Steve Bugeja: Buffering Your Way Through Comedy, TV, and Awkward Situations

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, and welcome to another episode of Television Times.

Now today, I have a great guest for you.

His name is Steve Bugeja.

He's a comedian.

I met him in Edinburgh, during The Fringe, and we had this great chat after I saw his show, Shiny, which was fantastic.

And I mean really good.

I'm not just saying this.

This was joke after joke after joke, and it had me in stitches.

It was really funny.

It was the most coherent set that I saw the whole of Edinburgh, if I'm honest.

And you know, I really want to talk to him afterwards about it because it was so enjoyable.

It really, really was.

And you know, the fact that I got to speak to him is quite by chance.

I mean, I'll be honest.

I'll be frank how this happened.

I didn't know much about Steve, if I'm honest with you, before The Fringe.

All I knew was when the Fringe brochure came out, he was above me in the Steves.

And I thought, I want to speak to all the Steves.

That was my idea at the beginning.

I speak to all the Steves, all the people on my page.

I did actually get to like do that a little bit.

But that wasn't the reason in the end.

The reason in the end was, well, let's go and see this guy.

And I researched him, and obviously his shows do really, really well.

He's a very funny guy, very talented.

He was the co-writer of Buffering, the TV show with Iain Stirling.

And, you know, his set was fantastic, like I say.

But again, I kind of, I bought two tickets to see his show, basically.

I bought a ticket the first time, thinking I will definitely have all this time at the beginning before mine opens to go and see all these previews.

And it just so happened that his show was on the same time as my rehearsal.

And, you know, I thought, oh shit, I'm not going to really want to see someone else before I do my own.

So I bought the ticket.

I didn't get a refund or anything.

I just bought another one a few days later.

But I didn't know that I was going to go the day I went.

So I was sort of pottering around.

I thought, oh, it's one o'clock.

I can go and see Steve's show now.

So I was outside the venue called The Tron.

And I got my phone out and I tried to buy a ticket.

But of course, the Wi-Fi wasn't working.

So I went in the pub a few minutes before a show, whatever time it was.

I was like, can I get the Wi-Fi, can I get that?

And I was fucking about the whole time trying to get it, can I get the QR code, can I get the thing?

It took me ages and I just about got a ticket before I went in.

I was like, jeez, I nearly missed this.

And then, annoyingly, I realized once I was in there that you could just pay as you go as well on the way out.

But I didn't know that when I went in.

But anyway, I don't regret it.

It was great.

Very uncomfortable chairs, I will say that.

But that's not his fault.

It was a great, great show.

So, you know, check him out.

There's loads of good bits online.

He was on Russell Howard's Good News.

I mean, he's been everywhere, this guy.

He's fantastic.

I'm really kind of embarrassed that I didn't know of him before, because he is really one of the top comics in the country.

I have no doubt about that.

Anyway, why don't I stop yapping and let's get on with the chat.

So this is me speaking to the brilliant Steve Bugeja.

There's an old team in Steve.

Roll up, roll up and welcome to another edition of Television Times with your host me, Steve Otis Gunn, where I'll be talking to someone you do know or someone you don't.

It might be funny, but it might not be.

But it's always worth tuning in for.

So here we go with another episode of Television Times.

What we do let you miss is chaos.

You know the whole point of it?

What a fast fringe, yeah.

You go out, each person goes out and flies on the way out.

Yeah, exactly.

There used to be like a row of you and you'd all fly.

I'd make sense and they'd come get all the flyers.

But now, the way the venue works, there's basically nowhere to stand.

So you're mixed in with the rest of everyone else at the Dome.

Is it unpleasant still?

It's at the Dome, yeah.

It's King Dome, so they come down those very busy stairs straight into the box office.

So you're stood there.

You can't really distinguish between who's in the audience and who's the normal people.

It's pointless.

It's ruined it.

That was good, because last year I went to Fast Fringe.

In that, the downstairs room?

Well, I think it was downstairs.

Yeah, it was in that one worked.

Yeah, and then when they came out, it was...

You'd stand in a row by the door.

But people stop flying now, because you can't...

Me and Ian were like trying to do it, you know.

Oh, do you know?

And maybe he gave out 20 flyers out of...

What, should have been like 120 or something?

Really annoying.

My best flying came to nothing.

I went to see Liz Truss do her talk, because I wanted to see how insane that would be.

And it was very surreal and weird.

She was weird as fuck.

She was really weird as fuck.

But there were so many people in there that I thought, oh, what I'll do is I'll fly them on the way out.

So I jumped out and just flyed each of them.

I mean, they were a resistant crowd, so I figured they'd be all right.

And I must have given out, I don't know, 500 flyers, something like that.

And that night I got eight people.

Yeah, of course.

Were the crowd pro her?

No, not at all.

There was a small pocket, but mostly they were absolutely not.

I think they were there like me, just curious, like, what could she possibly...

What reception did she get?

I think we were...

There was respect for her...

I don't want to talk about this one.

There was respect for her coming and standing in front of a resistant crowd and taking some shit.

But she was very honest and she was very frank, like the interviewer, it wasn't Iain Dale or someone else, asked her, you know, do you get on with Rishi Sinha and she went, no, no, I can't stand the guy.

So she was being honest, which meant everything else she said must be true.

Fair enough, I mean, I do respect her.

I respect the stones.

But also, I think she's just an egotist, isn't she?

So she wants more attention.

Yes, exactly.

It doesn't come from a good place.

It comes from her.

It's like Farad.

Just go away now, please.

Anyway, I came to see your show last week.

It was very, very, very funny.

