Steve Keyworth: Urinal Etiquette, Baked Potatoes, and Crafting Unique Stories for Television

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, Screen Rats, Couch Potatoes.

Welcome to Television Times Podcast yet again.

Here we are.

I'm recording this intro a little bit early.

This one's going to come out next Wednesday.

It's Friday at the moment.

I've just dropped the latest episode with Jay Lafferty, which I hope you're all enjoying.

Now today's guest is the great Steve Keyworth.

Now this guy has had a varied career.

He started in standup, he went into writing, he's written scripts for movies, he's currently the scriptwriter for Doctors, he's worked on Eastenders.

As I said, he's worked on movies, one with Kelsey Grammar, there's a big story about that coming up.

He also worked on this mad project where he curated a different performance in each of the pods on the London Eye.

And he's just full of stories and full of information.

This guy has been through it all.

It's a great, great episode.

I really enjoyed it.

He was the first person that I'd never actually met.

And we got on immediately.

We started to talk about urinals at one point, so there was no problem in gelling.

I can tell you that.

So to today's little gripe, I guess we can call it.

Maybe that's what this will become, like a weekly gripe, like an old moan at the beginning of an episode.

Should we do that?

I don't think so.

But for this one, I'm going to talk about the thing that everyone's going to be talking about right now, which is the cost of accommodation in Edinburgh.

Yep, I'm going up to Edinburgh to record some of these and to see a load of shows.

I'm really looking forward to that, I'm hoping to do some kind of like live-ish episode from there for you guys.

And I'm going to stay an hour outside because it's so expensive.

And I know a lot of people are going up there who are having to camp, staying in tents, in fields.

They just cannot afford it.

And I know this has been brought up by many, many other people, but I'm telling you from the horse's mouth, I have worked on that fringe festival, I know what it costs and I have seen the prices skyrocket to a point which makes it impossible, impossible for anybody really to go up there and make any money.

I've talked to comedians, as you've heard on here, who sell out, make thousands, tens of thousands and end up owing the production company money.

Now that cannot be fair.

And I have been in charge of those accounts.

I've seen the money that comes in and I've seen the money that we charge people and it is not fucking fair.

And I'm going to say it on here, all of you, every single one of the big four production companies in Edinburgh, you need to pay your staff better.

You need to sort out some fucking discount accommodation.

You need to do it with the university, whatever it is you do.

You need to subsidise this or it's not going to continue.

We all know what's going to happen.

It's going to become for posh shows only.

And the only people that are going to be able to go up there are people on Mummy and Daddy's fucking credit card.

I can't even go up there.

I can't go up there and just stay and watch shows.

The shows are cheap.

I missed out on a Nish Kumar ticket for seven quid because I'm going to see something else, which I'm a bit bummed out about.

But the price of the shows are fine.

That's not the issue.

I don't think they're very expensive or even the good ones for 20 quid.

It's fine.

It costs more than that to go to the cinema.

But it's everything else.

It's the fucking 10 pound toasties that you've got fucking in your courtyards.

It's the ridiculous amount for the accommodation in general.

It is insane.

You cannot expect people to pay that to go up there.

It would be cheaper to buy a fucking house than it would be to visit that city at this point in time.

Anyway, everyone have a great Edinburgh.

Rant over.

So here he is, soon to be your friend and mine, Mr.

Steve Keyworth.

It's a great chat.

I really love meeting him online.

I hope to meet him in person one day.

Here we go.

Welcome to Television Times, a new podcast with your host me, Steve Keyworth.

Steve Otis Gunn will be discussing television in all its glorious forms, from my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

Hello, Steve.

I'm good.

Shall I call you Steve or Stephen?

Oh, I'm Steve.

You're Steve.

I'm Steve too.

Yeah.

Two Steves.

Two Steves.

Does one of us need to be called Phyllis or something that's just very distinct?

My middle name is Otis.

So usually people just call me Steve Otis as if it's some kind of double barrel posh name, which it is not.

No, I'm sure.

It's a little bit country and western as a sort of name as well.

I suppose it has that kind of, no, I think I'm thinking I've just listened to a Rich Hall audio book.

That's probably why.

Rich Hall, Otis?

What is it?

Otis Lee Crenshaw.

Otis Lee Crenshaw.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I got my coffee.

This is bad timing.

Sorry.

And a creaky chair.

No, it's fine.

I've got too hot to drink right now.

So at some point, I'll need to, like, that.

So you're my first guest on this who I've never met.

You're like the friend of a friend.

So it's...

Yeah.

And actually, Kev recommended you on, like, the first proper episode of this.

He said some very kind things.

Did you hear that episode or?

It doesn't matter.

I haven't.

I meant to try and listen to one or more beforehand, but it's, I've been, yeah, children and doctoring.

I'm trying to pin down this doctor in the fictional sense, yes, yes, in the fictional sense rather than anything that's qualified.

Yes.

So we should mention that straight off the bat.

I'm assuming you're, like, the head writer on Doctors.

I'm a call writer.

What's my title?

I'm one of the call writers, I think, technically, that is.

I'm not really sure how many there are, but there's, yeah, not as special as me in charge.

I'd have to assassinate the others.

So I watched your Joe Pasquale episode, which I was desperate to watch after I read about it.

I watched it the other night.

It was really weird, because I've seen Doctors many, many times.

It's one of those things.

I worked in theater and tours and stuff like that.

So I'd often be, you know, in a random digs or a hotel at that time, you know, go out for lunch, come back, put on something.

And then what's before Doctors?

Must be something I watched.

It might be like Homes Under the Hammer and I get caught up in whatever's on there and the telly doesn't go off and Doctors comes on and I think, oh, well, I'm never going to watch this.

And then I watch it.

And then about a week later, I'm still watching it.

I found myself getting drawn into it in the same way that I guess I would have done in Neighbours or Eastenders in the 90s.

Yeah, you'd watch Eastenders at Christmas because you're trapped with your parents and then you're like for three weeks after that, it's like, I really know to need to know what's going on with Phil.

Yeah, you can get drawn into soaps, can't you?

Even if you haven't seen them for years and some come on like Hollyoaks or whatever.

And I don't know anyone on those shows, you know, but then the one character will rock up and you'll be like, Oh, I wonder what's happened in those missing years.

