Demo

NEW SHOWREEL!

 

 Finished. It's a shame my laptop's literally killing me, because I've remembered how much I love editing. Thanks are due to my agent Marie Findley, for once again being so bracingly ruthless in her suggestions of what to cut – five minutes is too long, she's right – including one clip from Death Meets Lisolette where I electrocuted myself, because it was "a bit of a lull". 

 Thanks also to Joel Morris, for noting how much a showreel is like the demo mode on a Casio keyboard: I only have Revenge, Horny and "Ah, Mister Bond" to go now, then I'll have the full set of timbres, the perfect showreel, and I can finally give up acting. 

 And thanks, finally, to the previous showreel, for helping me get some jobs to make this new one: acidentally killing someone on a sports day followed by four mintues of looking haunted and saying my name's Keith almost definitely got me Ghosts...

 

OLD SHOWREEL!

"Stath Lets Flats" is the British American Office.

I'd forgotten they'd made this!

 

 It was love at first sight between me and Stath Lets Flats, but it's only after my latest accidental binge of both series (having sat down to watch one episode) that I realise just how highly I rate it, and also possibly why: Quite early on in the American version of The Office, the show reaches a point where it understands its characters well enough to trust them with absurdity; the cast's performative muscle memory is strong enough to ground anything written for them. And Stath Lets Flats operates on that level of confidence from Episode One, possibly because – as he explains in this great interview with Rachael Healy – Jamie Demetriou has known so many of its cast for so long. His show is the opposite of "actor-proof"; it's a clown show composed of details, and every detail makes me laugh out loud.

 

 See above.

 

 The similarities extend beyond tone, however. To quote the interview: "Emotional behaviour juxtaposed with masculine bravado, done well, is a treat." Like The Office's Michael Scott (and unlike David Brent), Stath Charalambos is an idealist possessed by a mutant variant of kindness – an incapacitating, all-or-nothing desire not just to be loved, but to be allowed to love, which manifests itself most commonly in acts of unchecked selfishness. Also like The Office's Pam, Sophie Charalambos is a healthier, self-checking, but similarly yearning heart, the show's secret focus, and the real reason we care as much about these people as we do. Originally, I had thought that the last episode broadcast – not counting this bonus lockdown cracker posted above – was the perfect ending, but having rewatched it all, I now want two hundred more, and I'm very glad there's going to be a Series 3. 

 Here's Natasha Demetriou providing excellent company on Adam Buxton's podcast...

 Here's a brilliant interview with Kiell Smith-Bynoe... "I'd like to work in America, not crazy about living there. Tricky, because it seems like a great shout for black actors, not so much for black people. Tricky, mainly because I am both..."

 And here's more Katy Wix...

 

I Just Watched The First Comedy Ever Made, and Laughed a Lot and Realised Things.

When Comedy Was Queen

 Beaneath this hilarious hat is Marie Dressler, star of stage, screen, and Tillie's Punctured Romance, the world's first feature-length comedy film (or "photoplay", as it was billed on the poster, this being a medium so young nobody had yet settled on a name for it.) Made in 1914 by Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, I finally got round to watching this the day after Biden's inauguration, newly bouyed after a good night's sleep, and freshly in love with the promise of its place of origin. This was also where I'd got up to in David Cairns' invaluable run-down of the early works of Charlie Chaplin, as it was his first feature too. 

 

And here's the new favourite, joining hot acquisition Dressler, and Sennett's star fixture – and the woman who gave him more than one break – the brilliant Mabel Normand, for a lovely curtain call at the film's end.

 

 While not top billed, Chaplin is definitely one of the film's stars, and if you're normally turned off by him, you might still enjoy to a surprising degree his turn here as the gold-digging, Fairbanks-'tached louse – Bialystok in the body of Bloom – whose pursuit of Dressler makes him the butt of many jokes... literally, in fact, this being Keystone, and butt placement being key.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Chaplin played a lot of heels before he turned auteur, I'm learning, and it suited him. Here, he hopes to marry Dressler's Tillie Banks for her millions despite, simultaneously dating fellow grifter Mabel Normand, having met the heiress when, playing fetch with her dog, she accidentally threw a brick in his face. Bricks in faces are an early Keystone staple, I'm also learning, and knew no gender boundaries: Mabel Normand could take a brick to the face as well as anyone. Custard pies were a later refinement, but not I feel, necessarily an improvement. 

 

The third act.

