Episode Seven: Fiona Pearce

In this episode, we're joined by Fiona Pearce for a conversation that ranges across books, writing, and the communities that sustain them. Together, we reflect on the role Oxford has played in her journey, the people and places that have influenced her work, and the ways in which her writing and thinking has evolved over time. Join us for a thoughtful discussion about creativity, connection, and the enduring importance of literature in bringing people together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Hello and welcome to Broad Street to Brideshead. Now we've done a lot of novelists thus far in our series, Vera Britton, Evelyn War, Amitav Gosh. So today we're going to be looking at something quite different. Scriptwriting. To be specific, comedy scriptwriting. In this episode, I'll be interviewing Hartford alumni Fiona Pierce following her journey from Oxford to drama school, from live tours to TV. We're going to be diving into the ups and downs of performance life, as well as giving advice on how to get into the industry. I'm particularly excited because you're our first writer that we've got on who does comedy writing. And that's something that I really like to talk to you about because I think comedy is a really room-specific skill. So what I wanted to ask first was uh, did you always know that you wanted to do comedy writing, or was that something that developed later on?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

I think when I was little, like little little, it was definitely what I was into. Um watching shows that are quite ancient now, like French and Saunders and Absolutely Fabulous and Victoria Wood growing up. They I was kind of the archetypal child sitting in front of a TV writing down the script or recording on a video cassette and writing, copying out the script. Um there was later gifted uh like collections of their scripts. Um, because I think several family members could see like, why is she writing this down? We could buy it from our shop. Um, so I definitely started out loving seeing TV comedy. Um, and then I just got really into the idea of like more serious acting, and so I sort of went down that route for a while. So comedy is in a way something I came back to when I started writing sketches, which was yeah, after after Oxford.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

So then presumably coming into Oxford, you were quite interested in doing drama here as well. Well, what kind of motivated you to apply to Oxford specifically and maybe even like to Hartford College?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Well, English was my favourite subject. I loved it. I I knew I just wanted to study the subject that I loved the most. Um, I was very purist and not at all strategic, just following passion. And I applied to Hartford for two reasons. One was that Emma Smith was Professor Emma Smith, I should say, was one of the English tutors here, and she was really and is really renowned for Shakespeare and Renaissance drama, and I was really into all of that and thought, oh, if I could study with her, that would be incredible.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

From One Woman Shows at the Burton Taylor to the many Shakespeare Garden plays of Trinity Turn, Oxford's university drama scene is bustling with life. It's a fantastic opportunity to get into the theatre world, whether that's acting, writing, directing, lighting, costume, Oxford offers a host of different venues and funding sources to get student plays off the ground and into the air, including tours and trips to Edinburgh Fringe. So, how did Fiona get involved with drama during her time at Oxford? And how did it help her find her future career?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Of course, that's another big reason I was drawn to like Oxford, is the idea that there was just so much theatre going on. So yeah, I straight away started auditioning for things. And actually, most of my time apart from studying was spent doing plays around Oxford, like open air, Shakespeare's in the summer, and then like things at the Burton Taylor, yeah, things all around, which was great. I loved it. I mean, I remember being in a production of um The Tempest, Open Air. I remember at the beginning, I was aerial, and in the beginning, they wanted me to hide in this like old treasure box as the audience was coming into the garden. And then at the beginning, I when it was my cue, I could like fling the box open and jump out and be like a magical spirit. Unfortunately, I was in the box so long that my legs on the first night were totally numb. So when I had to jump out of the box, I was like, ah, I remember it wasn't a magical aerial. I was like, when is the feeling coming back into my legs? But that was that's just great student staging that we had to had to learn, had to learn you can't necessarily crunch your body up like that for half an hour. But yeah, there was lots and an amazing, um, really, it was just the the fun of rehearsing them and putting them on. I'm sure the end products at the time were not as amazing for the audience to sit through, but it was really so great to be involved in them. And I made really good friends, and yeah, it said so, yeah, it was just being part of it all was really, really fun. Even actually, they used to do like they probably saw this like summer tours. There was an international one and there was a UK one. And I did one that was in the UK that was like a Shakespeare tour, which was yeah, really fun. The main thing is, of course, when you're here, the budgets are here for you. And I just think to anyone, just like make the most of having someone of having a a college budget towards a production.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of help for productions today. There's so many different funding sources in Oxford's.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, and the and the venues being available to you is incredible because as soon as you're out in the world, it's like that all those things require a lot more logistics and a lot more uh thinking around the finances. Whereas when you're here and the opportunities there, it's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Drama school. Mysterious institutions which churn out the great actors and actresses of our age. Stories of strange exercises, eccentric teachers, and close cohorts circulate about these educational institutions. But what is drama school really like? What was Fiona's experience going after Oxford? And who was the friend she accidentally ended up going with?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

