Romance...

It is Sunday morning. Me and the Missus are laid in bed discussing a mutual friend.
'Has he got a girlfriend yet?' I ask.
'Don't think so...' replies the Missus.
'That's a bit sad.'
'Yes. Good people shouldn't be lonely,' ponders the Missus in a moment of compassion, before adding: 'He'll never know what it's like to see passion turn to painful irritation and ongoing annoyance.'
'You make our relationship sound like thrush...'
'What? Putting up with an annoying cunt for long periods? I couldn't possibly comment. Cup of tea?'

Love is sometimes like this...

Fact Of The Day...

Wigan = one trophy in eight years.
Arsenal = zero trophies in eight years.

Discuss...

Found Drowned...

Me and the Missus went to the Watts Gallery just outside Guildford at the weekend.

GF Watts was a celebrated Victorian artist who worked mainly as a symbolist painter but also dabbled in social realism and sculpture and even had a few paintings that were almost impressionistic.

His second wife Mary was a potter, who was very much part of the arts and crafts movement, and the Watts Gallery with the Watts Chapel just down the road was fab.

I also saw the original of Found Drowned by GF Watts, a picture of a prostitute who committed suicide in London. I'm trying to get permission to use this painting as the key image for the project I'm working on about the Contagious Diseases Act, which will be the launch project for my new theatre company.

The company is called Public House Theatre and will be launched later this year. More details on this to follow...

All Change...

I'm moving into new territories and things are changing again.
Both at work and, more importantly, outside work.
But it's sometimes good to shake things up.

And I think I like Jay-Z. It may be a midlife crisis...

ITV Comedies…

ITV has been a wasteland for decent comedy ever since Rising Damp wowed a nation in the 1980s. Since then it’s been pretty awful fayre. Only the hit-and-miss-and-not-really-very-funny vulgar-thon Benidorm has offered any sign that comedy may yet have a life on ITV…

But recently there’s been a glut of new comedy shows on ITV with two big-profile shows and one lesser-heralded vehicle.

Vicious is the flag-bearer for the new ITV comedy renaissance. It stars Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi as two ageing gay lovers, with Frances De La Tour as their sex-mad fag hag chum. There’s also the hunky, young neighbour upstairs that the elderly trio want to ride like a Blackpool donkey.

The main gag in Vicious seems to be that the two old gays and De La Tour’s character are ‘vicious’ and catty and the laughs presumably are meant to come from the outrageous things they say to each other. But the problem with this premise is that the exchanges need to be more ‘vicious’ for this to work. And they’re not. Instead they’re gags that are so telegraphed I had time to leave the room, make a cup of tea then come back into the room and stroke the cat (not a euphemism) and beat the protagonist to the punchline before they delivered it. It’s that laboured.

Vicious is a really bizarre show. The acting talent attached is astonishing but it’s like the last 30 years of comedy have never happened and we’re in the land of comedy ‘pooftahs’… but without the genuine warmth of a John Inman in Are You Being Served. I genuinely wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a guest spot from a Black And White Minstrel. It felt that hackneyed and that dated…

The Job Lot is a sitcom set in a Job Centre with Russell Tovey as a disillusioned member of staff, Sarah Hadland of Miranda fame as his quirky, insecure and eager-to-please-and-be-accepted boss, and Jo Enright of Life’s Too Short fame as a monotonal, deskbound autocrat who takes great delight in belittling everyone around her, both staff and jobseekers.

It’s not terrible in the same way that Vicious is and there are some nice moments in it but it’s not either really funny or really clever. One scene saw Tovey quit his job then change his mind when he left the building and realised the new temp arriving for work was a stunner. The exit of Tovey’s character wasn’t painful enough or farcical enough... and the introduction of a Benny Hill soundtrack would not have surprised me at the moment he saw the new office temp. There’s a genuinely funny idea here along the lines of the BBC2 sleeper hit The Smoking Room but I’m not sure this is it.

