At the end of November, one very cold Sunday, I filmed a part in a TV comedy pilot that features Ian Cullen, who has starred in Z Cars and Family Affairs. I played a doctor friend of the main character who actually utters the first words in the show. I should say that although it was freezing cold and that when I turned up in the afternoon the other actors were close to death, my scenes were actually indoors, so I can’t really complain.
A few weeks ago I was asked by Jon Kerby and Paul Jones (who I worked with on Tax Cuts and respect immensly – although I’d never tell them that) to star in a short film they were going to make as part of the Smoke and Mirrors 48 hour film festival. The idea is you get given a theme for your film at 7pm on the Friday, then have till 7pm on the Sunday to write, film, edit and submit your finished film to them. The theme was ‘size’ and a great script was written by Chris Silver, which basically involved me as some weirdo bursting into a married couple’s house and competing with the husband (played by Chris) in trying to impress his wife (played by Chris’ actual girlfriend Sofia).
I won’t spoil it too much as I’ll wait until it’s online, but I had to burst in on the two of them in the shower, getting in between them ‘naked’, stuff my face with a fried breakfast which was fairly cold by the time we got to filming (and I had a hangover), and end up ‘naked’ again in their lounge.
I’ve put a couple of photos up in my photos section, and I apologise if one of them in particular makes you feel a little ill.
So usually I only post about things here when I’ve actually got a still from the film or whatever (unless it’s a gig flyer!). Having already bucked that trend by posting about this film before I’d actually filmed my part, I’m going to post about the same film again before I’ve even seen an edit. Having said that though, I’m only going to be brief here as I don’t really want to give anything away about the scene, other than the fact that I die in a fairly cool and messy way.
This shoot was a bit unsual though from my experience, as originally my scene was me performing a magic trick to 4 ‘friends’. This was then cut to 2 friends, and then on the day of the shoot when we were in position and all ready to go, one of my ‘friends’ just didn’t turn up, so the scene was then changed to just Miranda, the other actress who had turned up, and me.
It could have been a real disaster as it was freezing cold waiting for this guy, but we ended up having a great laugh nonetheless. I even improvised a fairly childish and expletive-heavy few lines about the other actor/’friend’ not turning up, which Chris the director actually decided to keep in, much to my amazement. Chris has actually written about Miranda and me in a very favourable light on his blog, for which I thank him very much. I look forward to seeing the final cut. Also, I should say thanks to Jenny for the spare jeans after mine got covered in blood. Naturally the T-shirt and suit jacket they supplied at the beginning of the filming were completely blood-free, but that’s all part of the fun!
I posted about filming this back in July 2009 but it seems that now wherever I go I see big posters of Sally Hawkins advertising upcoming film Made in Dagenham (previous working titles: Dagenham Girls and We Want Sex). As you may or may not be aware, my very moving portrayal of a West Ham supporter, shouting and jeering at Sally Hawkins, Geraldine James and others as they try and gather support for their cause, is integral to the whole story, despite my total appearance time being something in the region of a few seconds.
Anyway, unbelievably you can actually see me in the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0LF-F1QNAw
You can see me after about 1:11
What a performance.
I don’t normally post about roles I’m filming before I’ve actually done the filming. This is because I don’t have a lot to actually write about, and perhaps more importantly, I don’t have a photo or still from the shoot to make the post look more interesting and prove that I don’t just make all this stuff up.
However, in this case I thought I’d break the trend because firstly I was sick of seeing my post about my burst appendix, and secondly because the makers of the short film “scAIRcrows” (about killer scarecrows that fly) which I will be involved in, are regularly updating a blog about the whole film making process, which is an interesting read. At the time of writing, a lot of the filming has already taken place, but I’ll be doing my scene mid-September. Without giving too much away, I’m looking forward to having a good bit of dialogue before being killed in a gruesome fashion, especially since the last bit of filming I did before going under the knife for real, was also fairly blood focussed (Tax Cuts).
Check out www.scaircrows.com for more info.
On Saturday, June 12th 2010, I appeared in a rehearsed reading of FEED ME! by Mike Coleman, directed by Richard Irvine Lavery. This was part of the fourth ‘Sitcom Saturday’, conceived and organised by Alice Josephs, founder of RealDeal Theatre, a Saturday evening event presenting six new sitcoms as professionally directed and acted out script-in-hand performances. It was held at Westminster Reference Library, London, and seemed to actually go down pretty well.
I don’t mean it to sound like I didn’t think it would, but I did have to perform in a Yorkshire accent, which I thought was a recipe for disaster. Still, I would like to thank Richard for casting me in the production, Mike for not questioning his decision (well, not in front of me anyway), and all the cast for being great to work with, in particular John Patton, who gave me some very useful guidance!
In April we started work on a great independant horror/black comedy called Tax Cuts, in which I was lucky enough to be cast as Isaac, one of the main roles. Without giving too much away, I play a ‘bailiff’ type of Tax collector in a world where blood donations are mandatory. Those who fail to pay their donations on time are paid a visit by me, along with my psychotic assistant Jeremy, played by Paul Davis, who take the blood by force (Tax Cuts – get it?).