I wonder how much of it you would want to sort of talk about on this podcast, as in television and buffering and whatnot.

Yeah, yeah.

Happy to talk about all of it, really.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So obviously, quite a lot of your show is based on your experience of getting this show up and wanting to have a sitcom your whole life.

Achieving my dream.

Achieving your dream and then getting...

I mean, you did.

You got two seasons of it.

That's not nothing.

It's not nothing at all.

No, no.

It is my dream and I did it twice.

You did it twice?

Yeah.

So, how was...

So, when was the first time you were in front of a camera and was it comfortable for you or...?

Whatever.

Not just filming your...

In a career sense.

Like a TV camera in your face.

I think my first appearance...

I think my first TV appearance was a stand-up show on Comedy Central called Stand Up Central.

It was Russell Howard's Stand Up Central.

And I did a guest spot.

I did like a 10-minute spot.

I was a very new comedian.

I think I done one Edinburgh.

And I just went and did my best 10 minutes.

I think it went pretty well.

That was the first time.

But that was just a gig.

You know, it didn't really...

I mean, other than all the cameras everywhere, didn't really feel like I was on TV per se, because I was used to doing gigs.

So I didn't feel that different.

So just filming the gig, essentially.

Yeah, exactly.

And the first time I really...

The most nervous I've ever been for a TV show was...

I was booked to do Love Island Aftersun, which is this sort of spinoff show, Love Island, it's on Sunday night and live, right?

Live on TV.

And it was when Caroline Flack was the host, it was quite early on in the show's existence.

It was just before Love Island had really blown up, but it was pretty big.

And I was booked to do a kind of stand up satire of the contestants, you know?

And like kind of poke fun at them in a kind of similar way that Rob Beckett used to do on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of It and Russell Kane did it.

It was that kind of thing.

I got told about it like three days before, I wrote madly, you know, this set.

It wasn't very long, it was only three or four minutes.

It was quite short.

Did you watch the show generally or?

I think I was watching it because I'm good friends with Ian, so I was watching it.

And it was really rushed and it was live TV.

And I was stood in this studio and weirdly Russell came as a guest on that episode.

And I'd actually been on tour with him.

So he was very encouraging and very supportive.

It was actually really nice to have him there to be like, okay, everyone's gonna be right.

And they threw to me and I just did it.

And I almost had an out of body experience because I was just so acutely aware that this was going on TV as I was saying the words and whatever I said went out.

Like if I messed up a joke, it went out.

And that was very scary.

And I think it went pretty well.

Like the hard thing about that was the audience weren't there for stand up.

They were there to watch some Love Islands get interviewed.

So they didn't really care about me.

They didn't know who I was.

And they weren't really in a comedy mindset.

So it wasn't an easy gig.

It wasn't awful, but it wasn't an easy gig.

So were you in your head like when you're on stage sometimes and you're just speaking and you're thinking about the next bit?

Was it that kind of thing?

Yeah, I was just desperately trying to remember the script.

I felt I was very scripted.

And I remember one moment, I ad-libbed and it was by far the best bit.

I can't remember what happened, but Caroline, the presenter, interacted with me in some way and then I did a kind of semi-roast of her.

Like a nice, it was a friendly one.

I had met her, but obviously didn't know very well.

And it did this kind of, and it just came out, but it was my sort of stand-up brain came out.

I did a little roast.

I think I sort of did a joke about her chasing one of the guys or something, whatever it was, a comedy was.

And it got a huge reaction.

And then I was like, excellent.

Oh my God.

And then I started panicking, going, oh my God, I just insulted the host of the show on live TV.

And she was laughing.

And it was fine.

And that was the bit that I can remember.

Laughter was, oh, it's so funny we did that with Caroline.

And I was like, what about all the jokes that I spent ages writing?

And it's taken me ages to learn that people don't care about the jokes, you're right.

They want the like-

Spontaneity.

Spontaneity.

But that was the most nervous I've ever been.

And it was, yeah, it was the difference between live and recorded is significant.

And you spent a lot of time in writer's rooms, right, on all these shows, so you've made that transition from doing stand up as you wrote or was it-

Yeah, it kind of all happened roughly at the same time.

So I was put into like writer's rooms or you'd have to audition for writer's rooms and, you know, send off jokes and stuff to see whether you could-

What do they really like?

Yeah, I mean, like the first picture I wrote on, I'd done like Bits and Bubs for Mott the Week and things like that for various friends who had been on the show, but that was quite remote or like just with your friend basically.

But the first proper job I did where I didn't necessarily know the person very well was with Russell Howard on his Sky One show.

When they moved over from BBC Three to Sky One, and it became the Russell Howard Hour, I was me and Kiri Pritchard McLean were brought into the writers room to sort of I guess freshen up the writing.

Because he'd had the same people who'd been doing for years, and they were amazing people, Steve Williams, Steve Hall, and I guess they had more budget to be honest, and I think they just had room for more writers.

And the show was longer, so they needed more content.

So we went in, and then I went for a whole audition process to get that.

And I remember doing like a trial writing day, south of John Kearns.

And at the time I looked up to John Kearns so much, I think he just won the Comedy Award, or yeah, he was like a real hero.

And I don't know if he particularly wanted that job.

I don't think he particularly enjoyed the writing day.

But it was a real, I felt acutely out of my depth the whole way through it, going oh God, I've got to really step up here, you know, because I was working with people who I looked up to.

And then I got the job and it was amazing, I was really learning of that for the whole series in the writers room with these people.

And I think Kiri probably felt the same.

We started a similar time in comedy, so we had a similar level of experience.

She was brilliant.

She was so quick.