Plebs is the third of the new ITV shows I’ve seen and it’s a sort of Inbetweeners set in Ancient Rome and it’s actually the best of the three, even though it doesn’t boast the prime-time slot of the other two shows and is tucked away at 10pm.

It’s a bit bawdy and a bit raw and not particularly subtle but the script is much sharper than the other two shows. Tom Rosenthal is also very good as the unlucky-in-love Marcus and Ryan Sampson is excellent as his put-upon slave Grumio

The distancing effect of setting it in Ancient Rome works well and allows the writers not only the chance to mine the seam of historical anachronism but it also lends the whole enterprise a certain charm along the lines of Up Pompei.

It’s the best show of the three and it deserves a wider audience. And while Vicious may be pretty poor and The Job Lot sort of OK, at least ITV is back investing in new comedy shows. So that’s good news even if the quality of the output is a bit questionable.  

Old...

I turned 44 a few weeks ago. Fortunately I'm probably in the best health of my life and have so far avoided the family triple whammy of dementia, piles and baldness that seems to strike many men in my family.

Even so, the one fate I cannot seem to avoid is joining a certain marketing demographic as, one week after my birthday, I was invited to book a cruise on some Saga-type holiday. 

I'm expecting the advertising flyers for rubber sheets, bath chairs, care homes and natural Viagra courtesy of Pele any day now. 

I couldn't be less impressed. Innit.

Thrown...

In hapkido, each belt has a separate set of skills attached and I struggled through every single set of skills I had to learn on my way to black belt. At times it was a tortuous process, probably more so for my long-suffering instructor and fellow students, and even today I still find myself making basic errors on things I should know.

The only time this didn't happen, though, was on a set of skills called Yew Sool, which are the Korean equivalent of judo throws. In doing Yew Sool, I suddenly found something I could do and understood almost automatically. Suddenly my off-balancing, timing, momentum and foot movement were all happening in the correct sequence and I could throw people bigger and heavier than me.

These skills also opened up a lot of other hapkido techniques because through understanding these skills I suddenly understood what was happening with other skills and I started to realise what I'd been doing wrong and how to correct that.

Sadly, I've recently returned to these skills after not doing them for a while and suddenly I really suck at quite a few of them. And one of them in particular, which in judo is called ashi guruma or leg wheel.

I've spent a bit of time in class on this recently and I'm really struggling to collapse my opponent by dragging his right elbow across his body to collapse his hip and knee with my left lower grip, while at the same time hook punching my right arm with my higher grip to get his shoulder turning and complete the off-balancing. 

I'm starting to sort it out but it's a salutary reminder that if you don't use it (or at least practice it) then you do lose it.

Marathon Man…

The Missus has a friend running in the 2013 London Marathon so we head into town on Sunday to offer our support.

The friend expects to be at Blackfriars Bridge by about 2pm and the Missus tells me she's wearing a blue shirt and a white cap with red shorts. So we arrive at 1.30pm and jostle to get a good spot, then duly spend the next three hours waiting in the crowd as the runners go past but fail to spot the friend.

We do, however, see everyone else and really enjoy the afternoon. We then hear we missed the friend and she's finished the race is a none-too-shoddy five hours.

Running a marathon is an extraordinary achievement and I’m well impressed with the friend for doing it. It’s one of those challenges where it’s your will against your limitations and as a martial artist I can absolutely see how this form of masochism has its own peculiar pleasure.

Another friend who runs marathons took a picture of a sign at the end of the Dublin Marathon, which read: ‘On some days you’ll feel like you can never run a marathon again, but you now have a lifetime knowing that you’ve run this one…’ 

And I buy into that. I found the whole thing quite inspiring and started making the calculations of how long it would take me to train and be able to enter one.

I explained this thought process to the Missus. She sighed and rolled her eyes. She’s clearly not a convert to the idea…

PS. It turns out the friend was actually wearing a red top with a blue cap and white shorts but somebody apparently got the information wrong. But it's probably my fault...

Happy Birthday...

