For well over a year we'd been toying with getting a short play in the mould of 'The Archers or like a soap' with comedy in mind. But actors or even just people weren't there, so it just wasn't happening.
I'd been doing 'Pick 'n' Mix' a topics and music show for SouthWaves featuring hard hitting topics that were of the 'name and shame variety' that Jamie didn't mind at all, but the ex lot at Selsey Radio, a podcast thing without vision, didn't really like it but tolerated it to get use of my studio, that was their agenda, and I eventually dropped them over censorship, the act of pulling a show or changing the content by one or more persons at the radio. One bit of censorship that stuck out was when I was featuring a local builder and in my research I went to Checkatrade to see his pages, and I found something but not the whole story, but as I prepared the show, I was asked to drop the Checkatrade bit because they were a contributor?
Strangely over the few years, I had noticed that the people in the immediate vicinity and area were not really nice people at all, and that they were definitely cliquish and rather creepy to the point that they would conspire with each other to get their own way.
Jamie would listen to me dropping hints of this on my radio show and as we were having one of our usual meetings with coffee and super doughnuts he remarked that my rants would make a good play, and that was it, the seed was sown...how could I use my numerous observations and create a comedy play? the material was already staring at me.
A cast was out of the question, I'd seen too much of the fair weather guest variety who you see once, twice or so and then gone. This needed to be regular if it was to succeed or make a programme. I knew I could write the script, but I had to keep it within limits.
I invented an amateur detective partnership Ernie and Maureen, who live in Hellsey, which was first called Hellsea, then Hellsey on Sea.
I knew I could play two roles, two tracks, and I chose out of desperation to have Ernie doing an American accent, but it's not that good, but somehow that made sense really so that I didn't get too serious with it. Maureen was easier, especially having a radio and recording studio. So with the help of a Zoom studio Vocoder Maureen was born as they say, a lovely little old lady.
I decided that they would go over cases they were investigating, as the target of these were the dastardly Large Acres Triangle....the triangle bit coming from 'The Bermuda Triangle' where strange things happen and things disappear....quite apt really.
The characters came to mind immediately, because they were more or less in front of me, and out there close by. I knew I couldn't use real people, so I loosely used what I knew and invented 'Fatman Captain Nelson' - 'Prissy Hat the local tart' -- 'Poser Prince Will Hyams' - 'Wicked Witch Annie' -- 'The Bakersman' -- 'The Tightwads' to be the villains in the spoof.
I chose a main theme and plot, and surrounded it with fills for each episode making them as real as possible, because that's the key to keeping listeners interested. The fact that it could be happening or did, or just maybe? is a lot stronger than outright twaddle.
Each episode is fifteen minutes with intro and outro, I used a backtrack and sound effects to brighten things up like telephones, dogs and thunder etc.
Finally I had to make sure that the show had a 'disclaimer' in case certain factions tried to move against it, because when I was with the Selsey Radio lot, they tried to stop a show I did 'Head to Head with Mike Nicholls' and their tactics included threats and phone calls to Jamie Dyer (SouthWaves Radio station boss) using legal moves which were false really, the show belonged to me and my production company - Denco Productions. Mike Nicholls actually e-mailed me requesting I delete the shows tapes? and make up etc, offering me a better deal, but I didn't accept and Jamie ran the programme.
Even with this spoof, we got wind that a 'man' in Large Acres told the advertising magazine that ran our ad for the episodes must stop being delivered to the 'Close' - obviously intended to stop our shows and the spoof being mentioned. Local Life turned and ran like mice and in doing so broke a deal struck 2 years ago, so in turn, I cancelled their radio show, and we still go on with our spoof.