I have no idea what's happened and you can kind of get filled in quite fast.

A lot of a lot of information gets conveyed quite, quite quickly.

And that's one of the questions I want to ask you because the other night when I was watching Doctors, it was about half past 10 at night.

My wife had already sort of gone to bed and I said, I've got to stay up.

I want to watch something.

And she would imagine that would be some stand up or something a bit night time.

And I was like, if she walks in now and finds me watching Doctors at sort of 10 at night, that's just quite strange to be watching it at that time of night.

That's probably subversive to take daytime television with no swearing and all that, watching in the middle of the night.

Is this it?

Is this how we start?

I thought we had.

Oh yeah, I just come in.

Maybe we should cut this bit where I ask whether we've started or not.

No, no, I'll put that right in at the beginning.

Watching that episode I saw the other night, the thing that immediately struck me was like, like everything, you have two stories.

You have the story you're telling, Joe Pasquale, and you have this other story, which I know nothing about, a man in a car trying to work out what's going on with this.

Oh, the stakeout, yes.

Yeah, the stakeout.

And I'm thinking, and that draws me in too.

So now I'm thinking, what's that all about?

And I was wondering, I mean, do you write consecutive episodes?

So you're the one writing both arcs, or is there an arc that's written by someone else who starts it and then you come in and keep that going as well as your own story line?

How does that work?

It's impossible to, it's possible to write double episodes, and that's when you get to write two together.

But no, I don't write, generally, I've not written two in a row at any point so far.

I've pitched a couple of two-parters.

So how does that work?

Do you just all, you're all just talking, saying, well, this is what, this is the beginning of the season.

I guess you have seasons of story arcs of the season, and everyone's just got to write that in as well?

Or is there someone else to write?

No, you wrote the whole thing, right?

So you're writing both storylines going forward.

Yeah, the whole 30 minutes.

Yeah.

And then your script editor, you get, you get given a document which tells you what should happen in this episode, serial wise.

And you, I knew your script editor, as you write the script, he kind of corrects you and says, oh, well, that character used that exact line yesterday or they can't punch out at Santa Claus because we punched one out last week.

So your script editor gives you kind of the continuity and I make sure that you've got the voice right and, you know, this, maybe perhaps more this sort of thing.

So yeah.

That's interesting.

I wanted to see more of your storyline when she went off to be tested for this syndrome that makes us see everyone as Joe Pasquale, I was like, I want to see more.

I need her to see like, I want to go outside in like the whitest town in England and see like a hundred Joe Pasquale's coming towards a week.

I think the the special effects budget can stretch to maybe two Joe Pasquale, it's three Joe Pasquale's in a room at any point, but we can't go for Malkovich.

So when you pitch that, did they literally say that like, how are we going to do that?

That's going to cost a lot.

No, no, I didn't even think I'd get to have two Pasquale's on screen.

I didn't know that was possible.

So yeah, I just thought we would have to cut.

We just have to swap clothes and you know, we'd do it in a very kind of low tech way, but I thought the story would still stand up.

And in the beginning, it was a different comic.

Every so often, I have written kind of characters with particular names.

The whole character description is a person I know.

And I think they should cast them for that.

But it never happens.

And this time, I had in mind Lee Mack because I knew it back when I was doing stand up and I thought he might be up for it.

But his agent never applied.

He's just done inside number nine.

Yeah, yes, he's probably doing that.

So you did stand up.

That's interesting.

Yeah, well, I did, I did, I did a drama degree and I thought I was going to be a set designer and then I discovered I was a massive show off instead.

And I started writing to perform at Manchester University in the studio group thing, which many years before Rick Mayall and Adrian Edmondson went through the same thing.

And I found out I was just better at the writing part.

So I kind of very heavily went down writing for a while, but couldn't get rid of the show off bit.

And I realized that stand up, you don't have to act particularly, you can look the audience in the eye, and you can test out an idea that you did that morning.

So I made a pact with a couple of other drama students.

And we started a comedy night, knowing absolutely nothing.

Nobody on the bill had any experience.

It was utter madness.

Three of us did really well and one person tanked very hard.

And they were the sacrifice so that the rest of us could live.

And I pursued that in Manchester, ran some clubs, moved to London, did the same there.

And then there was a shift where all the middle clubs, whereas Westchester, that was where I was king.

I was on my way up.

I was getting paid by the middle clubs and just a swathe of them just died, got cancelled, disappeared.

So in the early noughties.

That's weird.

Pubs started wanting to do more food, essentially.

That profitable room.

Yeah, there was a lot of kind of renovations and the room was never the same.

I started working in theater, and then the last thing I wanted to do was go to any kind of performance, I think, in my spare time.

If I did anything in my spare time, it was cinema.

I'd go and see, like, I'd do a matinee of Woman in Black, go and see Nicole Kidman and the others in the in-between, and then come back and do another show and have, like, seven hours of ghost stories or whatever.

But the idea of, like...

Have you seen more plays than The Woman in Black?

I just want to check this, because it's the second time.

I have seen lots and lots of plays, but when you work on them, it was weird because I worked on that one and I worked on Inspector back to back for about seven years.

I felt like I was working on the best two plays that had ever existed.

That's what I was told by everybody.

But it put me off after a while.

But I liked the simplicity of it and touring.

It was nice to tour with a small group of people.

There was camaraderie.

There was, you know, no one was above anyone else.

You sort of knew the actors.

And if the actors had famous friends, you'd all go out together and it would all be...

It was really fun.

I really liked all that.

But it's interesting you started in comedy, because that's where I've ended up.

How did you find the stand-up?

Did you write on stage?

Did you...

Well, I sort of started in theatre first, because that's what I was doing mostly in Manchester at that time, in kind of the Green Room Theatre.

And then I did something for the city of drama, this kind of big year-long festival thing, where we took over this...

I like derelict buildings.

I've done a lot of kind of site-specific stuff in Exeter in Manchester and this crazy lift-based project in Edinburgh.

But I guess the reason why I'm not an internationally famous stand-up is probably because I didn't write enough material, essentially.

I would put the effort into writing scripts and I was starting to make a living out of that.

But I kind of like winging it a bit with comedy.

At the beginning, you kind of write these really, really wordy routines.

Then as you do it more and more, you just cut everything.