And I did enjoy it, but I found it hard because the pressure to write jokes just on the spot about Donald Trump or whatever was in the news that day.

Yeah, kind of fast.

Do you have to stick, do you have to like, sort of have I got news for you thing?

Do you have to kind of be over everything that's going on?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did.

I mean, I'm quite across the news, so that wasn't too bad.

It was more than like, you know, they'll be like, all right, Donald Trump has said this mad thing.

Let's write some jokes.

And it'd be like 10 minutes on your own, write jokes.

And you just sit in silence with all these other writers doing the same.

And that pressure I struggled with initially because I would, you know, my brain would get foggy and I'd be like, oh, I've got to think of a joke.

And then as the time went along, I got even more panicked.

I wasn't writing a joke.

And then after a few weeks, you know, you build up your confidence and you start to get to the rhythm.

Yeah.

And it was a real learning curve, though.

That's the most quickly I learned.

How does it work?

Does it work like in films?

People pitch jokes and then your jokes get through or something?

Yeah, exactly.

So at the end of every, you know, 10 minute writing session, we would go around the table and read out our jokes to Russell.

And he obviously wrote himself as well.

And he'd read out some of his.

He would just be like, I like that one.

Yeah.

And send that over.

And then just email him the joke that he liked.

Basically, he just sort of wedges that into his own.

He was amazing at like bringing it to life very quickly, because you're filming it every Tuesday.

So the turnover is insane of material.

And his ability to take a joke that literally just been written by someone else and then he'd just stand up sometimes in the room and just do it to us.

In the eye, what about this, would this work?

And I was like, oh my god, you've delivered that better than I could deliver some of my jokes I've been doing for years.

And he's so good at delivering jokes.

And that's the talent.

I think someone as that can go over looks at how the ability to turn something from nothing to polished very quickly.

That's a real skill.

And I was privileged actually to watch that up close.

And then I would go to the studio of that show as well.

And I would do the warm up, the TV warm up.

I can't remember how that happened, but I think Russell just got on and he was like, you're a stand up, do you want to do the warm up?

And it was just like an extra day's work.

But it meant I got to go and see the jokes that were written be on the TV, be in the studio.

And that was a real learning curve to see what worked, what the audience responded to, because obviously half it just doesn't work.

And how does that feel to see your joke on TV?

It was cool.

Yeah, I didn't mind it.

I like it was like, I mean, Russell was like a hero of mine.

I watched him on Mock the Week when I was like 14.

So to watch him saying jokes that I'd read was mad.

Yeah.

It was, I've never had that thing.

People always say, oh, do you mind someone else saying your joke?

I'm like, no, I don't care.

I'm not going to say a joke about Donald Trump.

It's like if you wrote a song and someone did the cover version on the radio, you'd be like, well done, couldn't you?

But also it's just written for him, isn't it?

Like I've written it for him.

So I couldn't do the joke.

It's not worth it.

So yeah, and it's amazing to watch him do it in front of people and get big laughs and know that I wrote it.

And I guess I'm not driven by the, this sounds a bit wanky, but I'm not driven by the ego of it really.

Like I don't want someone to be like, oh, that was great, well done.

Yeah.

It's more like I enjoy the writing bit of it.

And you know you've done it.

Yeah, you know I've done it.

And if you get re-books, that's the praise, isn't it?

That's the prize.

So that was my first big writing job on TV and it was amazing.

I learned very quickly how to do it.

And yeah, the people in that room were very talented.

What I was going to say is for some people, they are surprised to hear that, that like someone might write someone else's jokes, even in America, that is totally the norm.

Oh, it's, yeah.

But you know, I think people are sort of, oh, he doesn't write his own jokes, but...

Well, I mean, they do.

They do.

They write some of them.

And also, it's just impossible to write that many jokes.

Like, it's, you know, Russell's case, the show is an hour long each week.

You can't write an hour of material.

That's absolutely mad.

Do your hour for one a year.

It's an Edinburgh show every week.

That's true.

It's absolutely mad.

So, obviously, you need help in the same way that in any job, you wouldn't expect one person to do everything, even if they're the person who delivers it.

So I think sometimes people think it takes away from their ability, but it doesn't.

It just like they're still phenomenally good stand-ups.

They don't get to that stage if they're not unbelievably good at their job.

I worked on a show called CelebAbility, which was Iain's.

Iain Stirling had a game show on ITV2 before we did Buffering.

He had this game show and I was like the head writer.

I wasn't initially, but I worked my way up to be his head writer.

And that was amazing.

And I ran a writer's room.

I was in charge of the writers and I learned a lot from the Russell Howard experience of how to make it a nice room and how to make people feel welcome.

And we would have often newer people because the budget was quite low.

And actually, it's a young show, so we wanted young writers, but obviously in that sense, they're going to be newer.

So we had people who maybe hadn't been in writers' rooms before.

And that was amazing.

It was really fun.

And that was slightly less pressure than the Russell Howard Hour because the deadline was a lot less and the turnover wasn't quite as quick.

And you could churn out a lot more jokes and try them on the show and not everyone would make the edit.

So it didn't matter so much.

And obviously, because it was a game show, there's less jokes really.

But you'd still be scripting the presenter lines and coming up with ideas for what interaction you could have with some girl from Tau'i or something, you know.

And all these things were scripted and planned by our writers room.

And they were all brilliant writers.

We had Sally O'Leary in there, who's a fantastic writer.

And she actually helped me write an episode of a few episodes of Buffering.

And we met on CelebAbility and Alan Lattinen came in and a bunch of writers have come through the room.

And often it's their first experience in a writer's room because there's not that many in Britain now.

