Abigoliah: Hello everyone. Welcome to All British Comedy Explained. One of our special interview episodes where we talk to Andrew Gillman, the director of The Day Today.
Tom: This is another entry in my little black book of television comedy creators, which I’ve only recently realised how extensive it is. On The Guilty Feminist, we did a little series of one-offs, essentially radio pilots that we just recorded in front of our regular Guilty Feminist audience with three different writers, one of whom at least now has a career in Hollywood, Bisha K. Ali. And we thought it would be good to get an experienced comedy director in just in the afternoon before we recorded them, go through it with the cast, make sure everyone knew what they were doing, and just kind of sharpen it up. And Andrew was so good, so generous with his time, so sharp with his observations. It was a real pleasure. And I suddenly realised, oh, that’s the same Andrew Gillman that directed The Day Today.
Abigoliah: I love how as we go through this podcast, Tom, that we watch a landmark bit of television, and then two weeks later, I get a text from you being like, “I actually know a guy.” And I’m like, how does he know… He knows everyone? Tom Salinsky knows everyone in British comedy. It’s great.
Tom: Partly it’s just living to this age. But yes, I don’t guarantee to be able to pull this trick off time and time again. But it was nice to be able to do it because I hadn’t – like I said – I hadn’t picked The Day Today knowing that I knew Andrew. I just thought, this is a landmark show that we should definitely include.
Abigoliah: And he is such an interesting gentleman, and I just love his philosophy and his little pearls of wisdom. He dropped down. I found it all so inspiring. And yeah, this is one that I’m definitely going to go back. I’m going to obviously listen to them all again, but especially because my partner is a filmmaker, this is the one that I’m like, “Tom, you really gotta listen to this Andrew Gillman guy. He knows what’s up. He knows the score.” He’s great. Yeah, I loved it. I loved talking to him. Shall we get straight to it?
Abigoliah: So, Andrew, you are a fabulous director of television comedies. How did you get into directing?
Andrew: So it’s funny. I did really very badly at school and was pretty much written off at every school I ever attended. But I remember… it’s very, very, very sharp to me now. Whether it’s truth or not, I don’t know, but it’s what it is. At school, the thing I liked most was what they called English comprehension, and that was basically writing stories. And the teacher would give us a title and go, “Right, you’ve got half an hour. Write a story while I go and do something else.” And I absolutely loved that. And even to this day, writing treatments or programme ideas or even programmes themselves, if I have a title, or rather what I know it to be a way into it, then actually, I’d love to do that. And I remember sitting there in English comprehension going, “I want to tell – my job when I grow up is I want to tell stories with pictures.” And what I didn’t realise at the time, because I was 13 or 14, what that meant. I thought it probably meant being a cameraman of some description. And it’s only as I got into it that I realised what all these jobs were. And actually telling stories with pictures is pretty much what a director does. And so I started off, I left school with virtually no qualifications to speak of. I managed to get myself a low-level entry job at a company called Visnews. Visnews was an international news agency, and I worked in the microfilm records office.
Tom: Do you know what that means, Abigoliah? Have you ever used a microfilm or microfiche?
Abigoliah: I was gonna say microfiche is like what the library used to have back in the day to look–
Andrew: Yeah, it’s exactly what it is.
Abigoliah: I’m older than I look.
Andrew: And that was it. So getting those stories out, filing this, doing that in the film library, museum, library. And then I graduated to film library assistant, film librarian. Until really that just became really quite too boring. And I got the opportunity to go and work as an assistant editor in some documentaries that – and if I trace back what my opportunities have been, it’s one person has led to another person to another person. And I got a job as an assistant editor at a television commercials editing company, and I thought, “Oh, commercials, whatever.” It seems nice. It’s in the West End. When I went for the interview, the offices were warm and they had coffee, and I thought, “Oh, that’ll be great.” So I started there, not realising the significance of working for Ridley Scott and Tony Scott.
Tom: Wow.
Andrew: Because they owned the company.
Abigoliah: Just let me pick those names up off the floor, Ridley and Tony.
Andrew: I’ve got more, I’ve got more. But absolutely not understanding. And also some of the clients are – I mean, the thing about commercials directors is they’re famous in a very narrow way within the industry for their period of time. But there was Ridley, and Ridley owned the company. But Tony was in there a lot, and we were two floors above their offices. And so there was a very fluid flux between us all. And Ridley would come up and need something. Tony would come up and need something. I eventually ended up being, along with all my other assistant editor duties, in charge of the projection room. And that’s because – and I didn’t realise that I was being asked for it – it’s because I was the only one that could use it without it jittering on screen. They bought a cheap Italian projector, and in a previous job, I’d also operated the preview theatre, which had proper twin German projectors. So I had some talent in that area.
Tom: You had some magic touch.
Andrew: Literally it was. And everything was by hand. So if you held the gate, it was trembling, then you could just sort of even it out a bit, and the vibrations would be absorbed by your finger. So I had no idea that that’s the world. And that was the echelon that I was working in. I then moved on to a TV show called Network 7, which was kind of a youth current affairs entertainment programme that occupied two hours on a Sunday morning.
Tom: I watched it regularly.
