Scrotal Recall Page 5

Interesting. I didn't find anything crass about it at all. I thought the STD backbone a very clever - and unique, to my knowledge - plot device to facilitate the rest of the characters and the story. The title too, very clever.

I enjoyed it. A nice light touch.

The only thing I found crass was the title

Scrotal trivia: Johnny Flynn, who plays the hapless Dylan, is the younger brother of Jerome Flynn - formerly half of 'Robson and Jerome' and currently doing rather well in 'Game of Thrones'.

I liked it, but didn't love it. The opening scene was laugh-out-loud funny, but nothing that followed quite hit the same mark for me. Unlike some I did find the leads to be likeable, but don't care about them as characters/people yet - I expect/hope this will change with another couple of episodes.

Of the supporting cast, I loved the vicar and Joshua Maguire was good value as ever. Guessed who Abigail was very early on and no amount of red herrings (especially with aforementioned vicar) led me astray. Not sure if I'm amazingly clever or if it was blindingly obvious to all, but I'll plump for the former! :D

Didn't think this was going to be my cup of tea - mainly because of the title - but was very pleasantly surprised.

Just watched this on catch up. Really enjoyed it. Thought it was brilliantly written (Well done Tom, if you read this) and all the cast were great (well done cast if you read this) I enjoyed the sort of "who done it" style... although my girlfriend did call it straight away... lucky guess though probably.

Rood eye -Scrotal Trivia no 2 - Johnny Flynn's also does the music in The Detectorists, which I watched directly after this. He's trying to take over telly !

Well I understand the plot of it can understand it however,I found it rather boring to be perfectly honest.

I'm glad that (some of) you enjoyed the first episode. It never feels like a good idea for a writer to reply to reviews - it either looks smug or defensive - so I won't start in with that. But if anyone's got questions about the show I'm still lurking in the BCG shrubbery and happy to answer anything.

Quote: Tom Edge @ 6th October 2014, 3:38 PM BST

I'm glad that (some of) you enjoyed the first episode. It never feels like a good idea for a writer to reply to reviews - it either looks smug or defensive - so I won't start in with that. But if anyone's got questions about the show I'm still lurking in the BCG shrubbery and happy to answer anything.

Hey Tom, think that's spot on. 'Glad you liked it, sorry you didn't' is as much as you should ever say (or indeed care - if only it was as easy as that!).

Haven't much to ask, other than how was it seeing the show on the telly proper?

And I'm not sure where I saw it (possibly the Independent?) but a TV listing somewhere referred to the next episode as being set 18 YEARS, rather than months, ago. Which I'm assuming would make it quite a different show - so are there any things you've seen in the press (not necessarily in reviews) that have just been plain wrong?

Hi Radiat10n - it was great seeing the show on air after living with it for so long, first as a script, then as sides for auditions, then a read-through, a shoot, several edits, a final mix, and a cast/crew screening. Really, the ad break was the only entirely novel element in terms of the show, but-- still very exciting. It's not an uncomplicated pleasure though. A part of the brain is still thinking: could I have trimmed that scene? Did this or that line ever really work off the page? And another part is chanting, yoga-style, don't-look-at-Twitter-(yet)-don't-look-at-Twitter-(yet)-don't-look-at-Twitter-(yet). Because you want to enjoy the moment, and you know once you've jumped into the gloves-off opinion pool, it will become complicated at the very least. Someone will ALWAYS declare that "everyone involved in the making of this show should be killed" - that's an iron rule of Twitter-criticism - but expecting the line doesn't take the sting from it. That said, reaction to the show seemed mostly positive, which I was grateful for. I hope I'll relax as the series progresses.