And that was a really fun thing to run that room.

And what was the difference in sort of the quiz aspect of it?

Was that fun?

Yeah, I mean, it's a silly show.

It was dumb.

The content was like, it was for 10 PM on ITV2.

And the people there, it's the sort of people who just sit there watching.

They've just left Love Island on and they don't necessarily want anything too challenging.

They're just there.

Oh, was it something that was deliberately slid in after another show?

Yeah, it was there to maximize the Love Island audience and keep them watching TV.

That was a very cynical ITV.

Yes, what TV is and, you know, you don't want it to be too, you know, people can be snobby about these shows, but it's there for a purpose.

Like it's there to be silly and entertain people and I think we did that, we did seven series very well and in, yeah, what you'd write is set pieces.

So like if he had a, you know, someone from Boyzone on or whatever the thing is, you would write a little mini bit for Ian to interact with the Boyzone guy and then you'd write some lines for whatever the Boyzone guy was going to say and then on the day of filming we'd go and talk to the guest and be like, here's what Ian's going to say to you, do you want to say this in return?

And I'd give them jokes so they could be funny and it was like making the whole interaction funny, it was like crafting the whole show.

It wasn't that it was fake, they often would come up with answers themselves, but then you'd go, oh, it'd be funny if you say like this or if you make that shorter, you know, that kind of stuff.

And that was really fun because I'd be chatting to like, you know, some person from Made in Chelsea and they're all really charismatic and fun people, that's why they're on TV.

And they, you know, they were telling me a story and I'm like, oh, it's a great story, let's put that on the show, but you just need to make that half as long so that you tell them how to cut down the story and they would be really appreciative because they obviously, they want to be good on TV.

Yeah, yeah, essentially directs them, yeah.

That was a really fun experience because it was, that was time pressure because it was like they'd arrive, they get their makeup done and then they filmed it in half an hour so I had to go around every single celebrity and do it really, really quickly.

And that was a real buzz.

Who was your favorite guest on that show?

Oh my god, every series I would fall in love with somebody.

Because they would be like Hollyoaks actresses and stuff and I would just walk into the dressing room and they'll be, they're all so friendly.

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, I'm in love with you then, that's that.

You are the love of my life.

And I remember there was, Tour love.

Georgie Porter was on it every series.

She was a great actress from Hollyoaks and she's just obviously, I had a huge crush on her when I was younger and I'd be stood in the dressing room telling her how to be funny.

She was just so nice.

I would deludedly think she was flirting with me.

Obviously she wasn't.

And then, and then one series, she mentioned her boyfriend and I was like, right, well, that's that over.

Then what's the point?

Let's cancel the show.

But it was amazing.

It was, it was, everyone was really nice.

No one was not nice to be honest.

That is really funny when you're in a room with, I don't know, someone that you've, you know, grew up watching on TV and then you're just chatting to them one day.

Yeah.

That's really weird.

Yeah, it's really weird.

And you sort of realize everyone's quite normal.

Everyone's got the same anxieties.

Everyone's nervous.

Yep.

Everyone thinks they're a bit shit and they're not.

Yeah.

Everyone's got insecurities.

And...

That one person wasn't laughing in the front row, so I did a shit show, even though the room's full.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And also there'll be comics on that show.

So they'll often be my mates.

Yeah.

You know, they'll be either Graham or, um, Harriet Kemsley or whoever.

Yeah.

So that was fun.

So you get...

Because obviously you didn't have to coach them as much.

You know, it was much more like they knew what they were doing.

And I would just say that, Oh, Iain will say it like this and you can say your story.

You know, it was about more just setting them up for the funny bit.

It was great.

Yeah.

I enjoyed it.

Obviously we'll get on to Buffering, but what were your massive influences television-wise growing up?

Um, I loved sitcoms growing up.

I would watch a lot of them when I was younger, like just all the BBC One, Friday Night sitcoms, you know, like whatever it was, like My Family.

I just watched all of My Family and like, I can't remember some of them, I can't remember now.

The sort of 2.41 children.

Yeah, exactly that.

Good Night Sweetheart, I used to watch a lot of that.

Which is a fantastic premise, one mad premise.

A man who exists now goes back in time and has two families and switches between the two of them and somehow doesn't get caught.

And obviously only forcing horses and yeah, I thought sitcoms were great and I think when I really got into it, it was probably Gavin and Stacey.

So I was maybe, I was reasonably old at that point.

So not the American sitcoms, mostly British?

Not at that point, no.

I mean, I guess Friends.

Friends was a constant.

Yeah, of course.

Big Mavis TV show.

Yeah, Big Bang for it I guess.

But I wasn't across, I didn't react.

Wasn't that funny, that show?

I mean, it's for a purpose, didn't it?

I'm not.

I don't think it's the best thing written.

But I think, you know, what they have done is created some very smart characters who interact with each other and it's repeatable, which is very hard to do.

Syndicated American TV show that runs forever.

They've made millions, maybe billions.

But yeah, Gavin and Stacey was the first time I watched them and went, oh my God, this made me feel incredible.

You know, it wasn't just laughter.

It was like I connected and I felt at heart.

Exactly.

And then American Office was probably then what I binged for the first time ever.

And would just watch it through my summer holidays obsessively.

And then that's when I started to notice the patterns and the story beats, you know, the A story, the B story.

And then Modern Family was when I really, I was old at this point.

Yeah, and I would study that almost.

And like plot out the beats.

And there's a time that people talk about, I think.

There's a time line, I can't quite remember, but I think it goes all the way back to Taxi, right, 70s TV show, which then all the writers of that went on to Cheers, went on to Frasier.