Today I am 44 but the Missus is ill so it's been quite a low-key affair.

I was also at a big pool tournament yesterday, playing my final high-level, competitive games for some time, but as soon as my team was knocked out of the event, I decided to make the five-hour journey back home rather than enjoy our customary Saturday night out in Great Yarmouth.

A decade ago, such nights out were usually brilliant but also very messy affairs. And waking up in a freezing cold caravan with a raging hangover was quite simply the price you paid for letting rip when you were away on a boys weekend. But the thought of repeating that particular bit of history has become less appealing every year...

I was also talking to several of my pool-playing peers at the weekend and many were discussing families and kids and setting a good example to the younger players... and I suddenly realised it wasn't just me. We've all grown up. Even the most unlikely candidates.

We had a good run as party animals, though. And we have some crazy times to look back on. Not to mention some very successful tournaments. And they are times I'll genuinely cherish.

But waking up next to the Missus, coughing and all, this morning was well worth the very steep fare and five hours on various trains and Tubes to come home from the event a night early.

And I even did some gardening when I got home, too. And house-cleaning. And cooking. I am clearly now a domestic goddess. And a fortysomething one...

On Hating Margaret Thatcher...

I grew up in a largely working-class town in East Yorkshire in the 1980s.

For pretty much all of this time, Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of Great Britain and under her leadership I saw pretty much every industry in my home town, such as the shipyard, the docks and many light industries, close. Then the nearby mines started to shut and we slowly but surely became a country that no longer had much of any homegrown industry left.

Instead, we effectively became a fluffer for the financial services industries. Throw in the Poll Tax and the ever-increasing numbers of jobless among the working class, and it seemed like the poor were becoming even poorer.

Then I went to college in Winchester, an astonishingly wealthy Hampshire commuter town, and I realised the rich were also getting richer. The financial disparity and inequality between my northern home and my new southern base was stunning.

Her defenders always claimed Thatcher was a champion of free enterprise... but her legacy of free enterprise has left the UK with an underclass of families who have never worked and probably will never work. Her true legacy can be seen in impoverished housing estates up and down the country, in privately owned utility companies who continue to hike up prices to deliver profits for shareholders, in subsequent governments being too scared to move too far to the left after her rule effectively shifted the political landscape to the centre right for good.

For a long time, I despised Thatcher for everything she did to the UK and large numbers of its population but now she's finally dead I cannot celebrate the news.

And that's because her greatest legacy is that she demonstrated a stunning lack of compassion for the vulnerable and the poor and those most in need. And if I celebrated her death, I'd simply be proving the ruthless, uncaring, greed-is-good, I'm-alright-Jack, lack-of-compassion society she created is a lasting legacy and I've become part of it.

So I'm sorry a frail old lady who was clearly losing or had lost her mind is dead. And I hope her death offers her the type of merciful release and peace that she never allowed whole sections of society that she victimised while she was in power.

Because compassion is something we should practise every day, particularly as the barbaric acts of her successors Cameron and Osbourne continue to victimise the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. Short of riots or armed insurrection it's one of the few tools we have...

Not Good People...

I'm setting up a new theatre company to do my own small-scale plays and large-scale projects and I'm on something of a roll.

I've packed my cue away, and I'm starting to focus on my writing, and trying to sell work, as well as get an agent, and kickstart the new company... and it's exciting stuff. I've realised I can do all of this again and I'm going for it. 

This enthusiasm has also seen a very fertile period of writing with three new plays under way and the research for a large-scale project next year. 

So below is an early extract from an idea called Not Good People. It's about a group of dispossessed and disenfranchised people who kidnap a low-ranking Tory MP. His Tory MP wife is determined to get him back - but then has second thoughts when her star starts to rise on the back of public sympathy for him...

The following scene is early on in the play and features two of the kidnappers with the kidnapped MP tied to a chair.

*****************************************************

SCENE

An abandoned warehouse. Rabies is sharpening a knife. Fletcher is tied to a chair. He is also blindfolded.

