work, it contains some fairly weapons-grade swearing. Uh, but that's that's how soldiers talk. That's not my fault.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And it if you if people if listeners are looking for some sort of bite-sized uh war movie fun, yeah, it's uh half hours.
SPEAKER_05The half hours, and it has won big the begrudging respect of soldiers, because the soldiers don't ever expect to see anything on the BBC that in any way reflects their experience of life or the military in general, and uh they will begrudgingly say, Yeah, you pretty much nailed it. Yeah, it's pretty much like that. So that was nice to get very, very reluctant praise uh off of soldiers. So that was good.
SPEAKER_03We talked about MASH. Uh we talked about war in humour. Uh I asked you to pick a film and you picked Good Morning Vietnam. Why?
SPEAKER_05I had recently watched it with my kids who are now 15 and 18, and it might have been on one of their lists to watch as well for history or something like that. But I just thought it would be interesting to go back to it, having not seen it uh since my, I don't know, probably early 20s or late teens. And it's a movie that you feel you know very well, not least because the soundtrack was wildly popular, which contained brilliant music and Adrian Cronauer. Uh hey, I'm Adrian Cronauer. I want to get an O 1600 hours. Why? Because I have to, it's the army. So I have literally memorised all of those as well as the songs, and so I can now, whenever I hear a song from that soundtrack, I can then hear Adrian Cronauer. Um then actually go back and watch the whole movie as an experience. It it is really interesting. Um, so yeah, that's why I kind of picked it because I'd I'd I'd watched it recently, so this would require a lot less work.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's that's very quickly. The the it's the story of a US Army, well, US Air Force, uh diss jockey who's sent to Vietnam in the mid-60s to pep up uh Forces broadcasting and uh it does lots of very funny shows, uh encounters the people of Vietnam, South Vietnam, and gets into trouble. I think that's the the short version. Um when do you think Duncan first time you saw it, last time you saw it?
SPEAKER_02Well, the last time I saw it was um this week, which was also the second time um I've seen it. So exactly as James was just saying, I mean, I I saw this film at some point in possibly the mid-90s, I think on television. I think I watched it with my parents. Um and again I thought I knew the movie a lot better. Going back to it after um several decades, I knew it less less well. It's just it's it's worth stepping back a moment, isn't it? Because um you know, if you think back to the 1990s or the late 80s when this comes, obviously Robin Williams is just a huge cultural figure. Um yeah, I'm very curious about your your what your kids think, James. I I was talking to my eldest who's thirteen and a thirteen and a half. She wasn't sure who Robin Williams was eventually. I don't think she's seen Mrs. Doubtfire. Eventually, I managed to explain he was the genie in Aladdin. Um the cultural footprint of what you know I remember as being an absolutely huge star is a lot smaller than you might think it would be.
SPEAKER_05Yes, but I think that really is a function of how much time has passed because Robin Williams was a gigantic star for 20 years and particularly for 15 years, and then at that point he sort of didn't really need to do anything, he just needed to be Robin Williams. I was just looking up just now the the other big thing that I I recorded off the television, and I note that it was in 1986, the year before Um Good Morning Vietnam is Robin Williams uh A Night at the Met. So he did a stand-up special which was wildly funny, um, and was just demonstrated exactly what he could do. So, yeah, he was a really, really huge deal who then became a movie star and turned out to be an even better actor than we thought.
SPEAKER_03I don't think I've seen this film since about 1992. Uh, and I which surprised me when I thought it, and then I thought I just didn't, because like James, uh, I it it sits really deeply in my mind because I had the tape, and I actually we're we're currently running a competition to find our youngest listener. We have had some very strong entries. Get in touch if you think you might be our youngest listener. I clearly do have to be under 40. Uh and um there's a there there is a mug for for the winner. Um but in an explanation for young people, I had a a tape, a cassette tape, which I had borrowed from the library. Oh wow. Which was a thing a thing that we did in the 80s, and then I had copied it with my sister's reel-to-reel boombox tape recorder, which only had two two two tape desk decks, really for for this reason, so that kids could copy each other's uh albums. And uh yes, we all listened to it obsessively, and uh and I could still do large parts of the routine from memory. Because it because it's extremely funny, it's extremely memorable. And and as you say, the songs are great. And so because I I would have said actually, I'd I'd sort of forgotten about that. And I would if you stopped me about two weeks ago and said, you know, what was the film that introduced soundtrack albums? I would have said probably Reservoir Dogs. Oh yeah, but but actually it's not, it's this. Or this is the earliest one I can think of. Someone might might get in touch with an earlier one. The idea where you just have both, as it were, not just the music off the off the film, but little bits of of uh dialogue from the film. Because it works there perfectly because he's supposed to be a DJ.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So you can you can just stick. They're ideal for sticking between bits of music.
