Nev Fountain is an award-winning writer, chiefly known for his work on the BBC sketch show ‘Dead Ringers’ in both TV and radio incarnations. He has alsocontributed to many other programmes, including Have I Got News for You and Newzoids. He is a principal gag writer for satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’ and contributes to every issue.
He first came to write for Doctor Who when he script-edited the BBC online story “Death Comes to Time” in 2001, and has gone on to write some of Big Finish’s most popular audios, including “The Kingmaker” and “Peri and the Piscon Paradox.” His books include The Mervyn Stone Mysteries, The Fan Who Knew too Much, and its sequel, Lies and Dolls, which was released in July.
Nev talks with me about how he got his start writing radio comedy, the challenges of writing comedy even about very serious events, writing for various forms and media, leaving room to be surprised as you’re writing, and more.
Episode breakdown:
00:00 Introduction
04:02 Teachers encouraged Nev; family humor shaped his view.
08:21 Comedy influences: The Young Ones, Blackadder, Hitchhiker’s Guide.
12:27 Breaking into radio comedy.
16:03 Playwriting taught Nev what makes audiences laugh—live.
20:22 Writing comedy about tragic events; satire offers relief and perspective.
24:23 Dead Ringers’ hiatus, revival, and Jon Culshaw’s Tom Baker calls.
28:47 Sketches with Ozzy Osbourne, behind-the-scenes stories from TV comedy.
33:46 Nev’s serendipitous first Doctor Who project, “Death Comes to Time.”
39:23 The process and impact of “Death Comes to Time” explained.
46:31 Challenges and expectations of writing “big” stories in franchises.
52:18 Emphasizing medium-specific storytelling; novels, radio, TV all differ.
58:14 Enjoying creative surprises; writing unfolds beyond outlines or plans.
Show Links: Nev Fountain
Nev’s Facebook
Nev’s books on Amazon
Nev’s books on Bookshop
Subscribe!
You can subscribe to Follow Your Curiosity via the handy links at the top of the page for Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, TuneIn, and YouTube. If you enjoyed the episode, don’t forget to tell your friends!
Transcript: Nev Fountain
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Nev Fountain is an award winning writer, chiefly known for his work on the BBC sketch show “Dead Ringers” in both TV and radio incarnations. He’s also contributed to many other programs, including “Have I Got News For You” and “Newzoids.” He’s a principal gag writer for satirical magazine “Private Eye” and contributes to every issue. He first came to write for doctor who when he script edited the BBC Online story, “Death Comes to Time,” in 2001, and has gone on to write some of Big Finish’s most popular audios, including “The Kingmaker” and “Peri and the Piscont Paradox.”
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:51]:
His books include “The Mervyn Stone Mysteries,” “The Fan Who Knew Too Much,” and its sequel, “Lies and Dolls,” which was released in July. Nev talks with me about how he got his start writing radio comedy, the challenges of writing comedy even about very serious events, writing for various forms and media, leaving room to be surprised as you’re writing, and more. Here’s my conversation with Nev Fountain. Nev, welcome to Follow Your Curiosity.
Nev Fountain [00:01:22]:
It’s lovely to be here.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:24]:
So I start everyone with the same question. Were you a creative kid, or did you discover your creative side later on?
Nev Fountain [00:01:33]:
Oh, absolutely. From the moment. From the moment, I I think I went to school. My brother died last year. Sadly, he was my younger brother. But we sat with each other a lot, in the last months, and he remembered vividly the fact that I would write these epic stories in primary school, and the teachers would get me to read out each chapter. I’d write about 10 page, story cribbed from shamelessly stolen from doctor who. And this is I was about seven years old at the time, so I was a bit of an oddity in school already because I had a the reading age of, 11 year old when I was six.
Nev Fountain [00:02:19]:
So I was reading reading a lot and just writing, stories. Yeah. I mean, as as soon as I could think, really, in sentences.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:31]:
Did anyone did anyone, you know, respond to that like it was unusual either in a good way or a bad way?
Nev Fountain [00:02:45]:
Some of my teachers were very encouraging. That’s the good thing. My first teacher, miss Murphy, in primary school was very encouraging. I mean, teachers are generally very encouraging. My teachers, miss Corby in my, upper school and, missus Johnson in my middle school, all, very encouraging. My father was a lumberjack, and he, often used to take the mickey out of my way of speaking because, you know, he was a blue collar worker. And he remembered he used to recount stories of me speaking in a very kind of intellectual way. I had a huge mop of hair when I was little, and I was often mistaken for a girl.
Nev Fountain [00:03:34]:
He used to recount a story of me being about five years old and one of dad’s mates going, oh, you’ve got a lovely little daughter. And me saying, you’re mistaken. I’m a boy. Well, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m a boy. And this is from five or six.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:53]:
Mhmm.
Nev Fountain [00:03:54]:
So, yeah, dad used to take the rip, but that’s what dads do, really.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:00]:
Frequently. Yeah.
Nev Fountain [00:04:02]:
My dad was very proud of me, eventually. He always was proud of me. He just couldn’t stop taking the Mickey. We are a very humorous family. Some of us do it well. Some of us don’t.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:16]:
So when did writing turn into, like, a real thing for you?
Nev Fountain [00:04:22]:
How do you mean real?
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:24]:
Yeah. That’s that’s an interesting interesting way of putting it, isn’t it? Like, when when did it change into something that seemed like something you could do as a as a lifelong career thing?
Nev Fountain [00:04:35]:
Oh, I often was absolutely certain I was gonna be a writer. The trick was trying to find something to earn money while I was writing. So ever since I was at university, I knew I was gonna be a writer, I think, even before then. And, I was sending scripts off to all manner of places, comics, writing it trying to write a children’s story at one point, trying to write a script, trying to write a comic script. I used to send dozens of things off to 2,000, which is a British comic, quite famous in this country. That was from ages of 15 and 16. So from ages of 15 and 16 to 25, I was just trying to work my way into finding a a day job that worked. I trained as a teacher, but it was so tiring.
Nev Fountain [00:05:26]:
I never got a chance to do enough writing. I worked in Hamleys Toy Shop in London, which was less exhausting, and I was able to put on a couple of fringe plays, write and produce them myself and put them on in London in the small pub venues. But the trick was getting professional, and that was going to radio comedy, which was the only place I knew you could earn money. And the difficulty being is that they had a certain they had meetings in Broadcasting House on a weekday, and then the following day, you’d be writing and putting stuff into the producers. And, it was just quite difficult on the schedule of being in a shop worker to do that. And after going back into teaching, and it that that was being even worse for me. I finally, ended up in a ticket agency after I got married, and I was able to define my own hours completely. So I I swept Wednesdays and Thursdays completely free.
