Stephen Fry and Mark Kermode at Hay Literary Festival 2017

very nice welcome thank you good evening everybody just a little explanation of how this is going to work out we're going to have about half an hour in which I'll talk to Steven about the adaptation of the hippopotamus then at 10 past 9:00 we have a satellite link-up - I think it's 120 cinemas around the country will at that point name 120 cities and towns yes exactly so at about five past 9:00 we're going to bring on the filmmakers the sort of key players in the film itself and then at 10 past will go live to them and then we will take some questions from the audience toward the end bear in mind that because it's as I said a satellite link up to several different cinemas language should be moderated at all times since broadcast FARC cheep-cheep an obvious yeah but still got a lot yeah okay so Steven let's begin by the novel which has been around for a while has just now finally become a film firstly for those who may not be completely okay with it the subject of the novel is well it's it's the hero is I suppose the hippopotamus of the title he's a critic an over-the-hill poet and critic who once was a promising you know angry young man in the 50s and 60s kind of was the future of British poetry and he no one can make their money from being a poet he's he's a theater critic but he's he drinks too much and he's loud and he's rude and he's contemptuous and when we first meet him he's being thrown out of a play where he's just stood up and shouted at the action cuz it's just have you ever had that feeling where you want to stand up and shout don't believe a word of it fraud you know and he did it and of course he's thrown out and he's fired and he gets this request from a goddaughter of his to investigate what seems to be some kind of miraculous goings on in a country house so it's a mixture of a kind of weird country house detective story in which he's the detective and an investigation of what appears to be the paranormal okay now because obviously people he won't have seen the film because it's got a preview tonight and then it opens on Friday the cinemas around the country they are watching it we're going to show a few clips just so that you can go get a sense of the film to start with the most sensible thing will be to show you the trailer because that sort of gives you a general overview so here is the trailer for the hippopotamus I published five collections of poetry in eight years I haven't written a poem since 1987 these days I'd turn whiskey into journalism you're fired pity the poor pellet my doctor tells me I have three months to live that's a smell do you believe in miracles something happened to me it's what at all I want you to go there and find the truth I'd pay you handsomely I was thrust into my worst nightmare boys younger lost some about the fat tell me why you're really here Jane told me there were miracles which she wanted me to investigate anything you've ever got to the bottom of is a whiskey bottle if you're here Rebecca who's ruling over Narnia you need to keep your eyes open and see what needs to be seen to miracles I don't believe in miracles he's too jaded to feel wonder maybe I should sacrifice my every standard of Lewis and reason and throw my lot in with this imbecile count just open your heart what if I don't want you mass [Music] [Music] the things I do for money [Music] I've always had this this strict rule that if a film is to be rightly considered a comedy it has to make you laugh six times yeah there were at least three in the course of the trailer so clearly succeeded so now just in terms of the adaptation the book is there's a lot of letters in its epistolary it's it this that you couldn't do for the screen so how has that been transferred to it I know instantly you didn't yes very important to say that I am I when you write a book or at least speaking for myself you you put a whole amount of yourself in it and then you want to say goodbye to it you never want to see it again I'd never read any of my books back since I since they've been published don't take them off the shelf I really don't I've maybe one day I don't know when I get into my 60s and I know I'm gonna be 60 in August so maybe in August I will pluck them down and read them again wow that's awfully good oh I like that but I it's something I did and I am you know I was proud of it at the time I guess or at least felt that was what I wanted to do but when people have said can I make it a play or can I make it a film or something I've said yes by all means but I won't be involved I won't be the one to do the adaptation I'm thrilled if anybody else wants to do it and and and when John and Jane the team behind this said they wanted to do it I was delighted and they did send me the screenplay and I thought it was terrific but I said you know don't ask me to comment on it I want it to be yours and it is theirs you know they've made it their own times so literally the last time that you were directly involved with the book would presumably was when you did the audiobooks which you would have read the whole thing that's right out and then that was it that was it I haven't looked at it since okay so in that case was there any sense of trepidation or worry that the the finished product would be so different or you know unrecognizable or do you think it's close to the book I from my memory of the book it is close to the book I recognize some of the dialogue and the story but I also you know one things is a novel is made of words and nothing else you pick it up you hold in your hands it is just words that there they are on the page a film is made of more than that yes the screenplay is made of words but the movie you watch is made of all kinds of other things colors pictures designs voices music all kinds of other elements come together to make a film and that's a you know corporate enterprise yes just so different from writing a book there's a lonely special kind of thing you do a contract you have a deal reader but a film I adore films and I wish I were better writing screenplays as it is I find them agony absolute agony but you do have you know screenplay writing experience you've done script doctoring I have yeah I'm a bit knowledge some of it uncredited yeah I remember and this to me sums up the difference between from writing you know writing novels and writing movies the great Billy Wilder doing those turned off interviews that the German director interviewed him and he was talking about working with Marlena Dietrich and so on he said oh I have to tell you when I did the witness for the prosecution he did this wonderful movie of witness the prosecutor impound and Charles Laughton and and Marlena and it's based on an Agatha Christie play and she said you know Agatha Christie the stale dialogue terrible characters flat-out inner said but it took me and is he Dimond half an afternoon to write good dialogue and and good characters but she plotted like an angel we could have worked for ten years never come up with this plot Raymond Chandler is fantastic dialogue brilliant characters fact actor plots he said and you have to understand in the film business there are a thousand Raymond Chandler's for everyone Agatha Christie and that's a surprising thing to hear because we think of active is there Wilkie but that it's the plotting it's the structure it's which scene when it ends what the next scene is that rhythm that architecture it's so difficult to do for me you know I you know yeah can make funny lines and characters but in a novel it's all word so you you cut your paper over the structural flaws with language is there part of you that loves the control of another mean when you're writing a novel it's you the paper the audience that's it there is