SPEAKER_05We've got Marco and Vandelas Nowhere to Run to by Margaret and the Vandelas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well the thing we take from that though is the the cultural moment in which it landed, that something from so-called 1965 lands in 1987 in a particular way that just doesn't quite have the same resonance later because of other things and other retrospectors of that same time period which we interpret it. Uh so yeah, no, it's completely understandable, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03And and and actually it is an age thing as well, because I think uh James, you and I are only a couple of years apart, and I was not old enough in 1987, 1989 to have watched Apocalypse Now. So I don't think of my Vietnam soundtrack is not the doors. Yeah, it was Good Morning Vietnam. Robin Williams, as you say, is a huge star in the 80s. He's a huge star from Morgan Mindy. Now, Duncan, do you know anything about Morgan Victory?
SPEAKER_02I know about Morc and Mindy. That strange and now mostly forgotten um genre of supernatural themed sitcoms. Starting, I think, with Bewitched and continuing for for quite a long run.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he's an alien who lives in Boulder, Colorado, um, with Mindy and that right. That that was and it was shown. He's not a puppet alien like Alf, though, which is surely the classic alien sitcom. Uh and I think it comes out of there's an ep he's asked to play an alien in an episode of Happy Days. We're really going into the world. The spin-off of Happy Days, would you believe? He's so good in that one episode that like we've got a show there, and it's it is a monster hit. Yeah. And so he he is a huge star, he's a huge stand-up star, he's a huge TV star. They haven't really managed to work out what he can be in films. And it a couple of years before this, he says to someone, Well, I'm kind of more of a supporting actor guy, you know. I I don't I don't feel I can be the principal guy who who sort of drives the plot forward. And then, well, so that's what Robin Williams is doing in the early 80s, being massive on television but not quite not looking for the role, as it were. And then over in another part of the forest, we have a man called Adrian Cronauer, who is real real. Do you do you wanna do you want to talk about him, James?
SPEAKER_05Oh well, I was very surprised to learn this because I I knew nothing about the movie until I, having watched it again, just sort of did a some cursory research for this podcast, and discovered that Adrian Cronauer was a real DJ uh from Vietnam who had pitched a TV show in the 70s, clearly trying to cash in on the MASH kind of uh thing, and uh it just didn't really get any traction. There was no appetite, I think, to represent the Vietnam War at the time, which was very, very contentious because MASH is beautifully set during the Korean War. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03MASH that's not about Vietnam at all. No, it's important to remember it's not about Vietnam.
SPEAKER_05Could not be could not be clearer than it's Korea and not Vietnam.
SPEAKER_03And we we will be doing MASH the movie in our definitely not about Vietnam month, which we have not yet scheduled.
SPEAKER_05Yes, exactly. So um he shopped this around and didn't really get anywhere. And of course, again, we forget how big television was then, you know, it's it's still pretty big now compared to movies, but it was just assumed to be a TV show. And then eventually I think it got turned into a movie, and then it wasn't of any great interest either. Uh, but Cronauer himself, I I don't mean I I think he's public he's not publicly distanced himself from the character or the movie because that's because he's he's made to look like an incredible DJ. He himself does not share Robin Williams's uh sort of sentimental uh centre-left views about war. He himself is a centre-right Republican-leaning fellow who had no real interest in undermining the war, particularly to the troops, and so therefore that for him was I guess rather frustrating. But he didn't really throw his toys out the pram. I'm sure the money helped. Yeah, the money probably cushioned the blow, and so he so he probably did did okay.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I mean, you know, quite quite a lot of people in the army are quite quite pro-army.
SPEAKER_02Uh is it not a bit is it not a bit strange to you know, once you've taken it this far away from you know the real guy it's based on, not just to completely fictionalise it.
SPEAKER_03I agree.
SPEAKER_02I mean it feels like a strange production decision. It's a lot of things.
SPEAKER_03I I yeah, no, well I I so the good morning Vietnam the the sort of the the the shout I think is I think that is Cronauer.
SPEAKER_05Um He says it, but not in the way that Robin Williams says it.
SPEAKER_03Because you hear it, there's another film. I've been trying to remember what the other Vietnam film is. It might be Platoon, um, where you hear it on the radio from as it were, it's just a bit of background uh while the troops are doing something. So it it would have existed, I guess, in the consciousness of a lot of um uh of a lot of GIs who've been out there. And maybe you just think, look, it's easier rather than having a long I mean I I d the the the battles of non-fiction authors to get the the sort of the televised slash filmed versions of their book to get credit for that is not at all straightforward and I I I what's one of the things that nonfiction historians uh mutter about in the corners of festivals is who is being who is being paid for um for the adaptation of their work and who isn't. Apparently, I mean for instance I believe Ben McIntyre gets not a cent for the Operation Mince Meat Musical, which is very, very clearly I I know which book they read before they wrote that. Yeah. But you know, he doesn't own the title, uh, because that's the name of the operation. He doesn't own the facts. Yeah. Um they do they do sell his, but I'm sure I'm sure it hasn't hurt his book sales. But um on the other hand, he does yes, he he does he did get paid, I think, for the film. Um so uh so there is no there is no rhyme or reason I why why people do it.
