June 2024 - Rik Mayall, Panglobal Phenomenon

In 2004, Rik Mayall was commissioned by Harper Collins to write an autobiography. Given Rik's towering achievements in film and TV and the drama surrounding a serious quad bike accident in 1998, a memoir by Rik Mayall would be a sure-fire best seller.

There was only one problem. Rik really didn’t want to write an autobiography.

With co-writer Max Kinnings, Rik submitted Bigger Than Hitler, Better Than Christ - a memoir by THE Rik Mayall, a monstrous egomaniac, keen to tell his absurd, self-aggrandizing life-story about how he'd waged a 30 year war on showbusiness.

Rik’s method of writing involved “jamming”, improvising in front of  constantly rolling dictaphone - and it’s these recordings which form the backbone of Rik Mayall, Panglobal Phenomenon.

Presented by Max himself, I've produced this show for BBC Radio 4's Archive On 4 slot, and it has been the screensaver inside my brain for months now. It features interviews with Ben Elton, Helen Lederer, Peter Richardson, Bob Baldwin, Sanjeev Kohli as well as publisher, Trevor Dolby, and Rik's children - who help provide context to the audio (and correct a few errors on the way!) I've produced it for Mighty Bunny productions with Simon Nicholls as exec producer and archive restoration by Andy Goddard - who has thrown absolutely everything at these 20 year old dictaphone recordings. The show is on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 1st June at 8pm and will be on BBC Sounds afterwards.

Also available on BBC Sounds (and part of the same Archive On 4 strand) is Gareth Gwynn Hasn't Fin-, a documentary about unfinished and abandoned projects. Covering everything from the Beach Boys Smile to the Sagrada Familia, and an awful lot in between, it attempts deal with some of the reasons things might fall by the wayside - but also why we're so fascinated by the stories of things that fail. 

The press release I wasn't allowed to use is here and the photos that got rejected by the BBC Sounds photo editor are here - and the whole thing was the subject to a suitably incomplete review in the Radio Times (left).

May 2024 - Gareth Gwynn Hasn't Fin-

Hey Jess, for the full show description on BBC Sounds, can we just take a few paras from the pitch doc and give them a tweak? I'll copy and paste some bits below…

Gareth Gwynn presents an exploration into all things uncompleted.  Books, films, TV shows, songs, albums, sonatas, painting, technologies, business plans, building projects - anything where the creator has (through their own choice or not) jacked the whole thing in. CHECK WE STILL DO A BUILDING IN THE FINISHED EDIT

They say “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – but by Gareth’s maths, that leaves 2,111,199 steps which could be your last – and those are the ones he’s interested in. I THINK IM GOING TO USE THE STEPS THING IN THE SHOW SO REPLACE??

This show (which, it will become apparent, is far from finished itself - ARE WE STILL DOING THIS? SOUNDS SHIT WHEN YOU READ IT LIKE THAT) is an attempt to look failure in the eye - and discover exactly what’s going on when someone calls it quits. Each of the programme’s five (THREE ? IS IT THREE NOW?) sections explores a different reason or motivation for a creative work being unfinished - from the DELETE THIS. SAY WHAT'S IN IT. SMILE, LORRAINE HANSBERRY, JERRY LEWIS, KEITH HARING ,ROBIN OF SHERWOOD ETC- AND WE INTERVIEW ANGELA BARNES, JAE BRODERICK KIRSTIN WONG, JASON HAZELEY, BARNABY EATON-JONES, CHRIS KENDALL ETCETC

We'll find out what having a lumpen, half-finished piece of work on a CV really means for an artist - and for their audience. Do those fans chomping at the bit for some long lost album really want to hear it? Is sub-par than nothing? And, for the artist, what does it take to walk-away? What does it do to the creator’s mind to leave it there? What’s the psychological toil of an unfinished project on your next artistic adventure?

IS THAT ENOUGH TO GO ON? LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED MORE.

 

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(So, I got told I wasn't allowed to use the above as the official write-up on the BBC webpage so it has ended up here. Same goes for the image at the top, which was turned down for all sorts of reasons! You can head to the BBC page to see what we did get away with).