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Interviews - Tom Meeten - Part Two
Tom Meeten talks about the filming and writing of Mr and Mrs Fandango in the second part of our interview.
Do you think that being in a couple with Barunka helped you in making Mr and Mrs Fandango?
Yes. We were doing live stuff in Ealing together before we became a couple, so we probably would have done something together anyway. I don't know if the ideas for Mr and Mrs Fandango came from being a couple, but there's not many comedy shows with just a man and a woman. Within the show it's not exclusively about couples, but we're always in it together.
What did your writing process for Mr and Mrs Fandango involve?
Well, we already had Dodi and Di, which Channel 4 already liked, and then we ran ideas past Ash Attala (who produced it) and Shane Allen (at Channel 4). Then we'd write stuff out and send it to them, then we'd try stuff out. There's some stuff that we really like that didn't make it and there's some stuff that was weak that didn't make it.
What was your favourite Mr and Mrs Fandango sketch to write and perform?
I think it was one called Learn Englidge. It's about a foreign-learning English DVD and Barunka is the host and I'm a disruptive force that gets hung up about Jack the Ripper being the most synonymous thing about English history.
That was an idea that we workshopped and worked out how to do it best, which worked out really well. The most fun one to perform was the Bollywood sketch that we've done. We did some quite silly Bollywood moves. I'm a good stupid dancer, not a good dancer. We always try and get a bit of dancing in a character.
Do you think people will find the 'Dodi and Di's daytime TV show that never was sketch' offensive?
I'm sure some people might, but my mum and dad saw it and they're quite normal people and they liked it. It's playful enough for it not to be offensive, really. It's very silly and I'd be surprised if people find it offensive. I think people who might be offended by the idea probably wouldn't watch it actually and would probably just hear of such a thing and become outraged without ever seeing it.
It seems like there are a fair few popular culture references in Mr and Mrs Fandango - such as 'Coleen and Wayne's sci-fi nightmare' and 'conjoined twins Ant and Dec' - do you think to become a television-ratings hit modern comedy needs to reach out to pop culture?
You get immediate recognition from people who are watching, then you can play with the idea of the popular culture characters a bit more and perhaps be more imaginative, so it gives you a bit of a licence to do stranger stuff than you might do with unknown characters. So yeah, there's definitely more of a trend towards popular culture.
Mr and Mrs Fandango was filmed using the latest bluescreen studio technology - why was that? Was it cheaper that way?
We were originally quite inspired by doing stuff in a studio and obviously budget is a factor. There are quite a few studio-based shows that haven't been done for a while, like Kenny Everett, and there's a great show that I've only seen on YouTube called Tim and Eric who use a lot of green/bluescreen technology. I'll give Mr and Mrs Fandango a studio-based identity. To try and do things a bit simpler was the idea, really.
What are you future plans? For your career we mean, not just are you going to the shops today type of thing...
I've got a few things on the go. I really enjoy working with other people, so I'm doing stuff with Steve Oram and Simon Farnaby who was on the Boosh with me, and Barunka, of course. I'm working on a narrative idea nest, which I haven't really tried to do in recent times. Matthew and Tone was the last narrative show I did.
Finally, can you do the fandango?
I'm not even sure what it is! No idea. With some basic lessons I'm sure I could!
