by Simon Pegg
‘I knew you didn’t really want to write a biography,’ Ben sighed. ‘You seemed so reluctant. I thought perhaps you might require some inspiration and what better inspir ation than an adventure? I thought perhaps the book might write itself. So I kidnapped Ms Burdot’s dog –’
‘Monsieur Pooh?’ gasped Pegg.
‘Oui,’ faltered Murielle, her eyes brimming with desperate tears.
‘I threatened to kill him unless Murielle stole the Star of Nefertiti from the Museum of Egyptian Antiquity.’
Pegg’s eyes flitted over to the chastened French lovely. She looked at him pleadingly. He knew how much she treasured her Pooh and understood in that moment why she had done what she had done. He caught himself hoping that her deceit had only been partial and that she hadn’t faked it, particularly the orgasms which had seemed really real.
‘I knew that you knew that I possessed the tablet of Amenhotep IV,’ continued Ben, ‘and I also knew that you knew the awesome power of the two antiquities combined. It was a simple case of playing off your innate sense of right and wrong and of course your weakness for beauty.’
Murielle and Pegg exchanged a glance and something eased between them.
‘And what of Lord Black?’ Pegg asked, making sure all the loose ends were tied up neatly.
‘Oh, I have always been Lord Black,’ smiled Ben. ‘Supervillainy is a lucrative sideline. Do you have any idea what I get paid at Century? I mean, it’s good but it’s not brilliant. It’s the authors that earn the big bucks, and what do they do, really?
‘Write books?’ offered Canterbury.
Ben scoffed, ‘You’d be surprised how few of them do. Particularly the money-grubbing celebritwats with their self-indulgent journals of narcissistic twaddle.’
‘You’ve got a Porsche!’ Pegg argued.
‘It’s second-hand,’ countered Ben, triumphant at winning the argument but slightly disappointed that he didn’t have a new Porsche.
‘So all the dastardly acts of wickedness perpetrated by Lord Black were all down to you?’ Pegg enquired helpfully.
‘Not all,’ said Ben, regaining something of his foreboding malevolence. ‘There is one last great wickedness. You see, I decided halfway through this wonderful stratagem that such a story was wasted on an oaf like you. I should do what I’ve always felt I could do better than any of you philistines – I’d write the book myself and earn enough money to buy a new Porsche.’
‘What about It Looks Like a Cock?’ challenged Pegg, referring to the novelty photobook of naturally occurring and man-made phallic symbols Ben had put together with his simpering sidekick, the notorious hunchback Jack Fogg. ‘It sold loads!’
‘I’m talking about a real book, you idiot,’ snapped Ben. ‘A book with a story that has a beginning, middle and end. We’ve had the first two, all we require now is an end – and what a denouement it will be. I’m going to make millions.’
With the speed of a cobra, Ben grabbed the standard lamp by his side, tore out the cable and jammed it into Canterbury’s neck. A surge of electricity coursed through the robot’s body, shorting his primary systems, before he had even clattered to the ground. Ben grabbed for the silver revolver and pointed it at Pegg.
‘All too easy,’ hissed the duplicitous villain/publishing executive, squeezing the trigger.
Pegg was momentarily confused – he was looking into Murielle’s eyes and yet how could this be? She had been on the other side of the room a moment ago and now she was here, her arms clasped tightly around his neck. Her grip loosened slightly and her eyes lost focus. It was then that Pegg realised what she had done and his heart broke in two and then those pieces broke in two so that his heart was in four. Somewhere else in the room he heard Ben fiddling with his pistol, hurriedly loading another bullet into the single-shot chamber. ‘How very impractical,’ thought Pegg, absent-mindedly plucking one of the throwing blades from his combat suit and propelling it into Ben’s forehead. Pegg heard a dull thud and knew his nemesis had croaked.
‘Simone.’ Murielle’s voice sounded distant and strained.
‘Try not to speak.’ Pegg brushed a strand of hair from her eye.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I lied. If eet means anything, I only told one lie, everything else was true, I promise.’
‘So you weren’t faking it then?’ Pegg asked tentatively.
‘Non,’ Murielle whispered.
‘The orgasms, I mean,’ Pegg pushed.