Because it's like, stop explaining all of this stuff.

And I've kind of got a little handful of really great one-liners.

I had a bit that was, because I saw Stuart Lee, I was comping on a club in Kensington in Kilburn.

And I saw him do his bit about the inflatable ET.

And after Princess Diana died, somebody leaves it by the palace gates.

And he goes and sees this ET lying there.

And it's such a long, slow build up when nobody's laughing for ages.

But there's this tension because he's being so serious.

So I had my own go at that sort of joke where you've got just taking the piss for ages.

That's something I want to ask you about, because I think I remember this.

Flight 5065, where you were the artistic director of putting all these shows on in all the pods of the London Eye.

Was it still called the London Eye then?

It was.

Is it not called the London Eye now?

Is it been called Boris Wheel of Fun or something?

Yeah, in each pod, there's a line.

No, there's a...

Wasn't it called like the British Airways Sky some shit?

I think the British Airways...

I can't remember.

It had a funny name for a while.

Yeah, I think British Airways was attached to it in some way, but we were allowed to call it the London Eye.

I think it was called the London Eye.

Didn't it go up really late?

Because it was a millennium project and it took longer to get up for a while.

I might be getting this wrong.

I'm going to have to check this out.

I think it was the successful one.

I think it was the dome that was...

Was it?

Yeah, we finished it.

We've got nothing to put in it.

We've basically created a big warehouse that Michael McIntyre will gig in in many decades to come.

I just got this memory of Virgin put in a poster up of the wheel sort of on the Thames flat and saying something like, BA can't get it up.

I'm 100% sure they did something like that because it was delayed.

Maybe it was only delayed a couple of years.

Anyway.

It was definitely up in 2005 because we did fill it with all sorts of shows.

I mean, I was kind of coming...

My kind of area was theater and comedy.

We had a producer who would bring in the musical acts as well and that's how we ended up with Damon Albarn and Beth Orton and all kinds of interesting people.

Damon, fantastic.

I love Blur.

Big fan.

So how did you get...

Was there power up there?

I'm just thinking, how did you power that?

Yeah, it was all unplugged, essentially.

Yeah, I managed to see Beth Orton in the pod because I knew it was coming and I could...

The interesting thing about it was that they were...

One of the main interesting things is you bought a ticket and you didn't know who you were going to see.

And it was literally a kind of vertical roulette wheel.

You would queue and queue and queue.

So at one end of the pod, you've got the act and then you...

I've never been in it, so I can't...

They're quite big, aren't they?

So at the other end...

There's a bench in the middle.

You get about 20, 25 people.

So you could just buy a ticket and accidentally end up in a pod with Damon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I wrote a...

I adapted this because there was an African theme and I adapted this short story by this Zimbabwean writer, Rory Killalai, and yeah, he did a production of this adaptation in the pod.

And so I was waiting to get in with my actors and I could see that the pod in front of me was Jo Brand.

And I could see the people queuing going, it's Jo Brand, it's Jo Brand, we're going to get in with Jo Brand.

And then there was the cutoff and they're like, we're in with the Zimbabwean short story.

Which I'm sure it was brilliant, but I would have been one of those people going, oh man.

I suppose.

But they really, they were a really good audience.

They got really engaged with it.

And then it was awkward because it's all written for half hour for the length of the flight.

But Damon Albarn, they stopped the wheel for him because they were doing a photo shoot.

Our play finished and we were only a quarter past.

So we just sat there with the audience going, so that's what we've got.

That's the end of it.

And I'm just having to have a chat with them a bit while we all look to the House of Commons.

So was it time that each act would last as long as one turn of the wheel and then you get another act in that pod each time?

Is that how it went?

Oh no, you got out.

Unless you bought multiple tickets.

It was something, because it was on the 21st, so it was 21 pounds for a ticket and you didn't know what you were going to get.

But it was that we tried to keep the quality up.

We did have to drop one show at the last minute because it was a bag of pants, honestly.

It was very kind of a theater piece and it was quite patronizing and I would have been really angry if I'd paid 21 pounds for it.

It had some good people in it, but they just kind of misjudged the tone of it terribly.

We spent months researching different kind of acts, different kind of stories.

There's a whole, what do they call it, Afrofuture, sort of Afro science fiction thing, which was really interesting.

I mean, we're trying to get something from that sort of neck of the woods.

I was in a toilet with, I was in a cubicle and Arthur Smith and Damon Albarn came in at the same time and we're on a boat just to make the boat part of the show on the wheel.

And here Arthur Smith say, I've curated some music to Damon Albarn.

And he says, I've curated some jokes.

That was a much better timing than that, but it's a very, very small toilet on this boat.

This is kind of going on.

I hope someone shouted out Parklife.

I don't know, maybe they did in the pod.

I know.

I went to see Phil Wang recently up here.

He was up in Newcastle.

And I thought after COVID, they would get rid of those troughs, you know, the troughs they have in men's toilets, which women know nothing about.

I thought I would never have to see another man's urine pass me like that ever again.

And I can't believe they're back.

I thought, at least they're gone.

At least they're gone.

They won't come back, will they?

They're back in.

They're back with a vengeance, those things.

Comedy clubs, they've all got them.

Horrible.

I'm in this arts building in Norwich.

We've got like two toilets here.

There's a bar and a club night and over here, I've got a drag performer and over here, there's a painter, it's very artistic.

Anyway, upstairs, toilet area, two cubicles in a car, a corridor and then one of those trough urinals with a curtain.

The curtain?

So you just draw a curtain, yeah.

Well, in the individual?

In the, essentially in the corridor, there is, and there's this trough and then there's a curtain.

It's like the, you're like pissing like the Wizard of Oz, essentially, you're just sort of, it's got some comedy in that.

I've never used it.

I don't believe in the, I don't believe in the curtain.

The curtain is not enough security.

No, the curtain, it sounds like a really posh glory hole or something.

Yeah, it's not, oh, it's a black curtain.

Ta-da!

Yeah, it's like Fringe Theatre black curtain, it's not posh.

Oh, I thought you were talking like big, heavy red drapes, golden tassels.

Well, it only goes down to kind of a kind of thigh height as well.

So, you're still standing, I just think it's the weirdest thing in the modern world with everything, you know, you've got Elon Musk trying to go into space and things like that and go to Mars and we're still pissing next to each other within an inch.