It was it was really just serendipity that we were very good friends at Oxford. She was at Keble. We met doing plays together, and then we both were applying to drama school, and we both got into the same one, and so we ended up in the same year, which was incredible. So we studied together for three more years in London at Central School of Speech and Drama, now Royal Central School of Speech. It wasn't Royal when I was there, um, since been given that, which was amazing, and I met really great friends there and just did a lot of it was, you know, again, I was really following a passion. University fees weren't as high then, as well, I will say. So this was like also when I was like slightly more possible to do a second degree. Yeah, that I was just then following my acting dream. It was, yeah, it was so much fun. We just did all of the typical things like you had to wear all black, you weren't allowed to wear a watch because you had to let go of time and just be present in the room. And we went to London Zoo and pretended to be zoo animals for hours. And so when a lot of graduates from Oxford would have been like doing their trainee contracts in the city, we were like crawling around in Regents Park pretending to be cattle or well, actually, they're not zoo animals, pretending to be like, you know, marsupials and then penguins. And it's a different, it's a different life choice, Brizzy, is what I made.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

No, I mean that sounds marchic. That sounds amazing. And so was it there that you first began writing your own stuff?

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah, I did, I did write there. There was there was there were a couple of shows that we wrote ourselves, like end of year shows that you could put on for the other students, when I did, I did dip my toe in writing some comedy, but really that didn't start in earnest till after I left because I was very much we were, you know, we were performing like amazing drama by brilliant playwrights. So it actually didn't feel as necessary to write, you know, our own stuff at one mindset at that point. But after we left, I I wrote sort of returns to a big passion of mine from Oxford, actually, which was Virginia Wolf. And I wrote with a friend from drama school, I wrote uh a screenplay about Virginia Wolf and Vanessa Bell, her sister, and their relationship and their journey to become artists, which we which was a fantastic process. And we did a scheme with your Vic through it, and we learned how to pitch, and and we were told, like, uh a period drama is one of the most expensive things that you could possibly ask to make for your first film. We were like, Oh, uh you mean money's involved and that's hard? Okay. So after that, I was like, how can I write something that I can actually like put on and has um it is just fairly doable? And some friends were doing sketch comedy, and another friend who was a very old school friend, we decided to write some sketches together and do like a 10-minute set at another friend's sketch night. And that's just how we got started is like this is a great opportunity to just write something, get on stage, test it, and see how it goes. And and from there, it just felt like this is the best way to learn how to write. And I'm also really good to learn how to perform, really, is just to keep doing it and do it badly, and then try and do it like a bit less badly, and then or a little bit less and just over time, yeah, sort of learn how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Definitely. So is this the friend you're talking about? Because I know that you're in a Juro Croftam head. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

So is that that's Hannah Croft, yes. Yeah, who wasn't Modelin? So she was at Modlin and the same time as I was here and was doing drama as well. But we didn't work together but un until after, yeah. But um, she's also a friend from school. I mean, so many friends have been involved in this process. You see, this is what I'd recommend to people it's like find friends who are like-minded who you want to work with, because it's so nice to work with your friends. Yeah, and people you know and people and people you really like because you're gonna have to like go through a lot together if you're gonna perform, tour, write, as I say, do things badly together. It's lovely to do that with someone else and then be like, let's learn from this embarrassing experience we've had at this gig and try and get better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

