American/British TV writing.

Fawlty Towers title card.

There is a big difference in attitudes between America and Britain; it is said that when you come up with an idea in Britain and talk to people about it they try and talk you out of it; if you want to do a comedy about crooks, for example, they'll say 'what about Bonnie and Clyde?' whereas the attitude in America is that when you come up with an idea they try and find a way of doing it. They will say about the comedy crooks idea 'a new take on Bonnie and Clyde; I like it.'

It's not a bed of roses over there where everything gets made as many a writer has found out; over there you have to learn to pitch an idea to the studios and if you're no good at pitching your script doesn't get looked at.

If your pitch is good and the script is good it still doesn't mean anything till a studio takes it on. There is such a thing over there called the black list. Now the black list in this case is not a bad thing; the black list is a list of the best scripts that haven't been bought by somebody – somebody important that is who are going to actually make the film.

There is also a big difference in the way a TV series is written; in Britain one person, or team, writes all the episodes of a TV series. Julian Fellowes wrote all the episodes of Downton Abbey and his latest hit Titanic; Dennis Potter wrote all the episodes of The Singing Detective; John Cleese wrote every episode of Fawlty Towers with his then wife Connie Booth.

On The Sopranos, in America, they had 12 writers, on Lost they had 23 writers (no wonder the plot went haywire) and on Cheers they had 36.

Sometimes the American series run in to hundreds of episodes so maybe a team of writers is understandable but some of the series in Britain, for example Till Death Us Do Part went in to 53 episodes and all of them written by Johnny Speight; it's interesting that when Till Death Us Do Part was remade in America under the title All In the Family they had 50 – one of them Johnnie Speight.

However the Americans make their series for years and Till Death Us Do Part is a good example of the difference in how long series run in the 2 countries. If the ratings drop in America the series gets dropped; not in the UK.

So what's the better way? The Americans will like their way and the British will like theirs.

However when it came to the greatest situation comedy ever the prize would go to Fawlty Towers even though they only made 12 episodes. 12 classic episodes and the writing team of Cleese and Booth said they couldn't write any more.

Before the days of popular videos pirate video tapes of Fawlty Towers were being sold for hundreds of pounds.

There is a series on television at the moment on both sides of the Atlantic called Homeland (12 writers) and I believe it's wonderful. It's everything I would want to see in a series as I have always been interested in the subject matter.

One of my favourite films is The Manchurian Candidate; I can't remember how many times I have seen it but the last time was in Los Angeles with the guy who directed it, John Frankenheimer, and one of the stars, Angela Lansbury.

That's what Homeland is about but the reason I won't watch it is because I really liked Lost when it first came on but because it was so successful they made hundreds of episodes and lost the plot; by the time it finished we were all bored with it and disappointed by the outcome.

That is why The Singing Detective (the TV series not the movie) was better than The Sopranos and Fawlty Towers was better than Cheers – in my opinion anyway.

There's a very interesting page about Fawlty Towers on Wikipedia which gives a few insights into the writing, the submission (the first episode was rejected by the BBC) and the difference between what would would have happened if the Americans tried to make it – here it is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawlty_towers you may have to copy and paste.