no intermediate so is there part of you that loves that as opposed to you when you're saying with film there all these different things film is obviously a collaborative medium and you do seem to like the control of it's just you and the page I do I mean I like both but when where I like being in part of a team is as an actor rather than as a writer so if I'm writing I like to be absolutely on my own I get up at 5:00 in the morning and I write till 1:00 2:00 in the afternoon and that's the way I write and it's completely private but I'm always thinking when it's not going well I could be on a film set or a TV set I could you know you have marks on the floor telling you where to stand people bring you coffee and calling you sir which they literally do and so you can go back to your caravan for four hours now while we light it you sit there and you watch some DVDs you know some of the trailers even have jacuzzis in them treated like a god but until you there you are alone writing thinking oh god I could be an actor then of course when you're on a film set it's 6:00 in the morning and it's miserable and cold and you've got to wait around anything I could be in my pajamas writing so it's kind I think all of us have two sides was the one that wants to be alone in control of our universe yeah and they're ones to be the one that wants to be part of a team we need to broach the subject of critics the the central character in your novel and indeed in the film is somebody who is a poet whose inspiration has dried up they have turned they've hit the bottle they have become embittered if somebody who has lost that the love of what they're doing they have become therefore a critic now I have [Applause] I have quoted you as having said this before but I'll say it again because it's worth repeating you once wrote imagine at the end of your life you turn up at the gates of heaven and some Peter says what did you do with your life and you say I criticized other people's work you say it's it's no profession is it you have been very withering about critics in the past yeah and you have now portrayed somebody who is a critic for all the wrong reasons because they're their own inspiration has dried up have you mellowed I have melody I've mellowed enormous in exactly the same way that I used to think that the enemy of our society was the what they call I believe the deadwood media newspapers and if only newspapers could be brought down they they trying to tell us what to think them or form they're terrible they're the enemy of everything now of course I think please please save newspapers the last bastion of freedom and responsibility and truth-telling is in our journalists so I have changed enormously and and I you know especially now that everybody's a critic you know online yes social media and so on I do think there's a good informed critic a seasoned critic someone who knows and understands and loves the world that they're criticizing is is a very valuable thing to have so I'm nicely saved yeah I'm very ashamed of my my younger absurdities shall we enjoy the scene in which the critic in the bottom us goes into meltdown just so we can see how your newfound respect for critics has manifested itself in the world [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] nerville patricians patrons of my rights defend the justice of my cause with arms and countrymen and my loving followed by Sonya's Caesar's son were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome take then this passage to the Caddy's defending of this fecal matter justice [Music] princess that's tried by factions and by friends keep your opinions to yourself Ezreal against the grain ring Chrissie doesn't have a common voice have by common voice the stage and find new representation if the performance I'm a contrary madam this is an intervention where is the man responsible for this theatrical order where is Matthew Lake throwing out not me madam it is the director who should be ejected then tarred and feathered for inflicting such loose stool effluent upon the paying public say that again loose stool effluent [Music] do you need the line again [Music] [Applause] I am definitely going to be losing using the phrase loose review in the very needy but the thing that's lovely about that scene is actually we are a completely on his side because it is an appalling pretty it is we totally support is right it's a shout out exactly if you that kind of ass gravy is presented to you then you have no other option than to call it out one of the things about the dialog in Italy as you just demonstrated you have a fantastic you've always had a fantastic turn of phrase you use obscenity in a beautiful way and you do and there are there are wonderful lines that are given to the central character that I can hear you saying how much of you is in Ted more than I had probably remembered when I saw the film a few months ago first I I had in my mind I had imagined that I'd based the character on a playwright I knew weld and worked with Simon gray who was a wonderful old drunk and very funny and quite embittered sometimes he wrote those wonderful smoking Diaries we should get into rouse with cab drivers about smoking I mean he's hilarious and and sad and unfunny and so I thought that - it was it was a compendium of Kingsley Amis and John Osborne and Simon gray and was nothing to do with me but when I looked at the film then I thought gosh I see myself it's a very strange thing it's a bit like how you know Oscar wads at every you know everyone becomes like their mother in their end that's their tragedy you know and and I realized I'd become like this character you want but you're not embittered now I mean you've bit and you I know that you have had times in which you have you know you have been had a very frosty relationship with the press you've had times when you've had a very sort of positive relationship with them but you're not embittered actually you are hugely positive about the world aren't you yes I think I am actually but I do have you know like anybody I can shout at a television I shadowed the television but not at the stage okay so in that sense I'm much more cowardly than Ted yeah I have stood up and shouted at a film you haven't can't yes you can I got thrown out of can because I very proud of it instantly thank you yes it was the press screening of Lars von Trier's the idiots which I know you feel the same way yeah I do particularly knowing because wanted Mads I mean oh good grape and so many great movies it's the idiot is a terrible terrible things and there's a moment in the idiots in which it's suddenly for no apparently good reason has a section of hardcore in it which I have no problem with but there was this round of critical of Google Bravo very brave and I thought I've had enough of this so I stood up and I shouted in very bad French la merde Leila blue grande made Don Lamond entire and then using the language of modern dance the security guard so one of the other subjects of the novel and the film is to do with the miraculous in the world and you have talked at great length about your feelings about you know divinity and explain to us the setup of the miracle that may or may not be involved in the in this story well various people have gone to this country house and they felt that they have been cured of some problem they've had the his his goddaughter in particular feels that she's actually been cured of leukemia and and that one of the sons of the family they're the father Matthew Modine and the mother Fiona Shaw and that he has some extraordinary power and the boy himself seems to think it and everybody seems to think it but Ted is extremely doubtful and you know without preaching in the novel I I wanted to show that poetry comes from an