Some of them went on to Modern Family.

And there's this through line all the way from like mid 70s to Modern Family.

That's why it's so.

That's so good.

I mean, Frasier is obviously the, yes, in regards to the.

But I actually think in terms of writing, Modern Family, particularly the early ones, it was so dense.

I mean, absolutely insane.

Like you'd be watching for three minutes and they'd have set up an A story, a B story, a C story and a D story.

You're like, who's doing a D story?

And they've done it in three minutes.

And all the characters are conflicting.

All of the, they're all working.

Like there's nothing that doesn't fit their personas.

Nothing shooting.

And no waste, no fat.

Every line had a joke in it.

Like phenomenal, like ridiculous.

And I think sometimes that stuff gets overlooked at how hard that is to do.

Because it's storytelling and it's comedy.

And they are both phenomenally hard.

So to do both at the same time is mad.

The fact that it was like a, you know, mockumentary.

Yeah, mockumentary.

You kind of forget that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like the American Office, you're so forgetful.

Obviously, that format allows for very rapid storytelling.

And that some of you, when you study, you realize, what they're doing is, you know, you have the little scene where Phil and Claire have an argument in the kitchen and then it cuts to Phil talking straight to the camera and he tells you what's really going on in that scene.

And he'll go, well, actually, I'm hiding this from Claire.

And then it cuts back to the scene.

And then you get laughs from what he's just told you.

And that speeds up the whole thing.

Because in Friends, obviously, they can't get that information across to you.

They can't just tell you the information.

Whereas in Modern Family, they just literally say to you, well, here's the comic, you can see here, it's, I am actually hiding her birthday present and she doesn't know.

And then you cut back and then you, you know, that's how they can set up so many stories because it's sped up.

I'd love watching it and just...

And there are in the story itself as well.

Through the series.

Yeah, they would, but they weren't too fussed about overall arcs.

They had like loose series arcs.

You could just watch an episode out of sync.

Yeah, you could always watch an episode out of sync, which is crucial to that format.

But you were invested in the characters and I mean, it's cheesy in it, but you did very quickly feel like they were your family.

And I think that is so hard to do.

So many people have tried it and most people fail.

Just before there was a series, I remember very well, there was a series called The Class and it had everyone in it.

I struggled to get all the names, but it had loads of people in it now who are really, really famous.

One of the people at Modern Family was in it, the Ginger Guy, I can never remember.

I'm trying to remember.

But it was a great show and it was written, I think, by some of the writers of Friends.

But it was just so deliberate and it was so soon after Friends.

It didn't work and I think they didn't even finish out the season.

It was around the time of The Bitching Apartment, whatever it was.

That show was great.

Mitchell was his name.

That was a good show, but it just didn't work because it wasn't clever enough and it was all a bit deliberate and it was all a bunch of friends.

Everyone was like, we've seen this.

There's an Italian guy.

There's a pretty girl.

Are they?

Well, they weren't.

They?

Boring.

When Modern Family came, it was fresh.

Because they did effectively do the same thing as Friends, but they did it slightly differently.

So we didn't notice.

It felt fresh when that came in.

Because there were so many more characters.

I remember that first episode when you didn't actually know they were all linked.

Because in the first episode, you meet all these people.

The show is called Modern Family.

So you start to think, okay, this is a mockumentary about different shapes of family in America.

You've got the gay couple.

You've got the more conventional couple.

You've got the older man with the younger woman and he's stepfather to the...

You've got all these different shapes of family.

And at the end, they all go to the same family gathering and you're like, oh my god, they are the same family.

And that moment is so brilliant.

And that's when it hit the audience.

And we all went, oh great, I'm in.

I've got a little favor to ask you.

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And if you've got time, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get them.

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But for now, let's get back to the current episode of Television Times podcast.

So let's talk about your show, Buffering.

So I've been writing sitcom script for years, like entering BBC competitions and writers' rooms and all that stuff, working with various people and getting some success in terms of like read-throughs and commissions, nothing on TV, but like getting some progress in the system.

And then I'd always been working with Iain Stirling for many years and he was the voice of Love Island and that kind of exploded.

And there just became a moment where our management company Avalon said, let's try and pitch a sitcom with Iain using his kind of profile because to get anything away on TV, you need a mixture of the good script and profile.

And we had one of those at least.

And then we started pitching and we came up with this idea.

We'd go for meetings with all the channels.

We met every single channel, which was amazing.

And yeah, then we got script commissions from a few of them, I think.

And then we then got commissioned via TV.

And it happened reasonably quickly.

We're talking within a year of that, from the very initial conceit to getting commissioned, which is unheard of really, how quick that was.

But it was because of the nature of Love Island was massive.

It was a kind of urgency to capitalize on that.

Was there a short before or a comedy?

There was nothing.

It was just a script.

A script that we actually end up scrapping.

But there was a pilot script and a series outline, a very detailed series outline.

And then we got commissioned and we rewrote the first episode.

Because I think when we wrote that pilot, none of us really believed it was going to get made.

Because you just don't, do you?

Like you don't think you're going to get a sitcom.

You know, at best you think, oh, we might get some money to write this.

This was your dream?

You want me to have a sitcom?

It was my dream, yeah.

And I just didn't really believe it was going to happen.

So then when it did happen, I was like, oh my God, we've got to make this.

And then...

It's a proper Larry David.

It honestly was.

I was like, oh, shit.

And I was up here at the Fringe when it got commissioned.

I was doing a show in 2019.

And obviously you know what the Fringe is like.

It's so all-consuming.

So although it was fantastic, it usually got a second.