 

 I laughed a lot at this film. It's full of excellent violence, but also, as with Tille squeezing behind her unnamed suitor to join in the eavesdropping above, the ticklish interplay of people who are just too close together. Here's another example: future comedy star Charlie Chase who, given essentially the role of an extra on Mabel Norman's right, seizes his moment with laudably shameless man-spreading.

 

 

Watching the film within a film (noticeably more realistic than the film which it's in – 

ARGH, WHAT DOES THIS REMIND ME OF? Answers below, please.)

 

 Everyone in these Keystone comedies is slightly in each other's way, I realised. It's how so many of the jokes happen – the patting of the wrong knee, the cane in the arse, the plank in the face – but it's also just a good way to maintain comic tension. I also realised I enjoy this as a comic device every bit as much as I enjoy someone being interrupted. 

 

 Side note: I'd already been thinking about the invasion of space when Blackadder III turned up on televison and I suddenly noticed how close Hugh Laurie was standing to Robbie Coltrane. Everyone in those middle two series of Blackadder stood weirdly close to each other, which might be why those two series were the funniest. Would Upstart Crow feel more like Blackadder, I wondered, if everyone just got up in each other's face more? (And might this be a part of the secret of the success of Ghosts? Of course, the modern aspect ratio requires a larger cast.)

 

Normand, unbothered.

 

 Anyway, the headline is: I laughed a lot at the first ever feature-length comedy, over a century after it was released. Maybe it's non-reputation is down to critics who didn't think it was Chaplinny enough. Too anarchic. I've no idea. The other headline, I guess, is that the first ever feature-length comedy starred two women. So maybe it's down to that.

 Here's the excellent, historic, pioneering Tillie's Punctured Romance. I love it.

 

THE YEAR IN REHASH: OCTOBER - Just Passing Through (More Ghosts)

A blink in the beautiful blooopers.

 

 Beginning to wind up this review of my favourite or at least more conspicuous posts from the last twelve months, this post from October is entirely about stuff from January (including another plug for my Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman essay) but I really enjoyed writing about this job. I have only one wince of regret, which I didn't mention before, and that's the lack of preparation I put into the shot where I return to my seat after making peace with Pat. Every time I see it I wish I'd entered looking more rattled, smiling with relief only as I turn to the window and realise closure's finally been achieved.

 

 As long-term readers of this blog will know, I maybe don't have that much experience of actual closure, so what do I know, but this just looks to me just like someone very happy with their new kitchen. That's my problem though. What a job. What a show. What a team! From October the 29th...

  This, gloriously, is the scene we filmed the day Terry Jones died. I can't think of a better way to honour the man's memory. The blow that initiates the cacophony was achieved by digitally removing Jim Howick's fist as it nears my body so it looks like it's passing through. We're not as close to each other in the still below as it looks, in other words, there's a false perspective or something, I think that's how it was done anyway, it's... Does that look right? It was back in January, I've no idea now. Welcome to Behind The Scene with Kieth Darren Dean! 

 

  I definitely remember that when I walked through Jim in the next scene, after leaving the stump, I passed him on the right and this was then digitally shunted to the left to overlap him, but you probably guessed it was something like that. There was a green screen set up outside the house. The weather was perfectly overcast, although there was no snow. It looked like this. That's frost on the ground.

 

 The frost disappeared as the day wore on, and the sky was perfectly overcast for the effects shot I enjoyed filming most which had nothing to do with passing through anything. That beautiful picture-book longshot of Keith and the Ghosts standing like transfers in a field was a composite. Lots of little shots put together. Here is a photo director Tom Kingsley posted of its filming:

 

 Spot the chancer on the far right. 

 Each of us ("us" - Get me!) had to walk up the strip of white plastic alone, pause at the end, then walk back in front of everyone else without giggling, like a shy fashion show. It was in its way the silliest thing I witnessed all week and I felt blessed to have a seat at it. Actually, it wasn't so much like a catwalk I now realise, it felt more like - Have you seen The Ususal Suspects? 

 

 (Trigger Warning:Spacey. Rudness.)

 

 Here is that episode. 

 And in other notices, continuing the Hallowee’en Countdown through Universal’s Frankensteins, here is the one instance of proper scholarlship I managed in the entire run - a piece of sleuthing that will change the way you watch 1943′s Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man FOREVER!

Sometimes this blog will just be the Horrible Histories Prom. Literally.