A really important lesson, I think, is for creative industries in particular, is kind of just like try, try and try again kind of thing, and you've got to keep just going with it. And um Yeah, definitely. I mean, so while so kind of thinking about that, I understand that you kind of did tours with Croft, but you've also done lots of other writing and some TV writing as well. How did you get into that?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

So, so while I was all writing and performing with Hannah, and we did lots of Edinburgh Fringe, and then off that we did UK tours, and and we had a radio show at one point as well. While I was doing that, I was also uh let me think how it happened. I I started I started pitching for this website that's in the States called Reductress, which is sort of known as like the feminist onion. Um, it's like a sat satirized version of women's muse in inverted commerce, um, which I loved reading. So I I wrote for them for a bit, and then I realized actually all my friends were reading a UK site called Daily Mash, which is like a UK satirical site. So then I just emailed them, just a cold email asking if I could pitch. And uh so I started pitching to them and then yeah, have been writing for them for a really long time, and that's yes, satirical news. You know, it's just getting your idea, a funny one-liner, and then a satirical story to accompany it. And very fortuitously, that website um got a TV show because it was popular. Um, they made a sort of TV version of it, and so I wrote for that TV show, which was really fun, which was on BBC too, and then moved to Dave. That was great, and then and then off the back of that, and through touring with Croft, I also wrote some TV shows with Croft, including like children's animations for CBBs, and which is really fun. Um, really fun, sort of like educational, sort of a STEM-based uh narrative comedy show with marsupials set in Australia. It was insane. It's like we've got an eight-minute use eight-minute narrative arc. It has to have a STEM message, or STEAM, actually, even STEAM message, STEM, and um and it's got to be age appropriate for preschoolers. And just loads of other rules from the animators, like don't let them do anything with water, we're not animating water, and don't let them do anything dangerous because uh the children will think they can, you know, jump off the roof if you do anything too crazy. So it was just it was amazing. It was really good, really good experience and like handling feedback from a lot of different people of editors, producers, all feeding back on ideas, and yeah, being very again being very pragmatic and being like, oh, okay, how can I make this a bit better? How can I make it fall within these guidelines, but also keep it fun? Um, so that was really good actually discipline learning. Yeah, the yeah, get getting basically getting the MASH TV show opened up some other writing opportunities for other satirical stuff. And and then also doing the live touring opens up other opportunities for writing to write for other people.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Writing is hard. Writing comedy is really hard. And to have covered such a wide range of formats and styles, each requiring, as we see, different and often extremely specific elements is incredibly impressive. So, how does Fiona go about her writing? How does she come up with ideas and develop them into laugh-out loud pieces for varying audiences?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

I think um I probably don't have one process for anything. Um, on the whole, uh keeping notes of like funny or extraordinary or strange things that happen, just things that remarkable things that might happen, or just small things I notice, I just tend to try and keep a note. And especially for characters, it's just really helpful. And you don't know when you might have these interactions in a shop or a cafe or at your place of work, you might just think, oh, that's okay, or something with family. Um, so keeping notes is really good because then you always have stuff to go back to. Um, and obviously, when I'm working with Hannah Croft, we can bounce ideas off each other and pool our ideas, which is really great. Live stuff, the process is always writing and testing, and then refining and refining and being willing to just chuck loads of stuff out that doesn't work. Um and yeah, and I guess having written a lot live gives you a bit more confidence when you can't test it, that you sort of feel like you've you've honed some instincts, you hope, to know sort of what will work or what feels right for things. But it's always experimentation, really. And I would say there's I don't have a magic formula, and if there is one, I'd love to know. Yeah, it's really just like it's observing a lot and really giving your attention to things and asking a lot, it's taking the time to really, I guess, uh think and analyze things in a way that you know isn't normal or healthy, probably. But it's like that breaking things down that much is kind of how you find a bit of hopefully eventually hit something interesting and mine a bit of gold. You hope it yeah, I think probably looking at things closely. Yeah, or almost almost until they're not funny, probably.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

