Perdita
09-12-2008, 06:14
Moving Wallpaper is returning for a new run in 2009 - but without companion show Echo Beach!
As Tube Talk revealed back in the summer, this time around Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller) and his team will be working on Renaissance, a one-off zombie drama pilot starring Alan Dale and Kelly Brook.
Leading British screenwriter Tony Jordan - the brains behind the concept - tells us what to expect from the new format.
What changes have you made for the second series of Moving Wallpaper?
"The biggest change is that there is no longer Echo Beach. They've moved on to another production, which is something I always thought that they would do. I think it's fun to mix and match the shows they're making, which is where Renaissance came from."
What inspired Renaissance?
"I thought 'how far away from Echo Beach can we get?' Echo Beach was meant to be candy floss, teenagers in bikinis in the beach, quite light and fluffy. So we ran around the houses to come up with something that I thought hadn't been seen on British television for a while - and then in the middle of writing it, bloody Dead Set came out! Obviously Echo Beach was played straight, and Renaissance is the same. It's quite hard-hitting and quite gory in places."
What's the story of Renaissance?
"Essentially a plane is in the air on a long-haul flight, it lands, and everything seems quiet and strange. It transpires that while they've been in the air, the world has been taken over by zombies. We've got Kelly Brook playing a single girl who is trying to make some sense of her life, on the same flight as Alan Dale's character, who's a divorced dad with two kids. They just happen to be the group that escapes from the plane as zombies attack it. From then on it goes into a road movie, I guess. Without too much road, because of the budget!"
So Moving Wallpaper tracks the making of this one pilot?
"Yeah. Essentially what we've done is try to hold onto the spirit of Moving Wallpaper, which means that one has a direct effect on the other. The story in Renaissance is arced so that over the six episodes of Moving Wallpaper, we go through the normal stuff - the storylining and the writing of the scripts. What's good about this is that we have stunts, a jumbo jet and zombies, flame throwers and stuff like that. It's really cool seeing Jonathan Pope involved in all that!"
One of the good things about the first series was that we saw jokes being set up in Moving Wallpaper, then unfolding straight afterwards in Echo Beach. Do we lose that this time?
"It's not going to work in the same way, simply because they're not running back-to-back. It's a different kind of thing. But the format is the same, so you will see clips of Renaissance in Moving Wallpaper and see things behind-the-scenes of Renaissance so that when you come to watch it, they will give you kind of double-double. You get the drama but also you know how that particular scene came about. You would know things you wouldn't know when you watch any other drama, which is the basic premise behind Moving Wallpaper in the first place."
How does Jonathan react to the demise of Echo Beach?
"Jonathan's great, 'cos he's completely self-serving. He doesn't give a **** about Echo Beach. He's angry at everybody else for it being cancelled, so he blames the writers and he blames the cast. It's not his fault because he's a genius. That lasts all of 20 seconds, then he's trying to find out what his next show's going to be and giving Nancy a hard time about him moving on to something else."
So do we draw a line under Echo Beach then? Did you think about getting the actors in for cameos?
"We talked about it. It's really difficult, because there's lots of different arguments. One is that you don't even mention Echo Beach, you just start a different show. We also discussed doing lots of Echo Beach. In the end I think we got the balance right. In the opening sequences of the programme, we're quite honest and deal with the demise of Echo Beach in a good way. We draw a line under it and move on quite quickly, which I think is the best thing to do. We decided against cameos, so we decided against an entire episode of Jonathan sacking Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon. I kind of did that in the last episode and didn't want to do the same gag again."
As for the final scene of Echo Beach, will we ever get a resolution to that?
"We always thought the Moving Wallpaper gang would move on to other shows eventually, but I always envisaged Echo Beach being at least two runs. So I've actually storylined the entire second series of Echo Beach. I'm the only person in the world who knows exactly what happened! I'm thinking maybe I should write it up in a blog or something."
What's the future of Moving Wallpaper if it gets a third series? Would it be more Renaissance or another show?
"I don't ever want Moving Wallpaper to stand on its own and just become a sitcom. That doesn't make any sense to me. We've got Extras and 30 Rock - it's been done before. The thing that makes it unique and ground-breaking is that it's behind-the-scenes of an actual show that you can watch elsewhere. To me that will always be the future of Moving Wallpaper and I will always strive to have that second strand. I don't think we'll do Renaissance again. I think we've now moved on, but I haven't even started thinking about what they would be making in series three. Maybe a sitcom making a sitcom - how cool would that be?"