RABIES

This was my grandad’s knife. Took it when he used to go hunting… I say hunting. It was poaching if I’m talking right. Loved his little ‘hunting’ trips. Started taking me when I was a teenager and I loved them, too. I was his lookout, then when me little brother joined us, he was lookout and I was promoted to… don’t know what you’d call it… assistant poacher. Is that a proper title? But we were a good team and we used to catch plenty of rabbits. In tough times we’d sometimes pay a local farmer a sneak visit and have a few of his chickens. Once we even caught a baby deer. I say we caught it… in truth it was caught in somebody else’s trap and in a lot of pain. Me and my brother wanted to free it, but Grandad said it’d be kinder to kill it outright than free it and let it die slowly. Deer knew what was coming but it must’ve realised it was better than what it was suffering. It just lay there and let Grandad kill it. And he did. He took this knife and slit its throat. Quickly and silently. Legs kicked for a bit but then it just went limp. And that was that. Every time I see a deer now, I always think of that. How something so beautiful and full of life and grace, I suppose, ended up messy and bloody and in pain. Just because some greedy fucker wanted something bigger and better than rabbits or chickens for themselves…

Enter Blake.

BLAKE

What are you doing?

RABIES

I’m gonna slice and dice this fuck animal.

BLAKE

Are you really?

RABIES

No. Just fucking with him…

BLAKE

Why?

RABIES

Well he’s a cunt, innit?

BLAKE

‘A cunt, innit?’

RABIES

Yeah.

BLAKE

And do you know what a cunt is?

RABIES

It’s… well… it’s… lady parts.

BLAKE

And is that the best description you can come up with? ‘Lady parts’?

RABIES

I’m not good with words…

BLAKE

Shall I help?

RABIES

You pissed?

BLAKE

In your extensive experience are ‘lady parts’ horrible things?

RABIES

Fuck… No!

BLAKE

Yet you use the term as an insult? 

RABIES

I’m riffing. It’s just a fucking word.

BLAKE

There’s no such thing as ‘just a fucking word’. Words have power. The reason he got where he got and you got where you got is because he understands and commands the words and you don’t. Do you get that? Do you see it? So think of all the things that ‘lady parts’ mean. Go on…

RABIES

Fucking…

BLAKE

Yes.

RABIES

Babies…

BLAKE

Very good…

RABIES

More fucking…

BLAKE

And those are good things?

RABIES

Yeah… They’re brilliant.

BLAKE

Is he brilliant?

RABIES

No…

BLAKE

So what should you never ever call people like him?

RABIES

A cunt?

BLAKE

Because?

RABIES

They’re brilliant and he’s not.

BLAKE

So come on… What can we call him? Be more accurate… Give me an alternative…

Pause. Rabies thinks.

RABIES

He’s a non-cunt.

BLAKE

Just apologise to our guest…

Rabies approaches Fletcher.

RABIES

I’m sorry. You non-cunt.

BLAKE

On your way. I’m on watch now.

Rabies exits. Blake approaches Fletcher.

BLAKE

My apologies, Mr Fletcher. I don’t think he would kill you. Unless he was provoked. He’s actually quite soft-hearted. Don’t make that mistake about me, though. I’ll stick a bullet through your skull at a second’s notice if I think you’re planning any form of escape or if you become any form of threat or annoyance to me or mine. You understand that?

Fletcher nods.