I found out on the second day of the Fringe, all I cared about was the Fringe.

Because it doesn't feel like anything matters outside the Fringe.

You feel bad about it away sometimes.

Yeah, I did almost have to like box it away.

I did all that in September.

And then we started writing it and we filmed it in October.

It was rapid.

We filmed two episodes and then the pandemic hit.

Yes, we filmed two episodes and then we were due to finish it in May.

It was split schedule.

But the pandemic hit in March.

So we then, the whole thing got delayed by a year.

So we had two episodes in the can and then the next four were filmed after the pandemic.

18 months later.

So if you watch episode two and three, there's an 18 month gap between them.

You got the COVID protocols and everything.

Yeah, COVID filming, all masks and stuff.

We had to film in a TV studio rather than on location.

So the house that we filmed in, in episode one and two, had to be rebuilt in a studio in Pinewood because we weren't allowed back in the house because of COVID.

Loads of things changed.

The style of the sitcom kind of changed.

The way we filmed it changed.

It was better in a studio.

It's easier to film in a studio.

It's quicker.

There's less variables.

So that was better in some ways.

But it did mean we had a lot more time to write the final four episodes of the first series than the first two.

And I think you can tell that when you watch it.

You go the first two are like bedding in.

They start to find their feet.

And the third, fourth, you start to see the pace of it and they go, oh, that's what it should be like.

And then series two gets even, I think, more what we actually wanted.

But that's just like anything, isn't it?

You get, you learn how to do it on a job.

All your ideas are in series one, thinking about it.

No, I think we became a lot clearer what the show was in series two.

I think in series one, there was an element of like trying to work out what was the best bit of the show, like why, what we were trying to talk about.

Because we had all these characters, it was set in a flat share in South London.

And the idea was there were people in the late twenties who weren't fully loaded adults.

And that's why we call it buffering.

And they were like, you know, in that stage of almost delayed adulthood.

And there's a lot of people in it, particularly in London, where you can't afford to buy a house, but you're not a student anymore, you're not young.

So you haven't got that kind of freedom.

You've got some responsibilities.

And they're kind of stuck in that bit where they're trying to find a partner.

They're trying to get their jobs up and running.

And there's that kind of anxiety.

But then we also had this element of Ian being a kid's TV presenter.

And that was like one of the first ideas we had, because that was his original job.

And we thought that that's a funny area, being a kid's TV presenter.

So we had him doing that.

And then he lived in a house share with all these other people in the late twenties, who would do various things.

And they were all struggling.

And I think we sometimes at the beginning struggled to marry those two things.

It was like almost two sitcoms.

It was like we have this TV sitcom, it's set in a TV studio.

And then we have the flat share element.

And I think really we wanted to tell the flat share story.

Although a lot of funny stuff in the kids thing.

It took us a while to merge those two, because it did feel like we were doing two different styles, I think a little bit.

Yeah, every sitcom has got a controlling idea, right?

Like every sitcom has something, you know, you go watch Friends About.

It's about when you're in your 20s, your family is your friends.

That's what the show is about.

And every single episode hits that beat.

Every single episode will come back to these people are your family.

Because you're, you know, Make your own family.

Make your own family, exactly.

And Modern Family will have a similar thing.

And Frasier will have a controlling idea that every single thing hits something.

And then Buffering, the controlling idea was that in your late 20s, you feel a pressure to become adults.

And what does that mean?

What does being an adult look like?

And that's what the show was.

And I think in Series 2, we more consistently hit that theme.

We did touch on it in Series 1, and there was moments where we were like, oh, that's what it is.

There we go.

That's how you do it.

And that's when the show lifted it.

You could see it come alive a bit.

But other times, we were slightly off the mark.

We were quite hitting the right beat.

But Series 2, we were laser-like focused on, this show is about people struggling in their 20s to become adults.

Every single story was an offshoot of that theme.

And that's why I think it's a much stronger series.

I mean, ironically, they got axed.

But that's just how it works, isn't it?

And it's not a meritocracy.

It doesn't come down to, oh, you get better, so you definitely get another series.

It's down to numbers, it's down to those other variables, it's down to commissioners.

But we always knew we'd made something much stronger in Series 2.

And I'm very proud of both of them.

I think they're both great.

But Series 2, I knew was much more closer to what we were aiming for.

And how about writing yourself into the show?

You say you made your part of being with me.

Yeah, I wrote a part for me.

Of course you did.

Well, you got to.

Yeah, you would.

And I had done some acting and stuff.

And I wrote a part for me.

That was basically me.

And then I auditioned for my own part.

Didn't get the part.

That's amazing.

I got down to the final two.

Obviously, I wasn't making the decision.

And it was embarrassing, really.

Didn't get it.

But a very fantastic actor got it.

And he was very, very funny.

And he was better for the part than me.

And he just brought something else to the character that I wasn't doing.

So he got it.

So that was actually fine.

I didn't actually mind too much at the time because I was so focused on like, well, this is my show.

This is our show.

I want it to be as good as possible.

I'm not here for some ego trip.

Also, I was aware of how stressful it was writing a show, let alone being in it as well.

But then you wrote another part for yourself.

Yeah, I gave myself a smaller part.

Yeah.

Because I was like, well, I want to be in it.

And you get paid to be in it as well.

So you get my money.

So I just gave myself a smaller part.

And then as my confidence grew through the series and series two, I just made my part bigger, basically.

I actually genuinely, it sounds obviously you make your part bigger.

But actually there were reasons in series two why my character was bigger because there was filming schedule issues with other actors weren't available.

But a few people had gone on to just shoot like there was one character called actress called Elena.