Moving Wallpaper and Renaissance return to ITV in 2009.
As Tube Talk revealed back in the summer, this time around Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller) and his team will be working on Renaissance, a one-off zombie drama pilot starring Alan Dale and Kelly Brook.
Leading British screenwriter Tony Jordan - the brains behind the concept - tells us what to expect from the new format.
What changes have you made for the second series of Moving Wallpaper?
"The biggest change is that there is no longer Echo Beach. They've moved on to another production, which is something I always thought that they would do. I think it's fun to mix and match the shows they're making, which is where Renaissance came from."
What inspired Renaissance?
"I thought 'how far away from Echo Beach can we get?' Echo Beach was meant to be candy floss, teenagers in bikinis in the beach, quite light and fluffy. So we ran around the houses to come up with something that I thought hadn't been seen on British television for a while - and then in the middle of writing it, bloody Dead Set came out! Obviously Echo Beach was played straight, and Renaissance is the same. It's quite hard-hitting and quite gory in places."
What's the story of Renaissance?
"Essentially a plane is in the air on a long-haul flight, it lands, and everything seems quiet and strange. It transpires that while they've been in the air, the world has been taken over by zombies. We've got Kelly Brook playing a single girl who is trying to make some sense of her life, on the same flight as Alan Dale's character, who's a divorced dad with two kids. They just happen to be the group that escapes from the plane as zombies attack it. From then on it goes into a road movie, I guess. Without too much road, because of the budget!"
So Moving Wallpaper tracks the making of this one pilot?
"Yeah. Essentially what we've done is try to hold onto the spirit of Moving Wallpaper, which means that one has a direct effect on the other. The story in Renaissance is arced so that over the six episodes of Moving Wallpaper, we go through the normal stuff - the storylining and the writing of the scripts. What's good about this is that we have stunts, a jumbo jet and zombies, flame throwers and stuff like that. It's really cool seeing Jonathan Pope involved in all that!"
One of the good things about the first series was that we saw jokes being set up in Moving Wallpaper, then unfolding straight afterwards in Echo Beach. Do we lose that this time?
"It's not going to work in the same way, simply because they're not running back-to-back. It's a different kind of thing. But the format is the same, so you will see clips of Renaissance in Moving Wallpaper and see things behind-the-scenes of Renaissance so that when you come to watch it, they will give you kind of double-double. You get the drama but also you know how that particular scene came about. You would know things you wouldn't know when you watch any other drama, which is the basic premise behind Moving Wallpaper in the first place."
How does Jonathan react to the demise of Echo Beach?
"Jonathan's great, 'cos he's completely self-serving. He doesn't give a **** about Echo Beach. He's angry at everybody else for it being cancelled, so he blames the writers and he blames the cast. It's not his fault because he's a genius. That lasts all of 20 seconds, then he's trying to find out what his next show's going to be and giving Nancy a hard time about him moving on to something else."
So do we draw a line under Echo Beach then? Did you think about getting the actors in for cameos?
"We talked about it. It's really difficult, because there's lots of different arguments. One is that you don't even mention Echo Beach, you just start a different show. We also discussed doing lots of Echo Beach. In the end I think we got the balance right. In the opening sequences of the programme, we're quite honest and deal with the demise of Echo Beach in a good way. We draw a line under it and move on quite quickly, which I think is the best thing to do. We decided against cameos, so we decided against an entire episode of Jonathan sacking Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon. I kind of did that in the last episode and didn't want to do the same gag again."
As for the final scene of Echo Beach, will we ever get a resolution to that?
"We always thought the Moving Wallpaper gang would move on to other shows eventually, but I always envisaged Echo Beach being at least two runs. So I've actually storylined the entire second series of Echo Beach. I'm the only person in the world who knows exactly what happened! I'm thinking maybe I should write it up in a blog or something."
What's the future of Moving Wallpaper if it gets a third series? Would it be more Renaissance or another show?
"I don't ever want Moving Wallpaper to stand on its own and just become a sitcom. That doesn't make any sense to me. We've got Extras and 30 Rock - it's been done before. The thing that makes it unique and ground-breaking is that it's behind-the-scenes of an actual show that you can watch elsewhere. To me that will always be the future of Moving Wallpaper and I will always strive to have that second strand. I don't think we'll do Renaissance again. I think we've now moved on, but I haven't even started thinking about what they would be making in series three. Maybe a sitcom making a sitcom - how cool would that be?"
Moving Wallpaper and Renaissance return to ITV in 2009.