SPEAKER_02Um and I guess yeah, I mean I I continue to hawk my Dudley Clark script around, Rob.
SPEAKER_03I'm not um not revealing what inspired it, there's no occasionally I get a Google news alerts about a Dudley Clark film that's being made, and I certainly haven't had any money from that. Um so um uh yes, yeah, it it did it it's I guess I think I guess you think if look if the script is there. So one day um uh Williams sees the script on uh on his agent's desk, and quite I that's that's the story he tells and looks at and thinks, oh well, here's a character I could do. And then the interesting thing is once you have a star on board, I think it becomes quite easy to get the film made. Barry Levinson is the director. Does Barry Levinson sort of sit in your guys' consciousness at all?
SPEAKER_05Uh he I he sounds important to me, um, but I I haven't done the research on him particularly. Dunk does he do Does he do Rainman?
SPEAKER_03He does do Rainman. Um for which he won the Oscar. His other films are Diner, um, The Natural, uh, which is uh a particular favourite for people who like me love Robert Robert Redford and the idea of baseball. Uh this Wag the Dog, which has had an all which is in a funny way, has had quite a long half-life because the idea of an American war being sort of uh faked in order to win an election, for some reason that just Americans just just keep liking that idea. But he's so he's he i I think he was a much b again, he was a much bigger deal in the 80s, in the sense that, yeah, um 87 uh Good Morning Vietnam, 88 Rain Man. He's also, and this is d for for deep cut fans, he is the producer and director behind Homicide Life on the Street. Does that mean anything to either of the Which is of the wire prequel as well? Which is what gets us the wire. Yeah, so you can make quite a strong case that you've done no Barry Levinson, know the wire. So, Barry Levinson. Big, big, big and important um figure.
SPEAKER_05Still alive, aged 83.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Well, I would he's one of these people who actually almost anything he does, I think it's probably worth taking a look at. Everything he does is is is interesting.
SPEAKER_05Um I'm just looking at his credits here now. He he was involved for in 72 episodes of the Carol Burnett show. Now that was a essentially a sketch show vehicle for the comedian Carol uh Burnett, and so he's got the comedy chops to understand A, someone like Robin Williams, and B, a funny radio DJ. So yeah, that all bodes well. The Marty Feldman comedy machine before that too. So that's kind of his background, is is is kind of goofy TV comedy, actually. Uh serious. Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But but then it turns out he can also do uh do, yeah. I mean, you know, something like something like homicide is very serious. So he's got the range. Um he's got the skills. Let's well, let's at this point go to the after action report. Quick dad. They're on the cable car. The moment you want to be called in, I don't think it's ever been easier.
SPEAKER_04Yes, it's pretty basic, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05This is not a test, this is rock and roll. Time to rock it from the Delva to the MC. Does that mean it sounds like an Elvis Presley movie? Beaver than Ang, you know, and so on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It the moment that that Cronaur hits the radio, you want you want to be in the room. And there's a there's a screenwriting concept, the fun and games of the second act, which is that this this sort of kind of stuff from about the 20th minute to about the 50th minute of the film, and that's where you're getting your trailer from. Yeah. That you'll that this this is the the sort of what they call the promise of the premise that you've pitched this film, and uh and those are the bits where you'll see the stuff that people think, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, I cannot think of a film that more precisely gives you the promise of the premise. You know, you you you could just go from minute minute 16 on this to minute 15 and say, get me a trailer out of that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's not hard. Um, what's ex- what I've just thought about is the fact that from a comedy point of view, the director and the writer have made their lives even harder and made Robin Williams' life even harder because in the studio there is a palpable sense of excitement that it's coming up to 0600 hours and Adrian Cronau is about to start and that this is gonna be incredible, as opposed to who's the new guy? Oh, I don't know, he's in from Chicago, I don't know, and they're they're all startled by the fact that he's amazing. No, not at all. They are so excited that this guy's come and that what he's gonna do is amazing. So they've already set the bar sky high and he exceeds even that bar. So I think from a comedy point of view, wow, that is truly astonishing. No wonder this movie became an absolute uh smash.
SPEAKER_03It is apparently largely improvised. Levinson forbade Williams from meeting Cronauer beforehand because he didn't want him to do Kronauer. Yeah. Yeah. He wanted essentially he wanted him to do Williams. And this is the thing that I was saying earlier about Williams feeling that that he couldn't that he didn't have what it took to be an acting star, which I yeah, a judgment that I I I think was wrong, by the way.
