"Perfectly Buoyant" - further chronicling of the tosh

willoughbies.jpeg by John Finnemore

 We had tried all manner of things with "The Willoughbies" in previous series of JFSP, both at sketch try-outs and live recordings: We'd tried it with John as the Dad, with me as the Dad, as a "runner" – catching buses, or winning points for spotting spelling mistakes in a menu – and as a standalone sketch, but they never made it in. And I didn't really get them. I am – as should be clear by now from these posts – a lot slower on the uptake than most listeners, and cold as a stone. Possibly the point was to show a generically happy, Ned-Flanders-type family in a less annoying light, and to let an audience – specifically John's audience – love something more commonly mocked. Posssibly it was less pointed than that; sometimes John just enjoys painting portraits. Anyway, I was surprised how doggedly he kept trying to do something with them.

 

 So when he first mooted over Zoom his plans for Series Nine, and for the family formerly known as Willoughby, I immediately anticipated how out of my depth I might be. This wouldn't be the normal rough trade John gets me to do. I'd need a buoyancy aid. That buoyancy aid turned out to be a fond memory of Jim Broadbent at his most "heigh-ho" augmented with a weak "r", and I clung onto that aid for dear life when recording Jerry's first scene – the restaurant scene from Episode Two. As I said on twitter during the tweetalong: 

 "I reckon it might have been this scene that made me consider giving Jerry that voice. I was worried my own voice might sound a little too punching down. Among other things"

 You know. Bullying. I'm making it sound like it was hard, aren't I. It wasn't hard, of course. I had John's writing to play, John and the rest of the cast to play off, Sue's tunes to sing, and Ed to tell me how much Jerry reminded him of his dad. But this was unlike anything I'd done on the radio before*, Jerry wasn't a character in a sketch, he had a whole series, a series in which I'd also be playing quite a few other roles which we'd have distinguish from him, so whatever voice I used in that first recording of that first scene would have to stick. Fortunately, Jim Broadbent is a very versatile actor. 

 Oh, here's something about that restaurant sketch I didn't know:

 

 

 And this might be my favourite revelation of the week. I've loved Willie Rushton ever since I received a copy of his comic "The Gernaium of Flüt" as a child, and I wish I could find it now. His son in that is called Toby, I think. His dog might be called Toby as well. I sang his praises here, back in 2008. And here he is playing Watson opposite John Cleese's Holmes.

 

 

 

 But he wasn't just the dry, avuncular fantasist of my childhood. Ruhston was there at the beginning of Private Eye and That Was The Week That Was, a stalwart of the sixties' Satire Boom that Jerry fails the audition for in Episode Six. In real life there are people who remind you of people, and I love that Jerry had that, whether I knew it or not. What I remind myself most of in fact, listening to Jerry now, is my childhood friend Tom. He was big fan of Willie Rushton too.

 Here's something great that William Shaw wrote about the series' approach to failure. And here, before I go – because, despite what it says at the top of this post, it's actually New Year's Eve tonight – is another thing John told me about the inspiration for Jerry when we first Zoomed:

 

 

 It goes up to 63, by the way. 

 Series Nine is still being repeated at 11pm on Radio 4, the final episode is tonight, if you have any questions you can post them below, and you can still hear the whole thing any time you like here. (I recognises that, despite all this talk about buoyancy aids, I haven't once mentined the lilo.) Happy New Year, Unattendees!

*(I know I've played Sir Maxwell House over a few series of "The Monster Hunters" {who also taught crows to do tricks}, but Sir Maxwell is a character from a sketch, which might be why the show outgrew him.)

Some Things That Might Not Be Obvious About the Making of Finnemore's Ninth

 I'd forgotten I'd already written about the production of JFSP Series Nine back when we first started recording in March, here. The home recording set-up in that first session turned out to be insufficiently broad-bandy, however, and so most of my remaining lines were recorded half an hour's stroll away, in the Nathan-Barley-themed escape room of Bloomsbury's Syncbox studios...

 

 

 

  I would usually have had about two hours' sleep the night before, from the excitement of knowing this was coming. And sometimes I'd be lucky enough to be joined – in the opposite corner of the studio, no hugging – by Carrie, taking a break from the ambulances she's now driving, also on about two hours' sleep. John, being John, wouldn't have slept since Christmas 2020. On this little sleep, a crucial advantage of not performing the series live turned out to be the opportunity for retakes, and the chance for our producer Ed Morrish to direct, well, specifically, me. "Try that again, warmer," was a common note. 