absolute engagement with matter with the substance of things you know a poet is incredibly obsessed with thee you know the glassiness of glass the wateriness of water and trying to penetrate it with language they're not looking up at the heavens and asking for some ethereal gift and and he says at one point in the book all I know is if there is gold the only way to get it is to scratch and break your skin in a mine and get the ore and then to blister your bones in your skin in a furnace and melt it and then there will be gold it does exist but I absolutely know that an angel doesn't hand it down to you from heaven and and that is the truth there there are beautiful and miraculous things in the world but they all come from an engagement with the world the reality not a stepping away from it and a wishing and a hugging and if only this were true then things will grow up I'm so sorry oh dear I lost my temper that wasn't ignore me that's channeling my inner Ted about the nature of poetry I unter exactly so yeah so that's the point is he comes he offers him money to find it out she knows he's an intelligent fellow and that he you know really is bright but he is doubtful and I hope the audience is doubtful to that you know think that Ted is just a cynic he's just a ridiculous cynic he the title of the the book actually comes from a TS Eliot poem called called the hippopotamus the broad backed hippopotamus sits on his belly in the mud although he seems so firm to us his merely flesh and blood and and that's the point the that's all it that's all they are and in fact what Eliot's writing about in his particular cases is the Church of England which he became a great and the the poem ends with the picture of the of the of the hip waters being lifted up to heaven by angels because he was in the mud and he's comparing the the Church of England to the Catholic Church which Eliot didn't like so much but that's irrelevant at the what I liked was this image of something that is in the mud is kind of holier and purer than something that's in the air mmm we are gonna we have a clip in fact that now would be a sensible time show because it touches them exactly this it's the clip in the boat with Ted and his godson do you want to just explain to people where we are when they're about to have this conversation about what you've been if I can remember where we are he's godson David is the one that seems to have some strange mysterious powers to help people and to cure them and he's a very bright boy who wants to be a poet and he's very proud of the fact that this famous poet Ted Wallace is his Godfather and he wants to read him his poetry and tell him about his inner life and Ted is of course out Christ alone was a glass of whiskey not to have some child wanking away with his poetry right so there's this kind of deep embarrassment he's trying to be tactful to the boy thank you child of trees and son of Earth lies in wait for his rebirth beneath the trees he hides alone beneath your feet this boy and lies in his cradle hidden from sight buried like seed his seed so white he gives himself the kiss of peace his seed that sprout with sweet release well that's what me spoken to you about me why do you ask that worry huh I can see it in her eyes mother's worry it's in their job description well I worry her more than Simon Simon doesn't treat strangers to nuggets of penile data he's safe meaning I'm safe wild and dangerous why are people embarrassed about sexual things I'm not in my opinion people are more embarrassed about love in sex makes you think that they never talk about it it's all anyone ever talks about now I'm love love love is all you need love makes the world go round 90% of the world's perjury is about love with Swift slow sweet sour a dazzle him he fathers forth whose beauty past change praise Him O God course like Hopkins the greats know that poetry is how we allow nature to speak to us words whoa you chump my heart leaps up on my couch I lie I wandered lonely as a cloud he's an egomaniacal onanist Wordsworth did not masturbate he's a tea towel right look yeah my heart rejoices that you want to be a poet but I bet you can't name a profession with less use less chance less point less status and fewer prospects sewage engineer ah alright scenario one all the poet's in England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland go on strike impact nil misery nil 14 years before anyone even notices scenario 2 all the sewage engineers in London alone go on strike that impact turds and tampons flopping out of your tap Scarman is where you walk misery hardship newsworthiness hi did you still believe in poetry there's power to change the world you do still care oh Christ not you as well look of course I do it's just hard work you want gold you break your back down of mine it doesn't just float from the sky gleaming bars what's really nice about that clip is actually the the young man is saying some things that you do yes even that's it so it's not just a simple identification no it's much more of a tennis mansion just a you know bouncing against a war an idea isn't it no you believe you feel for both of them I think you said earlier on that you know you now feel what you want to do is to save journalism that things have you know they've changed in your opinion and the world is very very very different now to other why anybody could have imagined a few years ago do you think that the way in which technology has moved on as fast as it had you were an early embrace that you somebody who was you know really at the very cutting edge of that but you you do seem to now have an affection for for still believing in things for old values Hills to what it is I was talking about this yesterday I am I am did embrace the technology and and the original technology and then the networking the the world wide web and and then the arrival of social media and Twitter and so on and I thought you know people are going to connect with each other and learn things and having a there's an availability of culture and the written word and of art and open art galleries 24 hours a day and access to knowledge and understanding and well you know borders and barriers and boundaries will melt and dissolve and tribalism and hatred and misunderstanding will be got rid of and and the world will be a wonderful and marvelous pleasure no yes what a naive order what an idiot I don't know when it was I realized that far from that being the case you'd only seen the opposite was the case but it's not that I no longer believe in in this technology of course it's still magnificent what access we have to knowledge and what access we have to each other and people with rare diseases or rare you know hobbies of cosplay or game make game playing or whatever it may be can be in touch with each other across the world and you know reach out and hug each other as it were virtually that's all wonderful but it's also true that hatred and tribalism and nativism have flourished as well and that you know the enemies of that kind of connectedness have have embraced the technology perhaps with more savvy skill and than them we've feeble hand-wringing liberals and RRT types maybe that's true but it I still believe it but I also and thrilled that vinyl and you know the analog world is having a resurgence you juicer and I really believe in that and I love it and I know that if I were a 15 year old like like David saying in the film I would actually at school I would look at people in the playground who were on Instagram and snapchat and I'd go pictures of I don't know some American reality star or some you know what are they doing and I would find on maybe on eBay originally using the Internet I would find a duplicator and we'd write a magazine using a stencil rolling it out and