Camp David by David Walliams

Author:David Walliams [Walliams, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: humour, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents, Non-Fiction, Biography
ISBN: 9780718158613
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

Mash ’n’ Peas

Myfanwy Moore, my official guardian angel, was now a producer with the Paramount TV channel. It was still the early days of Sky, and although Paramount only showed reruns of American sitcoms, it wanted to make its own programmes. Myfanwy asked Matt and I to put together a show called Spoofovision. This would be a dozen collections of original sketches, all spoofing television series. Largely though, we could do whatever we wanted. And did.

Edgar Wright (who would later direct Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) had approached Matt at a gig one night. Edgar had seen him in Shooting Stars and wanted him to play a role in a low-budget film he had written called Crawl. He was only twenty but looked twelve, and already had made a film showing at a cinema in London, a western spoof called A Fistful of Fingers. One night I took Katy to see it, and I could see immediately that Edgar was someone who really understood the genre, knew comedy and could direct. In short, he was a child genius.

So when Myfanwy asked, ‘Who would you like to direct?’

I said, ‘Edgar Wright. You have to go and see his film. It’s not the best film ever made but you can see he is a giant talent.’ Never have I been surer of a friend’s future success than Edgar’s.

‘How would you feel about a gay man producing you?’ asked Myf.

Matt and I looked at each other, puzzled. We were sitting in a coffee shop in Soho, just down from the Paramount offices in Rathbone Place.

‘Well, we don’t mind,’ said Matt.

‘We don’t have to have someone gay,’ I added. ‘We don’t mind either way. Why?’

‘Well, I think you would be really good with a gay man producing you.’

It was if she was trying to force us or our work out of the closet.

A week later we met Johnathan Rawlinson, who took an instant dislike to us and us to him. Unfortunately he still became our producer, and contributed less than nothing. He acted as if he was our headmaster. When Matt and I mucked around on the walkie-talkies one day he said, ‘I am reporting you to your agent.’

We really had no idea what the show was going to be. All we knew was that we had to do spoofs. We invented two appallingly unfunny hosts called Mash ’n’ Peas.

‘I’m Danny Mash …’

‘And I’m Gareth Peas.’

They were two desperately immature men who openly squabbled. Their catchphrase was ‘Get knockin’!’ and they introduced a series of thematically linked sketches. The themes included American sitcoms, the making of a boy-band documentary spoof and children’s TV.

Perversely minded, Matt and I wrote a spoof of Diff’rent Strokes called ‘I’m Black and my Dad’s in the Klan’. Matt appeared on his knees and in blackface, and I wore Klu Klux Klan robes and a hood. Fortunately for us and them, Paramount decided not to broadcast it. Ones that were shown included the ‘Take Hart’ sketch, in which

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