Nev Fountain [00:06:27]:
And after that, it happened quite quickly. I started getting stuff on Radio four on their comedy sketch show, the satirical comedy sketch show week ending. And, that’s when it all started. It didn’t really stop after that. Other Radio four shows beckoned and Radio two shows beckoned, and, I wrote for those two. And then I went on to television. And, that’s where it started, really.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:53]:
So you mentioned that your family was very funny. Is that where your interest in comedy came from, or did it get bolstered somewhere else? I think
Nev Fountain [00:07:05]:
my interest in comedy is from listening to radio and television. That was a very healthy comedy scene in the eighties. Just as people were inspired by Monty Python in the late sixties and seventies, I I I loved, The Young Ones and Blackadder in the eighties. They were very, much part of my formative years. I just think, having a funny family is just being in my DNA. I was the least funny person in my family. My brother was very funny. My father was very funny.
Nev Fountain [00:07:38]:
My grandfather was even funnier than both of those. And naturally funny family. I did actually use that in my work to start with because satirical comedy is satirical comedy. It’s a beast that you learn how to do. When I started writing plays and and, and full scripts, I started to tap on my father and my and my brothers and and and my and my outlook on life, a little bit more. So I’m not sure I used my, my family humor as much in the early days, but I do tap on it from time to time.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:21]:
Yeah. Those those are good influences you mentioned. I I mean, I’ve I remember Young Ones and Blackadder, certainly.
Nev Fountain [00:08:30]:
Oh, yeah. We used to recite, Blackadder verbatim. Young Ones was absolute appointment television for twelve weeks for the two series of six. I remember when Neil got on to Top of the Pops, and I used to I recorded it and watched it with my mates. Used to watch him doing his song on top of the pops for about twenty, thirty times because it was just a funny, funny thing. Yeah. And, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Obviously, I my my friend and I used to go camping in my front garden, and we used to be able to recite the first three pages of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you know, from memory.
Nev Fountain [00:09:16]:
It’s, appreciation of words, I think, and that’s where the words were clever. My dad was interested in words too, and my grandfather was interested in words as well. But from an uneducated point of view, they just enjoyed, the structure of words. I don’t wanna be too pretentious about that, but, yeah, you could have a conversation with them. And not a very serious conversation, but you’d have a conversation with them.
Nancy Norbeck [00:09:49]:
Yeah. I think I think, you know, I was not at all surprised to hear you mention The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I think that was really where I started to notice and and appreciate wordplay. You know? I I think I read that when I was about 13, and and it made such a huge impression because so much of that book is wordplay. And so, you know, from there on, whenever I started to encounter somebody who could really do something fun with words, I noticed it a lot more. And then, of course, you know, I discovered in backwards order PG Wodehouse. And as soon as I read PG Wodehouse, I said, oh, Douglas Adams definitely read this guy, you know, without even, you know, having having had that confirmed later, it was so incredibly obvious. And I was like, I must read all the PG Wodehouse I can get my mitts on, which back in the late eighties, early nineties, was not as easy over here as it is now.
Nancy Norbeck [00:10:50]:
But but, yeah, it was like, no. Must have all of this and anything like it. So so I I hear where you’re coming from with with the appreciation of of words, for sure.
Nev Fountain [00:11:02]:
Yeah. I mean, thinking about it now, my very early years was sort of in a daydream, making up stuff myself, writing my own comics. And this is really seven or eight year old being a seven or eight year old. But that after that, I can measure my life through the books I pick up and remember where I am when I read the books and when I got the books. You know, I remembered having, early Doctor Who books, my first Doctor Who book in my hand, in ’76, ’77. Brain and Morbius was the first one. And I remember the specific books I got from the library, and I remember picking up Life, the Universe, and Everything, the third book, by Douglas Adams, while on holiday and reading it while on holiday. So, those markers are as important to me as the, the friends I had and the times I had mucking about around the village and, and, just socializing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:05]:
Sure. Absolutely. So when you actually, you know, started writing for radio then, how how do you think all of those things went into what you were doing for radio? If they did? I mean, I’m sure they did on some level, whether it was conscious or not. But
Nev Fountain [00:12:27]:
As I say, I started writing satirical comedy, not because I really wanted to do it. It’s because that was where the money was. Mhmm. There was a show called Weekending, a sketch show, produced by Radio four, and that was the show you went to. And you were allowed to to sit in there whether you were allowed to whether whether you were a writer or not and try and, attempt to get on the show. And if you got on the show, you were paid radio rates. And if you got on the show a lot, you got commissioned. If you were commissioned a lot, the radio rate went up.
Nev Fountain [00:13:01]:
It’s basically the first step on the way to become a becoming a professional writer. So I was a satirical writer for a lot of that. I did write a play about my father. That was before weekending. I wrote two plays, fringe plays. My first one was called my grandmother was a time lord, which is basically about a child and their imagination assuming that their grandmother was a time lord because they’re very old. There’s parts of their house you never see, and it could be a Tardis. And that was very much the early part of my life and the imagination, creating everything fantastical about out of nothing.
Nev Fountain [00:13:46]:
Deccompart was about my dad and his band, and it was called Barre’s Your Man, sing along if you can. And that was about my life, and it was about how bad my dad’s band was, which is pretty bad, bad band. It was really quite excruciating. It was a ghastly band. My dad played keyboards on it, and it was a real bad pub band. And it’s got loads of gigs around the area. But, yeah. And so that was me tapping into my life, and the first play was tapping into my imagination, how it interacted with with Doctor Who.
Nev Fountain [00:14:22]:
So that that’s that’s what I was doing. That was prior to week ending. Once week ending started, it’s but it’s more of a professional job, and you kind of focus yourselves on getting the structure of sketches right and getting, and and being more aware of about politics and and and topical comedy.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:45]:
So did you learn most of those structures on the job then, or was that something that you had picked up in the process of of kind of getting there?
Nev Fountain [00:14:53]:
I think doing the two plays was extremely useful because you don’t learn how to do comedy until you write something for a live audience. And you understand, if you’re being too long, if this the the joke is too long or things just don’t pan out the way you you you understand you work out what people are prepared to laugh at and what they’re not prepared to laugh at. So that was an incredibly that was almost a baptism of fire for me, those days. And I was pretty and because of that, I was pretty confident going into radio four that I would I knew what I was doing. And, I got on the show. I tried week one. I didn’t get anything. On week two, I got a line on week three.