there'd only be 30 copies and we you know do it on blue paper so it couldn't be easily you know photocopied and it couldn't be scanned and I would say to my you know we have a group of friends and say we're not allowed in phones you know and I had actually I've got so far as even thinking of the at school and the you know and the teacher would say okay I need the essays in my inbox by 6:00 this evening I go so what's your dresser and you go you know what it is it's at this school calm good no no where do you live where I live is none of your business well how do I deliver my essay to you I've just told you I needed in my inbox but I I mean your letterbox where you live no send me an email oh I don't have email sir you don't owe your parents to pour two of my parents have got it I have them will write it and then email it no I don't have a computer well would you I'm going to write it out and I'm going to deliver it to and they'll go but you can't do that well in that case I won't write the essay yep I'll be fantastic you just live off the grid in a way that used real stuff and I would love that wouldn't you wouldn't that be the coolest thing no because everyone would just be thinking you oh I just love it but what's what's what's strange is that that you you embrace and embody completely contradict yes and you do them both with the enthusiasm of the other and whatever you say at the moment you're saying it like three minutes ago you were explaining this utopian vision of the worldview and I believed it till you got to the punchline of the Centers then you said then it's all not you see the thing is I think that what's underneath it all whether it's that you're writing a book or whether you're talking about the internet whether you're talking about old analog what it is is that the poetry is that in the moment of saying something you love language enough to make it sound real oh wow wow you know very extraordinary exactly I just changed my you know that thing you Twitter by AAG where you said and put something under your and your picture yes and I just changed it to my my saying which is a sort of adaptation of a name Forster saying which is how can I tell you what I think until I've heard what I'm going to say and that is the motto by which I live I don't actually think I don't know what I'm gonna say until I've said it and when I'm saying it I shape it and I glory in it like a Potter throwing a thing I'm thinking wow what's this thing I'm making with words as I speak and I'm doing it now and I have no idea how this sentence is going to end and it may end me with me using the word badminton where did that come from you see it it's thrilling and and I suppose but one of my favorite moments is in the letter Roscoe Albert DuBose II where he he says to lord out for Douglas he says you know you failed your degree and that's absolutely fine many great minds have not got a degree but what I find very hard to forgive is that you never acquired what used to be called the Oxford Manor which I take to mean the ability to play gracefully with ideas and I think that's a that's a marvelous thing to hold as an ideal and there's an ambition the ability to play gracefully with ideas gracefully is very important because what what upsets us with social media is that they're trolling and everything is how graceless it is yes but to play gracefully with ideas is is the way things get improved and that's incredibly important I think we're going to bring the filmmakers on in just a minute because we are going live to under 20 signals in six minutes I'm looking at this clock it's like well done doing Eurovision it's fantastic just as a last word from you about the book you say you haven't gone back and read the book recently and now that the film has come out do you fit there's a part of you feel like going back and reading your original novel to see how it stands I I I think I will and of course the wonderful thing is now when I when I see ten I will see Roger Allen because I think his performance is absolutely magical yeah I mean truly brilliant you'll see him in a second and I and I know you'll agree if you see the filming you probably can already see from the from the clips how wonderful he is and how wonderful the whole cast is now what a great job Jon Jenks has done in in in directing it and and so I feel just so grateful because now I have these real solid pictures and voices to hear when if I do read it again so thrilling okay so let's welcome to the stage the director Jon Jenks Roger Allam who's just seen in those clips and Blanche McIntyre who is the co-writer of the approximate glorious man oh yeah okay so that we've basically got five minutes before the satellite link goes up so this is the point at which you can say whatever you want it's not going to be broadcast around the world you've all just been listening to Stephens version of the hippopotamus John how much does that tally with your version of the hippopotamus Oh me first so it works yeah well I writer can you write me some lines so I couldn't say them now and let you get Roger to say them no I it was such a energy of so many inputs to get the hippopotamus to where it is now did you wanted to do it for ages yeah no it's well it took us about six years to run scripts and then it took us three years to finance it and then it took us two years to get it together and then it's taken us a year now to get it out because I'll just should because I'm bankrupt and all that kind of stuff and no one wanted to finance a film in which a 16 year old boy thinks he has magic semen how faithful do you think the film is to the book I mean obviously there are great differences in their writing given is which we'll talk about the reason I'm not gonna bring up and we're going to talk about them in four minutes time when we connect around the world how close do you think the book is to the film I think film is very true to the spirit of the book I mean really you know we changed Lots I wanted actually to play a game of whose lines are they anyway sort of show scenes and have Stephen gues remember if they were the rim his or Blanchett but the spirit of the film I think is very true to the book and it and that was the spirit that you know got me and I was always going to stick to what was it that you loved about the book so much because it was like you you have but you said it's that's the best part of a decade that you'd be trying to do this why particularly that book because I think kindness is the latest underestimated and undeveloped kind of thing in in culture you know we've given up on kindness because just being kind doesn't get you very far you give up on if you're just kind you don't actually get very for a bit if if you're not kind you know we haven't really investigated what it doesn't means to be unkind to people and not have a sort of kindness and Ted's journey for me is into and the importance of treating people he's always right and he recognizes a character in the household who is exactly the kind who you haven't seen yet if all you've seen is theirs and that's the important part isn't it yeah and he finally realizes that he can get this truth if you can tell truth it's not actually that important getting it in a way that people can listen to it and the only way to do that is through kindness I'm not I've wanted to tell you know like that was the fundamental thing that really drove me to it I can also I can relate Ted's character and I can relate to David's character in certain ways but that sort of importance of kindness was and is that what made you think okay he can actually do a good job because he's actually got the essence of what that story is about through that absolutely when I figure never saw the first you know the letters you've written and what