The preview you refer to was from the Independent on Sunday and yes, as you guessed, there's been a copy error: episode two's flashback takes place 18 months ago, not 18 years. But then, that blurb also said that the show was their "favourite new comedy of the season", so let's just agree that everything they wrote was absolutely correct ;-)

Most write-ups have been subjective reviews, so there haven't been many occasions where I've seen facts go awry. Sometimes a reviewer has gone awry - for instance, one thought that 'Abigail' was Dylan's wedding date. But the only aspect of the show that I've wished to dive in on is where reviewers write about Luke as being a simply hideous human being. In fairness, he's presented with a lot of negative tropes early on. But I think - I hope - that as the series progresses and we peel back the curtain on some of Luke's history, that he'll be more readily given the benefit of the doubt.

Well I have to say I enjoyed it - I would have to be honest and say I'm not a fan of the name either (although I don't think C4 have helped you with announcers saying "get ready to get infected by this new sitcom" etc), but when it comes down to it, it's actually quite gentle - or as much as a sitcom about reminiscing about everyone you've ever had sex with can be.

It really put me in mind of "How I Met Your Mother", if only for the reason because it's a romcom that plays fast and loose with the idea of linear narrative, rather than any of the particular characters or situations so far.

Now say what you like about the actual comedy of HIMYM (personally I loved it), but the sheer ambition of that from a writer's point of view has to be admired and a lot of good came from them playing about with the format. So it was good to see that Scrotal Recall came out to play around with this from the off, really enjoyed the fact we didn't know who Abigail was until the end - in fact it took me far too long to realise Abigail wasn't the first girl we met in the flashback. I'll certainly watch the rest of the series as I love stuff like this. You certainly have me intrigued.

Thanks Snrub, glad to hear you'll be watching.

I just did a Q&A over on the Dan's Media Digest blog and talked about the appeal (and pitfalls) of a non-linear narrative structure. Might be your kind of thing; it can be found here:

http://danowen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/interview-tom-edge-scrotal-recall.html

First of all, Tom, it's great that you're here to answer questions, it's been quite interesting reading some of your replies...it definitly fleshes out the backstory!

I'm a bit behind over here in Canuckland, so I only just got to see the first episode, but so far so good. First off, I loved seeing Vicki Pepperdine in the first scene... I'm always curious who knows who behind the scenes in the comedy world and when some of my favourites make cameos or small guest spots it's a delight.

I loved the concept... this is what true situational comedy should be, something pretty normal and everyday being taken up and being made ridiculous.

However, as a regular armchair viewer, there were some things that put me off. The first was the pace at times, it was like *bam,bam,bam* the scene changed so rapidly that I felt like it was 3-d. I know this is more a shooting issue, but I thought I'd mention for constructive criticism.

What I really loved was how diverse the character are. I think they represent an average group of mates, they're exaggerated yes, but not so over the top. The casting of Dylan was great, but being the first episode I still don't know him...so I'm looking forward to seeing more of him and his reactions to these girls.

Overall, an enjoyable show to watch!

Hi BenS, hope Canada is treating you well. Thanks for your kind comments on Scrotal ep1. The pace of the first episode *was* a script issue, honestly - a lot of story to get through in 23 minutes across several interweaving storylines, most of which are revisited later in the series (so loath to cut them here).

Subsequent episodes do slow down a little bit. Episode two (just aired in the UK) is very contained, a small-scale story taking place almost exclusively in their flat, and is primarily concerned with fleshing out the relationship between the three leads. Episode three is more colourful again with some 'bigger' jokes as we see romance from Luke's heightened point-of-view. If you like seeing favourite performers popping up as guest stars, then I hope you'll enjoy Tom Stourton (most recently in Siblings) in ep.3; he's a very funny man.

I'll admit this sat on my Sky+ box for two weeks as the 'concept' and the title put me off a little. But really enjoyed this when I finally caught up. After episode 1 I watched the second straight afterwards so that's probably a good sign.

Then I come on here to see what others thought and there's the writer-creator answering questions! Congratulations on a great 2 episodes Tom and thanks for braving the bear-pit that is BCG.

One question I had was did you always mainly write longer form projects (e.g. screenplays / sitcoms) or did you start off on shorter pieces (e.g. sketches / shorts)?