SPEAKER_02This is this is fundamentally the correct call from the director, isn't it? Because I mean you've got like you've got Robin Williams, who is one of the biggest comedy stars of the time, who does big stand-up shows, all of this. You don't want him doing an impression of someone almost no one has ever heard of. You want him to be himself. And so the ad libbing makes perfect sense to me as uh yeah, for the for the radio bits, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. So so just just just put him in and let him go. And I I you know I think I feel like what we need is some is some kind of special presentation uh d Blu-ray where we get all of the other stuff that they recorded that they didn't use. Because I suspect, rather as with Aladdin, that there's hours of great material.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I think some of it might be floating around YouTube, but I've not I almost don't want to see it because it's like what they've got is so good. Yeah. Um it's like every episode after the Canon episode. Prime Minister. I'm sure they're fine. I'm sure they're good. I don't want to see them because they won't be as good, and you will not persuade me that they are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. So this is entirely a film that is about it's it's sort of Crone Hour on the radio and then some other bits. But let's talk for a moment about the story that supports the the stand-up bits. Because it's not because it's not nothing, actually. There's the there's a the I I think all of us slightly felt watching it that we'd forgotten quite a lot of the film in the in the intervening decades, and the bits that we'd forgotten were all of the other bits that that aren't that aren't the radio. I mean, James, you've had to do this, as it were, build it building a story around around jokes. Do you think it works?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean it does. In actual fact, I don't care for the story. Um so I think it works in Hollywood terms, and it works for Robin Williams terms, particularly given that Robin Williams goes on to become Dead Poet Society guy. So he is sort of sentimental liberal guy. And so on one level, I think people would watch this, watch it and just think this story works perfectly. Whereas I would have my take on the character is oh, what a shame that he is only concerned about his own ethics, about what he says on air, and he has no real interest in serving the troops who are actually going out there. They're not thrilled about this either. Uh so and that scene with I think the other great scene is when Forrest Whitaker's character says, Hey, you want to know who I've got here? I've got Adrian Kronauer. And it's like, these are the guys you're broadcasting to. You look them in the eye and tell them they're wasting their time. And he can't do it, he doesn't do it. So, you know, that is kind of the redemption, as close as we get to redemption for me, is that ultimately he just sort of didn't see that there was a bigger picture here, which was we don't like this war. This war is probably bonkers, but we're here because we're here because we're here, and we do it. And so, yeah, that there's that kind of naivety that he has going on. Uh, that I don't that I understand because this is what Shobiz lovbies are like. In that sense, it's it's not implausible, it's just frustrating that the comedy is absolutely incredible, but then the sort of the engine of the show itself is like, uh, okay, well, fine. So it's it's it's a bit disappointing in that sense for me personally, but it still works as a film and as a story.
SPEAKER_031987 is quite an interesting flexion point in Hollywood engaging with Vietnam, isn't it, Duncan?
SPEAKER_02I mean we've had Yeah, so we're I mean, we're you know I mean it's worth saying we are when this film comes out 13 years after the fall of Saigong. I mean it's really not very long. I mean the 80s feel a world away from the 70s, but it's it's really not very long.
SPEAKER_03And they have not in I mean Adrian Cronau is very much not the only person with a script about Vietnam that was a very good thing. No, so when's what yeah's Platoon?
SPEAKER_02What year is Platoon? 86, okay, so we're at the proper turning point of. That's where and Hamburger Hill is 86, and there's just this sudden shift from Sort of Green Beret glorious movies to oh Christ, this might have been an awful mistake and we might have done some really bad things.
SPEAKER_03There's there are yeah, yeah, there's the Green Berets, there's a whole load of 70s coded films um uh that are definitely not about Vietnam. Smash. Uh someone was suggesting to me the other day uh uh that we do Soldier Blue, which is a it's technically it's a Western, sort of it's a Western. Is it really a Western though? I think it I think it might be about something else that's going on. Um to recommend somebody else's podcast, uh there's there's a terrific podcast called Do We Get to Win This Time, which is a a history of American cinema about Vietnam. Um by uh it's done by Brian Rafteri, who's been a guest on the podcast talking about aliens, and uh it's it's really worth a listen if if people want. Yeah, so 86, Platoon, Hamburger 86 is the moment where it's acceptable to talk about Vietnam in the very specific terms of this is the Frankie Boyle joke, you know. Gosh, wasn't it awful for American troops? Isn't it didn't it make us sad going over there? And this film sits it it that that's where that's why it sort of sits in that space.
SPEAKER_051987, full metal jacket.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Uh again, didn't wasn't it wasn't it horrible for us going over there and and and uh and uh fighting in Vietnam? And it you know, look it people people process these stories, if you see what I mean. And it takes time to process these stories, and that's the point again. I I think Brian makes a point that that 13, 14 years later you're at the point where people's kids are now teenagers. So people who were over there have come home and have had kids, and then suddenly their their teenage sons and daughters are going to the cinema to see films about what dad was getting up to in 1968. And uh and and so for a lot of these guys, it's experiencing it. I think this must surely be the first Vietnam comedy that isn't MASH. Is explicitly about Vietnam.