you're done together I did think that was the that was the point you absolutely got it you weren't just coasting on the idea that it had rude scenes in it or you know kind of rather gross comic ideas that you know that you saw the point of them and once it's a serious double but that point that you made is you know what it's about and what makes sense of all the apparent oddities that go on yeah and you clearly got it I was very touched and then the other thing I saw in the novel was that it had this great detective plot you know for me I think you need a plot like that in a film in order to drive it and to keep it going and because we could you know link everything around that plot we'd have something that would drive everything through and would have this sort of romp story that would keep everyone engaged yeah so it was having that fun and I'm gonna jump in interrupt you we're going to go live in about eight seconds I want you to tell the punchline of a joke and everybody to laugh so that everyone around the world think they missed it even using caster okay so ladies gentlemen here at hey and also at cinemas around the country the people having cinemas around the country have just finished watching the hippopotamus here we've seen some clips everybody wouldn't say hello John Jenks the director on the hippopotamus launch McIntyre the co-writer hippopotamus and Roger Allen the star Roger let's begin with you the character that you play in the film is extremely embittered and when we first meet him fantastically drunk and enraged and is a critic tell me about that [Laughter] it's held to research of course I have to say I mean when we did that scene at the beginning of the film which is Ted watching a an appalling production of Titus Andronicus I have been in so I was it was very easy in a sense to fit because old a lot of us were in that production we felt like Ted in our response to it and I've often sat in the theater and I think we've talked about this I mean I think the difference but the fundamental difference between a theater critic and a film critic is that a film critic you don't one you don't have to be in the room with the live people you know other than the rest of the audience of course but also you don't have to see the same play maybe 10 times in a year if it suddenly becomes fashionable and so you know you can get if I had to go to the theater I didn't know four or five times a week and I only quite liked one thing and then he really liked one thing every three months I think I would become deeply and profoundly embittered and so that just and that just took a bit of you know I just compiled in my head all the terrible productions of plays that I've seen or been in so true is that people forget that actors can often be in hell you know they don't always support the play there and there's a wonderful story about Ralph Richardson who suddenly stopped to play he was in and said excuse me is there a doctor in the house and someone says it's an old doctor isn't this an awful [Laughter] so did you you know in research you joked about saying it's a health research but did you base your character I mean obviously on the script and on what's there in Stephens book but did you base it on anyone that you knew no not especially no I mean I I'd met Stephen and he'd he'd he'd mentioned Simon Grey and I thought about George Malley and those kind of Soho characters of over time long gone now really but you know when you start to try and say the words it's it's like Stephen was talking about earlier you you only really discover what you mean when you start the big adventure of the beginning of a sentence you know and by the time you get to the end of it you might have said something coherent but you just did that to prove a point so in a sense when you start saying those words that that's an enormous part of the character really when you just start you know because he is extremely verbose and locations and loquacious and has that facility and also very witty so you know you start saying those words and that gives you a great great deal to work with you know Stephen you were very praising of Rodgers performance when you were writing the novel I mean so much of it does read as if you could read it out loud I mean there are letters and but it is it is almost written to be read out loud how did you envisage when you were writing it did you imagine this this will become a production this will become adapted I never did I never dare when I'm writing a book I just want I just had the reader in my in my mind's eye and mind's ear so I'm I'm having a conversation with imaginary readers and I have a a gallery I don't know if this is true of most novelists but I have about five people one of them's an old English teacher one of them is my mother and and then there are other people I'd whose opinion I value but not necessarily my closest friends and they I can almost catch their eye sometimes when I'm writing and and I hear some of them going no come on you can't do that and now I'm gonna surprise you I know it sounds like genuinely fatty but it's not that you know big it's not that writ large but it's a sort of thing that goes on in my mind but I don't picture it exactly as a film I'd enter some damned okay and it's it's a whole new thing and now of course if I do go back and read the book I will I will hear the terms of Rajan and he's enriched it to me he's made it better it's a bit like Oscar Wilde said you know Turner improved nature now you look at the sunset and Turner has shown you a new way to look at it and so you actually see it with new eyes and that's what artists do and that's what actors can do with the role and actually I mean I saw Rodgers some years ago giving him the stunning performance of a full staff and I realized that there is quite a lot of full stuff in a way and in in that in that character too is one of the great English characters I wouldn't dare okay suggests that I was doing as well as Shakespeare but I think also I mean what you were saying about being a critic I mean I think that's what a good critic can do as well that can necessarily improve on something but certainly as it will make you help you see it or hear it or yeah understand it or read it but what glance and and John's done is you you see because I you know novel is made of words and nothing else but a screenplay is made of scenes and and moments and characters and and shots and you you had to presumably you probably in the book found all kinds of structural flaws and thought what have you done Steve I was the for me one of the the great the terrifying challenge was how to take the brilliance of the writing but also the descriptions and the different points of view of the various characters and make that work in the screenplay which as you said before enormous chunks of it or just visuals atmosphere award and look word and gesture backstory exactly exactly but how to try not to think of a description without I was something like in Arcadia conversation bounces like a punctured tennis ball on a peat bog it's wonderful how do I put that into a script I don't know yeah so when you I mean obviously because the book is very complex very rich many characters when you first you know went towards it how did you begin by pairing that down did you plot it out do you do a graft you how do you do it oh it is so it was in it's so long ago now I can barely remember I remember sitting down to write the first draft as the Tories and the Lib Dems were sitting down to make their coalition agree so it's after a similar amount of beating my face on the table came up I remember when I kept watching an Oscar or BAFTA ceremony or seven when I was about 12 and seeing the producer taking his award and and shake it and going seven years in