BLAKE

Good. It’s important we understand one another. Clarity in communication and understanding the reasons behind that communication is one of the key areas I believe we need to address in the new Albion. No more of this double-speak and deliberate obfuscation. Words will mean what they are meant to mean and not bent out of shape. (Laughs) ‘Non-cunt’! It’s the most accurate term I’ve come across. I may adopt it…

CUT TO

Ancient Egypt: Life And Death In The Valley Of The Kings…

Sometimes telly isn’t always a horrendous pile of lowest-common denominator shite…

You know, the sort of lowest-common denominator shite that makes you want to reach for the nearest sharp implement to gouge your eyes out so your visual receptors never again have to be sullied by certain sights… certain sights such as some Big Brother contestant shoving a wine bottle up her chuff, or any TV game show fronted by Noel Edmunds, or Loose Women, or any storyline involving gangs of stage-school-children-acting-as-feral-youths in EastEnders. To nutshell it, the sort of stuff that makes you just want to give up…

To counter-balance the deluge of horrendous shows such as the above, though, there are times TV can produce something that elevates the viewing experience into something entertaining and educational and visually stunning.

Ancient Egypt: Life And Death In The Valley Of The Kings on BBC2 is a case in point. It’s essentially an examination of everyday life in Ancient Egypt 3,500 years ago and it’s fronted by the eminently likeable Egyptologist Dr Joann Fletcher, an academic with a strong Yorkshire accent and slightly mad red hair. And she’s simply besotted by her subject and it’s a fascination and enthusiasm that comes across in every frame.

In episode one, there’s a wonderful moment where she gets exclusive access to a tomb in the Valley of the Kings and, amid the examinations and theorising, she just turns away from the camera and bursts into tears at the sheer beauty and intimacy of what she’s seeing.

Telly-crying has become something of a hackneyed ratings-seeking money shot in recent years, with all manner of minor crises in any number of reality-based shows or talent contests stage-managing the waterworks when interest flags. Sigh… But with Fletcher, it was a genuine moment of intimacy and you forget that TV can still create moments like that. There was something quite pure and heart-warming about it.

The Missus is obviously hooked as it’s about Ancient Egypt, but I’ll be joining her on the couch for the other episode in this two-part series. It’s superior telly.

TV Pitches: No.1...

The show is called Pope Idol and it's a talent show where the winning cardinal gets a contract to spread Aids around the world by denying poor people the right to contraception...

Plus points: It's topical and it could have a very large Catholic audience.

Minus points: Lots of poor people die thanks to zealotry and out-dated religious practices.

ITV are interested...

News From Home...

Mother and Stepdad have just visited Brooks Towers and we've spent most of the time chilling at home with the odd trip out for food and shopping and pubs. It was pretty brilliant and we had a ball, then my brother and sister and their other halves also paid a surprise visit when we were out having a meal for Mum's birthday. It was just a really good time.

Two excellent contributions towards the weekend's discussion also came from my mother. The first of these came when we were discussing a cousin, whose vibrant sexual history is the stuff of family legend. Mother commented:
'Well if that bugger's not got Aids, it can't exist!'

The second came when we discussing a family friend, whose somewhat colourful sexual history is also the stuff of family legend. Mother commented:
'He's doing website dating. I'm surprised there's any bugger left on that Internet.'

Both lines will feature in something I write over the next few weeks...

Pool: Game Over...

At the weekend I played my final county pool match for a while at the National Inter-county Finals in Great Yarmouth.

The weekend started with the trials for the England Pool Team, which I'd qualified for after finishing in the top seven of all the county players in the south-east of England. I've had two England trials before and at one I totally bombed out while at the other I almost made the team. But these were more than a decade ago when I was a much better player. In truth, I was just delighted to roll back the years and make the trials for a third time on the back of a very good season last year.

At the trials themselves, I was flawless in my opening game and won 3-0, then had a tough draw in my second game against a friend of mine, who's a very talented young player. I lost this 1-3 and apart from playing one very poor shot I didn't do a huge amount wrong. In truth, he was just more clinical and aggressive than I was and he deserved the victory with two top-drawer clearances.

In my third match, I missed a half-chance in the opening frame, then battled from a losing position to put myself in front in the second. I then played an awful shot that cost me the frame and I didn't get a shot in the third frame as I went down 0-3.

In my fourth match, I played somebody who's one of the best amateurs in the UK and won a tight first frame then narrowly lost a tight second. At 1-1 he then broke and cleared up, and at 1-2 down I broke and watched the white kick in off three balls to give him control of the table and watched him finish the game to put me out 1-3.

