A charming evening of chat with two luminaries of the television industry and our self-effacing host Wayne Imms.
Imms has a talent for creating interesting line ups for his talk series The Space and fosters an informal and welcoming environment for his guests to speak. Founded twenty years ago, Imm’s has nurtured this event well, often getting high profile and famous people to come to his intimate surrounds to discuss their careers and tonight is no different.
A welcoming and expectant audience are delighted to greet John Lloyd in the first half of the show. Lloyd is a titan of the UK TV world. He explains that he accidentally became a television producer 1970’s after being sacked by his best friend, sci-fi comedy author Douglas Adams, from the radio production of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Although the rejection stung it helped him to develop and wonderful life philosophy of being able to use any personal “disaster” as a learning point. He has been sacked many times and out of the ashes something more interesting always arises.
Lloyd has created and produced some of the most well loved comedy television of the past forty years, from his early days on Not the Nice o’Clock News through to beloved panel show QI, with historical sitcom Blackadder and satirical puppet show Spitting Image as high points along the way. With all this success and over one hundred awards gathered in his career Lloyd remains egoless and self-deprecating.
He attributes a lot of his success down to ignorance. This is a quality which has served him well. He explains; If you are being ignorant of what you can or can’t do you tend to be less cautious than if you think you know what you doing, which tends to produce better results. He also learnt, early on from his time on building sites in Essex, that people from all walks of life are smart and if you treat them as such when you make television, not talking down to them, they will thank you for it. This is another edict by which Lloyd lives his life.
Another credo for Lloyd is gratitude. If you embrace disaster at one end and celebrate thankfulness at the other you cannot go wrong. Wise words indeed. Lloyd is an engaging and funny raconteur and laughter rings out throughout his chat with Imms.
In part two we return for a conversation on stage with Steve Pemberton. Pemberton is a renowned character comedian and actor. Starting in the ground breaking group The League of Gentlemen, Steve has entertained UK audiences for thirty years. Other comedy highlights include the short lived and underrated Psychoville and more recently, the highly acclaimed series Inside No 9, which ran for nine years and has just finished a greatly praise West End theatre run.
Pemberton is serious about comedy but he wears that seriousness lightly. He has cleverly co-plotted over 50 episodes of Inside No 9, each being stand alone stories, partly inspired by the 1970’s TV dramas Play For Today.
Hailing from Lancashire, Pemberton lists going to Bretton Hall College as one of the most important decisions of his life, in retrospect. It was here he met best mate and co-writer and performer Reece Shearsmith as well as fellow Gentleman Mark Gatiss.
After college Pemberton moved to London, which seemed like a prerequisite for an actor to become successful in the nineties, and worked at Variety Magazine to sustain him as he built up his career over six years before The League of Gentlemen hit the Edinburgh Fringe. This led to a radio and TV series with the BBC. By that time the characters we eventually saw on screen had had time to develop and grow in a live setting, something which he credits to why the TV show was such a success.
Pemberton also attributes a lot of his success to excellent producers at the BBC who both spotted the group’s talent and gave them room to do exactly what they wanted creatively; a trusting hands off approach, with a light touch, to allow them to shine as writers and performers.
The actor goes on to explain that, like Lloyd, he has embraced good fortune from the jaws of defeat with Inside No 9 being developed from the embers from the comparatively less successful Psychoville.
Pemberton goes on to say that working with his best friend has been as is a joy. He to is very grateful for a career, that doesn’t seem like work at all. When asked if he can share any exclusives about what he and Shearsmith will do next he is genuinely thrown off kilter as the stage show of Inside No 9 only finished last week. “I guess it’s back to pitching ideas” he says in an affably flummoxed way.
Pemberton branched out into acting in more serious roles and is an excellent dramatic performer, so it is a given he will still be in great demand. And with the high quality of his comedy writing over the years we are sure to see a project or two bubble up to the televisual surface soon enough.
Rounding off a very interesting evening are questions from the audience. Pemberton handles interactions with super fans with an inherent kindness and genuine interest. A true gentleman himself and a delightful evening all round.
Reviewed on 15th Jan.