the making and I remember thinking it's ridiculous it doesn't take seven years and you've just shown that seven years you would have dreamt you would have yeah what's externally is seven years to get to the point then you should we shot it in 23 days you know it says everyone goes oh how long did you take to film it you were so like no we ran straight through it and we did you know it was really fast filming and then you know at loads of time editing but that you know those seven years building up to those 23 days but during the course of those seven years did it change shape didn't hugely hugely there were there were there were flashbacks the whole of the whole of Albert's story we thought we were making one time and then it became too expensive they they what that required going back into yeah exactly and that that was there was a hole that the shooting expedition that was exactly and so they would assume that though we've got petals into the air it was amazing I had is the thing I'd actually wanted to do when I was a boy by I grew up in the country there was a shooting and there was a period I had which I've never really grown out of right I just thought it was nasty to shoot birds out of the sky and I had seen these strange brass things that you used to load a cartridge with shot and I'd thought wouldn't it be great to sneak down the stairs at night and open up all the cartridges and with one of these machines and take pour out the shot and fill it with confetti but enough charge and leave it so that all these butch men in there you know which one I hated my first boy in in there tweeds marching up and down with the beaters beating the birds flying up there go go go oops like that and then we and we filmed it ya know those great it just it's one of those moments that you only discover takes the energy out of the air sorry Oh train your mates completely beautiful when you film it and you have all this confetti everywhere and it's dreamlike and you know you spent three days trying to get it and then you just get in the room and you're watching it and you try and make it work for three weeks and then you're like that's the problem with the film at the moment this this scene just sucks all this need out of and sometimes it's very same thing in films and I did a thing with John Schlesinger was a fine director and there was a scene and we watched the film back you know months months maybe a year later after and someone in the car said John why did you cut that scene we had such fun doing that he said yes it was wonderful perfect you thought you were good and it was a wonderful scene super why if you cut it he said well it was an emotional repetition what do you mean he said well it was just saying the same thing that had been said in that scene where she snatches the kettle away from him it was just doing the same job telling you that she was annoyed you didn't need to see it again and that's a very important thing in films you you know to have the courage you you'll know exactly what I mean weren't you that suddenly realized actually good as that is we already know that we don't need to see it again it's it's indulgent to repeat it just because it's well acted and it looks good we need to get to the yep to the next scene I mean I think what we I talked a lot about my is what sometimes gets me into a script as the director and I read a scene and I I got into the film and with that one scene but actually in the watching of it that scene is the umbilical cord for the director and that you need to cut it out and you have the whole of the film that's perfectly formed in not itself that was the way that I got into it and therefore I loved that scene when it's actually going it doesn't I'm very of the opening scene is the one you think that we didn't exactly one of the things that the the great joys of the film is that you have this dialogue much of which is very you know bilious beautifully written very aggressive and and you do seem to take huge pleasure those torrents have beautifully well written abuse was it as much fun to do that as it looks like yes it's interesting plan Falstaff was extremely good preparation for this because you know full staff talks endlessly and full staff also doesn't know quite what he's going to say at the end of a sentence when he started he makes it up as he goes along you know and that was tremendously useful and a lot of my my work in Shakespeare and working the theater was very very useful for for doing this kind of tax do you have to like the character to play them well mean obviously you know you find things that you sympathize with but when we first meet him he is a gloriously unlikable character well I just instantly loved him I mean that that's the contradictory thing isn't it really I mean he's not a very lovable human being certainly to begin with but he's an incredibly attractive character to play you know saying saying all those extreme things you think yes I want to do that drunk yes fancy brilliant falling in the water [Laughter] filming falling in a pond cannot be from under any circumstances at all no that's true luckily I didn't fall in the pond but I did have to come out of this slosh when you watch the film do you laugh at it I did but also the the lucky thing for me that was that the Tom Hodgson the other writer put in a whole load of jokes that I had no idea about and so I would go oh that's great I wish I'd written that it's fantastic more like that please Tom so it was lovely my role very much was to do the first bit of it to try to take the book and try to shape it into something that would honor what Stephen had written but at the same time have that fantastic propulsive plot John was talking about and so the actual speak ability came very late and wasn't mine so I was I was delighted to see how funny it was because no one knows what the mix is due to the miracle of social networking which we talked about earlier on we have some questions from Twitter your favorite hey so this is for Stephen and John this is from this see have you ever thought about making a sequel to this book or film and if so what would you like Ted to investigate given D you've gotten these written down I wish I'd had a look at them there well personally I am fond enough of Ted has accounted to to at least imagine the idea of putting him in another situation I mean you know it is in a sense a play on the classic country house mystery you know detective story so there is no reason why he wouldn't go to another place to do that so yeah I wouldn't I you know other books I've written I could couldn't possibly imagine but this I could at least imagine it I could entertain the idea I imagine a wonderful television series [Laughter] [Applause] would we a private a private eye who's also a poet well we have somewhere exotic I don't know Rome when we have travels around the world to Poetry Festival we have to kill off inspector Thursday first two beloved Roger this is for you this is from Hedgehog loves at Hedgehog loves which was the most difficult line to deliver oh I can't remember any of know I can't remember I don't think any of the I didn't find any of the lines difficult oh I think there was one there was a speech there was a speech about I hope the watching world can cope with this about turning turning masturbation into kind of something hand cream or something like oh yes around the around the yeah around the five I have just come and there were airplane circular I found that quite difficult I can't remember why this is for Steven this is from Rachel Brock if you were to write the hippopotamus now the novel I imagine what if any changes would you make to it because obviously the novel is you know some some years old it is and that's a very interesting question and it's so you