One Man Went To Blog

Derren found having one ear higher than the other a boon when filming.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry….  I KNOW I said this was gonna be a weekly blog, what can I say?  I’ve just been too damn busy.  And before you say it, no, not busy getting drunk but doing actual work.  I know, I was surprised too.

So what can I tell you about the last couple of months?  Well I certainly know what I CAN’T tell you (and there’s been QUITE a lot of that) but don’t worry, it will all go into the book.  (In case you haven’t heard me tweet about my book it is gonna be called The Benidorm Diaries – working title – and I’m gonna spill all the dirt about ALL the mad, crazy, embarrassing, hilarious, sad, unbelievable and outrageous things that have happened while writing and filming this series.   I’ve written bits and pieces already but I won’t write the full thing until the show ends.  It will be pretty full on and I imagine not everyone will be happy about it but I reckon if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing properly; you all know me by now!).

So, the most memorable thing that happened in the last few weeks was our traditional Sparks BBQ.  Every year the Spanish electricians from the crew put on an amazing BBQ, this year they really excelled themselves, the grounds of the production office looked incredible, all decked out in halloween set dressing complete with cobwebs, pumpkins, ghosts and clock work crawling spiders! The food was delicious, the sangria strong and the firework display at the end was awesome.  How these guys work a 12-13 hour day (and I mean REAL work, not sitting on their arses watching a monitor all day like me) then have the time to organise and put on all this is beyond me.  After the BBQ we screened the Benidorm Xmas Special on a big projector.  I’m not being immodest when I write this (because the show is not just my script, it’s EVERYONE pulling together, cast, crew, production, etc) but it was amazing.  I think this is the best episode of Benidorm we’ve ever made.  It’s very hard to tell and you may disagree when you see it but I doubt you’ll see anything as funny, entertaining, moving and CHRISTMASSY this holiday period.  Everyone did a great job and I’m so proud of them.

During the editing process of the Special the director, producer, myself and several other people have to view the show.  Because we were still in Benidorm and the show was being edited in the UK we have to either download episode parts or get the office to download it from an ftp site (no, I don’t rally know what that means either) and transfer it onto our laptop via a usb memory stick (this is starting to sound like an episode of Star Trek).  Well, I don’t know how much of this I’m allowed to tell you about this but a few weeks ago Tiger Aspect were informed that someone had obtained a copy of the Benidorm Christmas Special and they wanted money for it’s safe return.  I’ve heard of people being held to ransom but TV shows?  When this person was asked how they obtained the show they said they “found a USB stick with it on”.  ”We watched it, Su Pollard is in it”, they declared, as if this was cast iron proof they had the show.  The news of Su being in town had been in every newspaper in Benidorm plus she’d been on several TV shows in the UK talking about her appearance so that proved nothing.  But we had to take the threat seriously, not  only did we not want copies of the show on the internet the version of the show (if they had it) was nowhere near the final cut, we didn’t want the show not only being ruined but also being shown in an unfinished state.  Now as I say, I don’t think I’m allowed to go into details about this but an amount of money was agreed, a meeting was set up and a member of the production team and myself sat waiting for the call to tell us where the exchange was to take place.  We waited… and waited… and then….   Actually I think I’m gonna save this for my book; it’s too good to waste here!

So, the weeks roll on and more and more hilarious and brilliant guest stars come to this crazy town to visit us and appear in the show.  Banarama were here last week and as you’ll know if you follow @BenidormTweets on Twitter, they were fantastic.  I think there’s is my favourite episode of the 4th series.  Although in saying that we haven’t finished yet, we’ve still got another 3 weeks to go.  Speaking (or typing) of which I’d better go and rewrite a of joke for next week, this happens very rarely but the ITV lawyers have disallowed a Michael Jackson joke so I have to think of another one.  Oh well, it will all go in the book…