Yeah, I just don't do that anymore.

I'm a sit down guy, I'm just like, I don't want to do that.

Don't want to eat jacket potatoes, don't want to eat flapjacks.

They're just ultimately...

I can't eat jacket potatoes anymore.

If I eat a jacket potato, me and my wife literally go, well, that's up at 3 a.m.

having a liter piss.

I don't know what it is about eating a potato now.

But man, man alive, if I eat a jacket potato, it's like I've had four beers just before bed.

That's strange.

I mean, it's a skill.

You just kind of liquidize potato and shoot it out in some...

Maybe it's the half Irishness of me.

I mean, I should be able to sort of deal with it.

I just get very bored of jacket potatoes.

They're just taste...

There's like, there's never enough sauce on it.

Well, there is a trick to a jacket potato.

I can make a jacket potato delicious to you.

I did this thing called the GM diet a couple of times to try and lose weight, not fast, but just...

I use it now and again.

I do it about once a year.

It seems to happen.

I don't plan it.

But it's just when my tastes get out of sync, when I've had too much salt or too much sugar for too long, say Christmas, you know, too much rubbish in the house and I want to reset my palate, I do the GM diet.

And what it does is you eat fruit one day, vegetables the next.

And then on like the third or fourth day, you're allowed to bake potato with just a little bit of salt and pepper.

I swear it is the most delicious thing you'll ever eat in your life.

It's because you've been deprived.

But it resets, it resets and it tastes no butter, nothing.

Just plain with some salt and pepper.

Trust me, if you just have three days of palate cleansing, you will find the baked potato to be very, very delicious.

I'm skeptical.

Yeah, you should be.

Yeah.

What was that all about?

That was a, I used to go to this writers group in London called Script Tank, and then you just, every Wednesday night or every four nights, you would kind of read out a script and writers would give you feedback.

And I did that for years, and that's how I met my wife, seriously.

But one time there was this guy that I'd met, and he was a producer, and he was kind of, anyway, he got me involved, because I was writing funny script, he got me involved on this, to do a rewrite on this film.

And I met the original writer, who's called Roger.

He's a banker.

And we met him in this, at the beginning, I mean, he was posh as hell.

We're in, we met in this kind of boardroom, and he said, I'm not really a writer.

I just, I wrote this, I went on holiday on my villa or my yacht, I forget which, but you know, and I just thought, I have a go.

And I've never seen a film, but I wrote this film.

But you can change anything you like.

And it was like, OK.

And so I read the script and the banking was really interesting.

The jokes were all stolen from greeting cards and those amusing emails that go around at work.

And the best stuff, there were like three Les Dawson, classic Les Dawson gags.

And then there was a lot of stuff that was racist.

There was a lot of stuff that was sexist and very 1970s way rather than a bank, not even like contemporary banking city racism, really old racism.

And so I kind of did a rewrite on it and I tried to be respectful to the material, but I did have to change anything that was racist, stolen or sexist, which meant a lot of stuff got changed.

And then the day, literally the week before I hand this in, he rings me up, Roger the banker, and says, I've been thinking about this.

And I don't think you need to change any of the dialogue.

And I was like, God, that's really very much the worst of it.

So I handed it in, found out later he hated it with a vengeance.

Oh, really?

That was, I had to write the whole thing.

I had to do the rewrite in about three weeks.

It was insane, period.

So and then we did a read through at Script Tank to test it out, so that I could just make the final changes.

And then I invited Roger and he came straight from Ascot with a couple of people, they were all wearing hats.

And they turn up halfway through and listen to this, said nothing to me and left.

And then, but you know, I was getting paid, so fine.

I thought it was a vanity project, never happened.

And they came back like four years later, Tom, the producer, and they got other people involved and more money.

And that meant, because Roger was going to put in half a million, we could film it at his house.

Who is this guy?

He is the same personality as Trump in that he was got very annoyed one time because they wouldn't let him land his helicopter on a golf course.

Why can't I just, you know, always fix it afterwards?

So more money was involved.

They wanted me to do another rewrite.

And they said, I could you could do anything you like this time, literally anything.

And Roger is not the only investor at this point.

So you're allowed to.

It's not his opinion.

I'm added.

So I fixed it essentially.

The problem was, the first draft was Breaking the Bank, and the bank doesn't get broken for about the first hour and a quarter.

So you know that's going to happen.

Yeah.

And the lead character does not bank up to the bank until.

So all you needed to do was just do it first 10 minutes.

So I did a sort of hangover format on it and that he goes on the piss and wakes up.

He's destroyed everything and he has to work out what happened.

And then he has to try and fix it.

So I just tried to fast forward through that first hour and a bit.

I just put lots of comedy in it.

I reread this script recently.

I was like, this is great.

I do remember watching it.

I know I've seen it because I saw it.

It's not a good film.

You've got to watch it with a sound and it looks like a film.

But I rewrote it.

And this time with the director, Vadim Jean, who directed all those, you know, who did Leon Pickfarmer back in the day.

And at that point, they were telling me as well, we're going to get Kelsey Grammar.

We've got Tamsyn Gregg.

We've got Matthew Horn.

We've got all these people.

That's like blimey.

Anyway, so I kind of and Vadim Jean loved this script.

So this is the best script I've, you know, the dialogue in this is amazing.

And it's it.

But Roger hated it so much, it made him ill, physically ill.

He got some kind of urine infection or just some sort of, he lost his mind with his how much he hated this thing because I just trashed it.

So in the end, the film has mostly come back to, whether this moral of the story is billionaires get what they want or millionaires get what they want.

It probably wasn't quite.

But so there was a screening in the West End.

During the day in Leicester Square.

And I went with a few friends to see it.

And then we got drunk.

And there's like one scene where that's exactly my scene.

That's a really funny scene.

Everybody laughed at that scene.

But there's a lot of the sexist and racist stuff and women being two dimensional.

It came back.

All came back.

He did a solid job with what he was given.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

He's great in phrasing.

He could deliver funny material.

It's coming back, isn't it?

But it was a madness like, Kelsey's going to do it for not very much money, but we have to put him up in clariges with, in his usual room with the white piano in it.

Does he like to play the theme tune to Frasier or something?

I think that said that's exactly it.

