Cemetery Junction

I saw Cemetery Junction last night; what a disappointment. The plot trudges it’s way through without anything ever really happening, subplots that you never fully care about and Christian Cooke unable to salvage anything from his poorly written and boring main character.

The script seems to halt mid-way through, we slowly see the characters develop and learn about their issues with living in Cemetery Junction (which is pretty clean and spotless despite the characters insistence that it’s actually a dump) and then they suddenly change. Freddie out-of-the-blue decides that he wants to leave, despite being so certain that he wanted a white-collar job to make a success of himself. There’s no sense that he has been battling between this decision throughout the film, it just happens behind an orgy of 70s music.

The film could have been saved if more emphasis was placed on Bruce Pearson, the rebel without a cause James Dean wannabe. Tom Hughes plays the character well as an angst-ridden, fist-fighting, leather jacketed youth. To me he was the obvious choice as lead; a character needs to have character!

People will surely question how long Gervais and Merchant can survive on the same formula. All the films comedy characters sound like re-hashes of their podcasts and gags from Extras. I don’t believe in the characters, instead I feel as if I’m watching Ricky Gervais in costume bellowing racist or homophobic jokes just for the sake of it. I find them funny, but they have set such high standards that I just want a little more!

It’s easy for me to criticise but I’m sure that their script is damn better than anything that I’ve written so far!

It's been a while

I haven't written for a while, I've been busy working on a radio drama which is now completed and has been sent out. Overall I'm happy with the script, it has elements of dark comedy and the humour adds to the menace. Some of the scenes are probably an acquired taste and won't suit everyone, but you never can.

After watching the new epsiode of Doctor Who I firmly believe that Steven Moffatt is the best screenwriter in the country. To introduce a new Doctor, new companion, new TARDIS and completely overhaul the series and then keep an engaging story underneath all of that takes some skill. It didn't feel as limp as first episodes sometimes can, I didn't know the new Doctor going in, but it only took a few minutes for me to feel comfortable with him. He is a great, great writer and Matt Smith looks promising as the Doctor.

I have now started on a new radio drama, in fact I've started on three! I am going to focus on one in particular, it's extremely dark and is actually quite difficult to write, nevertheless I think it makes a good point, especially concerning how difficult it is to get a career going at the moment.

By the time I start my Masters in September I should have a really strong portfolio of work, I'm almost glad I was forced to take a year out; my writing has really improved already in six months.