Andrew: As a producer-director. I then went on to, when that finished, a show called 01 for London, which is an arts and entertainments listings programme. Now, I’m going to not take you through my entire CV, although it’s fascinating. What 01 for London gave me, which I still rely on to this day – and actually, I have to exercise some caution about – is that I shot three to four three-minute stories a week, and it was across the spread of arts and entertainment. So it could be anything from György Ligeti at the Barbican and then finishing there and having to rush over to the Royal Court to park on the double yellows outside to shoot that. I mean, literally, the across-town traffic determined how much I actually got to shoot, and we got two hours for each story to shoot something frightfully interesting that the Royal Court upstairs were doing, from walking in going – and I didn’t ever do it like this, but it’s very much like – “What have we got? What are we doing here? What can I see? What can I do? How do I package this story? Who are the interviewees?” And so I got, in three and a half years, very, very good at walking in, making an assessment, and then coming out at the end of it with something tight, meaningful, polished, that delivered what it was supposed to deliver.
And the caution that I even today raise is actually that’s no substitute for proper preparation: to sitting down, having a think about it, asking other people what they might think, and collaborating. And I think that, after that period, I had undervalued what collaboration is, and trusted collaborators. Apart from – and certainly in television comedy, believe it or not, there are some egos involved.
Tom: You don’t say.
Andrew: You’re shocked. That actually is knowing your place. Yeah. Yeah. You can get by. You can do that. How to fit in. Yeah, you can do that. But actually, that’s not kind of true balanced collaboration. So the best thing that you can be doing is sitting there and somebody says, “That’s all very interesting. What do you think?” And then you go, “I think this and that,” and you go, “Now you’ve said that, I don’t agree with you, but because you’ve said that, I now think something else. What do you think about that?” So that’s kind of where we get to with all of that.
Tom: So as you’re doing these sort of magazine-type pieces, are you hoping to be able to start doing comedy, or are you just taking the work as it comes?
Andrew: Oh, taking the work becomes planning my glittering future as a famous feature film director.
Tom: Oh, okay.
Andrew: And lots of directors, when you start out, they go, “Oh, I’ve got to do a feature. I’ve got to do a feature.” And you go, “Well, actually, that’s a hell of a jump.” And sitting here now, I go, yeah, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. You know, it’s really very difficult and it’s physically arduous and you’re highly exposed.
Abigoliah: What do you mean by exposed?
Andrew: Everything you do can be seen by everybody, and they will judge you for it.
Abigoliah: Yeah, but isn’t that the point?
Andrew: Oh, my God, I’m a narcissist. Not a kind of hurt-yourselfer, self-harming. So no, that isn’t the point. The point is you’re standing in front of invited guests who’ve paid money. You want to put on your best jacket. Not going, “All right, now there’s a little bit here that isn’t very good because we couldn’t really get it to work.”
Abigoliah: Okay, I see what you mean.
Andrew: The cringe factor in that is just terrible. So it comes from that connection. One person leads to another person leads to another person. And that was through, in part, Juliet May, who is a really, really good director, has got glittering comedy credits. And she was a co-director on 01 for London with me, and we had an informal competition. Pointless, but ever so exciting, is whose item can outdo the other. And that competition really drives me because it was done certainly competitively, but in the spirit of goading friendship. Do you understand what I mean by that? Which is, “You got me this – oh, that’s another one,” and we would beat our camera crews just to do better and better with the lighting, the ideas, the frilly bits. Whether or not the audience appreciated it – records aren’t kept to that, and I have no idea.
Juliet went on to direct with Ruby Wax, studio director, on The Full Wax, and there were some issues with the single-camera items. Ruby is an amazing person. It doesn’t matter how difficult something is, how physically awkward or inconvenient it is, she only wants the best. And some people couldn’t keep up with that. So I got brought in because I could do that sort of thing. And that was my first footstep into proper comedy. I did another series with Ruby on that as single-camera director, and my favourite – and perhaps the most famous sketch, because that’s really what it was I did for Ruby – was where she breaks into Joanna Lumley’s house.
And if you have a look at it, there are two. I prefer the first one we did, but she goes back and revisits. And that was very much my ability to make it up on the spot. Okay, what are we doing? What have we got? What is it? Okay. Can we break a window? I can get the art department. Went and got some sugar glass so Ruby could stand outside and smash them. We all climbed in through the window. And Ruby was having a snoop around and then, horror of horror, Joanna comes back. So we have to hide. So it’s well worth – it’s up there on YouTube. And it’s those connections. One thing led to another, which led to another, which led to another, which led to The Day Today.
Tom: What was your own taste in comedy? Who are your comedy heroes? What were you watching as you grew up?
Andrew: So that’s a – I often worry about going back and revisiting programmes that I loved as a child, because–
Tom: Oh, then you’ll hate this podcast.
Abigoliah: Yeah, that’s literally the premise.
Andrew: Because I’ve got an extra few decades’ worth of experience of viewing things, have moved on. Things are getting better and better. But it was very much a TV show called Do Not Adjust Your Set. And that was a foundation column for what became the Pythons. And of course, at that time you don’t realise about the Pythons. It had Eric Idle and Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and Neil Innes was in it. And also there were animation sketches by Terry Gilliam in it as well. And what I liked about it is the inventive anarchy, the slight craziness, the “If you’ve got an idea, you can do anything.” Ideas can be made real. And that’s one of the things I like: ideas can be made real.
I mean, what a business we work in. Hang on a sec. I’ve had an idea. “Oh, great. How shall we do it?” And in this current digital, modern world, that’s the democratisation of that, where almost anybody can do it now. AI, you can generate all sorts of things with AI, but is it any good? And that’s the thing. So yes, you can have a democracy. Yes, you can all do it. But is it any good? And that’s the bottom line.