 

 I'm very late to this party, having not watched Horrible Histories before I was lucky enough to work with the show's – let's call them what they are – total stars, but in the comfort of this lockdown I finally managed to binge those first five series, and what a party I've missed. Series four and five in particular feel like the absolute apotheosis of a good idea, the work of people who by now could do no wrong (they even let Lawry sing!) and I wonder if this prom – recorded by my reckoning just after series three – contributed anything to that unmatchable mojo. Look at Larry Rickard, for example, tearing through his Bob Hale monologue alongside a live orchestra like it's not the most terrifying thing any actor could do. Has any room as big as this been as full of love? They're monarchs of all they survey, and just so very good at their job. But you know all that. Like I say, I'm very late to this party.

"I'm Famous. Give Me Presents." (Another Odysseus)

 

Finally, what a cyclops looks like from the front, 

at least according to Jacobus Sluperius.
 

 I've finally started reading The Odyssey, in the translation by Emily Wilson that I was hearing such great things about, and it's terribly good. I haven't met the Cyclops yet. I'm only on Book Five, so I haven't even met Odysseus, but I'm also glancing at the eighteenth-century translation by Alexander Pope to compare accounts, and I feel you're missing out if you've only read Pope. He makes no mention, for example, of Calypso’s island being covered in celery. 

 Another account I'd like to draw readers' attention to however – in addition to the three film adaptations mentioned back in October - is this hour-long radio Odyssey penned by my landlord David Reed for his gang "The Penny Dreadfuls", all of whose comedies have now been put online for ever, it seems. In allowing himself to dwell on the more absurd qualities of Odysseus' heroism, David's adaptation unwittingly, but beautifully, illustrates not only the many niggling questions Natalie Haynes would later let Odysseus' wife Penelope voice in A Thousand Ships, but also Emily Wilson's reasons for working on her own translation. Robert Webb plays Odysseus in this one, and Elpenor - the crew member he meets as a ghost in Hades whom he hadn't even realised was dead - sounds pleasingly like Jim Howick's Pat from Ghosts. Finely focused comic adaptations rather than spoofs – although they spoof the clichés of adaptation very well – I recommend the whole "Penny Dreadfuls" oeuvre. They might make you cleverer. They make me miss writing.

Behind Closed Ghosts. Last Ghosts Post. Ghost Promise.

The opening credits of Ghosts provide a pretty good approximation of the interior of West Horsley Place, where the show is filmed. The real thing's deeper, of course, and wider (and I never got to see the basement), but at the bottom left – there – you can see the pillars where we had the ghost fight, and the stairs at the back do indeed take you to ballroom, where the wedding ceremony was held. Did I take photos of the actual interior? Absolutely. Was I even allowed to? I've no idea, but to hell with the rules, I'm going to let you in anyway, yeah! Welcome, once again, to Behind The Scene, with Kieth Darren Dean!

  Okay, it seems that's all I took. I have no idea what is wrong with me. Sorry. Back to the doll's house: To the far right of the ballroom is the green room, which I was lucky enough to share with not only the stars of the show but, as I intimated here, a star of my life:

 

 Ned Mond, to give Neil Edmond his myspace name  – as I would always scrupulously do back in the early days of this blog, in order to preserve people's anonymity from my millions of followers – appears in the very first post I wrote, here, and our friendship goes back even further. Above is a picture of us from 2002, him as Hamlet, me as Polonius, and Nigel Barrett as Claudius, in Sulayman Al-Bassam's Al-Hamlet Summit, which we won a prize for in Cairo. Neil and I visited the pyramids of Giza on horseback, wobbling at a canter like a pair of Denholm Elliotts. You're never shown the back of the pyramids on telly by the way, but they have a KFC. I think Nige and the musicians took a jeep.

 As the vicar, Neil was encouraged to improvise quite a bit around the filibuster Jim Howick and Mathew Baynton wrote for him. "I had a flat-head..." I think was one of his, and I also remember something about the bride in the anecdote having "quite a meaty smell" which never made the cut. It should also be noted that his vicar is from the United Reformed Church, as Jim and Mat discovered the Church of England does not perform same-sex weddings. Yet.

 God literally bless them.

 I think I will leave it there. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to field them in the comments. The episode Neil and I are in will be up here for another ten months, as will the entire series, I assume, and it really is very good. I would like to thank everyone at Button House for having me, and also my showreel for helping me land the role, by opening with me accidentally shooting someone, then looking distraught for four minutes. If you look very hard at the last shot of the series, you'll see me waving my arms with joy behind the leads, like a pro. 

 I was feeling it. 