That's exactly it.

breakfast order is anyway.

You wrote on Eastenders as well.

I just want to kind of know because I've been to the Eastenders set a couple of times just to see it, and that was fun.

And also, when I was on tour in Australia, I was at the Neighbours set when it was in the old school in Melbourne where they filmed it.

It was basically like an old school.

And I was like blown away by, do you know Neighbours, do you know the people in it, like Stefan Dennis playing Paul, people like that?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we went there as the sort of, you know, the British play that's in town.

So we were all treated really well and we all got backstage and we got to meet the cast.

Some of them, I think, are in films now.

And I was just amazed at how quick they filmed it.

And I was wondering if Eastenders and Doctors is similar because what they were doing in Neighbours is he would like, all I remember is he was in his kitchen, he got the lines just before, he said it three times.

As we went on to the next scene, there was someone to my left and I said, what are they doing?

They said, oh, they're editing.

They edit the show live.

They literally start editing as the scene is finished.

I was wondering if Fast Soaps made that fast because they're churning that out like AI.

I don't think they're doing that.

I think they kind of wait for a day's filming and then they edit it.

I don't know if they're doing sort of productiony, post-production things as it goes along.

It's fast.

Doctors is fast because there are five episodes a week, which slowed down during the pandemic.

But yeah, that's the fastest one.

And then Eastenders is quite fast, but there's a little bit more kind of wiggle room there.

At least there was one there where there were three episodes a week.

And you're on set a lot for these things or?

I went a couple of, I did like three senders.

I've been to Doctors a couple of times.

I've done 60 episodes, I think, because it's so fast.

It's definitely worth doing, if you're a writer, just to see how it all works.

It's not that edifying to see your words done.

The best time I've had on set is watching someone else being filmed because I was interested in applying for a director scheme.

So you're completely unattached to it.

The first time I went to watch an episode of Doctors being filmed, I thought I'd written a comedy script and they were filming it as a tragedy.

And my editor never mentioned the fact, there was a character who had an accident, a car accident, and he was using a wheelchair.

And I thought, well, he's going to get batteries, one of the regulars.

They never told me that there was a question about whether he would ever walk again.

So I'd given him lines, kind of quips like, I won't get up.

And he delivered them like, I won't get up.

It was gruesome.

It was gruesome to watch that getting filmed.

But it taught me a lot about what I should put in this, you know, be very clear what you're going with.

State, you know, direction is very important.

Did you have any funny interactions with any of the cast members on Eastenders?

I met Barbara Windsor and she thought, she said, did I write the whole thing?

And I, in retrospect, I should have said, yes, it's all me.

It's more me.

Yeah.

But it must be mad the first time you write something and it comes out of someone else's mouth.

Even if they're not doing it with the intention that you have, it must still be quite incredible.

It is.

I used to get people around for afternoon drinks when my episodes were on, you know.

I started when I had radio play on before that.

And so we had kind of a listening party.

The first couple of doctors, I got people around in Eastenders.

But then once you get to 60, you can't keep drinking through all of the episodes.

Otherwise, you've got a real problem.

You'll end up on doctors.

I've been drinking so much, everyone's turned into Benny Hill.

Was there a TV performance that you saw when you were young that influenced your writing?

I mean, Friday Night Live, seeing that when I was a kind of young teen, there's probably an eclipse of that yesterday.

How strange is that?

I haven't watched, they did a kind of reboot, like a one afternoon in the spring, and my wife wants to watch it with me, so I have no, we have not watched it yet.

It's a...

Yeah, I haven't.

I would have just burned through it, but I just, you know, Ben Elton, Rick Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, all those people, and then what people like The Dam's doing, Eloise.

And there was a guy with like a flip chance and pictures of owls one week.

And the owls just had really funny expressions.

The sort of picture of owls, baby, fluffy owls, that people love on the internet now.

But he would, you know, we just had to wait for a guy to point at them with a stick in those days.

And there was just some really weird stuff and that was great.

Oh, and Press Gang.

I've just finally found a copy of Press Gang on DVD.

Really?

Dexter Fletcher and Julius Orwell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've not rewatched it yet, but because I've been rewatching, my daughter, a 12 year old, is watching Doctor Who for the first time when we've just hit Moffat's sort of showrunner time.

So, which I'm a big fan of.

I haven't seen anything past Eccleston, weirdly, because of work.

And I'm waiting to watch it with my kid.

And we tried to watch the first episode of his season from what, 2006.

And it was all like mummies in a basement and he got scared and went, no, no, this is still too early.

I think my eight year old's joined us now.

She's nearly nine.

She's joined us for Matt Smith and Moffat because I think it's more fun at that point.

I think sometimes Russell T.

Davis' earlier episodes is the tone of it somewhere between a proper kids show when you've got kind of pictures coming to life.

And then there's quite adult, a Rose and Mickey gonna get a hotel room in Cardiff.

And there was a discussion that episode as well about is the death penalty ever justified?

So I found that some of the tone in his really, just when you're watching it with your kids, it's tricky.

Right, yeah.

It's tricky.

What's the death penalty, Dada?

Yeah, that's tricky.

Dr.

Who often comes up as an answer to this question, so I'll jump straight to it.

I do want to mention, I cannot believe how young Ben Elton was when I was watching Friday Night Live because I looked at it yesterday.

When I was a kid, he was like, in my mind, a 30 something year old guy doing comedy.

Turns out he's like 11 years older than me or something.

It's like nothing.

Everyone's got younger.

I don't know what's going on.

It doesn't make any sense to me at all.

But because you were talking about Doctor Who, can you remember a TV show as a kid that scared the shit out of you?

I mean, the stuff in that drama armor slot actually, the Chocke was pretty damn spooky.

What's Chocke?

Tell me about that.

Chocke is based on a John Wyndham story.

And it was, it's this just kind of weird flashy light in the corner of the room that is your friend, but is a sort of weird, like Charlie, the road safety cat.

Oh yeah.

More slightly more articulate.

That's the words.

But it's, I saw it on a list of spooky things recently, but there were other kind of one-off drama, because it was one-off dramas.

And then there were a few series that went along, which I think Chocke and I think Press Gang kind of as well.

But there were kind of some spooky ones in there.

I don't know you enough to ask this question, it's a really weird one.