Murielle smiled and put her hand on the side of Pegg’s face and shook her head. Pegg breathed a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that he was still great at sex. Murielle shuddered, regaining Pegg’s attention. She pulled him close and looked into his eyes.
‘I love you,’ she whispered.
Pegg immediately thought of Han Solo but decided not to go for the obvious.
‘I love you too,’ he replied.
Murielle’s body went limp, her eyes fluttered into stillness. Pegg knew she was gone but held her closer anyway, burying his face in her hair. A clank from across the room drew his attention and he lifted his head to see Canterbury pulling himself upright. Relief spread through Pegg’s body; at least his best friend was still alive, at least everything was not lost. For the first time in his life, since he was a baby, he cried. He cried in a way that was acceptable for a man to cry and had been since the mid-nineties.
‘Why do you cry?’ asked Canterbury.
‘It’s an emotional response,’ sobbed Pegg. ‘Fluid leaks from the tear ducts . . .’
‘No, sir,’ said Canterbury softly, ‘I mean, why are you crying now?’
‘Murielle,’ said Pegg, his voice cracking, ‘she’s dead.’
‘My scanners would suggest otherwise, sir.’ Canterbury gazed at Murielle for a few moments, seemingly searching her inner body. ‘Her heartbeat is faint but it’s there. It would seem the bullet glanced off a rib and exited through the soft fatty tissue in her abdomen.’
‘She’s not fat!’ said Pegg defensively.
‘Sir, she’s lost some blood, but if we hurry, we can get her to Hendon Garden Hospital. I’m not a medi-droid but I would wager she’ll make a full recovery.’
‘Really?’ said Pegg, snorting a rope of snot from his upper lip. ‘What about Black’s goons?’ asked Pegg. ‘There must be forty of them between us and the jet.’
‘Not to worry, sir,’ beeped Canterbury. ‘If you’d just give the word.’
Pegg lifted Murielle into his arms and smiled at his mechanical confidant. He opened his mouth and whispered a single word.
‘Toast.’
Breaking the Telly
N
ick and I discovered the spoof news show The Day Today by complete accident one Wednesday evening in 1994, and instantly become utterly obsessed with it. The feeling of excitement we got from watching that first episode reminded me of the thrill of finding those few minutes of Vic Reeves Big Night Out after Play It Again, Sam, or the time when I was finally allowed to watch The Young Ones.
And so it was that a short chain of events, kicked off with meeting Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews after a gig at the Chiswick Comedy Club in west London, would end with me working with the creator of one of my favourite ever comedy shows.
It was 1997 and Linehan and Mathews were the writers of the now classic, then white-hot, Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted. The Chiswick gig had gone particularly well and Graham and Arthur came up for a quick chat after my stint was finished.
We hit it off immediately, and a few days later I was invited take part in a couple of TV pilots they were writing. The first was for a sitcom called A Bunch of Hippies, the second was a sketch show called Big Train. I loved the sound of both projects and being involved in the pilots was an unmitigated pleasure not least because I felt as though I was finally working with people whose creative motivations were more in line with my own. The Big Train pilot was particularly exciting for me as it was to be directed by a huge comedy hero of mine, the brilliant Chris Morris. Chr
is, along with Armando Iannucci, had been responsible for the aforementioned The Day Today.
As if this wasn’t enough, I soon after found myself having to sit on the wall outside Talkback’s production offices in London’s Percy Street waiting for my heart rate to slow down having been given the opportunity to audition for the Steve Coogan vehicle I’m Alan Partridge. The first time I was introduced to Steve, I was required to improvise with him in character, wig and all, as Partridge for about fifteen minutes. This was my first experience of performing with a character I had extensive prior knowledge of, and looking into the eyes of Alan Partridge was as intoxicating at the time as looking into the ears of Mr Spock would be twelve years later.
I got the part in I’m Alan Partridge, the pilot for Big Train was picked up, as was A Bunch of Hippies (now just called Hippies), although it wouldn’t go into production until after Big Train. As a result of being introduced to Steve Coogan, with whom I had established an immediate rapport, I was asked to accompany him on tour, along with fellow Big Trainer and exceptional comic mind, Julia Davis.
