The show was written by Rob Harley, Fay Rusling, Oriane Messina, Richard Preddy, Gary Howe, Stuart Kenworthy and James Henry.

James Henry has a website: HERE!


(thanks for the link)

Read this from James Henry's blogspot (one of the writers on GW) who had this to say:
Thursday, October 21, 2004
GW meeting, sort-of news, and sorry Karl
Spent mostly working on storylines and technical stuff for the second series. Fun to do, and we've got loads to get on with, but kind of boring to blog about, as obviously nothing can be given away. I'm possibly slightly in trouble for even mentioning the DVD, but at the risk of digging myself deeper in a hole of my own making, it's more 'when' than 'if'. They do take a while to do, if you want to do a proper one with commentaries and deleted scenes, so I suspect early part of next year rather than Christmas. And now I probably really am in trouble.

Just be glad it's on Channel 4. The Beeb are an utter bloody beaurocratic nightmare for bringing out stuff on DVD. Big Train is finally available after, what, a millions squillion years?

Nattles asked me after the previous post if I'd come on the C4 forum and answer a few questions. I thought I'd include the answer here, as it's too long for the comments section, and it is relevant to the blog:

Dear Nattles

Bless your heart for asking, but I'll be staying off the forums, for two quite good reasons:

1. The forums are really by and for the viewers. I certainly take a peek at them from time to time, to see what people are picking up on, but it's best not to start posting on them as "Green Wing Writer" or "Mac's Invisible Puppeteer" or whatever. Otherwise it's a bit like someone doing a stand-up gig, then putting on a rubbish false moustache and wandering round saying "Wasn't he good? Didn't you think he was good? Eh? Eh?"

2. I'm really the junior member of the writing team. I started after the pilot had been made, and the storylines for the series pretty much mapped out. Because I'm the only writer with a website (and a blog) I'm receiving a disproportionate amount of attention. Which is, you know, fun, but if I get too carried away, the other writers will take turns smacking me about with a baseball bat. However I wouldn't rule out there being a webchat or some kind of interview with the writers at some point, but not in the immediate future. Also, it's kind of Vicky Pile's baby, so if anyone really knows the why's and wherefores of it, it's her.

Also, I know full well people just want to ask me about Mac and Caroline, and I ain't gonna tell. It's more than my life's worth (see previous 'baseball bat' reference).

peace out,

James


I don't know why I said 'peace out'. Not something I've ever said before, or will ever say again. I think all the attention was going to my head. I'm okay now.

Karl Theobald (Dr. Martin Dear in GW) popped into the office yesterday, and despite having worked with him for two months and even lurked about while they were filming one of his scenes, I'm ashamed to say I didn't recognize him at first, because he wasn't wearing a white coat. Ah the power of television.

This concludes the GW news round-up, which I'm afraid, didn't consist of that much news. If I get a date for the DVD which is at least semi-official (rather than summat I overheard in the office) I'll let people know.


...dunno bout you, but I had a nose around the rest of the website, and I really liked it...
Link

(dernhelm spotted it, not me ;) )



...and just read this...

C.F.C.
Okay, if anyone knows a cute, slightly freckly chick travelling back from St. Lucia to Falmouth on the 20.35, please apologise to her for me on behalf of my appalling chatting-up skills.

I don't normally try and talk to people on trains, especially attractive female people, but we'd traded 'tuh' expressions after a group of extraordinarily drunk people got off at Penryn, so the ice was sort of broken. I noticed her luggage had Virgin Atlantic stickers on it, so I asked her where she'd come from.

CFC: St. Lucia.
JH: Cool. (pause) Where's that?
CFC: The Caribbean (note: it may not have been the Caribbean, it could have been some other islands. My geographical knowledge is rubbish).
JH: Ah, right. Only your sticker had LVG (or similar, see above) on it, and I was trying to work out what airport that was. (I wasn't. Why did I say that?)
CFC: Gatwick.
Pause
JH: Oh.
Pause, during which we get to my stop and the doors open.
JH: Well, I'd better get off the Train of Incredibly Drunk People then.

I got off the train, realized if it sounded like I was insinuating it was she who was incredibly drunk, then gave up and wandered home. God, it's not as if I would even have asked her out for a drink or anything, I'd just like to be able to converse normally with people I've known for less than ten years. They're easy, you can just say 'Where's my pint, you big poof?'. Job done. So anyway, in the unlikely occurance that anyone knows aforementioned CFC, I thought she was very nice, and didn't mean to make her hark back to the Time of the Drunk People as some kind of mythical Golden Age.
:roflmao :roflmao :notworthy

sheer brilliance...

Thanx for keeping an eye on the blog for us, probably best not to leave any comments or anything - we wouldn't want it to be friends onlyed or something! Better to keep peeking in for potential spoilers!

He is hilarious. Ah...writers... they rock.

Just looked at the site and noticed he also wrote some episodes of Bob the Builder!

Now that's funny!

I guess you never can tell, can you? :blink:

I read the site all the time and I think its great! I especially love the 'Toy Fu' strips he puts on every so often, although it's hard to tell the difference between the dinosaur's eyes and its nostrils. :huh:

haha, bob the builder. :lol:

yeah he wrote 'Planet Cook' aswell..... :notworthy *ahem*

oooh if martin wasnt in a white coat, does that mean that HE is the one who dies.... cos then he wouldnt recognise him if HE was the dead one, with makeup etc.........

ohh, no it mentions martin after that episode in the series' synopsis....
maybe the one for episode 7 means that he got the money from an inheritance.... *thinks*

Things to bear in mind:

1) The big gap until the feature-length christmas episode makes last nights look like an ending, rather than, as it actually was, 'episode 8 of 9'. I would prefer people didn't have to wait six months to find out how it all pans out*, but there we are.

2) Think not that we would casually break the hearts of committed GW fans. I mean, we do aim to break them. Just not casually.

3) That lion cub was a lot bigger than I was expecting.

4) Richard wrote the lollipop scene, which I loved. At least I think it was him. Maybe it was Stuart. Does anyone want this buck? I feel the need to pass it to someone...

5) Seriously, that lion cub was huge.

*Not that I really know how it all pans out. I mean I sort of know, but a lot changes twixt script and screen. Anyway, I'm sure Vic hasn't specifically set out to ruin everyone's christmas. There would at least have been a memo or something.

Thank you James Henry!

He's right - its not the end, its 8 of 9 and they will sort this out for us - I have faith in the GW writing team! :D

oooh i'm thinking that i should read into that and make it say that they aren't going to kill off Mac because they don't want to ruin everyones christmas! haha

and there's more:-

Henry James posted this today :D

Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Quick GW round-up

The 'Brief Encounter' bit in in Ep 8 I'm guessing was written by Fay and/or Ori? (nope - see UPDATE below.) I'm ashamed to say I completely missed the reference, never having seen the film, and was wondering why Caroline suddenly started spouting rather melodramatic lines that didn't seem to fit with the rest of it. D'oh!

Current rumour is that the DVD of series 2 will be out in September/October*. Episode 9 (actually a feature-length episode, which should provide a spot of closure for the whole enchilada) should be going out around christmas time. I'm guessing it will come out on a separate DVD, maybe sometime around March/April next year? Last bit just a guess.

No current plans for a series 3. Partly because of the difficulty of getting all those actors back for the same period of time, and partly because the nature of GW gives it a limited lifespan anyway. Series 2 was much plottier than 1, for example, and the exaggerated plotlines means there's only so much further you can go before descending into bathos. Don't rule out any combination of crew/cast working together on other projects though - who knows what the future will bring?**


* Although I've got this sort of thing very wrong before.

** Prophets, soothsayers, and Doctors Who, I suppose, thinking about it.

UPDATE: in comments below rob said...

The Brief Encounter reference was mine, and was a somewhat controversial inclusion. Victoria was dead set against Tamsin having any hint of a clipped Celia Johnson accent, with the result that you now have to know the film extremely well to spot what's going on. Despite the associated visuals, which a lot of people recognise straight away, the melodramatic words are not enough to make the connection. So I agree with you, it ends up sounding rather bizarre.

It should be clear that Caroline isn't talking directly to Guy, but musing out loud, as a wry acknowledgement of the parallels she sees between her love triangle being played out on a steamy platform and the scene in Brief Encounter (of which she's likely to be a fan, given her fondness for trains and romance).

A touch of accent would have put that line into inverted commas, and suddenly even those who'd never heard of Brief Encounter might at least have worked out what she was doing.

On the other hand, it must have been very satisfying for the first person to spot it. Perhaps there could be an award at the convention.

As for the significance of the words in the long run....
... well, we'll just have to wait 7 months to find out, won't we?

Are you feeling proud IMO? :) hehe, I would be.

Well I would feel proud, but it was someone on the C4 Forums who noticed the connection ;)

Ah darn, so close and yet so far. Well, it was you that made the quote known to me, so you can feel proud for that :) ah go on. Hehe.

I've never heard of Brief Encounter in my life...I was born in '89, had it come out then? *Feels far too ashamed to live with her complete ignorance.*

Could someone explain which lines Caroline sprouted? I'm a bit of a trivia whore...

There may be cookies in it. :D

It should be clear that Caroline isn't talking directly to Guy
That bit interests me! :D

Hello

Brief encounter is an old old movie of the classic variety for those who were askin. And shame of you for being born in 89. i now feel very very old. Ya boo!

im intrigued by this post............ :excited maybe carolines saying shes lying bout her feelings for mac and really loves guy!!! HURRAH!!!!!!! :P

what's this? what's this?

is there going to be a convention?

There's talk of a Convention on the GW Channel 4 Forum - I don't think it's an official thing.

See, now I'm confused for several reasons :unsure:

1) I thought that Brief Encounter was a movie about aliens.

2) I'm not entirely sure what line they're talking about

3) Is Caroline an alien....?

4) I'm slightly drunk while writing this...

