Derren Litten

More intensive writing today, really loving the fact that I'm making a living from being a writer; it's weird, I can't say this was never a dream of mine as I never thought for one moment it could happen. I know the vision I have for my series 'Benidorm' may be not quite be what we end up with but I'm certainly going to make every effort to make the show the end result is as near to my initial idea as possible. A script goes through many different people after the writer, the art designer, the actors, the director, the editor, everyone has their own interpretation and their own input which goes to towards how a show finally turns out. As I look back on The Catherine Tate Show some sketches I wrote were nothing like I imagined they would be, sometimes for better, a few times for worse. Occasionally characters I created surprised the hell out of me due to their popularity, a couple of times the end results really made me laugh when I had initially thought they were just 'fillers' and going to be a bit of an embarrassment. One of the many characters I came up with for the show was Derek Faye (and his long time companion Leonard Mincing), it took a while to convince Catherine that her playing a man would work but what we ended up with was, in my opinion, a great collaboration of funny scripts, incredible make up and brilliant acting. I was even more pleased to hear of some extra publicity for the show today when a complaint to the BBC about the character of Derek being homophobic was rejected by BBC governors. http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/June06/gay05062.php . You can't please all the people all the time but with over 5million viewers (a record for BBC2) for the Christmas Special last year I think we must have done some things right.

So, back to the writing now; as I near the end of this current episode my crap three finger typing can't keep up with the dialogue in my head… I've never been this excited about acting, maybe that's because I've never really had a good part to get my teeth into? The obvious answer, of course, is to write a part for myself in a show. Too late for the series I'm writing now, maybe the next show? What am I talking about "the next show"?! Let's see what happens with this one first….

Sunday 4th: Just heard a song on the radio and found it on the web; I think it's amazing. Father and Daughter by Paul Simon (just ordered the new album it comes from, "Surprise"). The lyrics, from a father to his daughter, are beautiful...

"I believe the light that shines on you will shine on you forever
And though I can't guarantee there's nothing scary hiding under your bed
I'm gonna stand guard like a postcard of a golden retriever
And never leave 'til I leave you with a sweet dream in your head.

...there could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you".

Listen to it here; track 11.