I also liked – and the one I’d recommend to you is Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarns. So if you’re going to go and have a look for something – I haven’t seen it for decades, but I remember sitting at home and my father coming and going, “What the hell is going on here?” because I was laughing so much. I mean, literally I was gasping. But there again, I was a juvenile and I hadn’t had comedy experience. But it’s that.
Abigoliah: So you don’t really go back and watch stuff you used to love when you were younger. Can you go back and watch your older stuff?
Andrew: My own programmes?
Abigoliah: Yeah. Can you watch The Day Today?
Andrew: Principally, no.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Andrew: Because I’m not seeing what you’re seeing.
Abigoliah: Yeah, that’s true.
Andrew: I’m seeing it from where I stood and how I felt. So I did a series with Peter Kay which I loved, and I loved that sort of thing. And it follows the – you’ve got a half hour and you’re going to tell a really great story in half an hour. You don’t have to worry about anything else. But I remember the one where it was The Ice Cream Man Cometh. And Peter plays a number of characters – ice cream man in this one. And I remember one of the absolute strongest memories is in this terrible field. There was supposed to be this county show on. It was pissing with rain. We were all tired. We were exhausted, and walking across this soaking wet field. And then I sat down in one of those canvas director’s chairs that had a puddle in it. And Sandie Kirk, the producer, said, “Have you had enough?” And I said, “Not yet, but it’s getting close.” And of course, tomorrow’s a different day. It was sunny and I love what we do. So yeah, I love what we do.
Tom: So in the 90s, in like 1991, were you listening to any radio comedy, and in particular, had you heard On the Hour?
Andrew: So I not only heard it, but I absolutely loved it. And I bought the BBC audio cassette of it, and I was listening to it with my wife, who just walked into the room, and she got very angry because she thought it was an actual news and current affairs programme. And one of the other things that I absolutely love is we tell lies with other people’s money. And how can you make it real? And that’s a thread that connects through to The Day Today.
So I was interviewed by Chris, and in fact by Armando. And then later on, I was sent to a pub in Rathbone Street to meet Chris, who said, “What are you doing here? What’s Armando said to you?” And I thought, well, here’s my opportunity: “Chris, Armando said welcome on board. I’m here to work out what it is you want to do.” “Oh. Okay, then.” And suddenly there I was doing it.
Tom: And that was a pure blag.
Andrew: I’ve tidied that anecdote up a little bit. It’s not exactly like that.
Abigoliah: Put it in the memoir. That’s freaking great.
Andrew: The structure of that’s largely true. What they were interested in me – and they interviewed pretty much every British comedy director out there – is that I had comedy experience, but I also had commercials experience. I had documentary experience. I had TV magazine show experience. And the point I made to them about why they should choose me was that, look, The Day Today is a new show, but with the tools and magazine and different styles, I’ve done all those styles. And I think that that’s what they bought into really: the range. I’d done comedy, but I’d also done all these other things.
Tom: You sound very confident. Were you at all daunted, given how much you liked On the Hour? Did you think you might have bitten off more than you could chew, or were you just thrilled at the challenge of it?
Andrew: No, it’s that really weird – I didn’t think anything of it. It’s like, “Oh, Ridley Scott’s coming in today.” Okay, what does he want? And that’s the way – I’m not fazed by famous people, because generally they’re pretty much like the rest of us.
And certainly I’ve worked with – oh, I can give you a slight name drop here. Which one should I choose? There are so many. As I was saying to Dustin Hoffman. Actually, I can’t tell that because it’s–
Abigoliah: Oh!!
Andrew: He’s great. He was absolutely great. Yeah. Okay, let me tidy it up a little bit. So as I was saying to Dustin Hoffman, haha. We’d done this documentary and we had all sorts of famous people that were coming and doing little mini interviews for it. It was a documentary for Billy Connolly, and I’d come up with this idea that all these famous – We’d get an A2 piece of cardboard. And I said, “Look, what you’re doing is sign it in vision.” And it’s like you’re signing Billy Connolly’s autograph book.
And then it came to Dustin Hoffman, and you could feel Dustin Hoffman arriving. A bubble of energy came down the corridor. And then he walks into the room and he looks around and goes, “So what’s going on here?” And I said, “Hi, Dustin. It’s this.” And for actors, you explain: this is what we’re doing, this is how we’re going to do it. I’m going to interview you, and my questions will be removed, so please answer as statements. If I feel that your answer is going on too long, if you’ve gone off track, would you like me to wait till you finish, or would you like me to interrupt you? And mostly they all say, “Oh, interrupt, interrupt. I just go on. Just tell me. Tell me what you want me to do.”
So that all went very well, and all my new colleagues came and crowded around: “Dustin! Dustin! Dustin!” The interview went well. At the end of it I said, “And will you sign this thing?” And all the colleagues were crowding around, and he went, “Whose idea is this?” And all the colleagues walked backwards, leaving me alone. And I thought, there’s only one way out of this. And I took a step forward into Dustin’s bubble, and I said, “That was my idea, Dustin.” And he said, “It’s a terrific idea. Let’s do it.”
Abigoliah: Oh!
Andrew: And so all the colleagues then came back in again, because success has many parents. A disaster is an orphan.
Abigoliah: Of course.
Andrew: So yeah, I’m not really fazed by that. So I just thought, they’re nice people, it’s interesting, I like the show, I understand the language of the show. And they were struggling. They absolutely didn’t want to take the radio sketches and put them on TV. And so I said, “Well, what you’re really doing is you’re taking the attitude.” And Armando said, “Yeah, that’s exactly it. That’s it. We’re taking the attitude.” And then new sketches and, of course, some characters. Partridge is too good to let go, obviously. Yeah. Were carried through to The Day Today.