Nev Fountain [00:15:42]:
I got a sketch on. And after that, I didn’t miss, a show for the next year or so. So I think that gave me the confidence to know how to write and how to make make people laugh. Yeah. It was very much that. It was very formative, those two plays. I learned a lot.
Nancy Norbeck [00:16:03]:
Sure. So how how easy did you find it pulling humor out of current events and that kind of thing?
Nev Fountain [00:16:13]:
You learn that if it’s not the story itself, which is pretty horrible, it’s about the media’s perspective on the story. It’s about people’s reactions to the story. You know, even in the worst kind of tragedy, I remember we went I was working on dead ringers, and I think we’d heard that doctor David Kelly, a man in the center of a huge political row in in in The UK about arms to Iraq and whether the government was telling the truth over weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq. You had the similar thing in America, but we had this a similar scandal over here trying to pretend there were weapons of mass destruction and using experts to as, as proof. And doctor David Kelly was a guy who sorry. Doctor David Kelly was a guy who, was providing evidence for those weapons of mass destruction, but he was being reported more strongly than his words were intended. Anyway, it was a big route, and we went dead ringers went out on the morning that he’d been found dead. He’d committed suicide.
Nev Fountain [00:17:29]:
And, basically, it completely blew up on both sides’ faces. The journalist, Andrew Gilligan, who worked for radio for had outed him, which you don’t do with your sources, and that put pressure on him. And the government had put pressure on him to come forward and tell them what he told to tell the world what they told him. So it was a pretty horrible situation, but we still managed to write a sketch about it, in the nature of the government’s response to it. And that’s what you do. You do. You you yeah. There’s always something to be had.
Nev Fountain [00:18:10]:
The magazine, Our Rightful Private Eye, did a did a a cover on pretty much the death of Diana and pretty much the the week of her her death in the car accident about the, the public’s hypocrisy about it because everyone was shouting about the press, but they buy the newspapers.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:32]:
Mhmm.
Nev Fountain [00:18:33]:
They’re intrusive. So there is a point to be made. There is an angle to be had. There is a joke. It’s not a very funny joke, but nevertheless, it is it serves a purpose to illuminate as well as to make people laugh, to to put a perspective on it that that that introduces a note of sanity in something which is pretty inexplicable at times.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:58]:
Well and that’s something that comedy seems to be able to do better than anything else sometimes. You know, if you if you go in being very earnest or with a dramatic approach to something like that, it can come off in a way that’s really off putting that people don’t hear. But if you do something like that through comedy, I think it can illuminate in a way that kind of makes people go, oh, wait, and and have a deeper impression than it might have otherwise.
Nev Fountain [00:19:25]:
Oh, yes. I mean, certainly in the last ten years with Brexit and Trump and the Ukraine war, we have tended our radio for shows. This is Dead Ringers, the sketch I’m working on currently. In case people don’t know, it’s an others it’s another satirical sketch. We tend to end up going out the day after or the morning after something calamitous has happened, such as, the Trump, election, Brexit, Boris Johnson winning an election, we tend to, end up going out that morning after. And the audience is we have, are pretty raw, and they’re pretty scratchy about it. And the relief they have that they feel from our sketches in that, no, we’re not mad, and we’re not on our own. There are people who feel the same way.
Nev Fountain [00:20:22]:
There are people same people like me who have a perspective on this that’s similar to mine. A lot of the humor, a lot of the laughter is laughter of relief that they are not on their own. I mean, we’re not always on their side because that’s the nature of satirical comedy. But sometimes when something bizarre and stupid happens like Brexit or or Donald Trump getting elected, people do need that kind of validation, if only from comedy. Because if there was no comedy in probably in some totalitarian state, then there’s no outlet. And without no outlet, people things don’t change. That’s the idea of a totalitarian state. That’s why they ban humor.
Nancy Norbeck [00:21:10]:
Yeah. And and, you know, we don’t have I mean, we have things like The Daily Show, but but we don’t have the same the same culture of of radio anything, really. I mean, we have NPR. But but we don’t have the radio drama. We don’t have radio comedy like you do in The UK. And as I’m listening to you, I’m really wishing that we did because I can see how that would be really, really valuable, especially, as you say, in the last ten years or so. Because if you’re not if you’re not into The Daily Show, there’s not really anywhere to get that that humorous look at things that can help you get through stuff like this.
Nev Fountain [00:21:50]:
Well, I I wouldn’t put yourselves down. I mean, race is not a thing in America. I know. But I am a huge fan of the, the late night shows. I I always listen on YouTube to Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, occasionally, Bill Maher, if he’s not being so and too annoying. Yeah. And The Daily Show. So you have a good array arrangement of topical comedy and satirical comedy there, and they’re pretty damn good in terms of topicals.
Nev Fountain [00:22:23]:
Saturday Night Live as well. Such a shame it doesn’t do nothing happens. You know, we do our best, and then, you know, you you work your socks off trying to illuminate with comedy, and and things don’t go your way. Satire doesn’t really change society. It just kind of nudges it occasionally.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:44]:
Yeah. And and you’re right. I forget about the late night shows. We do I love those too.
Nev Fountain [00:22:50]:
They do good good topical jokes, and I and I always try and listen to them.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:54]:
Yeah. Yeah. But but since you mentioned Dead Ringers, I had not realized that Dead Ringers was still around. I mean, that’s one that I stumbled on unsurprisingly, you know, about probably, I don’t know, twenty five, thirty years ago because I stumbled on clips of Jon Culshaw’s Tom Baker impressions, and that was the first time I heard of it. And then, you know, every once in a while, it would kind of pop up somewhere. But I hadn’t realized that it was still on, so that’s
Nev Fountain [00:23:23]:
that’s amazing. We we stopped. We were stopped into we started in February, and we stopped in 02/2007. And most of these things with recognizable IPs got get resurrected. So we started up again in 2014, and we’ve been going ever since. Just a couple of series a year. We don’t do, phone calls anymore. I think John had just got exhausted and couldn’t think of any more ideas, and it’s quite times time consuming to do.