At the same time, after the critical success of Asylum, Crispin Laser, a producer at the Paramount Comedy Channel, approached Jessica and me with an idea about creating a vehicle for us to star in together. Naive and confident as we were, we accepted the offer on the proviso that we write it ourselves. We decided to fashion a modern take on the old flat-share sitcom model and create a show that was part Northern Exposure, part X-Files, a sort of live-action Simpsons by way of The Young Ones. It started out as Lunched Out but soon changed to Spaced.
I regarded this new-found autonomy as the perfect opportunity to drag Nick kicking and screaming into the world in which he undoubtedly belonged by writing a character in the show specifically for him. Similarly, Jess saw the show as a chance to return a favour to Katy Carmichael, who had facilitated her inclusion in Six Pairs of Pants.
And the final piece of the jigsaw arrived the day that Edgar Wright came round to Jessica’s house with a book full of storyboards he had put together for the first episode of Spaced. I simply had to marvel at his extraordinary and inventive interpretations of our script and felt so lucky and excited to have him on board. I remember looking up from the book to his face and studying it; trying to see his brain through his ridiculous mop of black hair. I felt as though he had seen into our own heads and somehow extrapolated exactly what was needed to make the show work visually, despite our own inability to describe it. He seemed to be so in tune with the script that it was evident his contribution was the missing part of the creative jigsaw which we hadn’t noticed was incomplete.
With Edgar on board as director, we began writing and created the first series piecemeal over the next twelve months, working at each other’s houses in between other projects.
It was while writing Spaced with Jessica that my love of the zombie was reanimated by Japanese video game company Capcom and the first instalment of their now classic horror survival title, Resident Evil.
The game enabled players to experience surviving a zombie outbreak first hand. Set in an old manor house, Resident Evil captured the spirit of Romero’s mournful, shuffling originals brilliantly, bringing back the same frisson of terror and fascination that inspired my love of these tenacious movie ghouls in the first place.
At the time, the freedom to co-write my own sitcom was affording me a certain amount of wish fulfilment. Just as I wanted to comically play out the grand tropes of the war movie and deliver a truthful and honest representation of the London rave scene, I realised I had the perfect opportunity to posit myself within one of my most beloved fantasies. The set-up wasn’t even particularly tenuous; my character Tim, a shadow version of myself, was, like me, a gamer and as such would doubtless be engrossed in the first sequel to Resident Evil, which had soon followed the original game. The show was given to literal metaphors as Tim and Daisy fluctuated between reality and fantasy and it only took a few extra narrative grams of bathtub speed for Tim to find himself living out the game for real.
During the writing process, I discovered that Edgar had been equally beguiled by Romero as a youngster and he jumped at the chance to direct a slice of George-inspired carnage. So it was at nine thirty on a Friday night in October 1999, less than five minutes after Joey, Chandler, Rachel et al. had finished smart-mouthing each other in a fictional Manhattan coffee house, I blew the back of a dead man’s head out with a silver, pistol-grip, pump-action shotgun.
We hoped and prayed that there were people out there who hadn’t switched channels, as they idly wandered out to make a cup of tea, returning to witness their cosy Friday-night entertainment awash with blood. The opening scene of Spaced, Episode 3, ‘Art’, was the first sequence Edgar tackled in the edit after principal photography was complete. He used it as a personal mission statement for demonstrating his intentions for the series; it was the first fully formed moment of Spaced ever to exist and it set us out on a journey that would take us much further afield than Tufnell Park, north London. On the morning of the shoot, having completed the scene before lunch, Edgar and I both remarked that it would be fun to do that again sometime.
In the early half of 1998, I disappeared off on tour for six months with Steve Coogan’s live show, The Man Who Thinks He’s It, taking in what must have been every major city in the UK. Together with Julia Davis, we filled in the gaps during Steve’s costume changes with characters and material Julia and I wrote with Steve and his long-time collaborators Henry Normal and Peter Baynham. I played a neurotic stage manager attempting an onstage proposal to Pauline Calf’s best friend, Michelle, played of course by Julia (Him: ‘I’ve picked your ring.’ Her: ‘That’s no basis for a marriage!’), a hapless actor by the name of Alex D’Arcy (that’s D, apostrophe, arsey) and Paul Calf’s new romantic friend, Keith Todd, who together with Julia’s militant folk singer, Emma From, had given birth to a mutant child with seven ears (Keith: ‘He’s an ugly little bastard.’ Emma: ‘Be quiet, Keith, he’ll hear you!’ Keith: ‘He’s back at the hotel.’ Emma: ‘I KNOW!’).