Abigoliah: As you so succinctly put, like as a creative person, we get to tell lies with other people’s money. Yeah. When Tom showed me The Day Today, I kept turning to him, being like, “Is this part real? Is this real?” Like all the man-on-the-street stuff, I was like, “Is that a real civilian or is that an actor? Is that – wait, is that a real thing or is that an improv?” And I’m wondering, when it came out, did viewers wonder if it was real or if any part of it was real?
Andrew: Yeah. That’s interesting. I think today there’d be ethical issues around all of that, which I think is a great shame. People aren’t stupid. Nobody’s become more sensitive in the past ten years. It’s just there’s an expectation that you’re going to be told a bit more about it.
One of the greatest compliments about The Day Today that I was given was somebody rang me up and said, “I was watching The Day Today last night, and I had to go out of the room to take a phone call. And when I came back in, I carried on laughing, not realising I’d just watched the first ten minutes of the news.”
So the people we stopped in the street were real people. They had no idea. I went out – so what’s the “letter of the law” sketch. I went out, I was given a handheld camera, I wore a puffer jacket, I got a sticker that said PRESS. Chris had a clipboard. He wore a jacket and tie. And then he’d approach people in the street. And I said to him, okay, what you’ve got to do now – because people are running away from you – is you’ve got to say, “Hello, I’m from the BBC.” And that stopped them in their tracks. They turn around and went, “Oh yes.” And so they were real. They had no idea. We took their details and I believe they were written to afterwards and their permission was got.
Kim Wilde – there’s an interview with Kim Wilde in The Day Today. And I, because of the range of things that I’ve done, I knew exactly how to do that. And we got a special background, and the lighting was lovely, there’s the makeup and everything. She had absolutely no idea that it was a terrible spoof. She has said afterwards that she was somewhat shocked to find out. But she said she absolutely loves the sketch. I think it probably took a little bit of time for her to come to terms with the fact that she’d been conned by us.
So I don’t know whether people believed it to be true. There are some things that happened during the making of it, which is another learning thing. So there’s a little throwaway story about the annual cull of elderly staff at Sandringham.
Tom: That was in one of the episodes that we watched.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I thought that was fun.
Andrew: And I can’t remember who – I think it might have been Chris – said Princess Margaret was overheard saying, “You should have seen the look on their faces. I laughed and laughed and laughed.” And basically what happened is that we got a bunch of library or news footage, and Chris looked at it and then wrote stories to it. And I can’t recall which episode that was in. Is it episode two or episode three?
Tom: Three? We watched three and six, and that was definitely one of the ones we watched.
Andrew: That was the first one that the BBC had watched.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow.
Andrew: One and two hadn’t been watched. And Armando was very, very clear: “I want this to slip out without any notice, no publicity,” etc., etc. And then by episode two, a huge furore and celebration of it, and the BBC ought to have a look at it. And they saw this sketch and they freaked out. The legal department freaked out because you could see the old people, and they said, “But you can’t say that – you can identify who they are.” So I had to go back into the edit and pixelate their faces. And really, really bizarrely, it made it seem more genuine.
Tom: Yeah. Yes.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Andrew: And I learned a lot from that. The false artefacts that make something seem more real than it is. If you can make some things apparently caught by accident, then people believe it a little bit more.
Tom: So tell us a bit more about the creation of the material and your involvement in that. Because if they are basically junking 95% of what was in the radio shows and only keeping a few characters and maybe a few premises, they’re starting essentially with a blank sheet of paper, and they have three hours of television material to come up with. So what’s the writing process like? How involved in that were you?
Andrew: Minimally. So what happened is the cast – fantastic cast – came and sat in the studio and they all talked around ideas. Armando had a whole bunch of ideas. Chris had loads and loads of ideas. And they talked it all through. Polish it, improve it.
There are probably three columns of material. One is the library footage repurposed for comedy. Location stories shot, perhaps augmented by library footage or news footage, and the studio.
So library footage augmented by comedy – that sort of takes care of itself. It’s writing and rewriting. Chris and Armando are highly adept at doing that. Chris particularly messing around with quarter-inch tape, which he couldn’t do on this. So he found that quite frustrating because the keyboard and the technologies and the screens and all that sort of thing – you can’t just walk in and do that. Whereas getting a quarter-inch tape, making a chinagraph mark on it, slicing it in the edit block and joining it together, you do that quite easily.
And so let’s take, for example – have you seen the bullying bishops? So that was a story about uncovering bullying in the Church of England. And there were things like, “Do you know what a Wendy bath is?” Because one of the priests got given a Wendy bath.
Abigoliah: What? No, I don’t know what a–
Andrew: No, it’s completely made up. It doesn’t exist. But it seems plausible, does it, if you say it in that way.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Andrew: Then actually you could end up believing almost anything I say.
Abigoliah: I totally was picturing like one of those old washbasins.
Andrew: You’ve done all the work for me. Yeah.
Abigoliah: Part of me thought I’d fake it. I was like, I don’t want to be too – yeah, I know what a – no you don’t. I’m so glad I didn’t pretend.