Nev Fountain [00:23:56]:
But we are yeah. We’ve been we’ve just coming into our twenty fifth year, but we had a hiatus in doctor who terms. We had a seven year hiatus when we were stopped from radio. We went to TV and carried on doing the radio. That was quite a thing. We did TV for a couple of years. Then we stayed on radio, and then we were neither on TV or radio, and now we’re we’re radio.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:23]:
Well, Jon calling Tom Baker as Tom Baker is the one that really stands out in my memory as being pretty phenomenal
Nev Fountain [00:24:32]:
to Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:32]:
Had the nerve to do that.
Nev Fountain [00:24:35]:
Jon is very, Jon Culshaw is very brave. We started off doing Sylvester because I had his number, Sylvester’s number. When I did you did Death Comes to Time with him, the radio online drama. So I got his number, and I gave it to Jon and said, well, should we? And, he said, yeah. We should. And after that, we kind of ran down all the other Doctors and did Nicholas Courtney as well. And we even while we were recording a pilot for a television show, wasn’t a pilot for Ringers, but it was a very similar, show to Ringers. Or was it for Ringers? Jon was out and about in his Tom Baker gear, and he bumped into Lis Sladen.
Nev Fountain [00:25:19]:
And, of course, Jon completely rose to the occasion. But Lis wouldn’t give us permission because she was basically just shopping and, and to quote every actress, my hair’s a mess, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But that was quite a fortuitous, thing to happen.
Nancy Norbeck [00:25:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a shame we’ll never see it because I’ll bet it was amazing.
Nev Fountain [00:25:44]:
Yeah. I don’t know where it went, sadly.
Nancy Norbeck [00:25:49]:
Wow. To have been a fly on that wall. Yeah. Yeah. So well and speaking of of Jon Culshaw, I I saw that you wrote an ad where Jon Culshaw was playing Ozzy Osbourne with Ozzy Osbourne.
Nev Fountain [00:26:13]:
Mhmm.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:13]:
And and I went and I I found it, and we’ll I’ll put a link in the show notes for folks who haven’t seen it. But I’m just terribly curious how how that all went in particular, you know, what Ozzy Osbourne thought of the idea of playing himself alongside someone else playing himself. I mean, how how did that come together?
Nev Fountain [00:26:37]:
Well, that was from an advertising company. I think it was from a product, I can’t believe it’s not butter.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:46]:
Mhmm.
Nev Fountain [00:26:47]:
You can see the logic there because I can’t believe it’s not butter is almost identical to butter, and you can’t tell the difference. So let’s do some adverts with Jon almost being Ozzy Osbourne and the real Ozzy Osbourne. And he he roped us into it. It wasn’t our idea, but but he roped us roped us into to write, write the, the advert, which was very good. And, you know, it’s pretty much a closed shop, advertising writing advert ads. So we were very glad to, dip our toe in the advertising water. But it’s not the first time or the only time they did stuff together. They did a a skip for Comic Relief with, with Jon interviewing Ozzy.
Nev Fountain [00:27:31]:
And that was when I met Ozzy, and I met Sharon. That was a lot of fun. Sharon was very quiet and very softly spoken. I think they were both a bit nervous about going on television because Jan Raveins was being Sharon, Sharon Osbourne, and Sharon Osbourne was being Sharon Osbourne, and Jon was being Ozzy, and everyone’s being Ozzy. So it’s the two couples meeting together. I can’t remember what what it was for either for children in need or commit relief. You would be able to track it down on YouTube, I’m sure. But, yeah, that was fun.
Nev Fountain [00:28:04]:
That was fun meeting Ozzy. He was quite eccentric. There was a joke I remember. He’s gonna prove you’re Ozzy, and and John said you almost interviewing Ozzy Osborne as Ozzy, and Jon’s question was, what is your name? And Ozzy’s answer joke was, I’ve forgotten. And that was this is prep this is live, I think. And then Jon said, what is your name? And as he leaped up onto his chair and screamed, “The prince of darkness!” So, yeah, it was, interesting. I mean, Jon is very good at this.
Nev Fountain [00:28:47]:
He was very good at being on the hoof. We had him meeting Tony Blair for a a charity thing, and they were absolute, what’s the word, shits about it, the his spin team. And they basically removed this our sketch that we’d written. They’d, we’d bitten the sketch. They’d agreed it. Then someone had leaked that he was doing it with Jon as Tony Blair, and then they got angry and used it as leverage. I think they probably leaked it themselves, and they used their outrageous leverage to make cuts. So there was practically no sketch left.
Nev Fountain [00:29:25]:
But Jon squeezed as much as he could into that meeting with Tony Blair, just all the little bits and pieces because there was no script agreed at all because it was basically just to meet each other. But, you know, Jon’s very good at that. He’s very good at, at coping with people’s tantrums and people not willing to, go via a script.
Nancy Norbeck [00:29:53]:
Yeah. I mean, that that kinda makes sense too since, you know, he was out improving Tom Baker with Lis Sladen. I mean, that’s that’s kind of the nature of of improv.
Nev Fountain [00:30:04]:
Definitely. Definitely. He’s a diamond. He’s absolutely brilliant.
Nancy Norbeck [00:30:09]:
For sure. That that was very clear again when I was listening to him call Tom Baker as Tom Baker. I mean, that’s a it’s a special skill to be able to do that in the first place on top of having the nerve to make that phone call.
Nev Fountain [00:30:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. Tom was on his best behavior that day. And, of course, he, he riff he did that again on television for his alter ego show, which the premise was he would dress up as the person and interview them as themselves, similar to the Ozzy Osbourne idea, but a whole show. So he met Tom as Tom, and I wrote my writing partner, I wrote a lot of jokes for that. I remember them in the pub. It’s a prescient it’s a prescient joke because Jon said, yes. I remember Saturday night television.
Nev Fountain [00:31:04]:
Tell so I remember Saturday night television. Do you remember that evil man in the robot chair? And Tom says, “Who, Davros?” And Jon says, no. Jimmy Savile. This was pre everything. This is pre everything to do with Jimmy Savile because he used to do “Jim’ll Fix It,” and he used to have a a magic chair, which things used to come out of, like his gym will fix it badges used to come out of the, out of the arm. So that was the joke, the evil man in the robot chair, and it turned out to be incredibly prescient.
Nancy Norbeck [00:31:37]:
Indeed. Yes. Indeed. For US listeners who don’t know who that is, we we found out that, he was he was a children’s TV guy. Right?
