5Live - At The End of The Day by James Quinn
Blog Post by Justine Potter - Savvy Productions
What do you get if you cross live radio with theatre, live comedy with sports, with Online TV sketches? At the end of the day........you get the chance to laugh a lot.
So what’s a girl like me doing with a sports show like this? I run a production company and I’ve been making radio drama and comedy for the BBC for 5 years, but usually with radio 4 or 3. I live, sleep, eat, breathe stories - my last few productions have been about the racism in the police, displaced refugees, and missing women. I’ve always looked on in envy at those whose love of their sport straddles passion to obsession, gives their life meaning, purpose, structure and a social life of like minded friends - it never having touched me personally - I’m not even great at exercising - snails pass me when I jog. And I had no idea that it would take me into the footballer’s dressing room with a bunch of semi-naked footballers whilst doing a pre-match filming recce.
But this show was funny - really funny. So if it worked for sports mad writer James Quinn, if it made grown football fans cry with laughter, but it also worked for people who have less than a passing interest in sports, - then clearly we could be on to a winner. Savvy Productions think so and now 5Live think so too. New Comedies can take a while to bed in and find their style and pace - but this has been tried and tested on audiences. Originally premiered at 'JB Shorts' the piece was subsequently performed and filmed at Malcolms’ before the end-of-season Bradford PA game back in April 2009. It's that recording which we used to help 'sell' the show to 5Live so FCUM fans are rightly claiming a little credit. As should the ensemble cast John Henshaw, Liam Tims, Verity Henry and Chris Hannon - as well as a few more waiting in the wings!
5 Live may not be the usual home of comedy sketch shows, but when a sports commentary comedy, comes out of 5Live’s new home in Northern England, it seemed like the rightful place. The radio drama commissioning process takes around 5 months from first idea to commission - broadcasting up to a year later. Vision and Media introduced 5 Live’s team to various companies - with a creative kicker fund to explore creative new approaches for 5Live content and 2 days after pitching, I got a call from Commissioner Jonathan Wall with a ‘YES’. 5Live I now know are a neat team, led by a “can do” attitude and never ones to say “we do it like this because that’s how it’s done” so, from an indie’s perspective it genuinely feels like anything is possible (a rarity).
At the end of the day, if it works on a live audience, if it works on radio - and if it’s based on the post match analysis of TV - then we know it has the potential to work across lots of platforms, so, with 5 Live behind us, we’ve extended the content visually and adapted the show to replicate sports TV studio shows thanks to our magic team of designers and tec staff. And if it can work for football, why not all sports? So we’re trying out a Grand National special - on the 5 Live website, BBC Sports and bbc/comedy: and we’ve got some really rather wonderful new sketches in the can, we’re busting to let loose..
“Careful......... there are kids watching”
That would suggest that working cross platform is an easy process. The fact is, dealing with multiple departments, multiple different funding streams with multiple agendas is a difficult, lengthy, complex process - even if you did know exactly who the right person to speak to in every department was and they all shared as much belief, interest in and time for the project as you should have reserved. You’ll have to learn a little bit about a 100 new technical things you never wanted to know as a creative; you’ll have to co-ordinate audio production, live production and visual content production in a dizzying bunch of formats and rarely will you find anyone who speaks the same jargon language. (I’m the in the green screen filming pic below too exhausted to stand.)
You’ll be dealing with contracts that have no template standard that no one quite understands and are probably not at a rate that will allow you to ship in a top lawyer, agents who will panic about how they best represent the interests of their client in new areas of business, different deadlines, different systems and different personalities. You’ll be friending, liking, linking, tweeting and........... and then there’s the whole actors and animals thing......I’ll stop there.
If you are concerned about your hourly rate - you may wish to wait a few years for things to change - but if you’re up for a challenge, live to expect late nights, early mornings and a real sense of satisfaction (or is that exhaustion) on completion I probably should be asking for your CV.
Thanks to the Commissioner Jonathan Wall and Interactive Editor Nigel Smith who couldn’t be more supportive and helpful - embracing new ways of working / multi platform ideas and approaches is just part of their media role, which is still incredibly unusual, a huge relief and really exciting from the perspective of a company that is keen to see how elastic the creative and media industries can be.
What next? Well right now I’m off for the final rehearsal of the live show (what a great job it is when it’s pencilled into your diary to laugh for 3 hours). After a quick technical format Skype 3-way (!) with a Polish guy from Peterborough and a Liverpudlian in Hong Kong. Must also swot up on the lives and works of all the sports personalities who are “guests” in the live show; tell me do I bow or curtsey, kiss or shake a football hero and a Grand National winner?
After that, if the audience like it we’ve got dreams of a radio show beyond the pilot, we’ve got a TV exec on board, we’ve brands chomping at the bit if it doesn’t progress long term for the BBC and an interactive application nearly ready to play with - where audiences can interact with the comedy presenters and exchange content on mobile, tablet and desktop, so At the End of the Day - there may be another outing for this brand quite soon... Though let’s get the 5 Live, live show done well first.
And the best thing for me? Well, we filmed some of the football sketches yet to be released at FCUM’s grounds - as the writer does their radio commentary and a nicer bunch of people you couldn’t hope to meet, and my husband brought the kids along to see where I was working and stay for the match - none of us have ever been before.
We’ve been to every game since as a family, my 7 year old daughter is absolutely gripped and currently learning the football chants for the next game, and …..........
“At The End of The Day it’s 11.59pm” and I’m feeling a little bit of the passion rubbing off on me.
At The End Of The Day
Sports Commentary Comedy by James Quinn
Live Comedy Theatre
Live National Radio Show on 5 Live
On Demand Online Audio
Exclusive Online Comedy Sketches www.bbc.co.uk/comedy and www.bbc.co.uk/5live
Behind the Scenes and with the fans on social networks
Twitter @attheendotheday
www.Facebook.com/AttheEndoftheDayComedy
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