SPEAKER_05The other thing I found myself thinking watching it is And if you want to hear what Rob Hutton was thinking and found himself thinking, and what his co-host Duncan Weldon made of it, you need to go over and listen to the War Movie Theatre Podcast, which is an excellent podcast and lots and lots of archive of lots of war movies that they talk about. And you can listen to my one. That's just a probably a third of it. I've even made a few trims in the what you've already heard. So if you want to go back and have a listen to that full episode over at War Movie Theatre, you will find a huge load of extra stuff. And it was a really interesting conversation. At least I found it very interesting and I was part of it. I was there, man. You weren't there, man. So that is the War Movie Theatre podcast. Now, here's the extra bit, really. You could watch the movie, Good Morning Vietnam, or think about having watched the movie, and then come and join us on the um uh the the Zoom in a session called What's So Funny About Good Morning Vietnam on the 27th of April at 8 o'clock. That is for loyal lollards who are paid subscribers to the Wycliffe Papers, which is my online funny Thursday publication. So why don't you head on over to that, go to the Wycliffe Papers and join up? At least uh subscribe so you get it every Thursday, and then if you become a paid member, then you get to join the monthly Zoom chat. So go over to the Wikclip Papers and do that. There's a link to it in the show notes, and then you'll automatically enrolled into the Zoom, and we can listen to the replay of it. It's like a bonus extra podcast. I think it's gonna be really fun, really interesting, because we'll talk about other war movies, uh funny movies as well, and Robin Williams and what a huge star he was. So that's coming up in April. The following month, our Zoom chat will be about probably my favourite Narnia book, which is The Silver Chair, because it contains probably my favourite character in the whole of Narnia, which is Puddle Glump, who is obviously the funniest character. So go over and join up, and you'll be part of that in May as well. So, on to the next podcast, the second one. This is the Wit and Grit podcast. I met these guys via someone else who I met on LinkedIn, and I thought they were really interesting and they were interested in what I was up to. So we had a chat. Nothing like the previous one. There's plenty of variety here on the Stand Up Theologian podcast. So have a listen to this. Here we go.
SPEAKER_01So today on Wit and Grit episode 31. We're joined by a man whose job for the last 20 plus uh years has been simple on paper, but probably brutally hard in reality, making strangers laugh. A BBC comedy writer behind shows millions of us know and love, from Miranda to Citizen Khan, my family, Bluestone 4.2. He's also a speaker, author, and what he calls a stand-up theologian, exploring big life questions through humour, storytelling, and culture. Welcome to the pod, Mr. James Carey.
SPEAKER_05Thanks very much indeed. You got through pretty much all of it. Well done. All right, that's it, that's the end. No, thanks for listening, everyone.
SPEAKER_01You've done that before, Matt. I can hear it in your voice. Um, James, let's start from the beginning, mate. Who is James Carey?
SPEAKER_05Yes, so I am a writer, if you ask me, because I'm a man, therefore I define myself by my job. Uh, and then I go, Oh, I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a son, I'm a brother, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I'm obsessed with words and writing, but in particular, comedy, laughter, and as a kid, just growing up, I only really wanted to watch comedy and cricket. I didn't really see the point of anything else. So I'm just turned 50 last year, so I grew up watching stuff like MASH and Cheers on the TV and like the great the you know, some of the greatest sitcoms of all time. And it's just the rhythm of them being funny and everything just seems so effortless and brilliant. And so I think when you look back, you see all of the decisions that you've made, you realise that I was trying to get into this all along. So I was quite clever at school, and I thought, oh great, I'll apply to Cambridge and go to Cambridge because that's where Fry and Laurie went, and I didn't get in. So I went off to Durham, like lots of people who failed to get into Cambridge and had a brilliant time. But then looking back, you just think, Oh, I I I wanted to go to Cambridge because of the comedians in the comedy. It wasn't because I was clever, it was because I thought this is so you look back and you see all these little different choices you made. It's always been about scripted comedy uh for me, and you know, sometimes unscripted, but I just can't let it go.
SPEAKER_00So I'm really interested to hear how'd you get into that as a career and sustain that as a career, James?