Nev Fountain [00:31:48]:
He was everything. He was a DJ, and then he migrated to Saturday night television. He did he did children’s shows and and all that manner. He was an incredibly odd man. But in those days, 1970s, the presenters were always a little bit odd. And you but he was pretty much the oddest, And they had a a program based around his personality in which children would write in, and he would make their dreams come true. And, it was only after he died that everything came out that he was a a pervert and a rapist and all all manner of terrible things. And that just seems to be the theme for 1970s presenters.
Nev Fountain [00:32:30]:
All the the terrible things come out about later. Stuart Hall was another one who who did 1970s television, and Rolf Harris was practically the queen mother of television on BBC one for a long period of time. And he got, he got into trouble and got sent to prison. So that does seem did seem to be a running thing. There were a lot of dark secrets in 1970s television that that got, got unearthed in the 21st century.
Nancy Norbeck [00:33:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. But that that that joke, you’re not kidding.
Nev Fountain [00:33:07]:
Jimmy was of a different Jimmy Savile was of a different level to all the others. He was quite quite a an evil man.
Nancy Norbeck [00:33:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. Oi. So since you mentioned Death Comes to Time, which was the radio show it was 02/2001. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that was your first foray into doctor who, and that was during the wilderness years between the TV movie and the new series starting in 02/2005. Had you ever had any inkling that you were gonna end up doing anything doctor who related other than dead ringers?
Nev Fountain [00:33:46]:
Absolutely not. I mean, as far as I can as far as I was concerned, doctor who was dead. I never pointed myself in that way at all because it wasn’t a a thing. I am always of the I’ve always been of the philosophy that I write. I don’t write for specific things. I think that’s what Robert Holmes said. I don’t want I if you want to write, you want to be a writer, you don’t say I want to write x or y. I just want to write.
Nev Fountain [00:34:15]:
So I’ve gone where the money is or where the opportunities are, and there were no opportunities in doctor who at the time. There were the Virgin books, but I I’ve read a few and had no interest in writing a a Virgin book. They weren’t really my cup of tea. And Big Finish was just getting started, but, not on my radar at that time. It was a complete coincidence that we were squatting in a in a in an office in Broadcasting House, the home of, BBC Radio. And the next office along, someone had put up a “Doctor Who: Death Comes to Time” logo on on on the on the door. And I found out that Dan Freedman was putting together a pilot, but he was doing it through BBC Comedy. Oddly enough, I think the head of BBC radio comedy was a bit of an eccentric himself called John Pidgeon, and he’d give it the go he gave it the given it the go ahead.
Nev Fountain [00:35:09]:
So I knocked on his door and said, “You’re doing Doctor Who. Can I be your scientific adviser?” “Fine. I was gonna use Mike Tucker because at the time, he was quite close to Sylvan Soap. But as you’re in the next office, that makes sense that I should use you.” So that really was my first foray, and it was by complete coincidence.
Nancy Norbeck [00:35:34]:
I mean, that’s as good a way as any.
Nev Fountain [00:35:37]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Serendipity. It’s a lovely word, serendipity. Very much a happy accident.
Nancy Norbeck [00:35:43]:
For sure. For sure. So so you just stumbled your way in there in a way. And and then how, I mean, how how long did it take to to make it happen, and what all did you end up doing with it?
Nev Fountain [00:36:00]:
Well, we put together the radio pilot, the half an hour radio pilot, which is the first episode of death comes to time. It was quite a leisurely process. We had a lot of time to sort things out. I became a little bit more than a than a a scientific adviser. I became sort of I became script editor because Dan had a lot of things that I could suggest make better because it was a bit aimless the first episode. It was lot of suggestions I made to to make it better. And, it was put together, half an hour radio pilot. And, of course, BBC Radio turned it down because at the time, the, they’d done focus groups, and, they had basically decided that Radio four was a woman’s channel because women listened to it during the day.
Nev Fountain [00:36:55]:
And women didn’t like science fiction or horror. That’s received wrist wisdom. So it was all cooking shows and, and nice dramas and woman’s hour. So it really didn’t fit in with their their idea of what radio four was at the time. This is completely different to what they see now as radio four because they do all manner of things across the board. But at that time, it was rather a severe, stricture on what you could put out on Radio four. So, obviously, it got canned. And I think, BBC online were through James Goss and the others, were thinking of doing some doctor who dramas through the website.
Nev Fountain [00:37:37]:
And, Dan said, I’ve got this ready made, episode for you. And I think they, animated it, and they put it out, and the reaction was staggering. I think it got about a million hits overnight. As as far as I remember that, it was just that one, the the the the the episode that was commissioned by radio comedy. And because of the reaction, they asked Dan to complete it. So it was a long process. And, the, the development of the the rest of the story was a bit more fraught, and I had less to do with it. It was written in haste a lot of the time.
Nev Fountain [00:38:25]:
But, yeah, it did take a long time, because of that was the process. It it was started as a radio comedy project just to go out on radio four in the drama slot. It got turned down. It got picked up by BBC online. It got put out by BBC online. They got the response. They commissioned the rest of the story, and then, yeah, took a while.
Nancy Norbeck [00:38:50]:
Was the whole thing animated? Because I ended up listening to it on CD, so I never saw the animated version.
Nev Fountain [00:38:56]:
Yeah. It was all animated. It’s kind of like a yeah. Very crude animation. Mhmm. It got developed. I think by Screamer the Schauker, they’ve really got, they’ve really got their teeth into how to animate stuff. The I think that was a lot better.
Nev Fountain [00:39:11]:
Because after that, they did real time, and then they did Shada, and then they did scream with the shalker. So they done they did four. Took a four after dead comes to time.
Nancy Norbeck [00:39:23]:
Yeah. That makes sense. But but my it’s been probably twelve years since I listened to death comes to time. It was it was great stuff for a road trip. That’s that’s when I listened to it. But I just remember it being so so big. You know, it felt it felt very big, you know, and and the the cast being kind of unusual with Stephen Fry making an appearance. And
Nev Fountain [00:39:53]:
John Sessions.
Nancy Norbeck [00:39:55]:
Yes. And and I will admit that my favorite moment was when the brigadier turns up, and I won’t say anything more about that, so I won’t spoil anybody. But but that was definitely definitely my my very favorite moment of it. But, but, yeah, I mean, it just it feels like it was so big. It probably didn’t didn’t feel that way to you as much because you weren’t listening to it on a road trip. But
Nev Fountain [00:40:22]:
but,
Nancy Norbeck [00:40:22]:
yeah, it just felt it feels like it would have been a a huge undertaking even though perhaps it wasn’t.