know you could I you know have the same energy the same things I wanted to say in the same way now that I did then I mean that I don't dissociate myself from any of any of the book but it it would be different and and it's you know Heraclitus said you can't step into the same river twice because fresh water is always flowing past you and and and you you know that's just true I am a different person I'm probably molecularly different in every degree but I suppose obviously the one clear fact is that Ted is a bit of a technophobe and in the book he's having to send faxes and things which now look very sort of quaint in our care so that there be a difference in that just the technical side of things but I like to think it would be pretty similar to be on this there's no there's no she actually main shape that I would alter I'm going to ask you one last thing from Twitter before we take questions from the audience this is a lengthy question this is from dr. Christian Jessen never has science and discovery been so mistrusted and you spoke about Rogers character being a technophobe what can we all do to help rectify this and tackle the dangerous anti science chemtrail anti-gm it's all a cover-up by the big farmer crowd les what would Jesus do and more what would Ted do how do you feel well it's true and it's an interesting thing to me that poetry and science in that Center connected there about investigating the reality of things not how you want them to be not fantasy but reality and I suppose to some extent you could blame science for not presenting itself in its true colors which are beautiful and mysterious and and simply thrilling but you know the fact is some great scientists have shown that Richard Fineman is an obvious example and some plenty of contemporary ones who make science the greatest adventure there is and the most emotionally compelling the thing about chemtrails and everything else is that they're a dead end and they're dull you know these you know absurd ignorant England's in the sense of just not you know not fully thought through and understood fantasies about how the world you know people wish the world where rather than the way it is yes the way the world is is so fantastic the idea that you want it to be something else or you're trying to suggest it something else seems very odd I suppose curiosity is the answer I think I think Ted is a very cure is curious about things he knows about things without you know he doesn't want to you know he he will use the shocking language he's out of wangkong about this he will say because because he doesn't want to sound too kind of cutesy but the fact is the world is a terrific adventure and science is the best route to it and so is poetry the two are absolutely linked what's what's a pity is is I don't know is not having that excitement about that curiosity you spoke about kindness and I take curiosity is another I there's a line in the film which I think we added at some point which was miracles what we say is what's happening when we're either too frightened or too lazy to work out what's going on yeah and I think that speaks to what you're saying that when you sort of when you start saying that it's this small explanation that you don't want to investigate and you've kind of given up yeah that's when you start using words like miracles or start inventing chemtrails or all these kind of things you've got to keep that curiosity that drive yeah in investigation and working it out for yourselves which unfortunately a lot of what people who believe in CHEM tales say they're doing you know they've they've seen something and they you know they feel that they've investigated but if they haven't the last thing for me before this was it were you at any point worried that any of the subjects you were touching upon would be would be controversial in the film you know the film is you know it's light and funny but it is dealing with things which absolutely push people's buttons that's the point that's what we were trying to take I was trying to you know to have something that on one level felt like perfect Sunday afternoon TV and the other level was commune Oh dealt with all these themes that's that are totally out there you know a timeslot Antiques Roadshow you know people might not be able to look at the horse of the year showing question seen the film will read the book but was there anything that we did you censor yourself at all is there anything in that you thought we're not going to do that in the film there was one thing that I remember that in the book in the book David is 15 and we needed I think to blur his age because if he had been under age the things that he gets up to what happens to him would have been yeah says he's 16 and you know that was really important and I think that kind of stuff you can get away when you're writing your novel but in in the film when you're showing it to people yeah it would have felt like a mushroom we really would have been much much harder to swallow Oh oh yeah are we happy to take questions from you probably bring the house lights up so we can see if you have a question stick your hand in there we will run a microphone to you so yes there gentleman in the green shirt hello there mark one of the great joys of hey is that it's sodding miles away from London and that means we get to listen to you on a Friday afternoon on a Friday afternoon this Friday you said that a comedy film yes now longer has to have as six last it has to have considerably more than that is this a comedy film it is and very specifically I mean what was interesting is you saw that the trailer that we played here and I counted three big laughs in that trailer then we played the clip of Roger berating the theatrical production with and just to be clear about the six laughs thing like that started because I had seen so many comedies that literally were not funny ever and I said I think for something to be defined as a comedy it has to make you laugh a minimum of six times otherwise it isn't a comedy it is something else that you know and then this then became oh yeah Kermode six laughs rule what was staggering was firstly how few films I mean I saw so many comedies in which I would just say I know I've got a ten year for comedy I have it too it's been said before but I would sit there stonyface thinking a joke would be nice and so and I think there's absolutely no question in the case of the hippopotamus even with because there's somebody wrote in and said we should raise it to ten I mean obviously you understand that this is a ridiculous I don't actually think that things can be judged by how many times you laugh but yes it did pass the six and ten laugh test without any problems whatsoever [Applause] you also have a rule don't we have a rule that no no film on the bus did sabotage Donald fit was advertising the side of a bus yes and that is any good that was like the old one but anything that had Matthew McConaughey leaning against something it was just like literally every film he made until Dallas was gay he was leaning against something as if to say I'm not here question here in the BBC series radio for Kevin pressure the character of Stephanie call once described your character Roger as sounding like Stephen Fry's favorite uncle at any point imagine yourself playing Ted in this film not really I think I would have if someone asked me if John said you know with wider to make we'd like you to play Ted I would have felt very resistant about it because I'm so wanted John and blanston that all the filmmaking team to be absolutely free to make the film they wanted to make and I didn't want I thought they'd be inhibited if I was doing it and as soon as I knew Roger was doing it I felt completely at ease I just knew he was so right for it in