Once Upon a Time...

For the Love of Ella - www.fortheloveofella.com

Most of what you read in my first blog is true. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty.

I have often been asked how ‘For the Love of Ella’ was born into the world, although it was not a difficult birth, there was some screaming and white knuckle holding – mostly from my agent. This was going to be an 'independent' production and there was no fee for me and more importantly, no 10% for my agent.

There were a few projects swimming around my head and I had the very fortunate and timely meeting in the shape of director and editor, James Farina. I had been invited along by one of the starring actresses, Patricia Ryder, to watch a new and exciting dark comedy called, ‘Leu Doc’ at a packed Majestic Cinema in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. I was totally mesmerised by this little masterpiece and was introduced to the creator/writer/director and editor Mr Farina.

James was young, talented and energetic with more ideas than a dog has fleas. I knew we had to work on a production together, with us both producing and James directing and myself writing.

Various ideas began forming and taking shape and I fired them at James who was extremely patient and listened with little enthusiasm. An early idea was a man who put 'instant' coffee into the microwave and he went back in time. Another proposal was based on fact about a brilliant Hopscotch player who tried unsuccessfully to make it an Olympic sport.

When faced with crippling deadlines to come up with some winning story-line, we had already decided to tackle comedy – but a short film, I have a practiced tradition that never fails. I lock myself in my office and I will not imbibe alcohol, cigar smoke or rich food until I have had that epiphany moment. It usually comes within a few minutes and this was no exception. We both fell in love with a concept which at the time carried the awkward working title, ‘In the Pursuit of Lust and Eternal Happiness’. We already had an eye on merchandise and T-shirts carrying this title would only have fit people the size of Russell Grant. Mugs and key rings were also out of the question. So it was James who came up with the brilliant title, ‘For the Love of Ella’. Now we could cater for the Kate Moss’ of this world and egg cups if required. Although I give James full credit for this radiant title – it was also the name of Ella Fitzgerald’s best selling album – which has made Google searches interesting.

The concept was simple enough – a Polish scientist falls in love with a beautiful English rose called Ella. He realises he is never going to gain Ella’s heart via flowers, chocolates and crying along with her while watching the film ‘Sex and the City’. So he is determined to use his scientific powers to win her love.

Ewen MacIntosh, Simon Golding and Lucy Drive

There is a set of tried and tested rules for submitting scripts to mainstream TV and we were going to break all the rules – this would be an independent production made via our company Salopian Films! Our journey had begun and what a fantastic journey it would be as we built a gifted well-known cast and an experienced and professional crew.Even before I had finished the comedy film short concept I knew who I wanted to play the part of the scientist. Both James and I were huge fans of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s ground-breaking comedy ‘The Office’. We knew Ewen Macintosh, who played the dead-pan Big Keith, was a tremendous, versatile and talented actor – so I wrote it specifically for the actor. I already knew actress and writer Lucy Drive and her beauty and superb acting was an obvious choice for Ella.

As the script developed over the many months we both agreed we had far more than a short film. This screamed out for a 30 minute 6 part series. ‘The Scientist’ being the comedy pilot episode – the other episodes being all stand-alone comedies. It was a passion of mine to write situation comedy and my influences were wide ranging from ‘The Comic Strip’ to ‘Terry and June’ and ‘Black Adder’ to ‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’. We would have no laughter track and hoped the rest would be history.

This was my cough and a spit in the pilot