Deep Sea Fishing

Spoke with Hugo Blick this morning, at 9.30 on the dot. It was good. Informative. We spoke about Marion and Geoff, about The Last Word Monologues, about unreliable witnesses and about how monologues are bloody difficult to get right.

He likes to think of the lie first, to think of the destination where the story is going to finish - the reveal at the end - and kind of work backwards, but he doesn't plan stories as individual threads. because he's wary that then you might be able to 'see the wires'.

Then he thinks for a long time before writing anything. A couple of weeks just thinking. Stuff will appear which is instructive to the destination of the story. He calls that Deep Sea Fishing.

Hugo specialises in 'the unreliable witness.' Take Marion and Geoff, he said Rob Brydon already had the character of Keith Barret, but what made it work was turning him into a man who's lying but who doesn't seem to know that himself because he's in such a state of denial. Then when it comes down to the audience to be the facilitators of truth by reading between the lines that's what creates the lovely tension which works with Marion and Geoff.

Of The Final Word Monologues, he was wary to have crossed into Alan Bennett territory with the Sheila Hancock one. This was a woman who was very self aware and not like the unreliable witnesses he usually writes.

He went back to type for A Bit of Private Business with Bob Hoskins and Six Days One June, weith Rhys Ifans. Both of which were fantastic, if you haven't seen them, do. Each script took about six weeks from start to finish.

That's all I can tell you really. Last night I figured out exactly how my monologue should end. So I'm going to finish it, this week hopefully.