 

 Carrie, meanwhile, got it, and got on with it. I'd hoped my tiredness might help me stop overthinking "the point" of a scene, but I'm suddenly remembering as I write this how she would still occasionally have to give me an additional note to just "do the thing John asked"... Was it really necessary to have so many scenes of Jerry making up poems, I remember thinking for example, having no idea yet of the revelations in Episode Five... As I said on the tweetalong (and I've enjoyed seeing how many listeners are surprised by this), we all knew that John had a big idea for the shape of this series, but none of us – with the possible exception of Ed – knew what that shape was. And John, again being John (one of his best qualities) would still ask open-endedly for feedback or suggestions, but to take him up on this felt like kicking the tyres on the batmobile. 

 

 

 In fairness to my lack of understanding, quite a lot of Jerry's episode was recorded first – only tyrants have favourites, but Jerry might have been the character John found least inherently difficult to create – and there wasn't that much to piece together back then. Even the author didn't have a clearer idea than was needed of the big picture two sessions in. Take the first recording of the scene where Alex asks Russ about his tattoo...

 John on Zoom: "Okay. Simon. Could you read Alex in this?"

 "Okay. Who's Alex?"

 "Yes. I should probably decide that, shouldn't I."

 "Someone Russ is meeting at a party?"

 "No. Maybe Russ's partner, or husband. Let's decide... Okay, yes, his partner or husband."

 "And is this them meeting at a party?"

 "No. This isn't a party."

 "Shall I give Alex an accent?"

 "No." 

 If you haven't listened to the series, Alex ended up being an Australian played by John. So, yes, of course there was a plan, is what I'm saying – a pretty perfect plan as things turned out – but there was also, perhaps the greatest advantage of the costume-less, set-less, on-book medium of radio: a big temporal overlap with that plan's execution.

 Series Nine is still being repeated nightly at 11pm, the tweetalong will be continuing tonight or, if you have any questions, you can post them below, and you can still hear the whole thing any time you like here.

"I hear you let your forefather out of the cupboard!"

 *Duck call as used in John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme!* 

 ANNOUNCEMENT: Series Nine of JFSP is getting a second airing on Radio 4 tonight at 11pm, and every night thereafter until New Year's Eve, and producer Ed Morrish is planning a tweet-along to accompany Episode One tonight – the one starring Lawry Lewin. I might be asleep because I'm an hour ahead, Carrie might also be asleep as they've started allowing her to drive ambulances, and Lawry's not even on twitter, but I'll see if I can get that fake account pretending to be him to join us instead.

 

 Of course, you can still hear any you episode you want any time you like on Sounds, and I say "of course" because I'm still rashly assuming that everyone reading this blog will have already heard it anyway. If you haven't however, I've written a little about how much I love it, and why you shouldn't necessarily be expecting a sketch show, here. 

 In keeping with the theme of Series Nine, here's a Moomin being startled by his ancestors:

 I loved hearing John play Moomintroll on the radio yesterday, by the way, and really recommend you listen to the production of "Moominland Midwinter" in which he did it. It's possibly my favourite adaptation yet of possibly my favourite books; I'm still trying to work out what my love of Tove Jansson says about me. The increasing marketability of her characters isn't helping, but I think what she taught me, uniquely among the childrens' authors I read, was that a story can be packed with fantasy and drama without any need for "adventure". This probably wasn't a particularly useful lesson to learn as a writer, but there's no unlearning it. 

 Here's another Moomin winter to enjoy.

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without Lembit Opik...

 

 O HOU, everyone! Happy First of Leo! Let's all celebrate One Humanity, One Unity – but not necessarily in that order – with Asgardia's plucky "Chair of Parliament" Lembit Opik, an uncredited Lena DeWinne, and their tiny "Head of Legal Affairs", none of whom outstay their welcome. If that wasn't enought to make this a Unity Day to remember, joining them is a computer-generated woman from 2005: "All Asgardians will be awarded celebrating in all corners!" Imagine that!