 Here is your moment of Den:

 

 Oh! Also! I realised, a day into starting the countdown of my Frankenstein pieces, I’d completely mistimed it, and should have started a day earlier, but anyway, here is my far from penultimate piece on 1944′s House of Frankenstein.

Just Passing Through (More Ghosts)

  This, gloriously, is the scene we filmed the day Terry Jones died. I can't think of a better way to honour the man's memory. The blow that initiates the cacophony was achieved by digitally removing Jim Howick's fist as it nears my body so it looks like it's passing through. We're not as close to each other in the still below as it looks, in other words, there's a false perspective or something, I think that's how it was done anyway, it's... Does that look right? It was back in January, I've no idea now. Welcome to Behind The Scene with Kieth Darren Dean!

  I definitely remember that when I walked through Jim in the next scene, after leaving the stump, I passed him on the right and this was then digitally shunted to the left to overlap him, but you probably guessed it was something like that. There was a green screen set up outside the house. The weather was perfectly overcast, although there was no snow. It looked like this. That's frost on the ground.

 

 The frost disappeared as the day wore on, and the sky was perfectly overcast for the effects shot I enjoyed filming most which had nothing to do with passing through anything. That beautiful picture-book longshot of Keith and the Ghosts standing like transfers in a field was a composite. Lots of little shots put together. Here is a photo director Tom Kingsley posted of its filming:

 

 Spot the chancer on the far right.  Each of us ("us" – Get me!) had to walk up the strip of white plastic alone, pause at the end, then walk back in front of everyone else without giggling, like a shy fashion show. It was in its way the silliest thing I witnessed all week and I felt blessed to have a seat at it. Actually, it wasn't so much like a catwalk I now realise, it felt more like - Have you seen The Ususal Suspects?  

 

 (Trigger Warning:Spacey. Rudness.)

 

 Here is that episode. 

 And in other notices, continuing the Hallowee’en Countdown through Universal’s Frankensteins, here is the one instance of proper scholarlship I managed in the entire run - a piece of sleuthing that will change the way you watch 1943′s Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man FOREVER!

A Couple Of Things I Learnt From Ghosts

 One thing I learnt filming Ghosts back in January was how to tie a double-half-hitch, which is why there was that rope hanging from the ceiling of my trailer in case anyone peered in and was wondering. I was prepared for the double-half-hitch therefore, but less prepared for what I had to do just before: nothing but my hand would come into shot initially to grab the collapsing festoon, and then the rest of me would swing into shot revealing the identity of this hero. Not a detail in the script, just some proper film-making from director Tom Kingsley, which was a lesson in itself. And I sort of managed it, but the line "I got it" was actually recorded a few months later on a phone under a duvet in my flat, possibly to cover the faff of me not managing it more smoothly. It still really works though, doesn't it, don't get me wrong. Also, this is very much what I normally look like at weddings by the time the dancing's started. The costume department gave me lots of stuff to bulk out my pockets because I thought Keith's decision to turn up might have been a bit last minute, and he couldn't find a big coat.

 The other thing I learnt from Ghosts, just off the top of my head, was how to act in front of a camera. This I learnt very quickly from Tom Kingsley after two takes of the scene at the stump. It had been one of the scenes at the audition, an uplifting ten minutes in a room with Tom, Jim Howick, Ben Willbond and the producer Matt Mulot sharing stories of Ripper Walks - which it turns out Jim also did - and of course also being invited to act. So I'd definitely done okay, but performing the scene again a month later in front of a green screen outside West Horsely Place (oh! I didn't know until I got out of the car that the show was filmed in a real mansion - that was exciting!) I could tell the knockee wasn't really leaving the park. So: "Okay," said Tom after the second take. "This time, just try saying the lines to yourself."

 Up until then I had been saying them to camera. 

 And the camera was, well, this far away.

 Whereas the microphone was directly underneath my tie. So that's what I learnt. You don't actually have to act for the camera. The camera will pick it all up anyway. So will the microphone. And I hope it's okay to say that I adore this scene, partly because I know I'm just doing what I'm told in it, (even if I didn't manage to make my forehead go all veiny like a sad Don Draper). If it's the only acting I get to do on terrestrial television, it will still have been something useful in something great, and a performance that could never be given on radio or on stage, because it needs green screens and framing and a soundtrack and a microphone under my tie. So I got to do some proper telly. I also got to do something brilliant, kind and loved, made by - as I hinted back in January - a brilliant, kind and loved team. You can watch it here.

