Sooty at the Garrick, London

Back in November of this year, Richard Cadell asked me to do something I've never done before: write a theatre script. For Sooty. For the West End! This was scary for two reasons. One - it's the West End. And two - I've never written a proper play before. I would class myself as a TV scriptwriter, who can't bare ('bear' haha!) to have a scene more than a page long. The Oldest Life on Earth for example, (one of my films), had about 70 scenes in 30 minutes. That's some pace! The thought of penning an hour-long stage venture, (effectively, one looooooooooong long scene), didn't, ahum, 'play' to my strengths...!

I don't have a picture of Sooty at the Garrick, so here's a totally fake
one of me doing some writing. Courtesy of Ken Boyter, (left, with
a moustache.)

Only once have I attempted this kind of writing - whilst at University, as part of my degree. Luckily for me, Richard Cadell failed to research this. Admittedly it would have been tricky, given that all copies of Dislocation! Dislocation! had been burnt, with anyone directly related to the project having been hunted down and retconned. So - after a quick phone call one wet Monday afternoon, in the pub of all places, the 'scene was set' for my return to that most 'closet' and clandestine of worlds, where people start sentences with "darling...", where 'Stage Left' and 'Stage Right' are ALWAYS the wrong way round, and where 'Codding' has absolutely nothing to do with fish, (go on though - 'haddock' a guess...!)

Luckily, I wasn't alone in The Creative Process. Once again, like old times, me and that fellow from Doctor Who: A Natural History of Fear gathered around Richard's notepad in Cheltenham and told awful jokes about Mo from t'market and choux pastry, (okay - I told awful jokes.) And after eight hours, Mr C handed me a dozen pages of scribblings and officially commissioned me to tranform them into an hour-long theatre script. "Darling, thank you!"

Credit where credit's due - most of the ideas in it aren't mine. Richard normally comes to me and Wink with a rough idea of what he wants and we help him to 'flesh it out' with meat, bones and, yes, cod. I suppose my main contribution is to the dialogue, ('cracking' word jokes, yep, and bad ones), and I help to give the thing some structure and pace. Yes, this play will move, but hopefully the audience won't. Oh and there are songs too. Original songs 'what we wrote'! See you at Christmas Number One, Mr Cowell, the Facebook campaign starts here.

So, if you find yourselves anywhere near the Garrick Theatre in London this Christmas, do drop in and see our mutual teddy bear friend. There's a present for every child apparently, with Norman Barrett, (the bird man: http://sooty.wikia.com/wiki/Norman_Barrett), Father Christmas, (http://bit.ly/sLMcZs) and a surprise, (http://bit.ly/u5CIAo)!

There are more details on performance dates / times here: http://www.thesootyshow.com/live.php But for now, so long, and thanks for, umm, all the fish...