Okay, who or what...

That time we were in Vegas together.

Who or what was the first person or character you saw on screen that made you feel funny in your loins?

It would probably be Princess Leia.

In traditional Star Wars white robe, rather than not returning a Jedi.

Did you see that at the cinema as a kid, or did you watch it at home on video?

There was this weird thing.

I was in the Cubs and there was a thing at Christmas where this guy would turn up with a projector and he'd show you cartoons.

And then just, it was like a 20 minute version of Star Wars.

So I saw Empire in the cinema first.

I didn't see Star Wars till it got re-released again, or videos until a lot later.

Was it that Christmas thing they did?

Because they did a little 20 minute Christmas thing.

No, no, it was a 20 minute version of Star Wars where essentially they just rescue Princess Leia from the Death Star.

And then shoot some TIE fighters and go, hey, everything's fine and they fly away.

It's like a Tik Tok edit, it's like what I do with my kids to let them watch Venom, take all the bad bits out.

So he thinks it's a comedy.

Was there any children's TV that you rushed home to see that you had a little thing for?

I mean, I did really kind of connect with Press Gang and that central kind of will they, won't they thing.

And then Moonlighting, I was mad for Civil Shepherd and Bruce Willis for...

Yeah, no one said that.

Moonlighting, that was out in the mid-80s.

You'd only been a teenager.

That was aimed at like 30-year-olds or something, I think, wasn't it?

Yeah.

I mean, I was in my 12th, 13th.

I was in the Scouts by that point because I was a very cool child.

The Cubs and the Scouts.

I went on to be in Venture Scouts.

I stood with that thing all the way.

So tell me about Scouts, actually.

I'll ask you honestly, because I do...

So if my boy was to show interest in that, I do get worried about those clubs where kids go on their own with men who...

It just links to me a little bit.

So like I grew up in Ireland and I went to for a bit of it.

And I went to school where I talked by priests who used to beat the living shit out of us.

So I'm very skeptical of that entire world.

And for me, like Cubs and Scouts kind of links to it in a way.

And I don't know whether I would...

I mean, I do know if someone says, Oh, do you want to join the Scouts?

I go, no way.

Bunch of pedos.

But obviously not.

But like how...

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That worry is there.

And it's, you know, I don't know why I'd be worried now in the time where it's way more safe than it was, say, 30 years ago.

But like, what can you tell me to reassure me on that if they wanted to do it?

I never, I mean, I never...

I don't remember any even weirdness in the Scouts.

So what did it teach you?

I was just, yeah, it was this kind of place in Nottinghamshire, Walesby Scout Centre, where you would, it was just wilderness, essentially, with a freezing pool and a tuck shop.

And you would go and you would camp and you would do these kind of night orienteering exercises and tie bits of log together.

And I can remember no knots.

I feel like I learned a lot.

Oh, really?

You were just literally going to save it because I can't tie my laces.

I still make knots out of my shoes.

So I was thinking if I had gone to the Scouts, maybe I could tie my laces.

Well, no, I know enough to say if I got to tie some things together, it's like, well, that's not enough.

I've got to keep going.

Essentially, just kind of knot it, knot it relentlessly.

That's better.

Working in theater was a nightmare for me because you're supposed to know all that stuff.

And there's the one thing I definitely didn't know was the one thing.

And people would go, tie that speaker, tie that light.

And can you do a blah, blah, blah knot in it?

And I'd be like, I can't do the knot now.

I can't.

So I get, I'm not very good at knots.

Could you do that?

Or I'd tie something that no one could undo the other end.

I was like, I just could never keep it in my head.

I don't know what it is.

Just can't do knots.

I've cut so many shoelaces off.

So many.

And even now, I don't know if it's like a thing where you tell yourself what you are.

I'll be like, when my daughter says, can I wear these shoes?

And I always opt for the non-laced ones if I can.

Because it's like, that's a mummy thing.

If you want those laced up, you have to talk to your mother.

I do tie my shoelaces differently to pretty much anyone I've ever met.

How do you do that?

I don't think it's that.

I'd get two loops and tie them around each other.

And I think everyone else is going one loop, one other, one dangly bit.

And you tie it around.

They have a bunny rabbit thing now.

I don't know where they go one ear, two ears, up and through.

The kids learn it.

We didn't learn with cute bunny rabbits.

We learn in a gravel.

Gravel.

What was the TV show you liked, or maybe even like now, that you were a little bit embarrassed to admit?

I watched all of the OC.

I also watched Smallville, which I'm angry about.

Smallville?

Are you?

That does seem like an enormous waste of time.

Just fly already, you irritating bastard.

Just so long.

Oh my gosh.

He remembers to fly, he learns how to fly, and then he forgets.

Oh really?

And he doesn't, it was okay at the beginning, and I'm embarrassed that I kept going with it, because I was just going, fly, just fly, get up in the air, fly.

Sometimes you get caught though, you're invested, you have to find out what happens.

I was watching a Spanish drama called Entrivias, I think it's called Wrong Side of the Tracks here, which I thought was all right, because it has a, what's his name?

Jose Conrado, which I like him in everything.

And my wife came in, again, sort of like doctor's time at night, before question time, the half hour I get when she wants to go to bed early.

She goes, what are you watching?

I said, no, it's all right, it's good, it's like a Spanish drama.

She goes, it looks like a fucking telenovela, because everybody's doing the kind of overacting.

And then suddenly I saw it that way and I was like, oh yeah, this is shit.

But I still watched it.

I still had to know what happens.

I need to know what the old man in the hardware store is going to do to the thugs in the area, in the neighborhood.

But you do get caught up in it.

If you're like, it's very hard, I think, especially with content now, to give up on something, to admit to yourself that you've wasted that amount of time.

Like me and my wife, I don't know how this happened.

I really don't know how this happened.

I've actually not answered this question myself because of a new question.

Mine is, I'm married at first sight, Australia.

Oh my gosh.

Now, I know it's shit.

It's absolute god awful trash.

And it's nothing I would normally watch.

I don't watch anything like that ever.

But we got caught up and every year we'll say, we're not going to watch it.

And then January comes along and we start watching it direct from Australia.

Don't ask me how.

And yeah, at one point about 20 episodes in, we're like looking at each other and go, these people are awful.

Should we just stop watching this?