 

 (The filming of this, sourced from Tom Kingsley's twitter) 

 

   And to continue the Hallowe'en Countdown of the old Universal Farnakensteins, here's what I wrote about 1942's Ghost of Frankenstein.

Them, There

 Underpants. Shorts. Skins. Breeches. And two different frocks. It was my mate Neil who observed in the green room that the captain is the only ghost from Ghosts "in full trou'". For fans of knees, brains and heart, the entirety of series 2 is now available to viewers in either the UK or the know, here. Just saying. No reason. I'm going to look at this picture a little longer.

I don't know what to call this. It's about a wonderful week, and Terry Jones, and is short.

 The job I was doing this week had a green room. That may be normal, I have barely any experience of television, so I don't know, but I had the time of my life in this green room. It reminded me a bit of the green room of the old London Dungeon. I was much more of a stranger to this one of course, but that's not what it felt like. Maybe that shouldn't be surprising, maybe all green rooms are basically the same. I doubt it though. I suspect I was very lucky, particularly to have been here, doing this on the day that Terry Jones died... I didn't want to be Terry Jones when I grew up. I wanted to be him immediately, the moment I found out a Python was also writing fairy tales – not to mention Bert Fegg, Labyrinth, Eric the Viking, Medieval Lives. There seemed to be nothing this adult was doing that a child couldn't at least attempt. So I spent my childhood making silly jokes and silly books, and putting on silly shows and silly voices, and trying to write strange new fairy tales, and correcting people and... Let me just check... Nope, yep, that's still the plan. So that's what I was lucky enough to be doing when he died on Wednesday. Sharing a ride on the deathless ripples of his pebble. Enjoying the deepest, kindest course of Terry Jones' timeline. 

No Terry Jones, no "King Isãbard & Co. of: Theotropolis". He's that important!

 

 Oh, and I've just remembered, in 2001 I sent him one of my books (not the one above), and he replied with two hundred pounds to help take a show based on it to Edinburgh! (Here's the only evidence I could still find of it online; the other reviews were all four stars though, I swear.) And here's an excellent article by Eddie Robson on exactly how important Jones was to Python, track-keepers! And here, finally, is a photo of Michael Palin codedly confirming it:

 

My Heart So Full and These Empty Hands

 I found this on my phone from 2018. I also note that I wrote next to nothing in 2019. And now in 2020 every second post on F*c*book is a link to the Australian fundraiser: "Please help any way you can. This is terrifying", but this isn't F*c*book, so here are some happinesses. Firstly:

 Watching Greta Gerwig's "Little Women" is like watching the Beatles. Anyone wanting to spend two hours in a room full of kindness should find a screening. Secondly:

 Robbie Hudson wrote the first show in which I appeared with John Finnemore "Frankenstein and the Sharks of Doom", a Mighty Fin Musical with songs by Susannah Pearse. The first time I performed John's writing was another Mighty Fin Musical with songs by Susannah Pearse "Diary of a Nobody", which was also the first time I worked with Carrie Quinlan. Mighty Fin Musicals are excellent amateur dramatics is what I'm trying to prove here, and "Farm" was the Mighty Fin's first, and it's being staged again this week with all proceeds going to charity as is the point of Mighty Fin. Tickets are on sale here and other Mighty Fin merch is here. Robbie also characteristically co-wrote with Johnny Flynn a folk musical about the Magnitsky act which aired last night, and can be heard here. Thirdly:

 I was hoping to be in "Farm" myself, but another happiness occured and I was asked to play an excellent role in an excellent TV show this Friday instead, and I've just received the call sheet and my mate Ned Mond's in the episode too, so this Friday should be amazing. But that's the end of the happiness, and Friday will not be amazing because on Friday my friend Morgan is finally being evicted from Seaview, his home of forty years, and mine for three.

 I can only say again what I said in February. He helped save my life and took me in when I needed a place, and there was no one he didn't take in. His work is as generous as he is and I hate this. If I'd ever learnt a second language I'd probably run screaming from the English-speaking world right now, but I never even did that, and I've just landed a telly, speaking of which the photograph of John Logie Baird came from here. Apart from that I have no idea what to say that is both true and happy about this thing I desperately want to say something about. Morgan made a book that's very happy though, and you can buy it here.

  

 Oh, one thing I can say: Morgan shared this video on F*c*book as well, and it reminded me that I don't look at nearly enough cartoons on youtube. I love monsters and it made me very happy - it's very him - and Morgan, if you're reading this I love youse too. Everyone else, have a happy and maybe helpful week. Here's a million monsters: