Tom Basden: How to Make a Career as a TV & Film Writer

0:00We didn't have much time. We had like 18 days to do the whole thing. It's a terrible way to work because you have to go back to it and go, I've got to rework all of this.

0:10Ben Hanlin: Welcome back to What's the Trick? I'm your host, Ben Hanlin, and this is the podcast where I sit down with the world's most creative people and try and understand their creative process. How do they go from a spark of an idea to turning it into something that we all love, whether it's comedy or music or film or anything, really? and today's guest is Tom Basden. He is an actor, a writer, a comedian. If you're into British comedy, you'll either have probably seen him or his work at some point. Give me an example. He's been in David Brent's Life on the Road. He's written ITV2's Plebs and he was in Plebs and he also writes BBC's Here We Go Again and he stars in that as well.

0:51Ben Hanlin: But one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Tom and I had to get him on this podcast because he co-wrote my favourite film of 2025, The Ballad of Wallace Island. And we talk about that in this episode, obviously. So if you haven't seen The Ballad of Wallace Island, go and see it. First of all, it is an independent film, as we'll hear, independent British film. It is, I'll give you a quick summary. It's about a quiet, well, it's a quiet character-driven British comedy drama written by Tom Basden, obviously, and Tim Key, who stars in this as well. It's also starring Kerry Mulligan, who's fantastic.

1:26Ben Hanlin: And it is almost set entirely on a fictional island. And the premise is that Tim Key is a lottery winner. He's got loads of money. He's a recluse. He lives on this island. And for giggles, really, he decides to hire his favourite ever folk musician, played by Tom Basden, to come to his island and do a gig for the island. But we quickly unfold, and that's about the first two minutes of the film. many things happen after that and it's um why i love this film so much like i say my favorite film of the year it's funny and it's got so much heart as well and as the time goes on in the film it gets a lot more layered and deep and it's lovely and richard curtis called this film one of the greatest british films of all time so that's not enough impetus to go and watch it i don't know what is so and also in this episode what do we talk about so we talk about that and we talk about Tim and Tom's journey to making their first ever feature film.

2:24Ben Hanlin: How do you do that? How do you come up with an idea and then get it into cinemas? You'll find out there's lots of knockbacks, lots of rejection. They have to pivot and change their tactics loads of times. And also we talk about his writing process whenever he's thinking about comedy and then however he shapes his scripts and anything he's working on. So loads to go out there. I'm going to stop rabbiting. So without further ado, this is What's the Trick with Tom Bastard. 2007, you do the short, gets really well received, and then now fast forward to now, the film you made. Very quickly, because I know you've spoken this about it before, how did it go from the short to the film?

2:58Ben Hanlin: What was the trigger point to go, come on, let's do it now? Okay, so this is good, because I've not really talked about it in this detail before. What happened next is quite hard to summarise, but basically we made this short, it got nominated for a BAFTA, and at the time we felt like, oh, people are taking notice of what we're doing, having just done this stuff, you know, independently for a few hundred quid or whatever, just making these films. Suddenly we felt like people were paying attention. And then we got sort of set up with a bigger production company. And I don't know why. I don't know whose initiative it was.

3:38I don't think it's theirs. I'm certainly not going to blame them. But, like, we just sort of parked the idea of Wallace Island. Right. And we were writing other things for telly or stage or whatever. and I think our feeling was that it was too hard to make films. I think that's by about 2012, 2013, I think we'd reached the point where we were like, I think that's not realistic to try and make a film. And you both had other things going on.

4:06Ben Hanlin: You were writing other TV shows. Tim was doing his thing. So you were masters in other areas, right? So it's probably easy to go. Yeah, I just do those things. I think that's right. And I think it's probably about the point when Plebs got commissioned around this sort of time And when something like that happens, you know, you're just sort of, all of your time's taken up. You've just got to focus on the thing you've been paid to do and do that as well as you can and make the most of that opportunity, right? So suddenly the idea of writing a film on spec, trying to, you know, take it around, it felt like it just wasn't really worth it.

4:42Yeah. And I think, to be honest, the other thing is that because film is such a director's medium, from a producer's point of view, it means that as a writer you don't have a lot of power. And even if you write a great script, that's not going to make that much difference to whether or not it gets made.

5:02Ben Hanlin: Yeah, there's many other things that need to happen before that. Yeah, it's like who's in it, who's directing it. Those are the things people actually care about. So then what was the gear change then? What made you go, where was the trigger point to go, ah, let's revisit this, let's go? Yeah, I think it was just the sort of romantic in both of us that we were like, yeah, but that short was really good. And it would just be such a shame if we never tried to make anything like this and never actually tried in earnest to make a feature film. And, you know, a couple of things, Our director, James Griffiths, moved to the States in about 2010.

5:42And he was living in LA. And we thought he might be living there, basically, you know, indefinitely. So we kind of figured we'd sort of lost him a little bit as a colleague. And then he moved back to England. And this must have been in about 2018, 2019. He was moving back to England. You know, maybe I was at the point where plebs was slightly sort of taking care of itself. And I didn't feel like the same pressure to just devote myself to that. And I think we were, Tim and I were doing a lot of gigs. Yeah. And our double act called Freeze would often end with us showing a short film. And often that would be the one and only Herb McGuire plays Wallace Island, what became Wallace Island.

6:25And we'd just watch this film quite a lot and be like, ah, really, you know, really like it. And the audience would like it. And you're like, hmm. And sometimes people would say, what are you doing with that? And we'd be like, no, nothing. and so I think in about 2018 I think I just started to just put together some ideas for how a feature could work and started sending them to Tim and he'd send them back to me and we sort of deliberately didn't show it to anyone and didn't talk to producers or anyone about being paid for it

6:56Ben Hanlin: we just wrote it so this is the bit that 99.9 % of people will never have a clue on so you got this idea you're working with Tim you're both working with me so what is step one is it let's just get a script is it like we need to get no pages or is it bullet points what is it so well everything's different right when i started when i was writing things like party for radio 4 which is like a sitcom about people starting a new political party i would literally just open the document and start writing it and then get to like page 40 and be like okay that's probably episode one right right and it is a terrible way to work because you have to go back to it and go, well, I've got to rework all of this.

7:38Right. You know, because it's just, there'll be some good jokes, but it'll be a complete mess. And then I think as I've got older, I've sort of committed to actually writing an outline, trying to often, not always, but sometimes a scene by scene. And then before you actually start writing the script.

7:54Ben Hanlin: So would you, with the stuff you were saying to Tim, you'd be like, right, okay. So scene one arrives on island. You have this. Scene three, they go to the house. Scene three, there's a, at this point, drama or problem. like are you literally shaping it? I think I would probably be, no, I think I would be suggesting stuff. I think, you know, I do tend to sort of see it as a complete thing when I'm writing it. So even like at that stage, I'll just, I'll be like, okay, at this point Nell turns up, former bandmate, and she's with her husband and their, you know, awkward reunion with Herb, Charles kind of trying to make nice with them all kind of thing.

8:34So it'd be like writing things like that. The other thing is, given that we had the script from the short, I could just write it as notes into the short. Yes. So the first draft is basically the script from the short with my notes on it and then a bit where I go, and then from here, obviously, it's a brand new film and we have to just write that film.

8:50Ben Hanlin: And do you and Tim, in this process, the whole writing, scripting ideas, do you take separate roles? Are you kind of the word person that puts it all down? And does Tim throw it? Or do you both kind of do the same stuff? I think we probably do. I don't think you'd mind me saying this, but I think I'm more of the kind of story person. I think I'll tend to like, I write quite fast and I don't mind just running out of the blocks and just trying something and getting loads of words down on the page. And then will he come in and then... And then he'll come in and reshape it or he'll say like, we've got five scenes here, we could maybe just do it with this like with one like he's very very good at seeing like ways to kind of simplify it and ways to kind of make things more um more visual in the moment sometimes i'll write around it it's a bit like you know i i think of like often first drafts are a bit like buildings with scaffolding on you know what i mean and you kind of you're going but you need all of that otherwise it'll fall down and sometimes people come in and go no no no but it's really ugly take it all off it'll be fine and it kind of is and you think because obviously you both come from stand-up because tim is doing stand-up all the time do you think he's very much like obviously the thing with stand-up is get to the point as quick as possible right yeah i think there may be a bit of that i think there might be i think i think it's also just like sometimes in the writing particularly early on you're you're kind of you're writing your own um way through it you're right You're writing it to make sense to yourself.

10:28Yeah. And then after a while you can be like, okay, I understand it completely now, so let's work out what we can hide or what we don't need.

10:36Ben Hanlin: So then was the goal to get to an outline and then take it to people or did you want to get to a finished script? No, I think the goal, I think what we didn't want to do, and this sort of goes back to our experience, like developing stuff previously, is we didn't want to develop this film. We didn't want to like give people a pitch or like a one pager or even a scene by scene and then ask for money in exchange for notes. We just didn't want to do that. So we basically wanted to finish the script. Yeah. As near as damn it, get a script that we would shoot and then go, it's that, it's that. Yeah, that's what you buy.

11:14So let's just shoot that. Right. And I think, obviously, you know, we had to make some changes for ourselves as well. but it did mean that doing that we just had a degree of confidence about it the whole time but it's like you know there's something about when you've when you've when you've written something and you're aware of its faults and you're aware that some things don't work then you're kind of you know always laying yourself open to to sort of other people coming in and finding fault and sort of, and finding a way to kind of, not even deliberately, because it's often constructive, but finding a way to improve it, which can lead to sort of destroying it if you're not careful.

12:02Ben Hanlin: Almost too many cooks kind of things rather than go, this is the vision and this is it. A little bit. It's like, it's really hard because I've really benefited enormously from people's notes over the years and I'm always receptive to notes, but I think I've realized that it's only really a kind of fruitful thing creatively if you're showing them a script that you think is as good as it can be and then they're giving you notes and you're going, oh, actually, that's a really good point. That would improve it. Yeah. As opposed to showing something to people and going, that bit, ignore that. That bit's not right.

12:45And then you're opening the door for ideas and other people just going, well, could it be that? And could it be that? Or could they be a vampire? Or hear me out, could there be a car chase? And suddenly you're like, you're in a world of like, well, it could be anything.

12:58Ben Hanlin: Because if you're in a world of could-bes, it's like there is no end to that. It could be anything. And then you're relying, I guess, to who you kind of get into bed with financially to help make the story good then, rather than going, well, we've got the story. We know what it is. That's it. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think, look, I think what tends to happen, And again, I don't think this is anyone's fault. And I think, you know, when I've given notes on other people's stuff, I would probably do a similar thing. It's that when people read something, they automatically give notes to make it more like something else that's already been made.

13:32Ben Hanlin: Hello, it's me. This is a short commercial break. I say commercial break. I've got no sponsors. So it's me just talking at you. this is Tom he's gonna be back in a moment we recorded this obviously a few months ago as I record this bit right now I'm doing this as the episode's about to go out I'm in the bit between Christmas and New Year probably the same as you so it's just towards the end of December now and I'm feel like I'm full of Terry's chocolate orange and beer so um 2026 is just around the corner and I'll be honest with you I've got one really strong resolution and it is this podcast my goal in 2026 is to do 50 episodes or more of this show so um hopefully you can stay with me on this journey and be part of the community that i want to build this year because i'm loving having these conversations and i'm loving talking to you uh you know through dms or in person of some of the conversations we've had and just talking about it so that's what i'm this year hopefully 2026 is good for you um and what do i need i'm gonna be selfish this is my commercial plug um it's a new podcast so if you can like or subscribe and hit that follow button obviously you'll never miss an episode as well but that also helps with charts and reviews really help with like ranking this in charts and getting noticed and helps push the episode out but my only thing i'm really gonna ask you to do is if you're enjoying this episode if you've got a friend that loves British comedy or you think would love this episode just whatsapp this to them and say hey give this a listen and if we can just build this little community one person at a time that would be incredible and please do dm me as soon as this episode finishes on instagram and let me know what you think and I'll chat to you about it because I do like to hear what you're thinking of these conversations and if you want any more if you missed last week's Matt Edmondson radio one presenter but actually we spoke about uh how he creates for uh board games for john lewis and walmart really great conversation there and the week before probably still one of my faves so far the series andy nyman who co-writes for deron but he's an actor a writer um he just had an hour of gold so everybody can get something out of that one as well so that's it for this week I hope, honestly, that your 2026 is lovely.

15:51Ben Hanlin: And I hope it's inspiring you to be a bit more creative this year. And pick up a pen and write some ideas and turn them into something. Anyway, enough from me. I will see you soon. Let's finish up listening to Tom Basner. One thing I want to talk to you about, and we'll fast forward to, I guess, when you're filming it. How much did you improvise? Well, quite a lot. I'd say, like, we didn't have much time. We had, like, 18 days to do the whole thing. It was 18 days? Yeah, so we were really up against that. It was like shooting a sitcom, really, in terms of the amount of pages we were getting through a day.

16:27It was really hard. And, you know, that's with the weather and the tide and, like, you know, lugging the cameras to the clifftop and all that stuff. It was really hard. So it meant that we just didn't have the time to piss about in the way that we would have liked to. Like, we'll always want to do more. But when it's just me and Tim, we would improvise quite a lot, particularly the end of scenes. Right. So there are still quite a few of these moments in the film where it gets to the end of the scene and something else happens and something else happens. Yeah, that's just anything that happened on the day.

17:01So we were improvising quite a lot, but we also, you know, going back to the script, we kind of had the script in a place where we believed in it and we were like, that's what we want to shoot. So we'd make sure that we shot the script.

17:13Ben Hanlin: then if we had time we'd fuck about and when you say fuck about so what see okay so you've done the lines like that's the same we've done so then will you go right we're going to go again and then what it literally just be whatever different words or direction one of you wants to play it yeah yeah i mean yeah yeah and and it might even be you know but when you have a sort of good working relationship with people you can kind of do this where it might be that you'll go sorry let's go back because I've got an idea and don't cut we'll just go back and you just do it again but obviously that's quite not all actors like that so you know you have to kind of be respectful and that's because you come from the sketch side of things so I tell you what I'm not going to go through a load of jokes so I don't want to ruin the film my favourite joke in the film and it would be interesting just because I was like did you write that it's really simple really simple is when you ask tim to leave the room right yeah no you don't leave the room you say can you shut your your change yeah you're in your bedroom and you basically imply can you get out so i can change which the whole audience completely gets yeah tim doesn't get he you say can you shut the door and he shuts the door and stays inside the room yeah he goes oh you wanted me to leave yeah sorry yeah was that an improv or was that written no that's written because well anything visual and I think you can't really, I mean, you can, I guess, improvise things that are visual.

18:38But if you think of a moment like that, right, you know, you've got the DP following the action. Yeah. And if he thinks Tim is going to leave, it's a completely different shot to the one where he thinks he might stay. So, like, with stuff like that, you kind of, I mean, I guess it happens that you kind of, you find visual things in the moment. but often it can be like for the director it's like oh my god don't change don't change the blocking now yeah the lighting set you can do what you want as long as you don't get it completely

19:10Ben Hanlin: yeah completely yeah so it's rare that it's that it's mostly just just sort of verbal jokes to be honest and would he ever say something on an improv and set you off laughing or vice for that I mean, not really. We're very... I think because we just were aware of how little time we had. And we're literally running back to our marks to do another take at the end of each take. It's like, go, go, go. It just meant that, like, if you actually find something funny, you've ruined it. You've ruined the scene. And so you kind of go, okay, ha-ha, but well done. Because now that's unusable. Do you know what I mean?

19:48Ben Hanlin: Yeah, yeah. We don't have time to enjoy this. No, not at all. you can maybe laugh at it after but at the time it's just so important that we don't break character and obviously a lot of this we talk about is a collaboration and you talked about how you would do it in the early stages and I'm not trying to be negative but I think it's quite interesting, were there ever disagreements and how did you two handle those disagreements when you're passionate about something you're not going to agree on everything and there were disagreements in the script the disagreements uh on the day and their disagreements in the edit and you just you know it's it it's hard that because you just have to like um you have to make your peace with the fact that it is a collaborative process and so there'll be things where you know like when we first saw the first cut of the film it was like two hours 45 minutes right right and honestly i watched that and was like don't cut a thing it's great oh really because it had all of our it had all of the jokes in it so from a writing point of view it had every single joke in it and i'm like well i love all these jokes this is great yeah and then you're aware that like from an audience point of view it's way worse than the 100 minute version of course it is right and so like i don't know there just there definitely comes a point where you've got a you've got a just try and see it as objectively as you can and remove yourself from it.

21:19I think that's the other thing more generally about if you've written something, particularly if you're in it as well, which I often am with the stuff that I've written, you've really got to like forget that you're the writer and just understand that there's a creative process that happens when you film it and there's a creative process that happens when you edit it.

21:40Ben Hanlin: Yeah. And did you let other people at that point, that's where your directors or your producers step in and go right well you want a bit more removed you want to be able to collaborate with them because often often there'll be things you're aware of that other people aren't aware of like about story or about character and then when you explain it they'll be like oh yeah that's great we should definitely do that i don't mean yeah yeah but i do think what can happen and you see it i you know i see writers doing this sometimes is that you just start lobbying for the script as it was as a blueprint and start going yeah but in the script it's it's it's meant to be this and it's meant to be that it happens before this and that and i think you can just kill the vibes so easily and slightly i don't know you just you can i think you probably make it worse as well right yeah yeah just let that collaborative process happen like i said so then we've jubbed around a bit we've gone forward from script and then to the shooting but so you got the script eventually done and you talked about filming it in 18 days obviously that's because of budget time that kind of stuff yeah what was the process how did you go from a script to getting someone to invest in the money and going right that we're going to give you x amount to make this thing and then also by the way at some point you got cary mulligan on board which obviously must really yeah how did all that fall into place well you know that what what happened was we we We sent it to James, the director, and he loved it, wanted to do it.

23:08And so he was then giving us a few thoughts, rewriting it for him. And then we sent it to Rupert, who just produced Brian and Charles, which is the David Earl film about the guy who builds his own robot, which is fantastic, low-budget British comedy. And he loved it and wanted it to be his next film. And then we kind of had a process of taking it around to various funding bodies in the UK. and getting nowhere, basically. And none of them wanting to do it or wanting to invest in us. And so it was a bit like, that was quite disappointing. And then we kind of, I think we did sort of tentatively talk to Amazon and Netflix and they were like, it's not big enough budget for us really.

23:58But what they did do is they sort of said like, Why don't you try and attach some cast now? And I think, you know, we were doing other stuff. This was probably in like 2021 or something. You know, I was pre-making the first series of Here We Go and stuff. So we were all busy. We were all doing stuff. And it felt like it was in the process of falling by the wayside of it. Like the thing about film that I've found that's so tough is that there's just a sense of momentum that goes with it. And if you're writing it, it is gathering momentum, then the making of it becomes an inevitability. And if it's losing momentum at any point, then people start to sort of fall away.

24:42Ben Hanlin: They want to be on this moving train. Yeah. And if the train's slowing down, then they go, oh, I think it's over. Like, it's a funny thing that, like, it does just happen that some scripts are just kind of over. And you go, well, how's it? We haven't made it. So how does that work? Yeah, I remember in TV, Simma, so obviously you know you meant it, but I used to pitch TV shows and you get a producer or a production company and they'd be so excited. This is going to be the best show. It's going to be my... You pitch it to one or two channels and they go, right, that's it, move on. And you go, oh, but you loved it last week.

25:15Ben Hanlin: And it's because they just need to move on to the next thing, don't they? Yeah, no, I think that's right. And, you know, it's just, I guess, the way that people think about stuff, you know is this they just don't want to go back they don't want to like sort of unless it's like you know existing ip in which case that's all they want to do but if it's like a new thing that's had its run and it didn't get made and it's like okay that's needs to be taken down an alley and strangled and left there forever so i think we felt like oh god is our film in the process of that happening to it and then we and then like carrie mulligan was sort of at the top of our list to play now because I've seen her singing things in other films and she's brilliant.

25:59And she's just such a good actor anyway. And we also felt like, you know what, she often makes quite low budget, like independent stuff. You know, she might like this. Did any of you know her? No, Tim had been emailed by her about three or four years earlier. Right. And she just asked him if he could host a comedy gig, a charity comedy night, and he'd said no. I imagine he'd said it politely. Yeah. But he said no, because he doesn't really emcee. Right. It's fair enough. So he doesn't believe in charity. He doesn't either. And so he was like, oh, I've got her email. And we were like, have you?

26:40And also, should you have her email? And he's like, have you? So he just emailed her out the blue and said, like, I think the subject line was film opportunities, and said like, I've written a script with Tom Balsman, would you be interested in reading it, basically?

26:56Ben Hanlin: Yeah. And she just replied straight away going, yes, send it over. Wow. Yeah. And then read it. I mean, it's so mad this, where you're so like, you spend all this time, you know, sort of working out strategically how to get a film made. And then she read it and was like, yeah, I really want to do this. And then at that point... It doesn't sound like it should be that easy. It should be like, well, I should be filming here or on this. The thing is, and like going back to what I was saying earlier about like the script i do think that you know now i look back i think like that's actually it's it's sort of a much more sensible way to try and make a film is to send scripts to actors who can get films made yeah and then if they like the script they'll make the film because at least they're reading the script and going what do i think of this script what do i think of like like reading this good do i like this script yeah as opposed to people reading it and just going, yeah, but what do I think about the people who've written it?

27:52What do I think about the location I want to film it in? What do I think about the tax credit in the country that it's set in? All those kind of things. You know what I mean?

27:59Ben Hanlin: Yeah. It's like, it's none of that. It's someone going, oh, I like this script. Let's make this. Yeah. And then we got focus features on board, you know, fairly quickly. So off the back of that, you can then go into a meeting and go, here is the script, Kerry Mulligan, here's a, and whatever it is, she's in. Yeah. And it's like, okay, boom. I mean, to an extent, it was a bit like that, yeah. Wow. I mean, the thing is, I feel like once we had our sort of finished draft, Tim and I were so into it, we were so passionate about it, that I think we would have made it. I think if Kerry had said no, I think we would have still found a way to make it because we just really, really wanted to do it.

28:41And I even remember there was a night that Tim came round to my house and we just got quite drunk in my garden. And Tim was like, I think I'm just going to finance it myself. Could we make this for like, you know, 50 grand? And I was like, no. And he's like, well, let's try. Let's do something. And I think we just had that kind of mad idea that we were just going to like, you know, this was going to happen.

29:07Ben Hanlin: Remortgage our respective properties and just make this film ourselves. And without going into details, just because people, you don't need to know. but in general this has been a hit and you've made it in 18 days so it sounds like you've done it as efficient as you can and right been as successful as it could yeah you know does that make it a profitable venture of those for for film companies that makes sense to make these kind of films yes i guess it does i think the thing is right it's any film that makes money is like is a miraculous thing in many ways and the ones that make a lot of money keep the whole industry going yes even a film like ours has has has gone into profit it's made money but it hasn't made a lot and you know in terms of the kind of business model it still probably makes more sense to put another five million dollars into promoting wicked 2 than it does to make our film from a purely commercial point of view um but i guess the thing about films is that they do have a long life and that they just, once they're out there, people will come to them over time and they just don't rely on relevance in the same way as TV.

30:23Ben Hanlin: No, and I suppose also you're then building your next generation of writers as well, directors. You're giving people a chance to try something on a lower budget than just going, well, you can't all go and start. Oh, look, I completely agree. I feel like the thing that I just, you know, I'm so passionate about with independent film is the fact that people can watch it and they can go, huh, I think I could make a film like that. And if you're watching Wicked or you're watching Mission Impossible, that thought never comes into your head. You just go like, how the hell do you make that? How the hell do you do that?

30:59As opposed if you're watching like a film like Swingers or you're watching, you know, even a film like Reservoir Dogs, you kind of go, yeah, I think I could make something like that. You know, you're just watching, certainly a film like ours, you'd be like, hmm, okay, I've got an idea. I reckon I could make a film like that. And that's the massively important thing that independent cinema does, as well as I think being some of the best films. It actually is a kind of gateway for people to kind of understand how they could get involved with this industry and tell stories themselves.

31:31Ben Hanlin: We've talked a lot about this film, but I think we've actually gone in different ways. But in general, comedy, comedy writing, whether it's TV, whether it's film, do you have set rules or things that you've learned over the years where you have a bit of a checklist of like when I'm writing tv comedy or film comic certain things that you always like to keep as your little blueprint you know I mean I definitely do but I think I've probably sort of internalized them now and I just kind of apply them as I go without really knowing but I remember there was like I remember there was a point early on when I was writing um and I don't know who it was but someone sort of used the phrase like if your scenes can go in any order then there's something wrong with your story and i was like oh and i'd never heard that before and i found that incredibly helpful so you can just like if you take your scenes throw them in the air and then you read it he's already or rather put it this way if you've got a story and you can just take a scene out and it doesn't affect anything then that scene probably shouldn't be there right like so like those those kind of things so i think that's happened before has influenced and changed the thing in the future kind of thing yeah i think it's just more like i think it's more like just thinking you know does this does this lead on from what's just happened and does this lead to what's happening next i mean it's so simple yeah in story terms but it is amazing how often particularly when you're reading other other stuff you know i'll sometimes get sent scripts by by young writers who are just looking for any kind of advice or whatever and it is interesting how often people need to be sort of helped with that that like you that there just needs to be a sense of progression yeah in each scene in some tiny way otherwise people are like come on you know it's just it's just like it's it's quite sort of um what's the word like visceral thing when you're watching something that you kind of know if nothing's happening so that obviously makes sense right but then occasionally there'll be um people breaking that rule and the obvious to that would have been tarantino when he would put a scene in a film like pulp fiction and they just talk about burgers right yeah that breaks that rule but then why does that work then or does it because the thing is i don't i don't think i don't think it does break that rule because it It depends on what the story is.

34:02And the story of Pulp Fiction is that these are not your average hitmen. Right. So that's part of the story as well. It's not just what these people do. It's like, who are these people and how do they operate? And the fact that they could have such a low-key and seemingly pointless funny conversation directly before shooting someone is part of the story. That is part of the story. But if it was just them going, let's get in the car and drive around listening to a song and do nothing for five minutes, then I think you'd probably get to the edit and go, well, we don't need that.

34:44Ben Hanlin: Yeah. Because it's not really telling us something about their character. Maybe it is. Maybe there's a world where it could. But, you know, I think with all of these things, like, there is no right or wrong way to do it. There's just like guidelines that can help you just work out what it would be like to watch it. So I suppose here must be the problem with comedy. When you've got a scene that's really funny and there's loads of jokes, but maybe they're not pushing the story. Every joke is pushing the story forward. But each joke individually is entertaining. Yeah. That must be quite hard to cut.

35:17Yeah, really hard.

35:18Ben Hanlin: Is it? It's a nightmare. Yeah, it's a nightmare. And you have to be quite strict with yourself. but yeah yeah because you're like but that's really funny and that makes me laugh but does it feel does it push the story forward do we learn anything does it need to be well i think often in to be fair often in sitcom there'll be stuff that that doesn't push the story forward at all but it's just funny and so it's just like well obviously we want to we want that in there as you say but it's about the amount of fat that you can have before the before it basically just becomes a sketch show. Yeah. Which is fine.

35:51If it's a sketch show, that's fine. But if it's like a, if you want people to care about the resolution of your story, then you have to like do them the service to actually care about the story yourself.

36:02Ben Hanlin: No, that makes sense. Right. We are come to the end. Tom, we've covered a lot of grounds. We have, yeah. Thank you for this. Right. I've got five quicker questions to end on. Right. We're going to start with my Highlander question. Are you familiar with the film Highlander? Yeah. Like, there can be only one. Correct. Yeah. And you remember in that film when they kill another immortal and they chop their head off, they steal all their expertise and skills. Oh, right, yeah. Part of it as well. So my question is, you don't have to kill anyone. Pop the sword down. If you could take anybody's skills or expertise and have them, who would it be?

36:36Yeah, well, it would have to be a musician. I think I wish I was better at music. as much as I like to do it I'm just you know I have such like enormous shortcomings as a musician so I'd probably steal like someone like Mark Kozilek's guitar playing maybe someone like that and I don't know maybe sort of Neil Young maybe just steal Neil Young's back catalogue steal Neil Young's back catalogue is that allowed? you can have that

37:07Ben Hanlin: you can have his knowledge yeah I'll do that was that I started off I'm a magician I started off trying to play music as a kid Did you? I was a terrible musician. Yeah. Ended up as a magician. Did at any point... Yeah, I mean, it's close enough. Yeah, it's quite close. Really not, is it? Was part of the comedy, did you try music before comedy at all? Was music a thing? Yeah, I mean, well, no, I didn't try it in earnest. It's just that my first, like, comedy shows were musical comedy. And I just found, like, slightly, not hiding behind it exactly, but just having a kind of filter between me and the audience through the music, just very helpful.

37:44Because I've never really felt completely comfortable doing stand-up. Just as me, I've liked there to be some element of performance that's quite formal to it.

37:53Ben Hanlin: Right, next question. Time capsule. So imagine there's a time capsule. You can only keep one of your projects, one of your shows, one of anything you've ever made. It could be an episode, it could be anything. That goes in the time capsule forever, for the future. For posterity. And the rest, it's just deleted, I guess. right it's harsh isn't it i mean um i i guess i'm probably keeping the film in that case just because it's taken us so long to make it and it feels like a sort of completion of something yeah there are a couple of episodes here we go that i would i would lobby for sort of not get deleted forever but you know if it's a straight choice it's a straight choice done okay uh next question culture vulture what have you seen book tv film recently that you've loved uh there's a book called going home by tom lamont that is fantastic really funny moving sad just great you know really really lovely story i've not heard of that going home yeah really good um i saw a film at sundance when we were there early in the year called plain clothes that's just coming out now right um that's really good that's really really interesting the way it's shot is really is really cool um i have young children so i find it very hard to get out the house to watch new stuff or even to watch things that are longer than an hour and a half yeah because of you know um lethargy so um i'm i'm probably not the best place to answer this right now in a few years i'll come out of this period and i'll be yeah i'll just be at the bfi the whole time yeah there are times when you've got young kids you're like whatever i can just press a button well this is the thing I feel like I've watched so much Bluey and so little in the way of Independence Cinema.

39:33Oh, there's a show called English Teacher that's really good.