SPEAKER_05It's an excellent question and one I had to ask my agent about recently. Um, so the pathways in were different 25 years ago before the internet was any good and before always on broadband. And again, back then in the late 90s, so I'm the son of a dairy farmer, and I went to a school where most of the alumni were foreign missionaries, vicars, and bishops in the Church of England. And so, although I'm fine with that and I'm a Christian and everything, there wasn't really an obvious pathway into comedy. And when I was at university, I was writing a lot, and I just thought I didn't even realize that you could, that was a job, you know, that that somebody does that, somebody actually wrote that. And even when I did understand that, I didn't quite get that that could be me. I could do that, and so again, looking back, I wrote a fan fiction episode of Black Adder in my gap year, set at the Battle of Hastings, imagining what would have happened if Baldrick had fired the arrow that hits Harold in the eye. Also, you know what I mean? I I've never found it since, and I'd probably be very ashamed uh to get look back at it now. But back then you sort of didn't really know. But the the one thing I did know was that if you can write sketches and jokes for the radio, then Radio 4 have got a show called Weekending, which isn't very funny. Doesn't sound funny because it sounds like every sketch has got a weekending, which is pretty much what it was. But it was where a lot of people got started, and there was a little there was a little glimmer way in through that. So through that, and my experiences at university writing sketches and stuff, I kind of got a little foot in the door, and then I got a little step on the ladder, and then I got my chin on it, and then all those little things just um one thing leads to another. The next big thing was the Edinburgh Festival, was probably a much bigger deal in the past than it is now. So I did a show, I did a couple of shows with the university, and then in 1999 we got nominated for what was called the Perrier Best Newcomer Award. That opened a few doors, got some meetings, and then man through that really pitched my sitcom called Think the Unthinkable, which was the first sitcom I did uh for Radio 4 about management consultants, and that kind of one thing led to another to another I've got to uh I've got to jump in, sorry.
SPEAKER_00I did see that in the research, and unfortunately I couldn't dive into any of the episodes. Can you well can you just give no can you give us a bit of a view? Because people are very cynical about consultants. Yeah, it's a very popular job to go into it. I'd love I'd love your perspective and and and any stories.
SPEAKER_05Here's the thing I came up with the idea because you know I went to a half-decent university, and then people went out of my university and started becoming management consultants. And when I was about 25, I thought, hang on, some chimp I was at university with is now telling somebody twice his age how to run their business. What? You know, they go off and work for McKinsey or whatever. That is completely mad. And so I went in with that and I thought, I'll tell you what, the Radio 4 audience would love it if I had a load of chinless wonders who think they know a little bit. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, was always my uh kind of uh little watchword for that show, where they've got a little good idea but and then they try to apply it in the wrong way. But the thing is, I read books about management and business and that kind of stuff, and my sister uh was a management consultant, I talked to her a little bit. The more books I read about management consultants, the more in favour I became of consultants, and the more enraged I was by people who were told you need to change this in your company or you're dead, and they wouldn't do it. People don't they don't want to know, and quite often they would bring consultants in so that you can be the bearer of bad news and tell them what they've already known. So I have very mixed views, and I think overall consultants do an awful lot of good because they have those awkward conversations that people are not really prepared to have within the business. But all thing is back in the late 90s, early 2000s, the idea that you would push the envelope or run something off a flagpole, that was self-evidently ludicrous and funny and would make a room full of people laugh out loud and it was recorded and you can listen to it on the archives of Radio 4. Now people just use those terms without irony at all. What's happened? You know, you can push the envelope now and people won't even blink. They won't just say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. Why why are you talking like an idiot? It's just the consultants have won in that sense. And to be honest, I'm not even sure that's altogether a bad thing.
SPEAKER_01The consultants have won, man. And I will use one of those terms that are said now without the ironic twist in let's circle back. Let's circle back.
SPEAKER_05Circle back, there we go.
SPEAKER_01Let's let's circle back to your days in Durham. Yeah. Um when you are thinking of the Battle of Baldrick and what have you. Um why theology? I think you've answered it in your your upbringing, but uh why why did you go into theology, James?
SPEAKER_05Partly because I thought it would be easier to get into Cambridge. Well, that didn't work. But secondly, I think I've always been interested in the spiritual theological aspect of history. So I I applied first to do history, and in the end, a lot of my degree was history, but with a theological um angle to it. And actually, now uh over there on my desk, there's just an absolute ton of books about religious history, and I sort of can't leave it alone. But I think it overlaps with my professional interest because the thing as a sitcom writer that I'm coming back to again and again, and I'm now writing more, I'm writing a book at the moment called Field Notes of a Sitcom Writer about the process of me writing a sitcom at the moment, um, which I'm gonna try and get read through in front of industry and all that kind of stuff. The thing that's everything in a sitcom is the motivation. Why is someone doing the thing? And uh and it is all because of your values, because of your essentially your God. What is your God? What is your idol? Obviously, God says in the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me. I'm I'm fine with that. But in sitcom land, everybody has a God, and this is something I'd love to think about more in an office context in real life. You know, maybe I'll become a consultant. Wouldn't that be an amazing turnaround? But I'm always interested in the fact that a good team has people who care about different things, and it's great they care about different things, and so the team I'm assembling for my current sitcom are basically eight different parts of the Enneagram, and the ninth one is never there. And it's great that you've got someone who hates authority and spends their whole time trying to get out of stuff, that's the type A. That's me. Um, you've also got someone who cares how people feel about things and they want to be loved and nurtured and stuff. Well, I've got one for that. You've also got someone who really wants success and to be achieving things. That's great. But when you push that good thing to its logical conclusion, it becomes toxic and it hurts you and it becomes annoying to the rest of the team. So I think my my theology degree, again, looking back, I think it was just my sitcom brain just going, why do people do things? Because in a sitcom, you need to have an answer for that, because otherwise they're just people sitting in a room talking jokes. And that's a panel game. So and I'm I I'm not into panel games. I like watching them, but I don't want to write them.