 

 

  Speaking of all corners, I see Dennis Shoemaker has found the perfect place for his map of the US. Okay, so it turns out that Unity Day was actually six months ago, but that's my fault, not theirs. I wasn't going to let the year go by without sharing the latest from Asgardia with you anyway, and every day's Unity Day here at Unattended Articles, so let's hear now from their Head of Information and Communications. Take it away, Dennis!

 

 

 

 Of course, Asgardia won't just be about law and information and recruiting women to give birth in outer space. There will also be a strong cultural element. But what will the Art of Earth's First Space Nation look like? It will look like Hell. O hou, Cheryl!

 Oh, who's this at the door now, but Asgardia's Minister for Trade and Commerce, Ben Dell, who maybe hasn't had that much to do this past year? I don't know. That's just a guess. Maybe sloppily photoshopping the Starship Enterprise onto pictures of himself sitting on a space swing was exactly how Ben was meant to be spending his time. It certainly wasn't wasted anyway. That's one tasty vision. Here's still to the future, guys. O HOU!

 

 

Deck the Stars!

 Season's Merries to all of you, ol' Unatendees! From the tasteful opulence of this Notting Hill window display, to the simple star atop the town down the tracks below. I hope, however you spend this day, and whomever you spend it with, that incorporated into it at some point will be your idea of fun, and I hope you're all doing tremendously!

I Bloody Love Big Pictures

 

 On the last train out of France a week ago, I checked the map on my phone to see if it sould show us going through the channel tunnel, and was surprised to see a shape I didn't recognise: the shape of the channel itself. I was reminded of what I'd felt seeing a map of the Mediterranean in a charity shop window in Clapham. There was nothing here I could recognise as a country, or two countries, or three. Just a place. Just land and water. I zoomed out. 

 And I still didn't recognise anything. I was familiar with the shape on the left, of course, but nothing stood out. Great Britain didn't stand out. And now I could see, for example, why Norwich had had that centuries-long history with the Netherlands, because why wouldn't you? If one pictures the British Isles on a rectangle – which is the shape most pictures appear on, let's face it – all of that land in the bottom right corner is missing, isn't it, airbrushed out like Trotsky? We're not brought up on maps of Britain, but on portraits. Shakespeare's definitely a bit to blame for this. I heard somewhere that countries are actually quite a new idea though*, so I still have hope.

 Here's a zebra-crossing to nowhere.

 * I'll tell you where I heard that, actually. I've only just started listening to the "In Our Time" podcast, and it was in an episode on the battle of Traflagar here. "In Our Time" is brilliant, by the way. In the last episode I learnt that before the dinosaurs, the world was ruled by crocodiles! Some went around on their hind legs! Some had hooves, some had beaks, some were the size of whales! An entire planet of crocodiles! And it was Earth! MERRY CROCMAS!

 

(image source)

Bonus Mystery Clip Round: Spot The Difference!

 

 Oo now, this might be fun.

 Can you tell the difference between these two videos: one, a normal, thirty second advert which has been on the telly for a couple of months – above – and – below – a slightly longer version for some reason, which I can only find online? Can you see what they added? Or what they took away? And maybe why?

 

 In other news, I decided to keep most of that big Watson moustache from the Bolton run of Hound of the Baskervilles I did back in the Summer, and I suddenly found myself getting cast as dads, in some very nicely paid jobs, like a regular professional. That's not really news I guess, more of a catching-up. I'm still quite a screen novice though, not that used yet to seeing my own face on- JESUS JESUS NO WHAT JESUS NO!!!

 

Miracle On Rue De L'Audacieuse

 On Monday night I slept solidly for twelve hours. 

 A lateral flow test taken when I woke with a dry cough on Tuesday afternoon showed, as usual, the strong line against the C... (for "Covid or not Covid, let's see if you have it!")... but also, unusually this time, a faint line as well against the T... (for "Turns out you might actually have it, huh!") Above is a completely unphotoshopped picture of the tent behind the chemist's in the town along the train tracks where, on the longest night of the year, I walked in to get my PCR... (for "Polymerase Chain Reaction")... test, to see whether or not I had indeed brought Omicron into France. Everyone in London seemed to be coming down with the new variant, but to my surprise, twenty minutes after the swabbing, a text came through to tell me that the result was negative. I didn't have it. And now my cough's gone.