The other question I have is I don't understand how comedians don't laugh at their own stuff, but I guess you spent so much time thinking about it. But I wanted to ask you as well, going back to sort of TV stuff, and and I understand that you've done some work with the BBC. And can you talk a little bit about it?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Oh, yes. So, and this is this is something I definitely recommend to anyone who's like interested in writing scripts. Is so this is this thing called BBC Writers, which is a website and it's a part of BBC, um, and they they exist to like find and nurture uh script writers. So they have they have loads of opportunities listed on their website, not just at the BBC, but various theatres around the country, or uh often it's like regional schemes. So if you're from if you're from not to London or the South East, you'll often find something that can be like specific to you, like specific to Wales or the South West, which is quite good. Um, but they also do this thing called um open call, where anyone can send a script. So I had an idea for a uh drama, uh drama with comedy, which I sent in, which I wrote and sent into the BBC. And so through that I got to be part of one of their schemes and get like all of the opportunities they give, like working with a script editor and meeting loads of amazing people and having lots of masterclasses and workshops. And they're yeah, they're really good. I would really recommend sending your stuff off because they do actually read it. They don't, it's not like scanned by AI, um they which I think some probably some script competitions are. Um yeah, it that that there are real humans who read it and if they respond to it, they will actually email you and get in touch, which is really great.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yeah, I think that's what it's a really important thing to do because I think you know it can be quite hard to find your way in the industry um when you're just starting out and it's useful to have an organization that's trying to do something to like just give people a helping hand.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah, definitely. Is it because it is I think obviously it it it's very isolated naturally, the role of a writer. If if you're like sitting at your desk writing something, especially if you're if you're writing TV or probably the same, you know, if you're writing prose or in fiction and it's not it's not planning on going on stage anytime soon, then to know what to do with it is helpful. And I think I think competitions, I wouldn't recommend competitions that make you pay loads of money. I know so I I understand they have to cover their readers' expenses, but just beware if you're having to pay money. Um but the BBC they don't charge and anyone, anyone, and it's all read anonymously as well. So it's it's just it's a good, yeah, it's a good opportunity to get your work read, which is often the first challenge, isn't it? Yeah. Even getting someone to read it, which which I think is another reason to nurture friendships or relationships with some like minds who might be up for reading your work, and you can be reciprocal about that. Because I've got friends, and you know, my friend who was keep or who's an actress and a writer now, we we will read each other's stuff, and obviously with Hannah, and and I've got some other friends who will all read each other's stuff, which is just lovely to know I've got my first layer of readers in in my friendship group, and we can be honest because um because we're friends, and so we can take it.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah, I was wondering as well, do you find that's a similar thing with um working in a writer's room? Because I I'm sad you've I've worked in writers' rooms. Like you find that's a similar sort of vibe.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Yeah, I guess, I guess it is, yeah. Um, the writer's room. So so when I wrote for the Daily Mash show, which was called Mash Report, and then it was called Late Night Mash, that was a writer's room. So it was so in practice that at the time it was like between between um probably three and six writers around a table, and we were pitching ideas for topical news stories or zeitgeist news stories. So it's like didn't have to be in the news that week, but something about our culture today that could be funny. Um and yeah, that that was great because I mean that was literally chatting. You you would work a little bit on your own, literally working on your laptop in a writer's room in silence, and then you'd share ideas, and then you could kind of punch each other's ideas up a bit. And the head writer, well, he was pretty good at punching up some ideas. He's he was quite good. So yeah, that was that was collaborative. And I and I and I know, and it's the same, you know, when I've done when I worked in for the animations for BBC, a lot of that was big groups of people, including like an educational psychologist, um, because it's for children and they're quite responsible with how like how well they make these shows. It's quite impressive. And all the producers and and then lots of writers. So yeah, you really it really is a very collaborative process, I'd say TV is. Certainly, a lot of comedy is written a bit more collaboratively. Yeah. So you have to be open to take feedback and open to like not get your first idea through and just understand that's kind of the nature of it. And that's why writing for Dirty Mash was quite helpful for me. And equally, I would say performing sketch probably would be it is similar in that you have to come up with loads of ideas and know that like maybe 10% will be okay to then revise and refine. And you just kind of get used to knowing that you're going to produce a lot and some of it will be okay. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

We talked about how you when you're a bit younger, you really like comedy, and then you became much more interested in like serious drama. So I was wondering, is there something that kind of pushed you to want to go back towards comedy again?