39:36Ben Hanlin: What's that on? Yeah, good question. It's made by FX. So where would that be on? Like maybe it's on... I haven't heard of that English Teacher. Yeah, it's a sitcom and it's set in a school and it's, yeah, it's really funny. Okay, I'll give you a look. Right, Magic Wand. I'm going to give you my Magic Wand, Tom. Do you actually have one? No, I don't. I used to as a child. Yeah, it's a shame, isn't it? Yeah, I think they've lost. You don't want to be walking around with a magic wand. You don't need to be walking around. But when you're doing magic. No, no. It's not cool, isn't it? It's not at all.

40:08Ben Hanlin: Not since Blaine in the late 90s. Really? Yeah, we all got rid of our wands there. So I'm going to give you my magic wand. With that, you can vanish anything from the world. We could say comedy, TV, film. It can be a genre. It can be anything that just makes you a bit ratty about it. and you go, we'd all be better off if that didn't exist in that world. I mean, I'll tell you what does generally irk me, and this is so petty, but it's when you watch a TV show or a film and there's like a dream sequence and then the next scene is a character going, because I don't think that's ever happened in the history of human experience.

40:49By the way, for anyone listening who didn't get the visual on that,

40:52Ben Hanlin: you just kind of opened your eyes and started. Like when you're a rabbit in the headlights kind of open. Yeah, yeah. It's when you go for a dream to someone in bed and they sit bolt upright and go, ah! And they're like, what you're saying is, that was a dream this character's had. Yes. Right. And it annoys me every single time. I don't think anyone's ever done that. No. And it's just like, it's a little cheat that people use to kind of make sure the audience understand that it was a dream. And it really annoys me. And it shouldn't because it's so petty. So you'd replace that with what you just slowly, you're lying on your side, you open your eyes and you go, And you do the bit of a, oh, that's an annoying face.

41:28Ben Hanlin: I don't think, I don't know. I don't, I think you just have to like, you just have to accept that maybe you can't spoon feed the audience that that was a dream and let them figure that out. I don't know. I don't know. Unless you just put that was a dream across the bottom as a caption. Yeah. So dream sequences is what you're banishing. Well, no, I think more like the how you come out of them. I like dream sequences in general. It's more like the kind of, the sort of shortcuts. to the story shortcut. Oh, that may be AI then. Let's go AI. Well, AI in film. Yeah, in general, in life. Is that getting into your world?

42:05I don't know, man. I mean, like, yes, I guess. People are worried about it. People talk about it. Yeah. AI's giving notes now on some scripts.

42:15Ben Hanlin: Yeah. Good notes. What, as in, like, oh, you thought about structuring it? Yeah, like notes. Not like spellcheck, like notes. Have you used AI, Tom? I haven't. I'm a bit too scared. Yeah. I sort of feel like something's going to reach out of the screen and sort of like, you know, just strap itself to my face or something. Or you'll put your script in for spell check and then I can just go, what has Tom Basden been working on recently? And it can just tell me. To be honest, I think that's not even as scary as like putting, you know, inputting a script and going, can you write a better episode of Here We Go Than This, please?

42:51And it just goes. and does it and you're like oh no yeah that's me done yeah but that's it won't be will it look i mean if i get it look i mean you know at least i've i've managed to get some things in before

43:07Ben Hanlin: this thing kicks in um right final question and then we'll wrap things up very simple question to end on so we talked a lot about writing creativity comedy if someone was to come up to you and say come on then Tom what is the trick to making a career out of being a comedy tv film writer what would you say the trick is yeah I think well I think the first thing is you you have to know what it is that you really really love and the stuff that you really want to be making I think because if you're trying to second guess what what you think the audience might like i don't think it's any fun and i don't think the results are any good and then the second thing is you've just got to be quite um stubborn and not worry about getting not back because like most of most of the things that you write as a writer no one will ever see like unless you get incredibly lucky and your your first couple of things are massive hits and from then on everything gets made which can be a curse in some ways um like i think you've just got to accept that tons of stuff will never see the light of day but none of it's wasted because you've probably got better at writing as a result and you've also pre-written some characters or jokes or scenes or ideas that you will use again that's a positive way so it's like But yeah, so it's like, it's really different to a lot of jobs where you can be wholly committed to something for a very long time.

44:50And then it just, you have to like bury it and it never goes anywhere. And you've got to like be able to rationalize that to yourself as that's okay. That's just part of the job.

45:01Ben Hanlin: Thanks, Tom. Thanks, mate. So there we go. That was What's the Trick with Tom Basden. Great episode there. as I've said it's on Prime the Ballad of Wallace Island give it a watch and then DM me let me know what you think and you can also share this episode with a friend and whatsapp them tell them to give it a listen and I will see you next week for another episode of What's the Trick