I had a tough draw, I was a little unlucky and I only played three bad shots in the 12 frames I got any sort of shot in. But the truth of the matter is that's all it takes at that sort of level and I wasn't match-sharp enough or anywhere near aggressive enough on the day.

In the team event, I struggled for fluency and missed good chances to get myself up and running. The team played pretty well in patches, though, and two or three of our players were exceptional so we did pretty well. There are worse places to bow out of county pool for a while than on the back of an England trial and losing in the semi-finals of a national tournament on a Sunday morning.

But my county odyssey's been fun and the good days and the successes make the bad days bearable. And three regional A Team titles, one regional B Team title, three England trials, one national title and the county record for the largest number of A Team appearances is not a bad haul from 15 years as a Surrey county player.

The real joy of it all, though, isn't the trophies or the victories. It's the fellow cue men and cue women you befriend on the way. I've met several of my best friends because of playing pool and I'm part of a network of such a diverse bunch of people up and down the UK, most of who I'd always happily have a few pints with. That's always been the best thing about it from my point of view.

And in a year or two when the batteries are recharged and I've made inroads into the other things I want to do, I may be back. Who knows? There's maybe another title or two or another England trial left in the locker yet. And 600 county A Team frames would be a better record than my current 527...

Positional Play...

One of the most basic things to master when you're playing pool is positional play but this basic concept can be an elusive and tricky one.

If you have any form of several-ball clearance on the table then you can have one sequence of potting the balls where the white will travel all over the place and another where the white will barely travel at all. The latter option is obviously the safest option because you have less chance of going in-off or of the white knocking into something else and deviating off path. You obviously have to leave yourself alternative options but the main thing is you have a definite plan and a fixed route, then if you deviate from that plan you always know what route you need to return to at some point during the clearance.

It's also a similar thing in martial arts: position in everything, whether you're applying a wrist lock in hapkido, a one-two combination in boxing or a kimura in BJJ. If you're not in the correct position in the first place then the chances are you're not going to succeed in getting the lock, connecting with the punch or tapping with the submission.

I'm currently planning a few radical changes in both my professional and my artistic lives and I'm bearing in mind these lessons about position: go too early and the position will not yet be established, go too late and I may have missed the boat. I'm consequently using the theory of position to get the timing just right.

So the next six months is now going to be about positioning myself and making sure the cornerstones of my new three-year plan are all in place because, quite frankly, it's time to shit or get off the pot with a few ventures and other ideas I've been kicking around.

It's potentially excitingtimes.com at Brooks Towers...

Objects of Desire...

It's been a tough day at work with a very tough martial arts class along the way. So I leave work early and go home for a soak in the bath because a soak in the bath is what you do when you're middle-aged and aching.

The Missus comes home while I am mid-soak and we share news and events from our respective days before I get out of the bath to dry myself.

I come out of the bath wrapped in a towel and the Missus is in the hallway. So I drop the towel and adopt a 'sexy' pose and catch her eye.
'You own all this...' I state as I display my wares.

There is a look of slight disappointment. Her usual objects of desire are black athletes such as Dwayne Chambers or singers like Jimmy Cliff or mixed martial artists such as Anderson Silva. By comparison I am, perhaps, a poor substitute in terms of athleticism, muscle definition and coolness.

'Do I have a receipt?' she asks.
'Why? Do you want a different model?' I inquire.
'No. I just may want it in a different colour...'

This is how love sometimes works.

Pool: The Final Frontier: Part II...

I was supposed to be retiring from playing pool at the end of last season but my interleague team and my county team qualified for the final knockout stages of two national tournaments. I also qualified for the trials for the England team, too, so after seven weeks of not picking up a cue I'm back on the practice table putting in the hours for a last hurrah. For a while at least...