*races off to watch episode again*

Ahh, see, no. You are in fact thinking of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Brief Encounter is a very different film :)

I thought it was about aliens too, Snoopy :lol:

Caroline might be an alien. Interesting thought. Though if there WAS an alien within the show, you'd have to go for Sue, wouldn't you lol

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I'm not very savvy with movies.

I watched the episode again, and I'm slightly less confused than I was, so thats all good.

p.s I wouldn't call Sue an alien, I'd call her a feline trapped in a woman's body. Miaow!

and there's yet more:-

Monday, June 05, 2006
Green Wing (not) Christmas Special, and a song

I just got an email from patrick in the GW office:

Hi James,

Fine so far.

Fantastic little thing in the Guardian about your blog on Saturday!

Yeah, it sounds complimentary, but did you notice the 'little'? I think he's jealous.

Nice one!

Still sounds sarcastic.

Just one thing,

Oh, here it comes....

The special, is NOT a Christmas special. It is likely* to go out before Christmas, or after Christmas. So you might want to amend that...

Ooops. There we are, it's not really a Christmas special, as it could go out before Christmas or afterwards. Either of those time slots. It was being referred to as a Christmas special at one point, but now, apparently, it's not. Just because someone quite high up in channel 4 referred to it as a 'christmas special' doesn't mean I should make the ridiculous assumption that it's a 'christmas special'.... chizz chizz moan moan sulk.

I'm like one of those army units that goes rogue ( a 'rogue army unit') blundering about on the far South Western tip of the map, causing mischief and mayhem, until Patrick gets given a river boat and told to sort it out, while James Hendrix plays in the background. I might shave my head and hide in the delicatessen section of Tesco's later, rising out of the pate while Patrick's helicopter (he's got a helicopter now) looms in overhead, playing Ride of Valkyries. Actually I can't, I'm waiting for a phone call about my replacement Powerbook, I'll have to stay in, bugger.

* Just to be sure, it's not set in stone that it's going out at all - don't want to jump the gun on C4 there, but you never know, the last episode might be so astonishingly mould-breaking and amazing (especially my bits) that who's to say it won't be deemed too dangerous for human eyes to see and sent into space instead where it will float into the heart of the sun and do no further damage. I mean I'm sure it will be going out, but let's not get too complacent about these things, hmm?

so it's defineitly not christmas special?

it had better be earlier, rather than later...

unless of course they repeat them all over xmas, win which case i dont mind

I think they'll repeat the whole of the second series to lead up to the 9th episode. When does BB finish - there'll be loads of transmission time for Channel 4 to fill up then :)

BB is 13 weeks long this year, and it started on the 18th of May, so that means it should end on about...*does soem mental calculations* Friday the 18th of August. New programming schedules don't then usually start until september, when everyone's mostly back from hols, so if they started re-showingseries 2 in September, they'd show the 9th episode by the end of October at the earliest.


For me though, the sooner BB ends, the better! BB makes me wanna do this: :bangh

I can't stand BB, especially since so many people watch it, you spend a long period of time saying, "Who? Ohhh, is that something to do with Big Brother? Don't tell me then", I just hate it. Big waste of time.

Are people actually bothering to watch it this time. I've caught the last few minutes of it last night waiting for Desperate Housewives to come on and it was c**p :bangh And there's seems to be nothing in the papers about it at the moment (or maybe the Daily Mail have just boycotted it) :unsure:

It's the way people discuss the contestants as if they were people they actually knew, that annoys me - takes me ages to realise who and what they're talking about, and then I just zone out - I listen to a lot more music over the summer, lol!

Talking about GW characters is one thing - they have something going for them at least! These people are boring, pretentious freaks - arg!

You actually know people who watch it :o

:lol:

i'm trying not to wacth it, cos i know its a pile of :censor but if i do watch too much i'll get addicted.

instead, last night, i wrote some fanfic. :D

Well being a psychology student (chuh!) I sometimes enjoy watching the way they behave in the artificial situations, and how they conform to roles and stuff automatically. And how they establish a community, and once that's done, they tend to reject newcomers (e.g Sam).

But oh my what a bunch of FREAKS!!! :P

I just read 'Planet Cook' as Peter Cook. :lol: :rolleyes: Sorry, bit of a one track mind - I'm a big Pete and Dud fan and had a dream about them last night so I think that might explain it.

Anyway, I don't think I'd looked at this site before, although I know of it. Interesting. :) Can't believe the same person who wrote Green Wing wrote Bob the Builder!!!

Peter Cook is such a legend, I love him in The Princess Bride, he is hilarious.

I know, he was one of those real comedy genii, who, sadly, had problems like so many of them had/have. :( :(

I know this is sort of going off-topic but I'll ask Stephen to spank me for it later or something (or young Peter Cook, come to think of it (VERY much in fantasy land, here... :blush :blush )) but did you see Not Only But Always? Another bit of genius!

*mind wanders at the thought of Stephen and Peter spanking joy* No I haven't, I've really been meaning to track it down, I love everything Peter Cook did, bless him.