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I think in some ways I was quite pretentious for a while. And maybe I credit myself too much, but maybe I'm slightly less pretentious now. Um I think I think I just I think I just wanted to be taken seriously, and I thought the way to do that was maybe to do some very sad, slow, serious, heavy drama. But actually, I think as well being uh trying to make it as like a writer-performer in your early 20s, you are gonna come across, unless you're very, very lucky, and some people are, you're gonna you your life's not gonna be a string of um incredible successes, let's say. So it's gonna like be quite a grounding experience. And that's quite helpful because and and that and it basically leans you towards comedy. Just for example, you end up having a load of jobs that are not very well paid, but you've got to pay your rent. So you're you know, if if if you want to do something that's not sort of get a proper corporate job, you might have to have like a few part-time jobs to make your to make ends meet. This is what me and a small community of people I know did. And that just naturally lends itself to comedy, I find, because you you just find yourself in ridiculous situations. Like I used to do work, promotional work, which a lot of actor out of work actors do, or used to do, where you'd like hand out water at a tube station at 6 a.m. You'd hand out Volvic, uh, water, or um, I was on just like a lot of reception desks doing reception work quite badly. And all of that is just really great material. But I did a lot of a lot of other menial or uh some would say dead end jobs, but you know, they served a function and they give you a lot of material and you can't take yourself seriously because you're just out in the world trying to um survive.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that like that sounds like that makes a lot of sense, you know, because if you go and especially if you're doing lots of different jobs, which won't slightly, you know, strange, but and kind of just getting where's like an insight to loads of different worlds. Yeah. It kind of gives you material for lots of different, just sort of slightly odd interactions and yeah, yeah, yeah, seeing different, yeah, seeing different, definitely different corners of the world.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Um, which was yeah, in hindsight, is uh was very, very helpful. At the time, obviously felt like, am I using my Oxford degree to the best as I that I could? I mean, obviously, yes, I'd say on the whole, basically, my life kept putting me in semi-absurd situations, which made me feel like my life's a comedy. My life's a comedy, oh god. Um, and that but that was actually really great because then it was quite empowering to use just to use that.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Um, so I wanted to ask you as well, because I I think you you have like a business as well, um, not just with the script writing, but also with um, I I guess like would you say like slogan writing as well? Oh yeah. Like what kind of drew you to that? And do you think that's sort of giving you good skills at, I don't know, like creating a sort of condensed message? Like comedy's often quite snappy.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Yeah, yeah. So that was actually one of my jobs, which um I was on reception at a creative agency, and then I asked, um basically, I saw Mad Men and Peggy from Mad Men was a secretary who became a copywriter, and weirdly, I was a receptionist who became a copywriter. So in my head, I was like, I guess this is Peggy Olsen's journey. If you've seen Mad Men, that makes sense. But yeah, so I so so I it was writing taglines for movies and TV shows, essentially, or like the trailer view, um, or just coming up with concepts for entertainment advertising. So that was very fortuitous because yeah, it sort of means part of my career is creating some entertainment, and part of my career is working out how to advertise entertainment. Um, and it's being, I mean, it's great for me because yes, taglines are basically how can we condense this story into about uh eight words max? Uh, I mean, eight words is long. Designers are like the space for three words on my poster. Um, and um so you're you're learning to condense a story or a feeling or just like an angle into so few words that that that is all really good for comment. That is kind of what all writing is, isn't it? You kind of want to say what you want to say in as few words as possible. So that's been really great. And the other lovely thing about that for me is it's uh I I've got to read a lot of scripts over the years, so a lot of film scripts or TV scripts, which I mean, reading, and I would give this advice to people, is reading scripts is really helpful. If you want to write scripts, reading scripts, not just for how they're formatted, but for just how the story plays out or how you feel when you're when you're reading it. Some writers can create just like a mood on the page, not just through the dialogue, but even through directions and the pace of the story. And there's a whole library of scripts actually on the BBC Writers website, so you can read them. But yeah, for me, I've got to write read so much and see so much that that that's also been a nice little education alongside it being a job.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Script writing. It's like saying novel writing. There must be hundreds of different styles and approaches within the genre. And that's what I'd like to ask Fiona about. Having written both for live audiences and for TV, I was wondering whether she felt that there were any key differences between those two styles and how she tackled that.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Yeah, well, from my experience, because TV involves loads of people, um uh you're just like one of the cogs in the wheel of TV. So you don't have control over what's going to go be filmed or be edited. Um, so you you just don't have as much control. So so there's that, which is like you sort of know if I mean if I'm gonna do a tour with Hannah, I I know what we're gonna put on stage. No one else is gonna say, it's only gonna be me and Hannah. Um we love the power. Um, and um and and really it's for the audience to decide, and me and Hannah. And so that's how that's how those scripts get refined. But yeah, so TV, you let you let go of a lot of control. Um, you also enter into a much larger collaboration, which is also uh can be really, really helpful. Um, and I think TV has a lot of practicalities like the budgets, we've only got this set. Um, I know things can change if like the weather's bad or they can only get that room. Um, you know, you've got to be very, very pragmatic. Um, whereas on the stage, it's like, well, we're limited by we're literally on a stage, and uh when we get to the venue, there'll be like a table and a couple of chairs. So, you know, we've got to those those we've got these limitations. We're not in full costume, so there are those limitations. But I guess a big one for when we're performing is we like to use the audience a bit in a non-terrifying way for the audience, I will say. We always try and like make it kind because I've been to comedy shows where they like get you up on stage and you just you know, you just feel like a pra it's really embarrassing. Yeah, so we don't we don't like doing that, but um, we do involve the audience. So yeah, that's the lovely thing about a live performance is you want it to be alive in the room and to be like a special, a special night that you're like, we remember our Northampton gig because you know that's what that guy said when we asked a question. And you know, we try and make something in the room that is special to that night, which obviously is not is not the case when you're doing something that's gonna be filled.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Right, yeah. Yeah. And along those lines, um, I was wondering how you first got into doing tours, because you know, I feel like that's not necessarily um a very sort of self-explanatory thing from having written a script to being able to take it on tour. Like, what's the process for that?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