Yeah.

And I was like, no, well, we can't.

It finishes in two weeks.

We're going to know what happens.

Yeah.

Got to know who ends up with.

No one ends up with anybody.

Everybody hates each other.

And it's all sort of semi-fake anyway.

But I don't know how to stop it.

And now we've vowed that we will not watch it anymore.

So now we've just like Kev, we got caught up by traitors, got completely drawn in by traitors.

And they're now going, oh, man, I need more traitors.

And it sounds like a lie, but I don't watch a lot of reality TV.

It's like that.

The Apprentice, maybe.

Probably not anymore.

Everybody gets suckered in at some point.

I mean, we spent some years watching, when we had small children, when we had babies, I think that's what they're called, watching Simon Cowell, all the Simon Cowell singing shows and hating yourself for doing that.

It was with The Apprentice.

We were going to give it up.

And then there was that season, maybe two years ago, where they had to design a logo for a boat and they designed something that looked like a poo, essentially.

And that's what the expert said.

And now you can see it coming.

Best case scenario, it's a rotten banana, but it also looks like a floating turd.

And then the following week, the same team invented a toothbrush and they went, oh, it's a wand.

We should do it brown.

It's like, it looks like a poo again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That series was amazing.

But then the next series, I just like, I don't care about these people anymore.

They're just kind of, yeah, they're not interestingly, excitingly dumb.

And it's usually cakes or Botox these days.

It's like somebody's, it's a baker or a chain of beauty sounds or something really boring.

I like, it's like Dragon's Den.

I want every time someone walks through that door, apparently it's a lift.

I don't know if I believe it.

When they walk through that door, I always am thinking, please be an invention.

Even if it's rubbish, be an invention.

Don't be a sauce or a vegan cupcake or whatever it is.

I want it to be like, you know, they've already had the sources.

They can't keep coming in with reggae, reggae sauce.

That's it.

There's one sauce.

It's not, it's not, it's not an invention.

You don't have Leonardo da Vinci inventing pesto or something like that.

I mean, that would be impressive, actually.

But yeah, it's not, it's not a carrot.

It's an invention.

It's a source.

What do they call things in Norwich?

Because I live in Newcastle and I've had to adapt to, instead of like HP or ketchup, they say, do you want red sauce or brown sauce?

Which I think is quite strange.

I think, no, I think it's just ketchup.

I don't think it's, it's not like going to Edinburgh going salt and sauce, which I am to go, yeah, that's exactly, I'm completely, I completely live here.

I'm not culturally, I'm not going to ask for vinegar, like some sort of psychopath.

I don't know what a porridge.

Do you go up to Edinburgh a lot then or?

I had, I did, oh my gosh, I've done about 14 or 15 in Edinburgh's, and every, starting in Children's Theatre, then theatre, and then stand up, and then improv, and I did the TV festival one year because we got shortlisted for a thing.

Yeah, so I found out you can, you can really, it's possible to destroy your body in a weekend at the TV festival in the same way that you might do it in a month if you were, you know, you can really fast forward the process.

I ended up having a curry with Chris Chibnall and Neil Cross, which, randomly, because I met with a friend and they were there, and I was very excited because I'm a big fan of Luther, and I'd read a lot of his novels as well to meet Neil Cross.

And Luther is so dark, but he ordered a Cormor, and this kind of slightly perturbs me.

Why did it perturb you?

Because it comes out the way it goes in.

Yeah, it's just the least dangerous curry for people who don't like curry that much.

Yeah, I've been up since it really got crazy.

I used to just kind of go and wing it a little bit.

Sometimes, if I was just going for a short journey.

I remember going up to Edinburgh during the Fringe to see like early 2000s, I went to see Ben Folds play live in Edinburgh.

And I got a room in a hostel off Princess Street, me and my mate, a twin room.

And we went to see Ben Folds and we went back.

We didn't even know the Fringe was on until we got there.

It was just like, there were rooms available.

And now, I mean, good luck.

Good luck.

So, Steve, probably from childhood because, you know, the era we both grew up in.

I mean, a lot of people do and they grew up in their childhood time.

Yeah, yes.

What's the TV show that you saw on television growing up that you would consider to be absolutely unacceptable by today's standards?

I felt like there were some television programs for kids that were just so boring.

I mean, I'm not, I know Why Don't You.

I think people are a lot very nostalgic about Why Don't You because of the theme tune, but they could swing from like the fun ones to this is really bad, but there is nothing else.

Why aren't they showing one of those Bugs Bunny movies, which are essentially just cartoons back to back for an hour and a half?

That's when I was kind of in heaven.

I don't remember the content of Why Don't You, but it was the only show I remember that was presented by kids.

I guess quite obnoxious ones.

Was it Welsh?

Was it HTV?

I feel like there were different regional versions.

It might have shifted a bit.

I don't know, it's all foggy.

So nothing terrible, terrible, just kind of things that were kind of boring.

I've re-watched some Hello, Hello.

I saw an episode a couple of years ago.

Well, anytime you say a couple of years ago, it's now about five or so.

2005.

Yeah, absolutely.

Pre-pandemic, had some years.

And I laughed again.

Yeah, is it okay?

Yeah, it was all the candle, the handle and the gato from the Chateau, which contains the picture of the fallen Madonna with the big boobies.

Yeah.

And I laughed.

That caught me off guard.

And I did just watch all of that stuff.

I guess because there was no choice and Heidi High and all that sort of thing.

Yeah.

I remember feeling like this is when Heidi High is really starting to lose it now.

It's not the high bar that it was at the start.

I've worked with Sue Pollard.

She's a very nice woman, but only if the sound works.

I remember my nan really liked Allo Allo.

And I'm going to say late eighties, early nineties, I took her as a treat to see Allo Allo live at the London Palladium.

I saw a live show of it.

And everyone was in it.

It was all the originals.

And it was very funny.

I just wonder how it would have aged, how all the gags and the sexism and I guess it's not racist.

I mean, you're doing a funny French accent.

I guess that's one of the accents we're still allowed to do somewhere for.

It Ain't Half Hot Mum felt a bit iffy at the time even and there was but I was at a comedy event run by BCG Pro in the and back in May and there was a guy in the pub afterwards who was bemoaning the fact that we couldn't make it ain't half hot mum anymore.

