alanconnor.com/log

I am a guest on the first episode of BBC Radio 5 Live’s Arts Club. Tickets for the recording are available from The Bill Murray club in Islington.

Update: More episodes —

• 2 Feb 2018: Art for Trump, Dylan v Cohen, What does Banksy look like and is The Bayeaux Tapestry a bit rubbish? (My sacred cow: The Laughing Cavalier)
• 16 Feb 2018: Florence, portraits and the music of our youth (My sacred cow: The Great Bear)
• 18 Mar 2018: Awards Shows, the NME, and TV shows for the Obamas (My sacred cow: Julius Caesar)

• Recording: Thu 1 Feb 2018, The Bill Murray, 39 Queen’s Head St, London N1 8NQ [tickets]
• Broadcast: BBC 5 live, Sun 4 Feb 2018 and on podcast
• See also: The Will Gompertz Fringe
• Image from the RWA Exhibition, 2007

I’m part of the panel for a Bafta event:

A panel of comedy entertainment producers and writers discuss the recent renaissance in entertainment television, covering programme development, writing, casting, and the role of satire.

• 6:45pm, Tuesday, 17 October 2017
• Princess Anne Theatre, Bafta, 195 Piccadilly, St. James’s, London W1J 9EU
• Tickets
• Updated with image by @widowedanthem

I have been enjoying working on Channel 4’s Alternative Election Night:

Jeremy Paxman, David Mitchell and Richard Osman present an all-night feast of comedy and comment in Channel 4’s very different take on election night

• 9pm, 8 June 2017, Channel 4

I am proud to have performed the minor role of “crossword consultant” for this excellent episode of Inside No 9, The Riddle of the Sphinx:

I’m further proud to have filled the role of some kind of muse:

• BBC Two, 10pm, 28 Feb 2017
• Two Girls, One on Each Knee
• Steve Pemberton set the episode’s crossword as ‘Sphinx’, which is also the Guardian’s cryptic on the day of broadcast
• Interview with Sphinx at the Guardian crossword blog
• More Inside No 9

I am a proud member of Team 2016 Wipe, which is broadcast after Christmas.

Update 14 May 2017: Bafta winner, Comedy & Comedy Entertainment Programme

• 9pm, 29 December 2016, BBC Two
• More Wipes

Kevin Bishop is Nigel Farage, in a programme imagining his life after resigning. Blurb:

“On the 23rd June, Britain voted to leave the European Union,” added the BBC. “Then, on the 4th July, Nigel Farage, the man who had made it all possible, resigned saying he wanted his life back. But what sort of life has he gone back to, and how does a man forever in the spotlight fill his days now he has nothing to do?”

(more…)

Update: Luddites can see The Rack Pack on terrestrial TV during the World Snooker Championships c2130, 30 April at 10pm, 16 July, BBC2.

The first drama feature film for iPlayer is out on Sunday [ trailer | playlist ]. It’s about Alex Higgins and these men:

Detailing the complex relationship between Steve Davis and Alex Higgins, and the part played in it by Hearn, the sport’s ringmaster, the film is by turns hilarious and tear-jerking. Its re-creation of an era of quite magnificent sleaze is so precise you can almost feel your shoes sticking to the snooker hall carpets as you watch — Jim White, Telegraph

Delightful… What this is not is a cartoonish romp through snooker’s glory days. For the most part it is very moving. But despite all this, Shaun Pye, Mark Chappell and Alan Connor’s film is still a wonderful nostalgia fest for all us 1980s kids, hearing names you haven’t heard uttered for 30 years — Ben Dowell, Radio Times

Shifts beautifully between laugh-out-loud moments and characters pressing the self-destruct button — Alyson Rudd, Front Row, Radio 4

For 90 minutes of pure nostalgia, this takes some beating — Hector Nunns, Times

…hilariously recounts the tension between the pair.
Hearn has seen the film and says it is ‘absolutely fantastic‘. He goes on: ‘It captures exactly the spirit of that time, the conflict between Davis and Higgins and the birth of modern-day commercial snooker. I had to rub my eyes sometimes; it was as though I was watching the real thing. It’s sensational.
‘The film is brutally honest.’ — Tom Parry, Boudicca Fox-Leonard, Mirror

Snooker is famed as the perfect TV sport, but it never looks as good as this — Andrew Collins, Guardian

Snooker fans will have tuned in to the final of this year’s Masters on BBC Two, but over on iPlayer a more thrilling portrayal of the sport was playing out — Rachel Ward, Telegraph

…the only puzzle about The Rack Pack is why the corporation [is] uncertain how to categorise what is simply superb drama — Martin Hoyle, Financial Times

• A film by Brian Welsh
• Luke Treadaway, Will Merrick, Kevin Bishop, Nichola Burley, James Bailey
• Created and written by Shaun Pye, Mark Chappell, Alan Connor
• Producer Barney Reisz
• Executive Producer Peter Holmes
• Executive Producers Shane Allen, Victoria Jaye, Gregor Sharp

• BBC iPlayer, 9pm, 17 January 2016
• BBC2, 10pm, 16 July 2016