Andrew: I knew. So my approach to that is it’s that “caught by accident” thing. So we put up the camera angles, cut people off. You didn’t see everything clearly. And Doon Mackichan plays the presenter. And we went to a lake and things. And I used a completely exaggerated orange graduated filter which made the sky orange. Was it red? I can’t remember. It’s one of those colours. Completely over the top. Camera at a slight angle. The church had a really, really blue graduated filter on it. So it had a very, very firm and muscular visual identity. And if you do that with confidence – like saying things with confidence – nonsense becomes real.
Tom: And what about improvisation? I know that the cast have talked about using improvisation as a writing tool. Was there also improvisation on set, or was that fairly minimal?
Andrew: No. You could come up with new things. The lines were intended marks to pass through to make sure you’ve got it. Armando was there as the comedy monitor-in-chief. And they’d have – you know, it was all – they – we all knew each other, so it was very open. “Yeah, is that funny? There’s a funnier way of doing it. I prefer this.” “Okay then, how about that?”
Sometimes, and particularly when we went to studio, Armando and Chris described editing as part of the writing process, and also the order that the sketches appeared in each episode weren’t really decided until later on. There was a structural notion about it, but that was really so that Chris and Armando could prise the budget from the loose hands of the BBC. And then pretty much we were left alone to get on with it. Chris, Armando, and the cast drove the comedy. Yes, there was improvisation. Nothing was made up completely on the spot. We always went into it with an idea and knowing kind of what we were going to do.
Tom: There are some other technical challenges, aren’t there? Because you’ve got different items that feel very different. You’ve got the multi-camera television studio environment, you’re going on location, you do stuff that’s meant to look as if it’s been converted from the American standard. There’s another sketch which Abigoliah hasn’t seen, but I remember, which is supposed to look like it was shot back in the 1960s.
Andrew: So that’s Attitudes Night.
Tom: That’s the one. Yes, yes, yes.
Andrew: Yeah. So let’s talk about Attitudes Night, because I’m very proud of that. But again, that pours into my blissful ignorance. “Oh. Hi, Ridley. Yeah, yeah, a cup of tea would be nice. Thanks. No sugar?” I never did that.
Directors, often when you’re working on something, you have a phrase that you keep to yourself. And that’s – the thing is, if it’s all got a bit noisy and you go, “I don’t quite know what’s happening anymore,” you go back to that phrase and that gives you the touchstone. You go, “Oh no, I remember why we’re here now.” And my phrase, which I shared, is: “If it was real, this is how they would do it.” And that feeds from the range of things I’ve been able to do. Having started in a news film library and Attitudes Night, I said, “Look, we’ll get hold of the black-and-white tube cameras.” And that’s what we did.
Tom: So that’s not a post-production effect?
Andrew: They tried to persuade me that it was a post-production effect, but I’d been an editor for a decade. I knew that that was absolute nonsense. You go, “Oh, it’s a facsimile. I can see what they’re trying to do.” So I said, “No, we have to have these tube cameras.” It’s the BBC. Maybe they’ve got something. I understand, but because as a director you’re not involved in where things have come from. You’re just involved in: is it there to do what you need it to do on the day? It was acquired from a museum. Oh, I cannot imagine the technicalities of plugging a 525 line – or maybe even 625 – into–
Tom: 405, even.
Andrew: – or whatever it was that was being recorded. But that’s how it was done.
Tom: Was it the same with the American footage? Did you shoot that on NTSC cameras?
Andrew: No, that was shot in PAL the normal way. And what I did after it had been edited is I went to a standards conversion house where you transfer PAL to NTSC, to SECAM, and usually you pass it through a time base corrector, which neatens everything up, makes it all tidy. And I went out to the rack room with their permission. I said, “Show me the controls that make it better. Now turn it in the other direction.” And because it was supposed to be what it was supposed to be, and because the technical scrutiny on the file – so it has to pass through a quality control check – isn’t a large percentage of it, I then bounced it off to VHS and then bounced it back again. And Armando paid a great compliment because he said, “That’s great. It looks like it’s been bounced around the satellites too many times.” So it’s an intentionally destructive process. Everything people would do to make their pictures look fantastic, I went and I actually turned the dials and pushed the buttons myself to do that. “If it was real, how would it look? How would they have done it?” And the whole of The Day Today has that principle. Every single sketch has that principle.
Abigoliah: That’s beautiful. Do you have any advice to people who want to get into directing, specifically directing comedy? Your philosophy seems so strong. I’m curious. Usually I’d wait a little later in the episode to ask this, but I’m like, I need to know now.
Andrew: No, that’s fine. What you don’t – or may not have realised – is you’ve just asked – you’ve just offered me a fork. So on those tines of that fork are a number of things. So: make friends with funny comedians at the start of their career. Your iPhone is a bloody marvel. Pay particular attention to the sound, even if it means getting in extra bits of kit. People are forgiving of crappy pictures, but they’re intolerant of poor sound. Make sure there’s a lapel mic or a good mic, that the room isn’t too echoey, that actually it’s not difficult to hear what a comedian does.
Be helpful. Always say yes. Be the solution, not the problem. And strike lucky. I’ve been lucky. One person has led to another person has led to another person. I’m sure if I go back through my career, there are more than enough cringe moments when I go, “I really shouldn’t have said that. That was a bit arsey. I shouldn’t have done that. Yeah, that’s a bit embarrassing. I regret that.” But I’m not going to trip over something that I’ve already walked past. So I tend not to go back.
Make your own content in collaboration with people that you trust and trust you. Modern technology is democratising. So most young people can edit. Everybody’s got access to a high-quality digital phone you can shoot video on. Do more with the sound than the phone can do. Come up with a funny idea. And this is the secret sauce: have a critical friend that will tell you the truth. And that is very, very rare. That’s very rare.