The first half of the film is in a documentary style, with interviewer Fiona (Julia Cornish) and cameraman Tom (Rob Wainwright) following Isaac and Jeremy as they go about their business. Things take a turn for the worse when we find out that Tom’s daughter Zoe (Elizabeth Lace) owes a considerable debt, which brings Tom’s wife Emily (Emma Hay) and brother Derek (Jack Dean) in to the picture, and a bit of good old fashioned bloodshed.
We finished filming on the 3rd and 4th July, so the film is now in post production. Directed by Jon Kerby with admirable assistance from a great crew, in particular Jack Dean, this was a really great project to work on, and I can’t wait to see the finished edit. I was particularly moved when I learned that they wrote me some new lines for the last filming session inspired from the way I portayed the character during the first session. A great experience. I understand the film will be entered into next year’s FrightFest festival, among others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF87uv58bAE
So having seen the previous two episodes of Lee Nelson’s Well Good Show on BBC3, and presumably got hooked, I imagine you would’ve tuned in for the third episode which was broadcast on Thursday 24th June. Some kind individual has uploaded it to Youtube, so you can check me out putting some questions to Simon Brodkin’s Jason Bent character after about 5:30.
This was shot in Greenwich in early March, and as there was a lot of timing to get right in the sketch I think we did in excess of 20 takes. I have never been more cold. Also, as my glasses were too recognisable from the previous sketch I’d been in, I was asked to remove them, but as I had no contact lenses I was essentially sightless. Professional through and through though, me.
If you happened to be watching Lee Nelson’s Well Good Show on BBC3 on Thursday 17th July, you would’ve seen the stern looking bald gentleman in the photograph above. This was a very small role I had on the General Medical Council at a hearing for Simon Brodkin’s character Dr.Bob and his serious medical misconduct trial. The man in the middle is a very nice guy called Steve Box, but I have to confess I’ve forgotten the lady’s name.
All the Dr.Bob stuff was filmed in a disused hospital in Hemel Hempstead, which meant a very early start, but was also quite spooky!
In May I filmed a small role in a short film called Fortune, directed by Alex Swinfen, which follows a guy (played by Toby Manley) as he goes through a bizarre day in which a girl he fancies (played by Fiona Ryan) invites him to dinner, despite constantly ignoring him before and seemingly being involved with the office bully. I played a waiter who interupts their meal during a pivotal scene in the protagonists realisation that all is not as it seems.
I had a great time filming the character, which the director wanted to be really rude and smarmy. In rehearsals we did a lot of improvisation where I got to dish out a lot of sarcastic and obscenity riddled remarks. Unfortunately we didn’t actually use any of it, but it was great for character development and insulting people you barely know is always good for a laugh.
In March I starred in a short film called Sheets of Paper, directed by Haitham Assem, playing a prison guard who is at first consistantly abusive to a prisoner (Martin Pirongs), but then after accidentally dropping a piece of paper in his cell during an inspection, on which he then draws a picture of me, I get all warm inside and give him a load more paper to draw on. Lovely. Also a bit gay.
We filmed on 16mm which is relatively expensive, and we only had 10 minutes worth so there was a lot of pressure to get things right in only 1 or 2 takes. Still, the film has a great look to it, and I understand it will be entered into a number of festivals. More updates when I know them!
I’ve just done a couple of days filming for Simon Bodkin’s new show, Lee Nelson’s Well Good Show which should be on BBC3 later in the year. I did a bit for his Dr Bob character, and had some lines as a journalist for his premiership footballer character, Jason Bent. Should be really funny, and hopefully I won’t be cut out!
Here’s a clip of him doing Jason Bent:
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwedcm9WPzk”]
So here’s the stop motion video for new track I Used To Be A Loner. This was, perhaps obviously, done by taking loads of photos in Matt’s kitchen. If you happened to catch on to the very low-key update when this was first uploaded, you may have seen a little bit more of me than you would’ve liked in one scene, so we re-uploaded it with a bit of extra blurring.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the song which we’ll be releasing (as the full version, this is an edit) some time in the new year. It’s obviously a bit of a departure from our previous output, but we’re just crazy like that. Matt wrote this one; I just did the crappy keyboard stuff that comes in later in the full version. Oh, and my beautiful voice of course.
The other day I played the part of a West Ham supporter in a film set in 1968 called Dagenham Girls (although on imdb it appears to be called We Want Sex), directed by Nigel Cole who did Calender Girls.
Film being the way it is, with seemingly infinate numbers of takes at different angles, the other supporters and I were on set for about 10 hours to complete 2 scenes. We had a great laugh though, and there are some very familar actors and actresses in the film, one of which was kind of freaking me out as he got into character before each take by ranting to himself mere feet from where I was standing.
Anyway, I pray that some editor doesn’t watch it back and say something like No, that ginger wig looks ridiculous. Cut him out.