But you get actual Indians.

Yeah, this is true.

Yeah, but yeah, it would be just don't need to black out anymore.

No, this is right.

This is right, but it is sort of survived because of Windsor Davis is is a that personality.

Yeah, yeah, and the Dom Dewey's.

He was he this short guy with the hat and he was always playing either Saturday job in a shoe shop later on and he kept singing his songs.

He's coming to sell an album in shopping centers quite a lot.

Don Estelle.

You've just reminded me.

Don Estelle.

Yeah, I met him in Peterborough, Woolworth's selling his album when I was about 14.

I remember the period of time I would say.

Don Estelle.

Oh, man, you just give me that name out of nowhere.

Yeah, no, that's the one.

Not Dom Dewey's.

I don't have that coming.

Don Estelle.

Yeah, I remember him.

Yeah, that's hilarious.

Did he have a name in it, like Lofty or something?

Was he called, did he have one of those?

Yeah, because it makes him sound like he's tall, but he's not tall.

Yeah, that's what they did.

Everything was in reverse.

And there was the, yeah, I guess they had like the first overtly gay character I think I ever saw.

What was his name?

The guy played the camp guy was always dressed up as a woman and stuff like that.

And I never saw that before.

When that guy came on, I live in my land and granddad, so I was like a generation behind his viewpoint in my lounge.

And my granddad would say very awful things about that character, as you could imagine.

60 year old man in the 70s would be saying, Melvin Hayes.

Melvin Hayes, definitely the first overtly gay character I ever saw on television, 100%.

Are you being served as well?

Is that same kind of period?

Which one came first?

They were re-sharing the movie on Channel 5 or something.

That's going to be full of ass-grabbing and harassing women, I would imagine.

The hairdresser character has like five buttons undone.

It's like pretty much bare-chested, just really shirt goes all the way down.

I was at the kind of denim advert for men, the kind of 70s hairy chest thing.

More of a floral or kind of light, silky shirt.

Now you're making me think of, I'm getting them all mixed up now, Reggie Perrin, the original Reggie Perrin.

Wasn't there a character like that in Reggie Perrin as well?

Yes, yes there was.

I think there was as well.

But it was the joke, they were the butt of the joke, the problem with all of that I think.

But it ain't our fault, Mum.

And Winsor Davis did another thing, didn't he?

Never the Twain.

Never the Twain.

Yeah.

Where he was an antique seller with the other guy.

Small Bidge.

Donald Finder, that's it, yeah.

I used to watch that, I bet it was terrible if I was to watch that now.

Yeah, I remember some of these things quite fondly and I sometimes still do a kind of...

Actually, it sounds more like Colonel Cade than either of them at the moment.

But...

Well, a good thing to end on then is you are apparently, whether this is true or not, writing a sitcom, is that correct?

I've got a couple of things.

We've got something called Here Comes the Science with the same producer who did Breaking the Bank, this was the script that got me into Breaking the Bank in the first place actually.

And he's always liked it and he's got a new company now and they've been doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff with...

There's a blockbuster film made and they do those documentaries that go on the DVD release or two, but they're trying to make original content, so he's trying to sell that.

And I'm working on another script with a writer, Alia Solomon, which my agent really loves and we're hoping to get that out ASAP, really.

Is it comedy or a drama?

It's comedy.

It's something we kind of collaborate on together.

I feel like I'm being a bit mysterious.

Oh, it's okay.

You don't have to give it too much away if you don't want to.

I don't really want to say too much about that at the moment.

That's fine.

No worries.

It's kind of quite a simple premise, but quite a different kind of world.

And I'm really excited about that one.

It's sort of mainstream in a way.

It got turned down by Channel 4 and they said, we really like it, but it's probably more in that sort of ghost BBC one kind of thing.

So yeah, some of that ghost action.

Absolutely.

But the other one is, it's all new.

So I'm, yeah, and I feel really good about it.

And having a co-writer as well, you can put extra excitement, you can make each other excited.

I'm looking forward to that getting out there.

But then there is the possibility of you've got to stick your neck out.

There may be rejections.

And that's always a lot of stuff I really like turns out to be like pet projects that people had on the back burner for decades.

Yeah, finally get to do so, you know, good luck with that.

I hope that works out for you.

So great.

So we've already talked about your upcoming projects, so we don't need to plug anything.

So I need to do is say thank you, Steve, for coming on to Television Times podcast.

This episode will be out just for your benefit in August.

I know you're going to say at half past three today.

So you're not editing it live, you know, like our neighbors.

Actually, thank you for coming on.

I really appreciate it, especially since we have never met.

You're my first unmet guest.

Is that words?

Is that how you write words?

You're right.

Those words could work.

Unmet.

I mean, they sort of have.

Unmet man.

You're first unmet man.

Unmet man.

Makes me sound slightly mafia.

I haven't been met yet.

I want to be a met man.

Thanks, Steve.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

I'll stop the recording now.

Cheers.

Thanks for watching.

And that was Steve Keyworth there.

What a great guest.

Fun guy, right?

Who knew writers could be funny?

He's a funny writer, funny man.

He came up with a lot of good gags in that, I thought.

I really enjoyed that chat to him, considering he is, as we said, an unmet man.

So the song I've got for you today is called The Dogs of New Orleans.

It's from the album We Are Animals from 2006, recorded in Japan.

I wrote this one as a direct sort of response to Hurricane Katrina in 2004.

And yeah, I just love this fucking song.

It's really short, it's really quick.

It just gets to the point, a couple of choruses, bit of a banging vocal and yeah, it's over in seconds.

A bit like many things in life.

I would like you to tell me if you like this one because a lot of people tell me it's their favorite track of mine.

That's why I'm popping it on here now for all of you before it gets remastered properly at some point in the future.

Okay, here it is, The Dogs of New Orleans.

Quite a lot of dogs were left roaming the streets of New Orleans and died during that period.

Bit dark, isn't it?

Bit dark, a lot of people too, of course.

I'm just taking that one point to write a song about.

It wasn't really about dogs though, was it?

You can work that out.

OK, guys, I hope you liked that.

I don't sound like a YouTuber.

OK, guys, I hope you liked this episode.

This week, please come back next week for more.

Much if I talk like that, fuck you know.

Anyway, see you next week, guys.