Which is: “I’ve written this script. Tom, will you take a look and tell me what you think of it? It’s 120 pages long, Tom.”
Tom: Er, no.
Andrew: But that’s that thing. So if Tom and I were closer, Tom might say that I’ve got a friend that I can send a script to. But their judgement – I know how to filter their judgement. So it’s the critical friend who will say – and what I say when I give advice to people is – I – and one of them now says, “Please don’t say that anymore. It’s really annoying.” Which is: it’s my caveat. My caveat is: “Only my opinion.”
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Other people might disagree. You might find ten people go, “He’s a complete idiot. That’s completely wrong.” That’s fine. I give you my opinion as a gift. I don’t need anything from you. You’re free to accept or reject it. It would trouble me greatly if you acted on something I said just because I said it. I could be wrong.
Tom: Yeah, my philosophy with this – and it applies to readings of early drafts and it applies to reviews once the thing is already out there – my philosophy is: if you show enough different people the same piece of work, you will eventually get every opinion imaginable. And so the ones I listen to are either the ones where even if it’s something I hadn’t thought of, or I fundamentally disagree with it, it’s coming again and again and again from lots of independent sources, then you kind of have to listen to it. And the other, possibly more telling one, is the one where as soon as you hear it, you go, “Yeah, I know.” I thought I’d got away with that. Yeah.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. You can hide from yourself, but not all the time.
Tom: That’s right.
Andrew: A producer – really great producer – that I used to work with called Miles Ross had a number of sayings, and I hang on to some of them to this day. One of those is: when you get a specific note about a particular scene, very often the solution isn’t that scene. It’s the scene before.
Abigoliah: That’s beautiful.
Andrew: And largely true. Because if somebody says, “I don’t like this. This doesn’t work for me,” you go, “Okay, well tell me why.” “I just don’t like it. It just doesn’t work.” You go, “Okay, I can take against what you said and I could just dismiss you, but I’m not going to do that. So obviously it’s important for you.” You say, “Thank you very much, you’ve given me something useful to think about.” Go and look at the scene before. They couldn’t articulate why they didn’t like something.
Which is why some commissioning editors are dangerous because they go, “I don’t like that. Take it out.” Yeah. And depending on the nature of the commissioning editor, you can say, “Why?” “Well, I’m the commissioning editor, and I’ve told you to.” And you go, “Okay, well, it’s going to be what it’s going to be, isn’t it?” Rather than, “Let’s have a conversation about it.” So that goes back to having enough trusted collaborators.
Tom: Was there ever anything that you and Chris or Armando disagreed about? Were there debates? And presumably then as producer Armando would have the casting vote, but do you remember any disagreements? Or were you all kind of on the same page?
Andrew: The huge shouting disagreements. I tended to know my place in this. I’m not a comedian. And The Day Today was driven by the comedians. And I go, “Andrew, what do you think?” “I don’t have an opinion on this,” is a very safe place to come from. Rather than, “I’m going to side with…” Hmm, which one of you is my favourite today?
Tom: Yes.
Andrew: Yeah. Chris and Armando had vigorous disagreements. But that was none of my business. At the end of it, a decision needed to be made, and a decision would be handed down. One of them would be happy.
Abigoliah: Do you have a favourite segment or sketch from The Day Today?
Andrew: Well, there’s a thing, isn’t there? I think the thing that I’m most proud of – my favourite thing about The Day Today – is the range of visual language textures. And I think I got that bang on.
Abigoliah: Wait, explain. I mean, I think I know what that means, but it might be a window.
Andrew: The documentary looked like a documentary. News footage looked like news footage that you choose. Attitudes Night from the 1960s looked like that. The shiny-floor studio looked like the shiny-floor studio. But from a director’s ego point of view, it’s got to be War. Because I was blowing up buildings. Peter Fincham was dressed in a major’s uniform, running around in an open-top jeep. It was cold. It was crisp. I used to do a lot of dinghy sailing. I had really, really good extreme cold weather clothing. Basically it was a babygrow in fibre pile, kept all the heat in, and great gloves and a hat. Other people that had come in there from media London offices in their day clothes froze to death. And that was enormous fun.
And in the studio – so in a multi-camera studio, you’re sitting at this vast table with backlit lights, low lighting, and because you’re sitting in the big swivel chair, people will get you anything you want. Now, I have very, very simple needs, but I’ve learned over time, “No, I’m fine, thank you,” doesn’t cut it. It upsets people. So I go, “I’d like a bottle of Evian water at room temperature, please.” “It’s in the fridge.” “I’d rather it was room temperature.” Does that give them something to do?
And on The Day Today, it was the studio – we shot at Wembley Studios – and I can’t remember if she was the contact person at the studio came and said, “Is there anything you want, Andrew?” And I said, “No, no, I’m fine.” And I thought, oh no, she’s troubled by that. I said, “Yeah, I’d like a Wagon Wheel, please.” Do you know what a Wagon Wheel is?
Abigoliah: Yeah, it’s a cookie.
Andrew: A chocolate biscuit-covered marshmallow. I think about that size, in a rather nice crinkly paper. So every day we’re in the studio, after that, a Wagon Wheel was brought to me.
Tom: Andrew, have you seen the new film, Jay Kelly?
Andrew: No, I haven’t.
