Interviews - Tom Meeten

I did a fine art degree in Sheffield. I started to do performance stuff there and some of it was quite strange and I thought the best way to carry on with that was to do stand-up down in London.

So I moved down and created a loose and kind of weak character called Tommy Fate. He was kind of a disco king and he was a failed entertainer, but it was an excuse for me to go on and dress in a silly suit and be quite energetic and seemingly wild, I suppose. It was good, I enjoyed it.

I suppose it was like that. I was doing stand-up stuff and gigs for no money. I was doing that for a year or so and then an agent approached me after a pokey gig in New Cross to go up to Edinburgh and be part of a sketch show. So I said yes to that and met another guy up there called Steve Oram, who I do a lot of other stuff with, and we started doing some stuff together, like Edinburgh and things. So yeah, I guess I was kind of "spotted".

Yeah. Me and Steve had done Matthew and Tone as a live sketch in Edinburgh and then somebody from Shine, a production company, liked it and we talked about doing it as a Comedy Lab and they really liked the scripts and stuff, so it kind of went from there.

They started off as a live set of characters, but we always knew they had a great narrative in them. We wrote that one - we didn't write Skin Deep, we were just the main parts in it. So it is about getting out there and spotted.

Yeah, I think so. It all helps and you get to know how it works a bit more. Some things become easier, some things don't change, some things are still hard, but getting a good relationship with Channel 4 is always good.

I think most people would say they do these things to get a series even though they might go, "Oh, we're very happy with it!" In the back of people's minds most people want to do a series I think. We were quite disappointed with Matthew and Tone because we thought it was really good and deserved something, but these decisions don't get made by us.

I hope so, yeah. I did another series for Channel 4, a sketch show called Blunder that was good, but flawed. You hope all these things inform what you go on to do.

It started out about two years ago. We did a little taster tape in which we kind of did a ten-minute show to give a flavour of a potential series. It was to do with Barunka more and was like a sidekick.

The sketches in that featured the Dodi and Di characters fronting a cookery show called Dodi and Di's Cookery Fantasy.

Channel 4 pinpointed that as their favourite thing within the taster tape. Then for E4's Funny Cuts we did a taster thing that didn't go out because it was around the time of Diana's inquest and they thought it may have been a bit too insensitive to put it out then. After that Channel 4 said, "Let's try and do something else with you two."

Nothing incredibly drastic. There are always debates and some times they can get heated with people, but no, no exciting stories about me twisting my ankle. I can make one up if you want? I shat myself during the first take when I was wearing some white linen.

Believe in your idea and, if you get the opportunity to, build up a relationship within the production company you're working with and whoever it might be at Channel 4. I know I've done a few things with them, but Channel 4 are one of the only TV companies who give relatively unknown people a chance really. If you do put in a Comedy Lab idea and it gets rejected, like mine and Steve's first attempt at a Comedy Lab did, you've just got to keep trying, keep going.

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