SPEAKER_01But look how that served you that that degree without you knowing. Look at these things that do apply to that degree and all that learning, the stand-up theologian. Um, your stand-up show, God, the Bible, and everything. You've written a book, The Sacred Art of Joking. Yeah, you know, it all leans. I was literally just reading an article of yours. Well, I think it was, you certainly mentioned it. Uh, how can you avoid fudge in Lent? Because there's always there's always this sort of thing. Um, it's quite fascinating, isn't it, when you think of that? You went into this degree and all that happened off the back of it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and uh yeah, you sort of subconsciously make these choices because you're going after that thing and you don't realise it. And I think one of the upsides of getting a bit older is you can now catch yourself, and then when you get good news or bad news, you can catch your reaction to it. Um, and so there was a job that I was doing, uh, which is on my CV somewhere. I'm not gonna say what it is, just because it's just it might just get weird. But I got fired from a show, and when I got the email halfway through uh working on this show, I thought, oh, thank goodness for that. And that email cost me 25 grand. Okay, so I didn't get paid as much as a result of it. I did get paid, but not as much as I thought. And the long tail on that will mean will cost that will have cost me more than 25 grand. But I got bad news and I felt relief, and I thought, oh, and my to be fair, my agent had warned me, oh, by the way, there's an outside chance you'll get fired uh from the start. So I and I thought I'd made it through, actually. I thought I'd already, you know, withstood the hail of bullets and made it into the opposing trench. And no, no, no, I just got stabbed uh by a bayonet in the ribs. Uh so uh so much for that. But um, but yeah, so I just I now know to notice my reaction. And there are various things where I just think, oh, I've got to do this thing. And then I think, why don't I want to do it? What is it about that thing that I don't want to do that makes me sad and angry? For example, doing my taxes makes me both furious and drowsy simultaneously. Um the the the personality type I am, where I have to fill numbers into boxes, I find deeply offensive to have to do that. I resent being told. I I resent being sent forms and having to fill them in. Uh my wife loves to fill in forms, brilliant. Um, so we actually are between us almost a functional human being. And I think that's why this teamwork thing is really important because we all have different strengths and weaknesses, and that's why, yeah, that I I just I'm now learning that my limitations are often great strengths.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a couple of things for me. My first one is around team. You know, I I I can imagine what it's like to be in a sports team and roles and and clarity, and you have a captain and a manager. I can imagine what it's like to be in a management team in a in a business and an office. What is it like to be in a in a writing team? How and what are the dynamics? What do you do differently, if anything, at all?
SPEAKER_05It is really weird, actually, thinking and I've I've literally never thought about that uh until you just asked me. So this is already interesting. There's a sense in which you're in charge, and there's another sense in which you're not in charge at all because you're not paying for it. So the show is your idea. So when I did Bluestone 42, so it's our idea, it's our vision. And so there's no point in the people making the show deviating from it because we're the ones that had the idea, and so we've got the secret source and are trying to make it work. But there's also a sense in which, well, we can't achieve that and we can't do that, so you're gonna have to change it. And there's no point digging in over no, no, we insist that you have this large explosion here, there, and everywhere, and or you do this or that. So you you know, you you kind of have to fix problems as well. So it is a A super weird role, especially when you're in production. Because when you're on set and you're actually filming, on the rare occasion you they they let the writer on set and they're actually filming your thing. That's a bit of a you know uh bit of a black swan, but occasionally that happens. You're the only one with the whole script in your head. So on a day of filming, you've got to shoot about seven and a half pages, and it might be scene three from episode two, and then scene four from episode five, and then scene three from episode uh one. And you're filming them because you're in that location, those two actors, you've got that third one coming in, you're gonna shoot them out before you move on and do the next stuff. The director's just trying to get through the day and get the pages shot in a way that he can use, but lines then start to bend on the day, and sometimes something seems really funny that fixes a problem that comes up on the day. But you as the writer just go, oh hang on, sorry. If we do that, that isn't gonna match the scene that comes three scenes later, and we've already shot that, and so we're we're shooting something now that we can't use. So I'm afraid we'll have to go back to the original line that I wrote, because I wrote it for a reason, and then sometimes you go, Oh no, sorry, that line's terrible, I'll give you a better one. How about this or how about this? And then the actor says, Oh, what about a version of these two? Great, okay, cool, we'll go again, all fine. But in general, you're you as the writer, you've slightly got to sit out the way and then just jump up into action if there's a problem. Because if you start intervening and slowing down production, the moment everyone's standing around, you are burning money really fast. Uh so essentially you only intervene if there's something howlingly wrong or there's a problem and you need to fix it. So it is a very weird situation to be in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no interesting. And how I and when you get into problem-solving mode, with I'm I'm guessing there's quite a few egos knocking around when you're kind of filming on sets like that. In terms of the uh the human behaviours, how how how does that kind of play out? Again, I can see what it's like in a in a in a working environment and sp and sport teams. Is it is it any different? I'm just fascinated by the work.