Nev Fountain [00:40:27]:
Felt significant because it was the only thing the BBC was actually making that was Doctor Who. And on the strength of that, I got invited to a couple of conventions, one in Manchester, one in LA, because we were the only official doctor who product. Big Finish was Big Finish. They got the license. That’s fine. But it showed that the BBC had interest in doctor who. Whether whether that that belief was real or not, at the time, it probably wasn’t because it was basically BBC online doing the things off their own bat. But I think that’s what fans perceived that the BBC was starting to to make doctor who again.
Nev Fountain [00:41:08]:
So it felt incredibly significant, and the story felt big in terms of the production. I think Dan Friedman spent hours and hours wanting to make it Wagnerian. I I I mean, my first my personal opinion is it starts off incredibly promisingly. And I think like lots of stories that promise to be significant, they never quite match up to the promise. If you’re gonna say something that’s gonna be the biggest thing ever, then I it you you you make a sort of a false promise, really, because I think things that become the biggest thing ever aren’t intended to be the biggest thing ever and sometimes you know, three doctors is amazing to me, but it looks just like him. It I bet they didn’t make it to be significant, if you know
Nancy Norbeck [00:41:57]:
what I mean. Yeah.
Nev Fountain [00:42:00]:
You know? It was nice to have Pat back and and and Bill. And they and it was done in much the same way as any other story in that season, but the significance only comes later to it. Sure. And, the free willing, humorous nature of the three doctors is what gives makes it special, not the fact that it says, this is special, unlike, on the latter, anniversary things that kind of project, their importance before they even are broadcast, if you know what I mean.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:35]:
Yeah. I think when you when you set out to make a big thing, it’s easy to get stuck in the the scale of it has to be a big thing. You know? Whereas, like you say, you know, and I I interviewed Katy Manning at Long Island Who a couple years ago, and, you know, I said, did you have any clue when you were making “The Three Doctors?” She said, “God no. We were just making the the the episode.” That that was it. And so it it was not the big thing that that we look at it as now because it was just, okay. Here we are, and we’ve got Pat Troughton and and Bill Hartnell back, and and we’re just doing what we do every every week like normal. And they just happen to be here, and this is what we’re doing this week.
Nancy Norbeck [00:43:22]:
Yeah. So
Nev Fountain [00:43:23]:
I’d say Deadly Assassin was just another story to slot in the series. Genesis of the Daleks was just another story to slot in the series. I know they were on to a good thing. I thought Terry Nation was enjoying writing it, and, and I’m sure David Maloney was gonna have fun directing it. But the significance of it and the significance of deadly assassin, I suppose there was some thought about that. I don’t think Robert Holmes was worried about that. He was just writing what he enjoyed. Contrast that with the the ultimate foe, which is meant to be the biggest thing ever in terms of doctor who.
Nev Fountain [00:43:56]:
It’s compromised, and so there’s a little bit of a so what at the end because there was an effort to make it the biggest thing ever, but a few things didn’t pan out. No. That’s the danger of of saying bringing out the loudspeaker and and and saying the the megaphone and saying, this is gonna be amazing. This is gonna be significant.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:21]:
Yeah. And I think that’s the trap when you get into something where you have been around for so long that you have 50th anniversaries and 60th anniversaries because the numbers themselves are so big
Nev Fountain [00:44:31]:
Yes.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:31]:
That you get trapped by it has to be big because it’s big. You know? And then it’s very hard to deliver anything that can actually live up to that because what are you what are you gonna do? Which I think was actually what made doing three specials for the sixtieth smarter than trying to do one enormous thing. You know? Whether you think that worked or not, I think it was still probably smarter than we’re gonna do a huge a huge thing.
Nev Fountain [00:45:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think it, it made sense to dodge that cliche of doing lots of doctors and, and the big meetup, because, you know, the surprise is not there. You
Nancy Norbeck [00:45:17]:
know? Mhmm.
Nev Fountain [00:45:19]:
It’s it’s always a problem. It’s within every franchise, what do you do to make a significant story in the Marvel Universe? Now what do you do? You can’t because you’ve not got any groundwork there. Yeah. You can’t make an artificial significant story and and pluck it out of nothing unless you have an idea. Unless you have a good idea with a good story, it doesn’t work.
Nancy Norbeck [00:45:45]:
Right. And I don’t think you can force a story to be a good story. You know? Like like you’re saying, you know, letting a good writer just play around with what’s interesting to them in the moment is probably a better way to get a good story than to say, we’ve gotta write a really good story right now. You know, putting those big expectations on it makes it a lot harder to turn something like that out than just, oh, go have fun with this idea. Yeah. So, you know, I think, you know, the three the three special idea, some people liked it, some people hated it, but it was different. It gave you three things instead of one. Your odds of liking at least one of them were pretty good.
Nev Fountain [00:46:31]:
And You never thought of it as a special in some ways. It’s just doctor who is back kind of thing. It was, yeah, the novelty was there simply by it being there and not and not not being there because there was an expectation. There was there was gonna be nothing after Jodie. So that was the novelty. The sixtieth anniversary’s the the message of the sixtieth anniversary is it’s still going, and there is more life to it. That’s that’s that that that was the celebration.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think fans tend not to appreciate that too. You know? We think that there’s always got to be something, even though we lived through the period of there was nothing. Well, some of us did. Newer fans didn’t. But
Nev Fountain [00:47:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s a surprise now, isn’t it? But people get used to everything.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:25]:
Mhmm.
Nev Fountain [00:47:25]:
They they get used to Doctor Who not being there, and they get used to just Doctor Who just being there. And, yeah, I think they do assume it’s gonna just carry on, and, and it can withstand, all their rage.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. For real. There’s too much of that too. Since you’ve also since we mentioned Big Finish, you’ve written for Big Finish. And, you know, you’ve also written novels now, and I’m curious to know, like, going back and forth between forms and formats and, you know, other people’s playing in other people’s sandboxes and playing in your own sandboxes, you know, how how how does that go for you? What do you what do you like about that? What’s what’s new and different?
Nev Fountain [00:48:14]:
Well, I like, the different disciplines for each medium. When I write for a particular medium, I try to make it work specifically for that medium, and that is the exercise. When I did Omega, which was the first, Big Finish story I did, I wanted to make it a story that only worked on radio as it’s an audio story. I wanted to make it specific to that. Someone had, build another big finish that had come out a couple of years earlier as you you this is this story could only work on on on audio. And I listened to it, and I said, no. You can. That’s just it’s it can work on audio.