every respect tambour of voice bodies have in the right place so yeah my favorite uncle is exactly right Roger how do you feel about the description well of course I was playing a character no I mean I I mean just to say in return that I very much heard Stephens voice in the writing and so you know that's a kind of marriage which of course is another another thing that a comedy could be in the classical sense you know it just ends with a marriage yes could have no laughs whatsoever but as long as it ends in a marriage it's in classical terms being be a comedy yeah I do very funny exactly I think if you put that on the poster it ends in America okay let's take another stake in the middle there lady with glasses on their head I say that as opposed to glasses on your face on yes thank you so much for such a great talk this evening and I just wanted to ask you Steven and with hippopotamus having one of the key themes of miracles will this film well yes I mean thank goodness I'm here I could so easily have been in imprisoned at this today if things had gone gone against me it's for those are not aware I did an interview a year and a half ago in which I was asked about you know I just asked what I would say to God if God really did exist and I suddenly found to my surprise that I was facing him after after my life what would I say to him and I I said what I'd say and it's not exactly an original idea but I'd said that I would have you know so what the hell were you thinking of you know I would have been quite cross with him anyway the interview went on and people at the time were interested or cross or whatever but for some reason recently they went to the police and lodged a complaint and said that I'd you know then I was blasphemous so it's quite possible I would have gone to prison but Ireland is Ireland don't forget that at any point I was contacted by the man who framed this blasphemy law actually it's called Dermot Ahern and Island had had a previous blasphemy law in the days when it was really pretty subject to the whims of the you know the mother of all churches and they wanted to get rid of it but the Irish Constitution was such they couldn't get rid of their breath remove blasphemy law without a very expensive and embarrassing and public referendum so what they did instead was they retuned the law as it existed and this man derman said I'm so sorry if you feel you've been threatened by it but I have to say actually I deliberately framed it so that it was unenforceable I think it's wonderful oh it seems never in any way that there was even the faintest chance of my giving in prison but no the point about miracles is you know the risk of sounding very sententious they are present every day in that I go for a walk in the morning every day and I particularly this time of year every five yards I see a miracle whether it's a tree breaking into bud or something else there is something quite miraculous about the world in which we live and to say everything is a miracle you might argue also it means nothing is a miracle because everything is but what else could a miracle be if a tree suddenly started speaking to me it would just be that wouldn't be a miracle it would be just a mistake and it would be will be wrong and upsetting and I would I would want to wake up like the Tolkien you know that trees talking to each other it's just a mistake we have about five minutes so I just want to take a couple more questions over there gentleman with the blue shirt hi question for John the director Steven talks about the freedom that he gave you how much of that was a relief or an added pressure it was a an instant and great relief and I really felt that you know once we'd been handed something and we just had to get on with it and it's only the only time I ever felt any pressure from Steven was when I went to Los Angeles and Steven saw it for the first time and he sat in the front and let everyone else in the theater leave before he stood up and then stood up and walked the long way up to where I was standing in the back and and I felt quite a lot of pressure and then you did this you would do the very British thing what you were about to give me a hug and then you shook my head is a pressure in what gesture and then you said you liked it it was oh yeah that was the no I didn't feel any so for seven years you literally hadn't shown anything to Steven we really no no I'd sort of said please don't make it you know make it your own you know you films ah you know it's an old debate but films belong to directors really and yes screenplay writers too but you know they are the directors medium and you know you know if you take extreme examples very few people are gonna say gosh well done Mary Apuzzo on the Godfather it's Francis Ford Coppola film and it should be and he made it his John James's film this not mine might have been the source material but this is very much your film and donkeys film and Rogers film all the filmmakers film not mine and it's just one element of it and I wouldn't want anyone I wouldn't want my name overused in it it wouldn't be fair to you and it would be you know a bad piece of marketing and it would be a wrong thing let's try and get one last question in while we have three minutes left hand up anybody yes there Thank You Steven you've described Ted Falstaff Ian's character who speaks previously but I think you endowed him with much more nuance and humanity it was that a conscious effort because often critics and poets have a holier-than-thou perception yeah yeah well I'm very glad you saw that he is I think very tenderly of him I you know he hides behind the you know the the muscularity and elasticity of his language the fact is he will go for a very crunchy anglo-saxon idiolect if you want to call it that almost hiding that the tenderness of his soul if you like which is that of a true poet but it he's annoyed with the world because the world seems to him to have just lost the its values and and he doesn't want to express them in hideous hippie new-age ways he doesn't want to express it in in ways that are cheap and easy and cliche ik because for a it cliche is the enemy of poetry you know you have to reinvent you know TS Eliot call did you have to purify the language of the tribe if you're a musician you can go to a music store and buy special instruments made of brass and wood and you can use a language of diminished seventh and gene G seventh and and and see minors and and it's a special language if you're a painter you have acrylics and you have sable and hogs air and you have turpentine and linseed and and canvas and special reserve materials to make your paints if you're a poet you have the same thing I'm using now the same thing someone uses to say I hate you or to order pizza online or to you know just to say I'm a Western there is toilet you know it's it's just Anna Matranga CH and so they have to make it very special and they're very they hate they hate the misuse of it they hate the underestimation of language and Ted uses language in a way that is it seems vulgar to pretty people but he's trying to make them listen all the time and it matters and ultimately it is it's a service and it is you said kind and that's what I love about Ted I think our time is at an end I'd like to say thank you so much for everybody for coming along tonight thank you to everybody who's in one of the hundred and twenty cinemas that have played this around the country and have taken part in this Q&A please join me in thanking John Blanche [Applause] well done years you're very good 29 seconds to spare

Channel: The Electric Shadow Company

Views: 14,609

Rating: 4.9349594 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: kn4tCKaZCwU

Length: 75min 4sec (4504 seconds)

Published: Fri May 25 2018