SPEAKER_05Because not only have you got the not only have you got the character the actor is playing, you've got the actor themselves, and and they have their own view on their own status within things about how they're listened to, what they have a problem with. There's a really lovely, so a guy I listen to a lot, uh, who actually weirdly is going to seminary now in his 60s, he was the showrunner on Cheers when it finished called Rob. And he did a lovely book called Conversations with My Agent, and he has a podcast called Martini Shot, which is like a 10 minutes on entertainment and sitcoms and all that kind of stuff. He says, When an Sometimes actor throws their toys out of the pram and there's a line that they've got a problem with, and at that point it's a really handy thing just to say, um, okay, so can you just explain to me the problem with the line? And then they blurt out something. And at that point, just say, um sorry, could you just say a bit more? And actually, what you might discover is they're sick of not being listened to, and there's an outside chance by the end of them saying more, they just go, I mean, it's probably fine. I mean, the line's probably fine. I I I don't know, I'm just not getting it. I don't understand why my character is doing it. And then if you say, Oh, because in the previous scene, do you remember you did this and therefore you're still thinking about that? Oh, right, oh, okay, I haven't got that. And then you realise that one word of the line is throwing them in a different direction, in which case, just scrap the line and give them another one. It's it's fine. So, in one sense, you want to honor they've spotted a problem subconsciously, you want to honour it. Don't just say, Look, listen, pretty boy, just do the lines, you know, just say the thing, because I I know what's funny. They'll be laughing at home, just trust me. Actors have uh writers have got all kinds of disparaging ways of referring to actors as camera meet, basically, and all those sorts of things. Uh so uh so sometimes it's just a question of listening and working out, and as always, with all these kinds of things, the problem that you're presented with isn't the real problem. What's the problem behind the problem? And you get this when you're getting notes on the script in the you know, draft one, draft two, draft three, because you're filming draft six or seven or eight or nine. Somebody reading will give you a note and they say, I didn't like this, or this felt weird, or this wasn't funny. And sometimes you think, well, initially you just think, shut up. Of course it was funny. What's wrong with you? Are you an idiot? Of course you're an idiot, you work in television. Ugh. Once you're over that, that's where it really helps to have a co-writer. So when I had a co-writer on that show, and you basically get to bitch about the idiots who are giving you notes, and then the next day you come back into work and just go, right, okay, so let's be professional. What are we going to do next? But again, it's a question of just going, well, they've highlighted a problem with this script. They don't know why this line bumps, they don't know why this just jumps out at them. They've actually misdiagnosed the problem, but they have identified a problem. And I think the solution is three lines earlier because we've given the impression that the scene's going in this direction, it's going in another direction. And we should either make the switch much more funny and obvious, or we've just sent everyone in the wrong direction. So some of it is a bit like that kind of uh chiropractor sort of stuff where you've got a problem with your shoulder and then the chiropractor starts fiddling with your with your toes, and all of a sudden your shoulder's better. I mean, I've never I've never been to a chiropractor, and this is a sitcom version of a chiropractor. But do you see what I mean? You're just sort of diagnosing on the fly. I mean, it's it's it's pretty exhausting, but it's great fun. So that is the first bit of the Wit and Grit podcast, and you can go and listen to that episode two. There's a link in the show notes to that. It's Wit Plus Grit if you're looking for it on podcast apps, and uh there's a website as well that they use. So there you go. That's the episode for this week. A lot of me talking in different contexts, and there's actually going to be an episode next week. Of course there is. I'm gonna be talking to Reese Laverty about the quiet revival and some pretty major revelations that the stats weren't that good. But he's written a very entertaining article about it for the critic, and I thought, oh, I want to talk about this. And that's what this podcast is for. Stuff I find interesting, because if I find it interesting, I think you'll find it interesting too. That's the MO of things around here. I am gonna take a break at some point, just not right now. Anyway, that's the end of the episode. Is this how it ends? Yep.