Forcing myself to go out to do something I've always loved doing is probably a sign that I've chosen to have a break at just the right time, but I am enjoying the discipline of timing my run to the tournaments so I'm hitting peak form at just the right time. So a few recent sessions on the pool table and some improved form, then a snooker session with a 46 and a 66 break thrown in are all good signs with two weeks and plenty more table time to go.

The idea of not playing pool has opened up lots of exciting possibilities and it means I'll be able to commit more time to my writing and my martial arts training and the theatre company I'm now back working with. The prospect of time freed up by not playing pool and not having to practice for matches and tournaments is quite invigorating.

I miss the people, though, and when the opening county match of the season was held last weekend it felt very strange not to be part of it. But I think that will get easier.

Message For: The Readthrough...

It's now two and a bit weeks since the rehearsed reading of Message For and I've had the chance to think it through and assess it away from the immediate emotional attachment I have of a play that I not only wrote but also directed. So here are some thoughts...

i) It's the first time I've directed anything in about 12 years and working with a fully professional cast was an absolute joy. Just because they've done it for a living for quite a while they bring lots to the table and also make you up your game. It was odd feeling my way back into directing and I need to be less worried about knowing what I want and asking for it. But that's a confidence thing and I won't be quite so nervous the next time. I also like the sitting down and going through the script process then getting it moving. It was like a muscle memory thing.

ii) The play works and is genuinely funny. One of the problems it may have, however, is that there are too many gags. Some of these got missed because we didn't have the time to rehearse everything adequately, but some of them also got missed because the script is too dense with gags and clever stuff and references and homages. So I need to lose some of the weaker gags and make sure the rest of the funnies don't bury the narrative or character development. And this becomes much more important when there are  lots of visual and stage business gags that weren't included in the reading.

iii) I'm finding my voice as a writer. I've been back writing for about nine years now and I feel like I'm finally starting to know what I'm doing, particularly with comedy. I know how gags work and I can reverse engineer a good funny with the best of them. I'm also learning the value of writing and rewriting and trying to be economical with words. Watching comedians I admire and seeing how they hone their craft has greatly helped with this.

The most important thing I got from this, though, is that I know I can do it and I'm more or less ready to give a real go and make this work. And apart from working with a wonderful cast, and seeing lots of friends turn up to support me and the play, and realising that I might just have something that's really good here, that's the biggest thing to come out of this reading for me.

So it's game on...

Derek...

Cards on the table. I like Ricky Gervais. I thought The Office was a superb creation and, alongside the ever-wonderful Peep Show and shows such as Father Ted and Black Books, it sets the benchmark for any new comedy series.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Extras and the podcasts kept me amused on many slow days at work. In fact, on one holiday myself, The Missus and The Boy spent several afternoons sat around a pool with our respective iPods plugged in loudly chuckling to ourselves as Gervais, Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington sort of set the world to rights. I like Gervais as a stand-up, too, and thought Life's Too Short was criminally under-appreciated, particularly with Warwick Davies showing a superb ability to do slapstick and physical comedy.

But I'm totally sold on his new show Derek. When the pilot was aired last year, Gervais came in for much criticism at writing a show about a man with learning difficulties (Derek) working in a care home. It was considered poor taste in some areas of the press and the blog-osphere. Personally, I thought it was quite touching and you could see there was the germ of an idea in there that could be brilliant.

Well I've now seen episode one and it could be the best thing he's done. Gervais is very engaging and doesn't overplay the role of Derek and Pilkington is surprisingly good as his handyman mate Duggie. The real star of the show, though, is Kerry Godliman as put-upon and caring care home manager Hannah, who in the opening episode is told she and the home are surplus to requirements and the old folk living there are going to be rehoused at other institutions.

The show's not laugh-out-funny but it's bittersweet and will probably be something that flies a bit under the TV comedy radar for lots of viewers. But it's beautifully written and takes a compassionate view of its subject, while also making something of a plea that we should value services like care homes in an age when many of the most vulnerable in society remain under attack from the Cameron government.

Give it a go. It's entertaining, rewarding and engaging TV.