So so what how we sort of started was doing gigs in pubs in London, like rooms above pubs, um, or or below pubs, never on the same level as pubs, weirdly. They never have been never like comedians on the same level. Um, and then there was like comedy theatre like Leicester Square Theatre. I think all of the rental prices have gone up a lot, but it used to be manageable to do it. Um, and then we would go to Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh, which you can organise yourself, and from Edinburgh we got an agent, and it's the agent who organises the venues. Um, because they have contacts in these regional theatres, which are amazing. I mean, there is so much comedy and live stuff now, just like every especially since lockdown, I've really noticed. Like small villages and like small towns where you'd think they're not gonna have anything here, right? And then you're like, Sarah Pascoe's performing because it's amazing. Like, I mean, it's amazing. I think maybe people, because they're working from home, they're not gonna travel to the city so much. I mean, I don't think I'm saying, I don't think I'm making headline news here. This is like this is a thing that's happened. Yeah. Um, so but I think what I'd what I'd recommend, because it's sometimes we did gigs like we do go and do a charity gig um for my auntie, um, because she's involved in Amnesty International. So we'd go into a charity gig that she organized in her town. Um so I would also say if you don't have an agent who can book things for you, which is obviously, you know, maybe a bit further down the road in for some, depending on where you are, you can also just mine contacts that you have and think because uh an audience in like a village hall or an audience in a even just like a small community center, um, it is still an audience and is still like a great place to go and test your stuff and to see and and just to see how how it goes down and to yeah. Even if you started by going, okay, here's a list of like people I know who live in different places, could I could I arrange something through them at like with minimal financial risk that could just be a great tester for me?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

So kind of on on this track then, do you have anything coming up, like tools-wise or yeah?

