Sooty: Fitness Funatic DVD

Please note: the DVD is from Abbey Home Media, not Skerratt Media! But Skerratt Media's CEO and, erm, sole employee, contributed to its contents...

Deary me, I'm incredibly late to this party aren't I - this DVD's been out for a while! The first batch of episodes from Sooty Series 2, and I haven't even blogged about it. Honestly, I never believe people when they say they've been too busy to write, (there's always time to do something if you really want to do it, that's what I always say!) but in this instance, it's absolutely true. Up until last Friday, I was

Love the cover of this one!

doing 7 jobs. 7! I didn't even think that were possible, not without Holly Turner's time machine / Doc Brown's flux capacitor / Hermione's time-turner at any rate. As it transpires, provided you're nifty with your temporal management, it's "totes doable, man!" At one stage I was even pre-scheduling emails to automatically go out to people at specific times, whilst I was somewhere else doing something completely unrelated. Oh how I chortled! But - you can't maintain that kind of lifestyle ad infinitum. It's insane! So I've had a long, hard look at myself and decreed "No More...!"

Hence, I now only do 6 jobs! So I can write this long overdue blog! Hello.

What to say about Sooty's Fitness Funatic DVD then? First off - it comes to you from five writers. We've got Richard Gauntlett writing the eponymous episode and Five Star Fish, followed by Wink Taylor on The Dance Competition, Matthew Corbett on Balancing Act and myself on The Early Night. The fifth writer is Richard Cadell, owner, producer, overseer, actor, puppeteer, and bringer of excellent Chinese food from his local on the corner...

Anyway, to business! I must say I'm incredibly proud of The Early Night. It is the first Sooty episode or, indeed, anything on TV ever, that I can hold my hands up and actually admit to having written solo, (just so you know who to blame!) I've always had a love and fascination with 'up all night' episodes, and this one turned out exactly as I'd imagined it. Weirdly, it's not something Sooty has ever done before, to the best of my knowledge - not as an entire episode, at least. This is surprising in a way, given that many other comedy shows have explored it, (including the great Hancock's Half Hour episode The Sleepless Night, which was the biggest inspiration for me.) Plus, I'm a complete night owl. When I was a student, my preferred time of working was between the hours of 11pm and 3am, and I love the 'other-worldly' appearance the kitchen takes on when you're in there in the small hours pouring a late night whisk-uh, I mean, cuppa...! Every little noise is heightened, and shadows can mean anything. There's great potential for mortal terror, or, indeed, comedy, and that's what was running through my head when I hit 'new document' in MS Word.

As for Balancing Act - well, I wrote the script, but not in a creative sense. Richard had an old Matthew Corbett episode on VHS and just asked me to type it up and change nothing! And why would we - it was a fabulous episode, although I've no idea what it was originally called, (maybe someone can help me with this one?) I must admit, the process was a little laborious, given that I had to pause, play, rewind, replay, pause, play, rewind, replay, pause etc. until my video player began to show signs of apostatic dissent! All at 1 o'clock in the morning as well, (my own choice - Sooty's not a slave driver!) That said, the memories are fond, and the episode includes one of my favourite lines of dialogue as well: "Matthew: 'Okay! I am going to perform a double flick flack body roll with a yashita sukaharu camicazi... or two!'" (I think this was amended into more understandable English in the final version, but it still tickles me!)

Of course, I penned a few other episodes in Series 2 as well, so I hope the rest of them arrive on DVD soon, just so I can relieve my Sky+ box of its heavy load! And when my TARDIS is in full working order, I can write a blog about them! See you in the future, faithful reader.

Or do I mean the past...?