She was filming a huge thing in America for Amazon, I think.

So she was only available for one week and that was one of our main characters.

So we had to like sandwich her into some episodes and then she wasn't enough.

So then my character was able to fit in some of those gaps.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the realities of making a TV show.

Like the there's the dream of like shit going, I'm going to write this scene set in an airplane and we're going to do this, this, this.

And then they go, well, you can't afford it.

You can't you can't film that.

And so then I quickly learned for series two what was affordable.

And I could almost sense when I was writing a scene how expensive that was going to be, you know, because you know, thinking of the budgetary constraints, not physically the money, but I knew that there was certain limits to how much you could film.

And I knew that if you have a scene with more people in it, like physically just more characters in the scene, that takes longer to film because you have to shoot every single one of them individually.

Thinking practically during the write-ins.

Practically, you go and write.

We can't have too many of those group scenes because we have not got the time to film them because we were on a very tight schedule.

We were filming each episode in five days, which is about as rapid as you can film a sitcom.

So we would do more two-hander scenes because two-hander scenes are really quick to film because you just do a wide and then one single on each and then you're done.

So that stuff was very aware of.

And then things like you can't have too many extras because extras cost money.

So I remember writing a scene in a plane and there was a whole thing where one of the characters, Greg, interacted with the pilot and it was a really funny scene.

I was really happy with it.

And then someone just went, yeah, you can't afford a pilot.

No, that was it.

You said you can't afford for the pilot to speak because as soon as they speak, they pay more money, like significantly more money.

An extra work and you don't get to speak.

No, exactly.

So they were like, you can't have the pilot speaking.

I was like, well, that's quite integral to the scene.

So then we had to scrap that scene.

And sometimes it happened and that's just how it works.

And it's like, that's sitcoms and that's TV.

You say something like, you know, you write down set in a plane and then they go and build a plane.

That's kind of the most exciting thing.

That was cool.

That was really cool.

When you write wherever you set the scene.

They go build it.

They go make it.

Yeah.

And that was amazing because you'd be sat in a room way before filming, you know, with Iain or Sally or whoever is running with, all right, let's set the scene in a gym.

And we'd write the scene in a gym.

And then when it comes down to filming days, people had spent weeks locating a gym and speaking to the gym owners and closing it down for the day and doing all these things.

And you're like, this is mad.

Just because like a few weeks ago, well, a few months ago, I decided to set something in a gym.

And yes, stopping traffic, like closing down roads.

To film stuff, that blew my mind every single time when they have these massive trucks filming our show.

Catering vans, hundreds of people working on it.

And I'd just be like, this is crazy.

Did you zoom out and go?

Yeah, I did quite often zoom out and be like this.

I didn't let it wash over me.

Like I was very grateful and I was very like, I didn't let it become normal.

Cause I was like, this isn't normal.

It's like, this is mad.

And it's wild.

And then a week later, you could just be doing a gig in Peterborough.

Totally.

And I did some gigs on the weekends in between filming it.

And I was like, this is, you know, I'd go back on the Monday and get with stuff in my car that came and picked me up every morning and took me to the TV studio.

And I'm like, this is insane.

But it was a dream come true.

And so many talented people worked on it and brought our stupid ideas to life.

And they all cared like so much.

And I think, you know, that's the brilliant thing of working in the creative industries.

Like people don't really do it for the money, really, because why would you?

There's better ways to make money.

There's much more efficient ways to make money.

Particularly, you got some very smart people.

They could go and do anything.

You do it because you love it.

So what you then get is a group of people who love being creative.

And that's a fun thing to be in.

And sure, there are tough days and there are days we're all tired and want to go home or whatever.

But fundamentally, you all love being creative.

And when that all comes to life, it's magic.

And you're just there with a bunch of friends, effectively, new friends.

You're basically playing, aren't you?

You're basically playing.

You're messing about.

And yeah, there's a time pressure.

And sometimes the director will scream at you for fucking about too much because it's costing money.

But that was brilliant.

And I would often just sit behind the monitor with a cup of tea.

And I just sat next to the director, just watching them film these scenes.

And that never stopped being cool.

It's taken me a while to have that realization of, you know, money isn't that important.

But, you know, being creative is what made me happy.

And like sitting in a room with my friends writing, that was the best bit.

It was the best bit.

And then, yeah, coming to life was magic as well.

And watching it get filmed.

But honestly, the most fun bit was solving a plot hole in a scene.

That was the most buzz I ever got.

And I can still do that.

Like, I did that before.

I had a sitcom commission.

You can still sit writing a sitcom.

Like, you can do the best bit, even if you haven't been commissioned.

The money, of course, everyone needs to have money to live.

But it made no tangible difference to my life.

Like, actually, what made me happy was just going to a studio every day and playing with my friends.

And it does sound a bit wanky.

But I think now I'm much better at going, just do the fun bit, which is be creative, like write jokes every day, come up with ideas every day, sit in a cafe and write.

Like, that's the fun bit.

And like getting obsessed with like success and outcomes, you know, like getting on a certain TV show or getting something made.

Obviously, you need to be successful to a point that you can keep being creative, but it's not the bit that will make you happy.

Like getting a TV show will not in itself make you happy.

Like, actually, when Buffering was on TV, probably the least happening has ever been because it's quite anxiety.

It's very anxiety because you're just panicking about anyone watching it.

Reviews and things like that.

Reviews, everyone hates it.

Any comedian who say anything, I would like be second guessing what they've thought about it.

Like that wasn't the fun bit.

It was really not fun.

And the truth is most people don't care.

Like no one's really thinking about you.

They all think about themselves.

So you can overthink all that stuff.

