Off topic: I'm on Panorama!

[BillShipton]

Hi

Thought you might be amused to know that clips from a sketch I wrote for the Two Ronnies are turning up tonight on BBC 1 - on Panorama! Seems they are doing an investigation into the bottled water industry and using a tiny amount of the sketchI wrote back in the 80s to illustrate it. Who says I don't do serious television?

What chance Panorama using anything from the Splosh/GSH oeuvre in the future?

Bill

PS I see the rest of the sketch is now on YouTube! They call it Water, Water (wrongly).

[DecadentDoll]

Excellent, and who says you don't do serious telly, eh?

[Etonman]

I'll be watching....

Bill's a man of many talents.

[muckypup]

You could at least post a link Bill!!

[andy250]

Well funny, loved it... Nice one Bill.

regards

Andy

[Sploshman]

WOAH - nice one Bill .

[DungeonMasterOne]

ROTFLOL!!!!

Brilliant! And you wrote it? Cool!

[Phantom]

Nice punchline, Bill. Do you get a royalty if the sketch is reused?

[jon42]

that was fantastic, superbly delivered too.

[eden]

I saw it tonight unawares

[matt2matt2002]

Nice punchline, Bill. Do you get a royalty if the sketch is reused?

But seriously.......
how does the dosh work when you write gags?

Is it a flat fee per gag, or do you get 'repeat' fees?

[BillShipton]

Back in the old days when freelance hack gag writers like me were welcomed (as opposed to now when almost everything is commissioned), there were loads of sketch shows requiring material (Two Ronnies, Russ Abbott, Hale & Pace, Little & Large etc etc). You could even go on a mailing list where they would send you 'requirements' eg "L&L require 20 quickies featuring a Beware of the Dog sign by Thursday 20th Sept..." I did some of that, but the Ronnies was my most successful.

The reason for this is that the BBC pays very badly for this sort of material unless you are a big name like Barry Cryer. They pay by the minute for sketches like Water and I can remember when it went out originally 20 years ago being a bit miffed that I had entertained 15 million people (yes, I looked up the figures!) for four minutes for 100 quid. You got more writing for Razzle!

However, because it was a famous show that got broadcast all over the world and repeated many times, and you get a repeat fee every time at different percentage for each country, it has worked out quite well. You get 75% of the original fee for every UK repeat, plus much smaller percentages from foreign countries, DVD rights and so on. The smallest cheque I have received was for New Zealand rights to my sketch which was a massive £1.78! The Germans on the other hand paid more than the BBC cos they didn't differentiate between me and big names like Cryer and Co.

So 20 years on and it has been repeated a few times from the original show here and worldwide, it then made it onto the Two Ronnies Sketchbook retrospective series (about to be shown on UK Gold) and, sadly, was one of the sketches used to illustrate Ronnie Barker's work on the tribute show at his death. It has also gone all round the world. It was even used at a BAFTA lunch for Ronnie Barker for which I got nothing though the letter from BAFTA did have me briefly excited thinking I was about to get an award at last! Instead I didn't even get invited to the lunch!

Anyway that's how the money works. Far more interesting is how they did the sketch. Ronnie B read the list from two autocues at different angles so he could walk around the bar as he read. There are a couple of mistakes but I'll let him off. Looking at it now, it takes too long to get going. It needs a gag earlier on. But the punchline is alright.

Sorry I didn't include a link to the YouTube version. I really didn't think anyone would be interested.

Bill

PS The Panorama clip was a bit disappointing, sorry. But I was amused that they described the sketch as "nailing the absurdity of the bottled water market 20 years ago." Hey, that makes me a brilliant far-sighted satirist - not just a pie-throwing, tit gag man!

PPS Perhaps this sort of self indulgence should be on the blog. Sorry again.

[Richard]

The Panorama clip was a bit disappointing but it was great to see it in full on Youtube; Ronnie B was always so good at the verbal gymnastics in his sketches and I often wondered how he did it. I feel deeply honoured to be actually corresponding with the writer.

Rich.

[BillShipton]

I knew RB was brilliant at 'verbal gymnastics' that's why I wrote a comedy list, knowing he'd be perfect for it. Even so I was very flattered when I got the letter saying that both of them and the producer liked it and were using it unchanged. A whole new world opened up - then Barker retired at the end of that series!

[RexBeans]

Writing sketches for the Two Ronnies eh? How come the jokes in the splosh films are so bad? Only joking big fella - you know that makes you comedy royalty?

Four candles please.