Tom: There’s a lovely running joke in that about the fact that the George Clooney character, Jay Kelly, who’s this ageing movie star, keeps finding slices of cheesecake. Because at one point in his past he said he liked cheesecake, and now it’s on his rider.
Andrew: I’ve seen the trailer for it. That looks like enormous fun.
Tom: Oh, it’s great. Especially as a director, I think you’d really, really like it. Yeah, yeah. And speaking of liking things – so I showed this to Abigoliah. I showed episodes three and six. On our podcast, shows that she likes go on the Shelf of Fame, and shows that don’t quite work for her end up in the bargain bin. Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I’m slightly ashamed to say, ended up in the bargain bin, but–
Abigoliah: And that’s why we couldn’t get any of them to do an interview. Because then I was like, “And will you please be on my podcast?” None of them, none of them got back to me.
Tom: But The Day Today is on the Shelf of Fame. Does that surprise you, given that it’s – now, what is it, 30 years old?
Abigoliah: I loved it. Can I just say, because I haven’t gushed. So just so you understand, like, we watch these in the afternoon, which I’m a comedian, so that’s the morning. And I was laughing so hard and thought it was so ridiculous and so fun. And it did look real. Like again, especially with the man-on-the-street, I was like, is that an actor? Is that not? And just how straight everything was played, but how ridiculous it was. Like the train that got stopped and then turns into, like, a–
Andrew: Lord of the Flies–
Abigoliah: Lord of the Flies sort of situation was so ridiculous. But also, someone who’s been stuck on a train, I’m like, that comes from truth. That comes from truth.
Andrew: So here’s my question for you. I’m going to throw it back to you, is that we made The Day Today not to make it particularly British, but we didn’t go out to make it British. But we used our own visual references. For somebody that isn’t British, why did you like it?
Abigoliah: I mean, I think I liked it for the reasons I just said I did, was that it was so grounded and played so straight, but so utterly ridiculous. Like the tone of it never winked once to the camera–
Andrew: Oh, no.
Abigoliah: But like, the stakes were so high. Like again, going back to the royals doing a cull of the elderly. And it’s like – and there’s the Queen in her cart. And getting the footage of them just made it feel so real. But obviously it isn’t. But as far as it being like a British show, you’re not the first person to ask me this. I think my references are a little coloured because I have lived in the UK for 11 years. I just haven’t bothered to watch television. I’ve been out in the world living a life, you see. But I think it translates because it does look like a news programme. Like, the man-on-the-street might be on a British street, but that looks like a news programme from my childhood as much as it does one of Britain. The references change. You know, obviously we don’t have a royal family who would cull elderly people. But, you know, we did have the Reagans. So, you know, switch out the reference and it’s about the same.
Tom: One of the things that I took the time to point out is you have the scene where the interview goes badly and it’s Chris Morris’s anchor who takes off the lapel mic and storms out of the studio. Now, to me–
Andrew: That’s called “Programme Walks Out on Minister.”
Tom: Yeah, to me that instantly says John Nott, because I remember that incident. But it’s funny even if you don’t know the reference.
Abigoliah: Right.
Andrew: So you can look at some of these sketches and you can see where their real-life roots are. And that’s exactly the reference.
Abigoliah: See. And I didn’t – I didn’t see, actually. That’s a good point. That reference went over my head because I didn’t know the reference, but I still thought it was funny. And Tom had to explain to me what the reference was, but I didn’t need that explaining. I like comedy that happens in layers. So like me, as someone who doesn’t understand the reference, it’s still funny to watch a broadcaster walk out on an interview or–
Tom: And the set starts to be dismantled behind him.
Abigoliah: Yeah. But then if you know the reference of that happening, then it’s even funnier. I like stuff like that. Because then if you’re laughing on Tom’s level, you’re in the in-crowd. You’re like, “I get this.” Whereas I’m just like, ha ha, funny. And you’re like, “You’re laughing, but you don’t get it, man.”
Andrew: I can’t remember the dialogue that it was, but that was Robin Day. Yes. And the final straw for John Nott is when Robin Day says, “You are a here-today-and-if-I-may-say-gone-tomorrow politician.” And he goes, “This is ridiculous.” He goes.
Tom: There’s a question we like to end on, Andrew, which is – and you actually cited a couple of examples already, but just to see if you want to add anything – what else should we be watching? I’m curating this.
Andrew: I’ve got a list for you.
Tom: Amazing.
Andrew: So if you can find Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarns, I hope it stands up. And a ripping yarn is a Boy’s Own Adventure story. And Michael Palin has a slight twinkle about him, but it’s very much into it and he absolutely believes it.
Tom: There are things like “Across the Andes by Frog.”
Andrew: That’s exactly it. Yes. That is one of the episodes. W1A, or anything by John Morton. Have you seen W1A?
Abigoliah: I haven’t, no. No.
Andrew: People Just Do Nothing. The mockumentary about the pirate radio guys.
Tom: Oh, yes.
Abigoliah: I feel like I’ve heard about this recently, but–
Andrew: One of the things I’m going to be saying, I’ve completely made up. You just won’t know what it is.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Oh, no. That’s the one, isn’t it?
Andrew: So here’s the thing. Let me ask you – this just touches on your taste – is what do you think of the British The Office versus the American The Office?
Abigoliah: So I had never seen the British The Office until Tom showed it to me, and I very much liked it. The British The Office is more – like, edgy isn’t the word, but like, it’s almost cringey. Like when Steve Carell plays the boss, there’s something lovable in Steve Carell.