The tour was an amazing experience and Steve was extremely generous in ensuring the cast, dancers and hair and make-up artists all stayed in the very best hotels en route, something he didn’t actually have to do. By the time June came round, I was physically and emotionally exhausted, although I barely had time to breathe before starting my next job.
We shot the first full series of Big Train that summer and had a thoroughly fun time doing it. There was a real excitement on-set, with both cast and crew aware that something genuinely different and inventive was being hatched. Joining Julia Davis and myself in the cast (Julia and I saw a lot of each other that year) were Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap and Amelia Bullmore, brilliant actors and formidable improvisers all. For the first time in my television career I felt as though I was contributing to a project which represented my own sensibilities completely, as did the rest of the cast. Whether we were protesting a ban on wanking in the office or playing showjumpers desperate to be firemen, we did so with total commitment to the moment, which made the comedy all the more strange and hilarious. Writer Graham Linehan stepped in to call the shots this time, infusing ingenious comic flourishes, which ensured its unique feel. The show was at once subtle and outrageous, and day-to-day shooting was never short on giggles, particularly from Amelia, Julia and me who couldn’t match Kevin and Mark’s uncanny ability to keep a straight face. I actually managed to blag Nick Frost a small part in one episode, as a lascivious builder, making eyes at an attractive marionette, marking his first ever appearance on TV.
The show ran on BBC2 later that year and was critically well received, winning an ITV Comedy Award the following year for ‘Best Broken Comedy’ (whatever the hell that means). A second series followed three years later, which despite being very funny never quite reached the heights of its predecessor. It felt a little belated and, from a purely selfish perspective, I look well fat in it.
After shooting the first series of Big Trai
n, it was back to the stage and The Man Who Thinks He’s It, which transferred to the Lyceum Theatre in London’s West End, remaining there for three months. I played out the rest of the year as Steve Coogan’s sidekick and was extremely happy to do so. Steve has the kind of mind which is constantly ticking over, and spending time with him is always huge fun. He taught me a hell of a lot . . . about cars.
It was a big year for me, 1998, and in a different book I might have lingered longer on the details, but I feel momentum gathering as the end draws near, and stories about exploits on the road and random anecdotes about the business of filming television shows and even films feel less relevant here, particularly in the light of how this book has evolved during the writing process. What’s important is the fact that in the space of twelve months, I found myself working with Bill Bailey, Steve Coogan, Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, all of whom had been an inspiration to me as a young comic. Comedy fans are nerds after all, in fact arguably one of the fiercest nerd tribes out there. I felt very lucky, as did Julia, who had sent her home-made comedy showcase video to Steve, never expecting him to even watch it let alone hire her as a result. It was good to have a fellow newbie sharing all the wonder that year; geeking out is always more enjoyable in groups of two or more.
The Single Greatest Pub in the History of Pubs
M
ost people find a pub they regard as the best pub in the world; the difference with me is that I really did. The Shepherds, on the corner of Archway Road and Shepherd’s Hill, in Highgate, London, became a sort of home from home for Nick Frost and me, when we moved into a nearby house in 1999. From the outside, and indeed from within, it appeared to be a somewhat old-fashioned London boozer, lacking any of the gastro pretensions displayed by so many of the area’s watering holes. The carpet was old and sticky, the jukebox a dearth of choice and the clientele an odd mixture of quiet drinkers and rowdy young men.
Behind the bar under the perpetual watch of a grizzled old German shepherd called Bobby was John the landlord, a gruff old Gooner18 who’d manned the taps in several drinking establishments over his long career as a publican. His wife Bernie, a mercurial Irish matriarch who would glam up for her weekly excursions to Brent Cross Shopping Centre, worked ‘front of house’ with an irresistible charm that made her affection something to strive for and be proud of. Together with their daughters, Michelle and Vanessa, they ran the pub as a family affair, with everyone living on-site. This removed the tension from closing time, since the staff only had a staircase to climb to get home.