Nev Fountain [00:48:56]:
It’s just particularly gruesome, in terms of visuals you are, you are suggesting. So I wanted to do something which absolutely could not work on television, and that is the discipline I always have. When we transitioned from dead ringers from radio to television, we made it a a mark of achievement to write a sketch that would work only on television and that we worked very hard on making more visuals to each sketch. So, yeah, my novels are very novel y. My radio sketches my radio plays are very radio y, and my television work is very television y. Those are the disciplines. And there’s a piece of every everything I write for Big Finish, there is an element of radio that that’s there. I go on to doing, the kingmaker, which makes a huge play of an identity of a particular character.
Nev Fountain [00:50:02]:
I think if you draw that character visually, then you go, that’s not the character that you’re suggesting it is, but the fact that there is no visual component helps. Mhmm. And there’s another instant involving a piece coming off a person and you don’t see what piece it is, and then you they then it’s talked about in episode four, and then you realize what that piece is. But if it was television, you’d be you wouldn’t be able to do it. And I can go through every one of my radio plays in order, and there is some kind of component that that is only works, in terms of sound. And, with my books, with my novels, yeah, I write them very bookie. I write I wrote, a book called A Painkiller, which is pretty much first person about a woman who suffers from chronic neuropathic pain. And she’s been in pain for about ten years, And she finds her own suicide note in a drawer, and she can’t remember writing it herself.
Nev Fountain [00:51:11]:
And it’s that kind of intimacy you get with a a written story in book form that you can’t get with a play, visually or or or on radio. So, yeah, I mean, when you buy a Netfountain book, you get a book. When you listen to a Netfountain radio play, you get a radio play. It’s not a television play with the numbers, hacked off.
Nancy Norbeck [00:51:39]:
That’s so interesting because I don’t think most people stop and think about it that way. But I think that’s you know, you’re really taking advantage of what the medium can do in in ways that that most people don’t necessarily think about. I mean, I’ve written a novel, and I never stopped to think about what can I do with this medium that I couldn’t do in another one? And that’s probably because I haven’t played around in the other ones. But, you know, I I don’t know how much most people would stop and and say, what what can I do because this is radio that I couldn’t do on TV to make this work in a particular way? I think that’s really cool.
Nev Fountain [00:52:18]:
I do love writers who play with form. I like Piranello, who wrote six characters in search of an author, which is about the nature of characterization on stage. Are these characters, or are these representations of the characters? Do they are they aware they are characters? And that was very appealing to me in university. And Agatha Christie, say Agatha Christie, who played around with form of the novel and, wrote books like, the murder of Roger Ackroyd, which played around with writing and played around with the with the the form of the murder mystery. I love under my as well as the radio television thing, I love undermining the conventions of what you are in. The kingmaker, for example, made I made everyone assume it was a story about the master because that’s what your doctor who brain walked into. Not about it. So, you know, there are cliches which which which writers fall into.
Nev Fountain [00:53:26]:
And the fun thing is throwing up those cliches, and in fact, they mean something completely different, these cliches. And that’s the best way to fool people. And when you write as many murder mysteries as I do, it’s very important to fool people. With my, the book that’s currently out, the fan who knew too much, which is about a bunch of science fiction fans who decide to solve a murder, which they think they’ve worked out happened in the nineteen eighties on a television show that they’re very interested in. They’re fans of, science fiction show called Vixens from the Void. They decide to pitch, a Blu ray documentary to the BBC so they can bring all the actors back to the same place where they filmed it on location and work out who did the murder. The play’s the thing wherein they’ll catch the conscience of the king. So they they get them to reenact, scenes from the original science fiction series to see if they can work out who murdered this person back in the eighties, this extra from the show.
Nev Fountain [00:54:31]:
But what I’m doing is something completely different. That is what I do. That is what a lot of people said. You think you’re reading one type of book, but you’re actually reading a completely different type of book, and that’s the best way to fool people. And you think you’re listening to a certain type of Doctor Who convention, and you’re not all. It’s it’s tremendous fun. I it really keeps me interested in writing, that kind of thing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:58]:
I was gonna say, you must have a great time putting these things together.
Nev Fountain [00:55:03]:
Well, they say that to comedians all the time. You must have great fun writing this. Not always. The kingmaker was a bit of a slog because it was a very difficult premise to actually sort out correctly. It took me ages. It was a real horrible thing to write. But most of the time, I am enjoying it very much. You enjoy the process of creation.
Nev Fountain [00:55:26]:
You enjoy, putting things together and making them work. The act of writing is a creative process. I can’t just write a synopsis and and follow that synopsis to the letter. There’s something wrong with you if you just do that, because, yeah, everything is is is creative. You write a scene in a book, and there are there are ways things that things happen. Characters go in different different directions. New ideas turn up. The process of writing creates ideas.
Nev Fountain [00:56:00]:
So it turns out much better than you hope it is, usually.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:04]:
Yeah. That’s that’s always been my experience. And I I know when I’ve worked with writers and their characters suddenly do something they didn’t expect for the first time, it always freaks them out. And I’m like, no. No. That’s when you know it’s working. Keep going.
Nev Fountain [00:56:19]:
Exactly. Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:21]:
They usually think they’ve lost their minds. I’m like, no.
Nev Fountain [00:56:23]:
No. No. No. No.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:24]:
That’s when the magic’s happening. And
Nev Fountain [00:56:27]:
it this book here, is it does it go backwards? Yes. It goes backwards. And that’s the fan he that’s the one that’s currently out. That’s very much like Omega, my first big finish in which the process of writing actually threw up one of the biggest twists as I started Omega as a pretty conventional story. And And you all wanted to write it in a radio way, but it was pretty conventional story. And the act of writing the synopsis and watching Arc of Infinity suddenly realized what I could do, and and make it into a really special radio specific, audio specific story. But it wasn’t there when I decided to start writing it. It wasn’t there at all.
Nev Fountain [00:57:08]:
And with this book, The Fanny Knew Too Much. I had an ending all planned. And I went on holiday to Turkey with my lady, and, I just suddenly realized, oh, yes. That’s the proper ending to the story and completely changed the the nature of the book, which I had written, which I had written and submitted. And just by adding and just by having that revelation, thinking about what you’re writing, it made it three times better. Three times better. At least three times better. I, I love the ending to this book.
