Went to the new Writers Guild hall on Thursday 26th, which is on Britannia Street just off Gray's Inn Road, to see David Nobbs give a talk on his life and works.
The room was brightly new, the smell of fresh carpeting being the first thing to greet you as you work your way through the awkward doors.
The second and third greetings come from Mo and Naomi, who introduce themselves, either freshly trained for, or freshly inspired by, the new building.
It's only a small gathering of around 30 people and David Nobbs is introduced as 'our president', 'we' being members of the Writers' Guild apparently, though I am not.
David gives an engaging talk, explaining that he doesn't know what we are expecting, but he is not a teacher so won't be teaching us about writing, though we may gain some tips as he goes along.
And he gives an enjoyable talk about becoming a writer, having the original idea for Reggie Perrin turned down by a Pebble Mill competition thus saving it from only being a half-our comedy.
Nothing is wasted, as David Nobbs, says so he took the material and put it in a novel and from there came the request for the famous comedy-drama.
As for tips, he says that he has only one slogan:
"Action without tension doesn't work, tension without action can work, but if you've got both you're doing well."
Not a catchy slogan by any means from 'Britain's best post-war comic novelist' as billed by Jonathan Coe, but very good advice, I'm sure.
And the lack of tension - drama, plot or interest - that you find in most sit-coms these days would seem to illustrate his point perfectly.
He also stressed rhythmn as being a major factor in writing dialogue for scripts and told a story about being banished from the house by his children for embarrassing them by trying to mimic Frankie Howerd, to try and capture his particular rhythmn. This almost ended in disaster as the police were called by passers-by who saw this man wandering the streets, talking to himself animatedly - this being in the days before mobile phones, when such odd behaviour is commonplace.
Nobbs has written for many of the greats, and another one he mentioned was Tommy Cooper who, although paying for the material, never appeared to use it. Cooper, it seems, simply ad-libbed his way through his act and Nobbs singled him out with the label of genius.
And there are minor things to take into account when writing a book too. For instance, many people only read for 20 minutes at a go on their way to bed, or on a train journey, and he mentioned that one of his earlier works, as being far too complicated - like a jigsaw puzzle - which meant that every time a reader picked up the book, they would spend that time trying to remember where they'd got to.
We followed this with a question and answer session, where we were told that Leonard Rossiter refused to do the second series of Reginald Perrin, unless there was a novel written of it first, and David read us a little bit from his new radio drama, The Maltby Collection starring Geoffrey Palmer, to demonstrate rhythmn and also something that David says he likes to use in his writing - repetition.
Then it was wine or juice with Doritos and chat amongst aspiring writers, published writers, publishers and readers, and a very pleasant atmosphere indeed. I took the card of a man who films his own sketches, so will be following that up as the beginnnigs of my career as an amateur film actor, chatted with a publisher who was the perfect example of ex-public school friendliness and chatted to Helen Smith ('Alison Wonderland') about blogs.
A very enjoyable event, and I'll be looking out for a few more of these.
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