This page has some of the other
things I've worked on (ie non-theatre, TV or radio) as well as a
tribute to my chums and a little on forthcoming projects.
WORK
So as well as doing all
those theatre shows, TV programmes and radio projects, I've done lots
of other things.
I worked at Virgin Net in
their very early days as a start-up. This was in 1995 when Netscape 2.0
browsers ruled the world and when we first saw Java we thought that was
as good as the web was ever going to get. They were great people to
work with and for, but office life wasn't really for me. Also I was
useless. My main contribution was writing the installation instruction
booklet and a very rough style bible for the news site.
In 1996-97 I worked on
the UK version of 'You Don't Know Jack!', the comedy quiz CD-Rom game.
This was a lot of fun to do and I think we came up with a pretty funny
game. It was shortlisted for an interactive BAFTA and although it
didn't set the sales chart on fire, it found its place. The British
game was produced by somethin' else for BMG and we worked closely with
the American producers at Berkeley Systems and Jellyvision.
Amongst the magazines and
papers I have written for are the following: FOCUS, CULT TV, TOMORROW'S
WORLD, BLAST!, SPEAKEASY and WIRED UK. Can you see the connection
between those publications? Well, with the exception of Focus, none of
them are published any more. A crueller person, like my friend Dave,
would say that by my writing for them, I ensured their demise. I think
that's harsh. I mean, sure, it's suspicious, but come on. I mainly
wrote about comics or scifi or cool new things - for example, I
reviewed Mark Leyner's 'Et Tu, Babe' for Wired and found myself in
PRIVATE EYE's Pseud's Corner. That was good. I've had pieces in THE
IDLER, PILCHARD TEETH and THE EROTIC REVIEW as well.
I would also write the
back page 'Weekender' column for the GUARDIAN GUIDE. I did about 15
columns over a year and reviewed occasional movies such as The Mask and
Star Trek: Generations. Then I was asked by Tony Ageh, inspirational
head of the Guardian's Product Development Unit to help come up with a
weekly magazine for The Observer. It was to have previews, TV listings
and interesting comedy pieces and Catherine Wilson and I (with a great
team of designers) came up with a really good dummy issue and we called
it PREVIEW. Then the project got kind of ruined by people at The
Observer who didn't want to go as far as we did, and Preview ended up a
bit of a fudge. Still, it was a good experience and whatever was wrong
with it, there was a lot right too. Ah well. I haven't done much for
either The Guardian or The Observer since, but every now and then I did
'Work in Progress' pieces for the Daily Guide section.
 I
should say that I've also done a few ads in my time. There's a link here to the one I did for Jif Lemon that they used
to run every Pancake Day. You can tell it's me by the neck. And right
next to this text is a shot of an 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter' ad
that the people at Spitting Image made. They based the sad lonely cow
who's just doing his laundry on a picture they had of me. True.
 Also
there's the spot I did for Cisco Systems that ran worldwide in 2003.
It's downloadable from ad-rag.com
for a small fee and may even be on the Cisco site. The ad's director
was Errol Morris.
 In 2009 I played a Martian in a fantastic project for the
BFI Southbank. Created by the awesome artists Iain Forsyth and Jane
Pollard, RADIOMANIA:
AN ABANDONED WORK was a 3-D video
and sound installation that seemed to document a rehearsal for a remake
of the first 3-D scifi movie. With brilliant music and a fantastic
cast, this was one of the highlights of my year - I took lots of
friends down to the BFI to experience it, especially over the last
weekend of its run.
PICTURES OF MY FRIENDS
I used to have some pics
of my friends here but I thought it best to take them down.
You can find me on MYSPACE.COM and see
pics of my friends there.
A
SHELF OF PROJECTS
So right now I have a lot
of things I'm working on.
I'll update this page
regularly so as to make sure they get out there, all my things. So if
these aren't links to pages yet, sorry, but I'll do them when I can.
MY SHOP IS A LONG MEADOW
A story about competitive
tree climbers, set in an England where Victorian scientists hybridised
the great trees of the world, planted them across the English
countryside and a sport took off in the late 20th century. Typically
for me there's a love story involved, and the 1999 eclipse plays a role
too. Actually now renamed COELACANTH and
heading to the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe.
THE LENGTHS HE WENT TO
Your basic love triangle
as written by a ten year old scifi fanboy. A newsreader moves in with
an engineer and an actor and begins to play with their heads. One of
them has to win her, so what do they do to get ahead? Did you just
suggest inventing a bank robbing giant robot? Yeah? Damn, it's obvious
isn't it. Well, anyway, that's the play.
MARRYING ALICE
A radio play that could
turn into a screenplay. It's all about cloning and what happens when we
mess with nature. But being me, I have to write it as a romantic
comedy. This may become another one man show one day, or it could turn
into something else entirely. You never know do you?
THEN AGAIN
A screen story about time
travelling pensioners. Time travel will never be invented, so the
argument goes, because if it will, why isn't the present full of time
travellers? But what if it is and what if we don't notice them because
they're us? A couple spend their whole lives and careers not quite
getting together in love but when they hit 70 they make a breakthrough
and develop a technique to send their consciousnesses back to their
younger bodies. Naturally they return to their firm 23 year old selves
and shag like monkeys. But is there another use for the machine, one
that might just save the world? It's currently a story in limbo but I
will put my mind to making it into a screenplay this year. Hooray!
THE UNTHINKABLES
The worst load of
psychics you could ever come across. It's the story of a group of
people thrown together by what seems like a set of coincidences who
form a potentially useful team of ESPers. Only the British government
doesn't want anything to do with them. The team consists of precogs
called Good News and Bad News who can only predict optimistic or
pessimistic future events, Sickhead, who can induce various mental
illnesses, The Stowaway, who has moved her consciousness into the body
of a supermodel and now can't get back, and three others. Again, it's a
screen story right now, but will likely turn into a script early next
year.
ALL NEW ADVENTURES
A play about a team of
former teenage superheroes who get to their late twenties and realise
they've overachieved very early in their lives and very massively. It's
a dry comedy about friends and lovers and what happens if Nintendo make
a game of your life and you can't work out how to win it.
THE MINISTRY OF ALTERNATE AFFAIRS
A pilot script for the
BBC about an offshoot of the Foreign Office that deals with Britains in
parallel universes. It was turned down but I enjoyed writing it and I'm
sure there's something there somewhere...
BONUS ITEMS
I've put a few little
things up on this site too. In case you might be interested in other
things I've written. There's a couple of articles, some love poems, a
short film scripts, etc.
Have fun and be excellent
to each other!
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