SPEAKER_00 34:05

So, well, so Hannah and I have got this dream of doing, well, literally a village hall tour, because we have these characters who thrive in a village environment because they're these sort of uh home counties, powerhouse middle-aged women who we'd have them for years. We've always been like, uh, one day we'll be like old enough to play them, you know, without like any like makeup or um wigs. And now it's like getting dangerously close. Uh be careful what you say. Um, so we are writing a Christmas show for them, which is going to be, well, they'll be the central characters, but it will be essentially a big sketch show like we've written before, where we like to write, we start with characters, but then we try and give them another all a nice little story arc that ties up. So they're in sort of the same story world. So they will be the heart of our Christmas show. We actually thought how fun to write a Christmas show. Um, for some reason, this is what we've decided we're gonna do. So, yes, that will that will be going on and then and then hopefully doing some other dates, but that's TBC for later in the year.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

No, we go just sorry, just because you mentioned the characters. So is that something you um like will quite often use? Like, do you have maybe some set characters that you will often write scripts around?

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Is that well, yeah. I mean, when we were doing we did seven years, I think, at Edinburgh. One year off. One year off because we literally both had our first children in August. So we were like, we wouldn't go to Edinburgh that August, would we? Should we risk it? No. So we took one summer off and then we went back when they were very young, babies. Would I recommend taking babies to the Edinburgh Fringe? Yes, what we did is we we sort of the characters who went down really well, we just kept writing more material for them and we just thought, well, what if we put them there? What if we give them this? And so they would appear in successive shows. And then when we did tours, and for so our standard show is like a 60-minute, but then we when we tour, we do an hour and a half because venues always want an interval to sell drinks because obviously that's how they survive. Um, I'm very practical about all of these things. Um, so yeah, so um, so naturally we just we just kept bringing back our favourite characters and ones that we felt like the audience liked. So we had like a brown owl who's really aggressive and um kind of awful to her troop of brownies, treats them like her own personal army. So we had her, we had these characters, Jean and Jean, who um are these middle-aged powerhouses. Um, we had who are often like very suicidal over very small things like their jam not setting or um John Lewis being closed. And we had we had an IT guy who was like sort of a super geeky, very verbose uh IT guy, a very toothy guy who Hannah played, very toothy boyfriend, where we sort of channeled all our relationship observations into this like a very dysfunctional couple. Um yeah, and then we just kind of give put people around them.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Wow, it's half fantastic, it's half like a an amazing world kind of living with all these creations that are all your own and to see them sort of like take off and really enjoying what you've written.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Oh yeah, it is, it is. Um, it is, and I would say like it is good to think what as you say it's like what world would I like to live in? If I'm going to exist in a slightly imaginary world I've created for some of my life, pick that world and make it something that you really love.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Because I think if I that that's why like I don't, I don't I wouldn't want to write tragedies or like terrible dramas where awful stuff is happening, even though sometimes I I'm I'm loving the pit. Have you seen the show? I've not I've heard about it. I mean, I think it's so good, but then I I'm crying frequently, frequently, I'm like saying to my husband, they're not they're not gonna let that child die, are they? That please tell me this is not gonna we've just got to watch it. Um it's just terrible, but it's brilliantly written and brilliantly acted. But I I wouldn't want to write that because I don't want to think, I don't want to think what's the worst case scenario. Um, what's what's the worst case scenario for this group of um perfectly happy people to have to go through? I'm happy to put characters through a lot of pain if there's a level of absurdity or that if we can find some humour or some redemption, there's some upwards trajectory for the the arc of the story, I can I can handle it, but uh all all out destruction and tragedy I struggle with. So that's why I wouldn't create that world. But I think I'm really glad some people do.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

In a world where things seem to be going from bad to worse, it can be easy to give in to doom and gloom. Comedy has the power to prevent that, to lift us out of indolent despair and motivate us to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off when life gives us lemons. Fiona's journey has certainly taught me that doing what you love is the best path to follow, and that by trying, trying and trying again, you can get where you want to go. Thank you so much to Fiona for coming to talk to me today, and thank you, listeners. I hope it's been uplifting, and see you next time.