Andrew: It had heart.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Even though he gets it so wrong, you’re still like, you know. But with Ricky Gervais, that doesn’t exist. The British The Office’s humour feels like it really delights in the discomfort, and the humour comes from the discomfort. Whereas the American The Office feels like it’s softened itself a little bit because it was like, “No, we have to make them a little bit more likeable. Otherwise people won’t tune in.”
Andrew: It’d be interesting to have a think about that. I preferred the American The Office because of that heart, and I look forward to spending time with those characters. Whereas the British The Office, you said – there you go – I’m glad I’m in the upper seats of the amphitheatre.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: It would be interesting to note because the British The Office did two series, and then the American The Office – how many were there? Like seven at least.
Tom: Yes, over 200 episodes, I believe.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: That’s why. It’s because it’s got that heart. Yeah. It’ll sustain for longer. But after 14 episodes of the Ricky Gervais The Office, you’re sort of wrung out.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Andrew: And don’t forget that The Office was innovative in its time. Absolutely innovative. And I remember being at the BBC comedy department and the then Head of Comedy Entertainment said to me, “I don’t know what to do with it.” And it hung around for apparently almost a year before they decided to put it out because they just didn’t – they couldn’t read it.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow.
Andrew: I’m told.
Tom: Yeah. Jane Root, I think, believed in it. But yes, I know it was an uphill battle. Jon Plowman didn’t get it. Well, you mentioned his name.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s who I was going for. Yeah.
Tom: Yeah, I can cut that out if you want.
Andrew: Well, what’s he going to do?
Tom: Yeah. True.
Abigoliah: Can I ask just one more question? Are you working on anything at the moment?
Andrew: I – so what am I doing now? Thanks for asking that question. I’m a producer.
Abigoliah: What are you doing now?
Andrew: I’m a producer now. So I’ve got a BAFTA – or not me, the film has got a BAFTA. We, the team, produced Chuck Chuck Baby. Janice Pugh’s story of working-class folk in North Wales in a chicken factory, finding life and love amongst the falling chicken feathers. And I have to say that it’s a more comfortable life. The decisions to be made are often terrifyingly bigger, but they don’t arrive so frequently or at such short notice.
Students – I do some teaching at the National Film School. And one of the things I say to the students: “Okay, what’s the two things a director can’t do without that you need when you’re shooting?” It’s a partially trick question, I explain. “Great script.” No, it’s not that. “Oh, great…” No, it’s not that. It’s not that. What a director truly needs is comfortable shoes and pockets.
Tom: This is why there are so few female directors. It’s only recently they’ve been given garments with pockets.
Andrew: Well, or they’re smarter than us and they go, “Actually, it’s a pretty difficult job that you don’t get a lot of pleasure out of.” But afterwards, in the premiere, all the PR people dress it up to be absolutely lovely, nice and shiny. Yeah. But at the time it’s very difficult and we delude ourselves.
Abigoliah: My boyfriend’s a cinematographer, and he is always on the hunt for a good pair of shoes to work in, because–
Andrew: Comfortable shoes and pockets.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Andrew: And in cold weather, I rely on what the late Duke of Edinburgh said: “There’s no such thing as bad weather. There’s only bad clothing.”
Tom: Nice.
Abigoliah: True that.
Tom: Andrew, thank you so much for giving us so much of your time. This has been a pleasure.
Andrew: Pleasure, Tom.
Abigoliah: Thank you.
Tom: All right, Andrew Gillman there.
Abigoliah: Freaking genius, that guy.
Tom: My favourite story, I think, of his, was talking about converting the footage to make it look like it had been shot on American television cameras. Because this is a little bit of cultural specificity that might have passed you by. But watching TV in the 80s and 90s, often American imports look terrible because they’re being shot on American video, which is 30 frames a second and 525 lines of vertical resolution. And that has to be converted to the British system, which is 25 frames a second and 625 lines of vertical resolution. And those numbers just don’t mesh. They don’t gel. So the conversion always made American imports look terrible. Even something like Star Trek, which had been shot on film: if it was then edited on video, it would look smeary. The colours would be all off. So he was talking about taking footage shot on the British PAL system and then doing a double conversion – PAL to NTSC, back to PAL again – and deliberately turning the knobs to make it look terrible.
Abigoliah: My favourite story was the one he said when we stopped recording.
Abigoliah: That’s when it got good. Yes.
Tom: About Bob Geldof and the elk.
Abigoliah: Exactly. You’d never believe it. But that elk. All I’m saying is the elk had it coming.
Tom: Absolutely. That elk was a little bitch, and it knew it.
Abigoliah: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Abigoliah: But, guys, as always, thank you so much for listening to All British Comedy Explained. If you have a friend who might like this episode, why don’t you share it with them? Let them know about this podcast. If you have time, give us a five-star review in your podcatcher app. It helps other people find the show. And as always, we are on social media, mostly on TikTok and Instagram. British Comedy Pod is our handle. I forgot it there for a moment. And we have a Substack.
Tom: We do? Yes. Or you could just send us a good old-fashioned email at allbritishcomedy@gmail.com. Let us know what you think. Do you remember watching The Day Today? Do you remember watching smeary-looking Star Trek? Would you like to be an Andrew Gillman-style director, getting your hands dirty and turning the knobs yourself? Or would you rather pay people to get you room-temperature fan?
Abigoliah: Exactly. But remember, whatever kind of director you become, you need two things: comfortable shoes and trousers with pockets. Thank you guys so much for listening.
Tom: Cheerio.