 To quote the title song of a childrens' opera written by my Dad: "Christmas is a Time of Miracles!" 

 

 Incidentally, it was only when he came to rewatch "Die Hard" that Dad realised, to his delight, he'd nicked that line from Hans Gruber.

Lighting Candles in the Cloud

 Monday was shrouded in mist, or cloud – I don't know how high up we are here in Languedoc. Sat around Mum's computer on three chairs, we attended her brother Francis' funeral online, then drove carefully to the abbey in the next village to light a candle for him. 

 

  The abbey's been here less time than Mum and Dad, only completed in 2018. I don't know who designs sanctuaries these days, but they understood the assignment. The small chapel we were taken to by the monk where the candles were lit was bright with stained glass, even in this weather, but the palette of the surrounding cloisters is far calmer, almost prehistoric, the colour of water and bone. And the windows of the main church aren't stained, but grooved like the sand in a karesansui garden, which my camera doesn't pick up.

 

 The earliest Christmas I remember, I was six or seven: I received a robot that broadcast a panorama of Saturn across its chest and fired missiles from its forehead – this one, in fact – and a beautifully illiminated boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia, which I still own. I remember Mum conveying the excitement with which she and her brothers and sister would look forward to the next story coming out, but I'm only now realising the more personal connection – that its author had personally taught one of them. Apparently C.S. Lewis considered Francis "the best mannered man of his generation I have ever met." I loved that box, but it would decades before I got beyond The Horse and His Boy, although I still remember, vividly, its description of how surpisingly damp and grey it is to be inside a cloud. 

 Francis' service, if you wish, can be viewed here.

 

The Persistence of Memory Round

 I noticed, on the walk I took on Sunday evening, that the moon – like myself – had risen a little later than the day before, and I was reassured by this. Previously I had known only theoretically that it couldn't always show up on time for nightfall, as that's not how orbits work, but my regular urban surroundings had never been flat enough to prove it. I missed the city's pavements, though. The roads between these villages are fringed instead with ditches. I assume that's so you'll crash your car if you skid, rather than drive over a vine. You've got to protect the vines. 

 When I got home, my laptop died – or at least coudn't be woken – and I spent the next few days trying to bring it back to life, which is why this post is actually going out on the night of Wednesday the 22nd. Now the factory settings have been restored though, here, by the light of Sunday's moon, is another quiz for you, this one from August. Match the following ten Surrealist titles: "The Decoy"... "Disturbing Presence"... "Floor 4706"... "Men Shall now Nothing of This"... "The Persistence of Memory"... "Hamlet"... "The Son of Man"... "Stage Fright"... "The Uncertainty of the Poet"... and finally, "Bicycle Wheel"...  to the following ten Surrealist works. And I'll post the answers in the comments.

 

1. René Magritte, 1964

 

 

 2. Salvador Dali, 1931

 

 3. Remedios Varo, 1959

 

 

4. Marcel Duchamp, 1913 (originally, but pretty easy to throw together, and repeated since)

 

 

5. Gertrude Abercrombie, 1952

 

 

6. Giorgio de Chirico, 1913

 

 

7. Man Ray 1949

 

8. Leonora Carrington,  1958

 

 

9. Edith Rimmington, 1948

 

 

10. Max Ernst, 1923

 

The Natalie Portmanteau Round

 How best to explain this round from September? Maybe I should make having to work out how to play it a feature, rather than a bug.... It's basically a Star-Wars-related "Answer Smash" (two answers elided into one). For example, the answer to the above picture clue is "Judith Hann Solo", as that's a picture of Tomorrow's World presenter Judith Hann on the left, and the actor who played Han Solo on the right (and because I felt that Kathryn Hahn might be even harder to identify than Judith Hann, so went with the standardised pronunciation of "Han", father than the canonical.) The rest I'll let you work out for yourself. It won't always be a person on the left – it might be a show or a thing or a place – but it will always be an actor who played a character in Star Wars on the right, although I haven't actually included Natalie Portman in the end. And I don't care about the spelling. Aswers will be posted in the comments. Chwat!

 

1. 

 

2.

 

3.

 

 4.

 

5.

 

6.

 

7.

 

 8.

 

9.

 

10.