Silent Thoughts

IN THE BEGINNING

Richard Sparks

I wrote the pilot, on spec, in 1979 or 1980. I had taken up windsurfing and loved it – and, as with all beginners, there was a lot of comedy involved in learning how to do it. I thought it would make a great short silent film.

It was originally titled “The Wind, The Surf And The Moron”. I wrote it with Rowan Atkinson in mind, as we had done a revue together at the Hampstead Theatre in 1978, and I’d seen how incredible he was at physical comedy, so subject and actor naturally merged in my mind. For the revue, I’d written the Schoolmaster sketch for him.

A year later I got a call from Rowan saying that John Cleese and Martin Lewis, the producers, had seen him perform it, and had asked him to repeat it in The Secret Policeman's Ball, which they were getting off the ground. That launched Rowan to stardom.

By the time Robert Sidaway found the script and got “The Optimist” off the ground as a series, Rowan was famous, and busy. He was also under contract to Not The Nine O'Clock News (as was I, as one of the freelance writers), so was unavailable. Robert and I thought the concept would make a good action-comedy series, in contrast to the more conventional sitcoms of the day. We shot the pilot episode in Cabo San Lucas in August 1981, on 35mm. Robert sold it to Channel 4, and I threw myself into writing the other six scripts for the first season, which we shot in the Los Angeles area the following summer.

It was my idea to cast Enn Reitel. I had seen him in The Rivals at the Greenwich Theatre, playing Bob Acres. He was amazing. You couldn't take your eyes off him. Enn was pretty much an unknown, so I had to sell him hard to Peter Ellis, the director, who, naturally, wanted a say in the casting. I drove Peter up to York where Enn was in a play. Peter liked what he saw, so afterwards we went backstage and introduced ourselves. I did not know either of them before the pilot was in pre-production. Peter was hired by Robert.

For me, the great irony about “The Optimist” is that we cast one of our great impersonators and voice actors in a silent comedy. I had no idea of Enn’s vocal talents until we were in Cabo, and he’d start doing Cary Grant or Michael Caine or Bogart or many others at mealtimes. He kept us all entertained throughout the shoots. I later introduced Enn to the producer John Lloyd, who used him a lot for voices on “Spitting Image”.

1982-2022:

From Optimist to OAPtimist

Enn Reitel

It hasn’t gone in the blink of an eye, but viewing my younger self from this standpoint is rather like viewing a past life. Who was that handsome, blonde, skinny guy?

1982. The year started well for me by starring in the BBC series “The Further Adventures of Lucky Jim”, written by the legends that are Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. It was great to land the part, but it hardly paid the rent. As I’d never worked for the BBC in light entertainment before, we were offered £160 an episode (I think we got it up to £300, with a built-in repeat). My how times have changed.

At the time, two channels held the power, but, on the horizon, there was a new kid on the block – Channel 4. It had a revolutionary way of working. No longer were series only commissioned in house, now independent productions were allowed to join the party. Cecil Korer, a Commissioning Editor at Channel 4, made a very bold move for the times. After viewing a short film entitled “Sea Dreams”, Cecil commissioned six further episodes on the proviso that they all be shot in Los Angeles to capitalize on the exotic elements of sea, sun, sand and… an element of glamour.

So, in June 1982, a bunch of batty Brits headed off to Hollywood, to make six silent episodes of a series that basically emulated how comedy movies started 60 years previously, and in the Yanks’ own back yard - what a cheek! Actually, if fate had dealt a different hand, I probably wouldn’t have been there at all. Instead, I’d have been filming a second series of “Only Fools And Horses” as a character called Del Boy. But that’s another story.

For the next three months our motley crew improvised and blagged our way around LA, shooting ”guerrilla-style”, meaning we didn’t have permits or permission. We’d jump out of the back of a van, hastily shoot a scene, then bugger off sharpish. This was how most of the final episode was shot. Hollywood High School, the Paramount Studios gates, and the famous Hollywood sign, all captured on the fly. It even led to our arrest on Sunset Boulevard, as someone called the police because ‘a couple guys are fighting in the street with knives’. We were actually fencing dressed in 18th century garb. The cops were finally talked out of locking us up for the night and we were let off with a caution. But that didn’t stop us.

At the time “The Optimist” was just another job. Everything at the start of a career is about moving forward, looking out for the next job. There was little or no afterlife for a series, a couple of repeats was all you could hope for. It was all about moving on, not looking back or thinking that any work would live on. Remember, only three channels.

The notion of hundreds of outlets, DVDs, and streaming services was totally alien. Most of us didn’t even have video recorders. We shot on a now obsolete medium called film and viewed the results a few days later on “rushes”. If we’d messed up there was little or nothing we could do. Now they make movies with iPhones!

The second series was shot in England in from March to May 1984. Hmmm, not quite the same. The end of that year was a major game changer for me. Thanks to a series called “Spitting Image”, I moved into the world of voice overs and, apart from another Clement and Le Frenais series, “Mog”, and a stint in the West End, kinda liked it and stayed.

So, looking back, what at the time was just a great job in an exotic location, has really turned out to be one of the highlights of my life. Los Angeles and what it represented became a magnet, so much so that it’s now where I live and still thrive as an OAPtimist.

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