I went to a New Producers’ Alliance lecture in the hope of doing some networking. It was in the Tea Building in Shoreditch – presumably so named because they used to make a certain caffeinated beverage there. It still has a factory feel to it, and the NPA were in the process of moving offices, which meant the place was a mess and smelt strongly of paint.
The lecture was supposed to be on how a script changes when it goes into production, but in fact it was just the two speakers – the director of Scenes of a Sexual Nature and one of the exec producers from Robin Hood – talking about their experiences of writing stuff and getting it made. It was quite interesting, but given the nature of the building, the lack of a tea break was particularly inexcusable and unfortunately meant there wasn’t really any chance to network.
I came home and called star of stage and screen AJ Nicol, best known to you lot (I hope) as Dante from Soul Searcher and – for those of you with particularly long memories – as the terrorist Ford from The Beacon. AJ has kindly agreed to choreograph the fighting for the Wooden Swordsman promo/pilot. We talked about Highlander and Pirates of the Caribbean. Obviously.
On Thursday Ian and I meet some of the potential Swordsman builders.
And as a coda to my recent entry about Lee & Herring’s This Morning With Richard Not Judy, I saw Stewart Lee whilst I was filming for the Theatre Channel at the press night for The Little Shop of Horrors last week. I reminded him who I was and he replied in that slightly sarcastic way of his, “Well I’m glad to see it’s propelled you into filming things in a professional capacity.” And then I got off the bus – ah! (Or something that actually makes sense.)