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Monday, 19 March, 2001, 15:49 GMT
Comedian Paul Whitehouse quizzed
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Mid life crisis, tragedy, getting hammered with your friends - it's all part of the search for Happiness, a new comedy drama series written by and starring Paul Whitehouse. Paul Whitehouse began his comedy writing career with Harry Enfield in the mid-80s for the character of Stavros, who appeared on the hugely popular Channel 4 series, Saturday Night Live. Paul has since worked on a variety of comedy productions including, The Harry Enfield Television Programme, The Fast Show, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and The Paul Merton Show. How did he get into writing and performing comedy? What has been his greatest achievement? Where does he get his ideas from?
Transcript:
The character came to me one day when I was going round to Charlie Higson's house and he had left his door open and I thought I could just walk in here and nick a load of stuff - not that I would have Charlie! It literally came to me then. If I had been a bit more dodgy I could have gone in an nicked a load of stuff off him!
The people who have influenced me recently were Harry Enfield obviously - I wouldn't be doing this without having met Harry and also his encouragement. But in terms of the joy with which they approach their comedy it would be Reeves and Mortimer. I think they are far and away the best comedians that we have had in this country for a long while.
We wrote to our strengths which was the catch-phrase based characters. But if you are confident in your ability as a writer and you have got funny scripts then send it to the BBC or anyone else and it will get read. If they don't read your scripts they are idiots. So if you have something that you like and you are happy with it then send it to people and they will read it. That is the only advice I can give.
I think the only thing I felt that about was the Fast Show. I knew I needed to go off and write that and do it. I worked with Harry recently - it is actually quite nice working with Harry occasionally because I don't have so much of the responsibility to carry. It is good for me as a performer and it is fun - I can muck about and not be the one who has to think what are we going to do next. In a way it is an easier thing to do to work with Harry than it is doing the Fast Show or Happiness.
There is always a possibility that we might do a one-off. I would still love to do a tour and properly go around the country and not just stay in London. My great show biz pal - Johnny Depp - claimed the other day that he told us we should do a Fast Show film and he would love to be in it. But rather than do a film specifically as the Fast Show, if we can think of a good idea for a film in which we can use some of the characters and Depp wants to be in it I am sure we will do it.
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