That's the same with the fringe.

But actually, the most pure and least anxiety I had was, even with the time pressures, was just writing a show.

And that's true now of writing Ed and Buffering shows.

Like that's the most fun bit.

And I make significantly less money than I did doing a sitcom.

But it doesn't matter, I get the same enjoyment out of it.

Yeah.

Have you got other ideas for further projects?

Yeah, loads of stuff.

I've got a few things in development, a few things based on other shows I've done in the past, because I always do story shows, so, for my stand-up shows.

So they quite easily lend themselves to then turn into narratives for TV or film.

So I do that quite a lot, because then I feel like the effort you put into an edinburgh show isn't just for the edinburgh show, like there's a payoff to you get to be creative again afterwards, because you then can turn into a script, which I think you always get a double hit of the idea.

I mean, it doesn't always work, but yes, I like doing that.

So yeah, I've got various things in development and like format ideas and, you know, game shows, things like that, I was doing stuff.

And you just never know what's going to hit, like you never know what's going to get commissioned.

I now write on, I write the voiceover on Love Island USA.

So that came about this year, like out of nowhere, really.

I mean, obviously, Iain put me forward for the job, but I had to like audition and get past the NBC execs and stuff.

So like working on American TV was like a really big shift.

And like, it's just a bigger scale, you know.

Did you just do it from here or did you go over?

Yeah, I did it from here.

I did it from my house in Brixton.

It was not very glamorous, just on a Zoom.

But, you know, 18 million people were watching that show every night, which is just insane.

Like, well, I can't even fathom what that means.

But yeah, Love Island was a real, that was really fun to work on, something that people actually were watching like on mass.

And it was kind of zeitgeist.

In America, it was very popular.

It kind of exploded this year.

And that was amazing to be like, well, my jokes are actually getting watched by these people.

But so, you know, you never know what's coming next.

Like, I couldn't have predicted I was going to be doing that this year.

I always think with being self-employed that you can, every year I have never correctly predicted what the best bit of the year is going to be.

Like, I don't know what the best of the year is going to be.

I've never got it right.

So, that's kind of exciting because I don't know what it's going to be.

So, every year I go into, I know that something's going to happen that I can't have predicted.

That's exciting.

And that is exciting.

Yeah, I mean, maybe that will stop at some point.

A lot of people don't have these lives.

No, that's it.

And that's the thing.

And we're very lucky that most people can sort of exactly predict what their year is going to look like.

And, you know, some people want that.

But I guess I really thrive on the not knowing.

I also get a huge amount of anxiety about money and stuff.

I'm not making it out as if I'm walking along blissfully happy all the time.

But it is cool that, like, I don't know next year what I'm going to be working on.

Your IMDB is getting bigger and bigger, so here you go.

And I've just signed up to IMD Pro so I could take control of my page, you know.

Yeah, it cost me quite a lot though.

140 quid, just to edit my own page.

But you've got a lot in it.

But otherwise, you can't edit your page.

I'm quite zen at the moment.

I normally am much more anxious during the Edible Fringe.

Have you been through a mid-free-shutdown?

I had my dip.

Yeah, I had my dip on the first week.

Early on, I was just stressed about writing the show.

I wasn't, you know, in the beginning, you don't know it as well as you need to and all that stuff.

And then reviews and all that, you know, that always stresses you.

But then at this point, we're going into the final week.

You sort of know where you're at.

Yeah.

A bit of word of mouth helps and people come to the show, so you sort of relax a bit more.

And the show is tight, tight, tight, tight.

Yeah, I love it.

I'm really proud of it.

It's my favorite show I've ever done, I think.

And people seem to enjoy it.

And then word of mouth does get out because people just leave the show and go tell someone.

And it's a joy to write someone like that.

And it's also immediate, which is where TV is different.

You don't get the payoff for ages, if ever.

Whereas stand-up is just like you can create this thing.

Like this morning, I sat in a coffee shop and tweaked a few jokes and did them an hour later on stage and they worked.

And that buzz is, that's unrivaled.

That's the best buzz you can get.

Well, what better sentiments to end on, Steve?

Yeah, that was quite a heartbeat, wasn't it?

Thank you for coming on Television Times.

Thank you.

It was me chatting to Steve Bugeja up in Scotland during the summer.

It was great hearing about all that stuff to do with his show Buffering.

Oh my goodness.

Available on ITV, by the way.

And check him out online, he's a really funny guy.

And go and see him live if you can, because he's an absolute gem.

You know, I really enjoyed this episode.

It should have been called A Tale of Two Steves.

Right, you know what time it is now?

It's time for today's Outro Track.

Now, normally, there's a little link to the episode, depending on what song I put on, right?

It usually has something to do with what we're talking about.

But this one, nothing to do with that.

I was just listening back to some songs and I came across this one.

It's from the 1117 album I did with Aoife Nally in 2009-10.

I just love this song.

She wrote all the lyrics, I wrote all the music.

It's called Unguarded in Eden.

It's got a kind of 70s weird vibe to it, which no other song I've ever done sounds like this.

So I wanted to put it on here so I can get a little clean up for you all.

And here we go, y'all, what the fuck are my Southern States?

Anyway, here we go.

This is Unguarded in Eden.

Well, there we have it.

That was Unguarded in Eden by 1117, music by myself and all lyrics by Aoife Nally.

Soon to be remastered, along with all the other albums I talk about remastering.

We shall see when that actually happens.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that song and I hope you enjoyed my chat with Steve.

So come back next time for another great episode.

Until then, thanks for listening and bye for now.

Look into my eyes.

Tell all your friends about this podcast.