Nev Fountain [00:57:44]:
I love the end I love the twist in Omega. I love all these things, but it only comes out through the actual creative process. Only comes out. You can’t just write a synopsis and go, that’s it. That’s my book. That’s my play. And I will start writing it now from there to there. With with books with the book, you normally have a starting point and a place you wanna get to, and everything in the middle is up for grabs.
Nev Fountain [00:58:08]:
For this occasion, I realized the ending was up for grabs as well, but I didn’t realize it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:58:14]:
Yeah. That’s I love that. That’s a great story. So well, I I love this conversation too, especially everything you’ve said in the last couple of minutes about how all this works because I think that I think that is true. I think you really don’t know what you’re dealing with in any creative situation until you’re in it. And I think that’s when you really learn about it and about yourself and about, you know, how your whole process works and, you know, how it needs to come together is often not nearly as much in your control as you think, especially when you start out. And then when that spark hits and it all starts to come together is really simple. Really cool.
Nev Fountain [00:58:59]:
Biology. You think a lot more about the thing you’re doing while you’re writing than before writing. Mhmm.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:04]:
That’s just
Nev Fountain [00:59:05]:
the nature of it. And I’m I’m writing a a book now. I’m on 40,000 words, and I spent much longer in the process of writing than I did about the planning of the book. So it’s only natural that more ideas will come up during the writing of the book than there is the planning of the book. Yes.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:22]:
Makes perfect sense. So so I think you’re right. Anybody who sits down, especially for the first time, saying, I’m gonna write a book, and it’s gonna be about this and this and this and this, and it’s gonna be easy because this is what I’m gonna write, is probably in for a big surprise. And if they’re not, then something hasn’t gone quite right.
Nev Fountain [00:59:41]:
Something has seriously gone awry. Yeah. I mean, I know that some writers can work like that. I think they’re in the minority.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. I am I am largely a fly by the seat of your pants kind of writer myself, and I can’t imagine trying to stick to an outline religiously. It would make me crazy.
Nev Fountain [01:00:04]:
There was a thing well, there there can be a germ inside the book that you need to stick to, a premise that you’ve got to that you’ve been that you’re enjoying, that the premise that that you’ve got to produce by the end of the book. But everything around that is is is just jam. You can you can play around with it and have more fun. If you know the book you’re writing and the and the premise and the and and and the trick that you’ve got in the middle, you can write around it and make it more special. Like with the twist in Omega, I once I’ve worked out the twist in Omega or the twist in Kingmaker, I could have a lot more fun, playing with the audience’s expectations of what what’s gonna happen before I spring the twist on them. You can lay it on a bit thicker. You can you can push them in a in a in a completely different way because you know there’s a twist coming. And that’s great great fun leading people off in in all manner of directions.
Nev Fountain [01:01:06]:
You can have lots of fun, and you can really twist the twist. You can really wrap it up. You can put everything around it and, and and, give them even more and more clues, which they’ll never ever get. And once they the twist has happened, they go, I wish I want to read this book again. I want to listen to this play again, but I’ve missed so much. The the nature of this book is completely different to me. I have to read it again knowing what I know now. Right.
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:41]:
Right.
Nev Fountain [01:01:42]:
That’s what I I I aim for. And a lot of people say, I’ve done that with your book. I’ve gone back, and I’ve read it again because I want to read it knowing this thing.
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:52]:
Right. Now I wanna see how all the pieces fall together.
Nev Fountain [01:01:54]:
Yeah. Exactly. It I’m gonna it’s gonna I’m gonna enjoy it reading in that way now.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:00]:
Yes. Yeah. It’s it’s always fun to be surprised the first time and then to go back and and figure out how it all came together.
Nev Fountain [01:02:09]:
Yeah. I’m sure people have read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd again. I’m sure I’ve read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd knowing what’s gonna happen to her. Have you?
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:22]:
I haven’t read that one, so I can’t speak to that. But but now I will. I mean, not knowing what’s gonna happen, but I’ll probably read it multiple times.
Nev Fountain [01:02:29]:
Yeah. If you know what if you don’t know what’s gonna happen, it’s great. If you know what’s gonna happen, it’s also great. It’s like watching The Sixth Sense over again. People will not say, oh, well, I’ve seen The Sixth Sense. I know what’s gonna happen in the sixes. I had no interest in watching it again. I think that’s just mad.
Nev Fountain [01:02:44]:
You watch it again because you’re gonna enjoy the camera tricks, the lines, the the the directorial flourishes that make the twist work.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:56]:
Right.
Nev Fountain [01:02:57]:
Enjoy that with the knowledge in your head what’s gonna happen.
Nancy Norbeck [01:03:01]:
Yeah. There’s no reason you can’t do both. You only get the first time once, but then you can have the second time.
Nev Fountain [01:03:10]:
We do have a phrase in this country. I I could eat that again, after a really good meal, which doesn’t sound very savory, but you get the pork. Yes. You get what they mean.
Nancy Norbeck [01:03:22]:
Absolutely. And and I hope that this conversation will encourage people to do that and to think about, you know, how how did this how did this come together to have this effect? And let’s go back and and see if we could figure it out because I think that adds to the fun of that experience.
Nev Fountain [01:03:43]:
It’s like music. You listen to a song over and over again because you’re waiting for that bit that bit in a day in the life where it goes from the crescendo to Paul McCartney singing. That moment that moment in a day in the life and a good piece of music, a good piece of classical music. You are looking forward to it, that bit.
Nancy Norbeck [01:04:01]:
Yes.
Nev Fountain [01:04:01]:
You know it’s coming. So, you know, there’s no surprise, but you are enjoying the ride.
Nancy Norbeck [01:04:08]:
Yes. Most definitely. And I think that’s what life is about. It’s about enjoying the ride with all of these things.
Nev Fountain [01:04:15]:
Enjoying the ride.
Nancy Norbeck [01:04:16]:
Yeah. Well, I have enjoyed this ride very much, and I really appreciate you coming and and having this conversation with me.
Nev Fountain [01:04:26]:
Well, I I’m I’m glad to be here. I’m enjoying the ride. Excellent.
Nancy Norbeck [01:04:33]:
That’s this week’s episode. Thanks so much to Nev Fountain and to you. Nev’s links are in the show notes, and his new book, Lies and Dolls, is out now. I hope you’ll leave a review for this episode. There is a link right in your podcast app, and it is super easy and really, really makes a difference. If you enjoyed our conversation, please do share it with a friend. Thanks so much. If this episode resonated with you or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage.
Nancy Norbeck [01:05:08]:
It’s free, and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.
