Paul Mayhew-Archer has been in the writing game for a long time. I sit down with him after a talk in which he has summarised a lengthy and illustrious career during which he produced, commissioned or wrote the likes of I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue, Father Ted and Spitting Image, as well as The Vicar of Dibley and the first series of Miranda. It’s an amazing repertoire for a Cambridge-educated man who described himself as “too shy to join Footlights” and who threatened to set himself on fire on Cornmarket Street if his programme Office Gossip didn’t go up in viewership, before worrying that people would be keener to turn up and watch the fiery spectacle than would care to tune in to the show.
Mayhew-Archer is quite softly spoken, and despite the clear fact that no-one is safe from having the piss taken out of them when he writes or speaks, he still comes across as kind, and incredibly humble. It’s a combination that makes him as compelling a speaker as he is a writer.
I begin by asking him how he thinks things have changed in writing since he first began doing so. His reply is a reassuring one: “I’ve become aware that things go in cycles; I’m not sure they have changed enormously. When I started out people would say ‘Oh, it’s so much more difficult to get things commissioned these days than it used to be in the old days’, and now [they say] ‘It’s so much more difficult to get things…’
“I think the truth is, it’s always been difficult. People say executives don’t know what they’re talking about and then I look back forty years ago and I think, yes – apparently then the controller of Radio Four used to play things to her mother to see – her mother was about ninety – whether she liked them. So I think the truth is that it’s always been tough and it’s always been a bit unfair, but hopefully most things that are good get on somehow, by hook or by crook.”
What exactly does he mean by cycles? He expands on how he sees comedy come and go in waves; after I’m Alan Partridge and The Office came out, there were predictions that the British public would want something new and sweet, something less cringeworthy. Sure enough, Gavin and Stacey aired soon after to riotous success on BBC Three. The same can be said of audience comedy, he claims. Miranda and Dibley both rely on almost 70s-style audience laughter and gags that break the fourth wall – the two are old-school.
Not everything remains the same, though, as Mayhew-Archer is quick to mention when I ask him about women in comedy, and why he thinks Dawn French and Miranda Hart have found success in such a traditionally male industry.
“Hopefully it’s getting less male.” He thinks. “They [Hart and French] are incredibly funny. They are genuinely, wonderfully funny and they have glorious personality, and although they look large and sort of wild, they’re incredibly focused upon what they do. They’re very precise. I’ve watched Dawn and she knows exactly what she’s doing and so they’re brilliant performers and I think that’s why they succeed. I hope that others will succeed as well.”
And women working in the production side of media?
“I think there are more coming along. When I joined radio, all the producers were men. When I left, in 1987, all the producers were men. The head of comedy had interviewed for a new producer role, and one of the office secretaries had applied, and she came to see me at the end of the day and she said ‘I’ve just had the most extraordinary chat, a conversation with the head of department.’ He’d said, ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is unfortunately you didn’t get the job. The good news is that there was another woman going for the job and we didn’t give it to her either. She was very good, but we were worried because, you know, obviously her being a woman producer and all the secretaries being girls; it was going to lead to a very bad atmosphere. Also, she’d just want to do women’s things.’
“This was in 1987! The woman who didn’t get the job was Jan Ravens, I think, and she did get the job about a year later but it’s not long ago! It’s extraordinary, really. Hopefully, things have improved. There are more and more funny women around, it seems to me now, and I don’t see why there shouldn’t be.
“Dawn and Miranda are just gloriously funny, and they have a way of engaging the camera, and drawing you in which is extraordinarily appealing as well.”
I wonder aloud why, when so full of praise for the performers in front of the camera, he was never tempted to perform himself, sticking to writing and producing. The answer is surprisingly frank.
“I used to perform at Cambridge a bit. Then I sort of fell out of it, really. I realised that others were better, or were doing it more. I started out producing because I didn’t think I was a writer, so it surprises me – genuinely surprises me – to find that oh, I’ve worked with Richard Curtis and Dustin Hoffman – I just can’t believe it. It’s just amazing. So yes, I’ve never really kept up with the performing, though I enjoy giving talks and I’ve been enjoying working on some comic material.
“I always used to enjoy doing warm-ups for radio shows and things, but I think writing has always given me enormous pleasure because that’s the start of it all. When I was producing, I always felt the credit, the main credit, was the writer; the writer had generated the material in the first place. I’ve always wanted to write and that seems to me to be very important, but now, with the Parkinson’s I have something to write about. Something that matters.”
Since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2011, Mayhew-Archer has been involved in fundraising work against the disease, and has even taken up ballet for his own benefit, an activity he describes as “wonderful”. The possibility of writing a romantic comedy based on the very same classes is something he enthuses about; Mayhew-Archer claims, self-deprecating as always, that it is only now that he feels he actually has anything to write about with a point to make. “After forty-odd years! It’s pathetic that it’s taken me this long!” He laughs.
We return to the question of creative processes. Mayhew-Archer tells me he deals with writer’s block by pacing back and forth, but offers insight into the bizarre methods others have of doing so – Richard Curtis, he tells me, blasts pop music at full volume, whilst David Renwick, the creator of One Foot in the Grave, lies face down on the ground “for two days. When I first met him, I thought he had a beard, but it’s bits of carpet.” I think he’s joking.
On Dibley, he worked closely with Curtis, who called him personally after seeing his earlier work on television (“Sometimes you don’t need millions of viewers, just the right one.”) How does he find the processes of refining and compromising between writers? Is it frustrating?
“Joyous, actually, on the whole. He’s the nicest man in the world. Even if he’s got things to say about, ‘This doesn’t work’, he always starts by saying ‘I loved that line there.’ It makes you feel good. He’s very appreciative. We’ve never argued. We send scripts back and forth – I think with Esio Trot we did over thirty drafts; some quite major things happened very late on. The ending changed after the read-through, so we never settled.
“I loved that. I loved sharing it with someone – I’d have got very nervous working with those big stars on my own, but having Richard with me, particularly because he’s so experienced – he’s worked with so many top names – was enormously comforting. Actually, everyone on the production was lovely, so it was an incredibly happy experience. Most experiences are.”
If you’re doing something you enjoy?
“If you’re doing something you enjoy. When I was commissioning editor of comedy and I used to go round to the comedy department, the one thing I would say to them was: ‘Could you laugh some more? You know, this is the comedy department. If we’re not laughing… there’s not much hope for anyone else!’”
He laughs.
Paul Mayhew-Archer was delivering a talk to Oxford Media Society. OMS will be holding an internship masterclass on Tuesday 24th February (6th Week) at Blue Boar Exhibition Space, Christ Church.
