The Long View

See above for a pic taken at the end of Season One of Wooden Overcoats, in which the cast make it very clear they blame the production team for its success.

Perhaps the guiltiest party is front and centre - David K Barnes, the writer and show-runner who’s since gone on to work for Audible, the BBC, Big Finish and more.
        And he’s even took time even beyond his interview - to add some direct advice from someone who’s been there and, in fact, done it. Truly, we don’t deserve him.

Anyway - here are his thoughts on writing one of the best-received scripted podcasts from the UK so far - from awkward beginnings to a happy ending.

PRE- SEASON ONE
“I'd only one prior experience of writing for the audio medium before Wooden Overcoats, which was a 6-part detective comedy serial with a cast of seven called Drayton Trench. It oddly received three separate productions; the second one featured Felix Trench, Beth Eyre, and Tom Crowley, and directly led to Wooden Overcoats. When writing Drayton I had relied upon my own instincts for tone, I drew upon radio comedies I'd enjoyed for the style of jokes you could do on audio, and I knew from Big Finish Productions that you could do action scenes and spectacle without visuals. So I kind of just went straight at it, with no idea I was writing anything especially ambitious. 

As an example, that show had a sequence where a helicopter smashed through a glass ceiling and somebody slid down a rope to steal a priceless artefact, just as our hero rode through a crowd of onlookers on a horse. A few minutes later, they did battle on the top of the Eiffel Tower. I edited that first production myself and it was a nightmare, but I figured "Other people could do this standing on their heads, but it's fine, just try."

When it came to Wooden Overcoats, our ambition was 'simply' to make a sitcom that would be as good or better than BBC Radio 4's output. No major action scenes, just characters and dialogue. Even that became ambitious when we decided to have an expanded cast of characters, each with their own voice actor! And it wasn't long before we had angry mobs rampaging through every episode, and all kinds of bizarre action. It was audio, we could do what we wanted, and luckily I had two producers in John & Andy who were totally up for the challenge.”

SEASON ONE
”The general story and tone came about from discussions with Felix and Tom, who'd approached me to write this show. We wanted a situation-of-the-week show so that every episode could be distinct, but we wanted a 'Netflix drama' model where characters would grow and their arcs were carefully plotted. I think having a stable of additional writers was intended to create less work for me, though in the end I became almost as involved in every other episode as my own! It was my first time being a 'head writer' and my only inspiration was Russell T. Davies's The Writer's Tale, a book going into detail on the day-to-day decisions on writing and making Doctor Who. If it hadn't been for that book, I'd probably have been less confident with trying to establish a consistent tone across eight episodes, only four of which I'd write myself. 

The major benefit of additional writers, of course, is additional ideas and perspectives. The show wouldn't have stretched itself without them; I owe a lot to Chris, Cordelia, Tiff and Tom on figuring out that first season. One funny thing was that everybody wanted to write 'the Antigone episode.' They'd latched onto this quirky supporting character from the pilot episode and pitched ideas for her instead of Rudyard. I leant into it, deciding it was far better to allow them to follow their own passions and interests, and so they all wrote episodes focussing on Antigone while I did the ones focussed on Rudyard! This created a tension between those two characters which was a lot of fun to play with, and became a literal part of the text when Antigone wrested partial control of the funeral home away from Rudyard for Season Two. 

That subtextual battle between Rudyard and Antigone was a far more creatively satisfying story arc for the series than the actual one we had, which was "a serial killer is at work on Piffling." I thought we needed an explanation as why so many people were dying in what was supposedly a small village community, and so we made it the focus of the last episode - but it became pretty clear once the series was out that the listeners were happy to accept anything so long as was entertaining and consistent with the vibe of the show. That's a big writing tip I learnt on that first season: if you want to cross the room to get to the buffet, don't put furniture in the way. Nobody needs it. Just enjoy the buffet. 

Generally, my approach for this first season was to allow any new characters and situations that 'felt right.' Some early ideas were never used: Antigone talking to the spirits of her dead parents was mooted in one discussion as a recurring gag, and Eric was meant to have a secretary called Joy Leyland before we decided it was funnier if he seemed to be able to handle everything himself. But other characters introduced became regular members of the Piffling population, like journalist Sid Marlowe, detective Agatha Doyle, and wild socialite Lady Templar. 

In terms of making this specific to audio, we naturally allowed scenes to be dialogue-focussed, though even then I usually wanted a certain pace and rhythm to keep the stories moving. We played with gags that would only really work on audio, or at least would be difficult visually, like Rudyard's best friend being a mouse (who turns out to be the narrator). But for the most part, we just wanted to create entertaining characters and tell their stories. Each episode needed Rudyard and/or Antigone to have a goal which would motivate them to take action and that would preferably involve the rivalry with Eric Chapman. The stories had to be funny but the characters had to take them seriously (no ironic detachment). No swearing, to keep it light. Piffling was a playground. Serious things could happen there, and hearts could be broken, but it had to feel welcoming.”  

SEASON TWO
There's part of me that still rates this as my favourite season, with the finale There Ought to be Clowns my favourite episode. We were all buzzing, confident, excited to see what more we could do with these characters. Rudyard and Antigone were now equals learning how to work as equals, which gave a spine to new episodes. We knew the tone and style worked, so we stretched it even further with some of our most ambitious (and visual) ideas. 

This was the first season we made knowing that there was an audience of listeners who liked what we were doing. That was magical. We read every review and every comment. People were drawing pictures and even writing fanfiction! (We rarely if ever read it, as we didn't want to accidentally pick up any ideas and feel we couldn't use them in the show; any similarities between our plots and those written by fans are purely coincidental!) 

We didn't change very much in terms of our approach. There'd been a few comments that Rudyard was a little too abrasive, though I felt strongly that Rudyard needed to be for the stories to work; the solution wasn't to change Rudyard but instead to allow more opportunities for him to be vulnerable,  such as being put on the back foot when Georgie temporarily quits and upset when Antigone's lost in a mineshaft. Georgie increasingly became an important character too as a kind of moral barometer; if she wasn't upset by what the Funn's were doing then the audience wouldn't be either. The few times Georgie loses her cool, it's for a good reason.”

SEASON THREE
”While Season Two is my personal favourite, Season Three was a much more difficult proposition. That's partly a reflection of my own circumstances at the time: I'd only recently left my job to concentrate on writing, which placed an enormous professional pressure on what had previously been a fun vocation. My grandmother had recently died, which inspired material in this season as I tried to come to terms with a real loss while still providing entertaining stories based around funerals. I'd also left no obvious story arc for this season, unlike with Season Two. I felt strongly that we needed to keep raising the bar... but I didn't really know how.

I decided we'd address the possible longevity of the series by developing the supporting characters, with each episode being in some way inspired by our growing cast of regulars (with the sole exception of the scouts episode). Stories revolved around things like Rudyard solving a mystery with Agatha Doyle, Antigone writing erotic fiction with the Reverend, Eric helping out Dr Edgware, and Georgie running a campaign for the Mayor. I was eventually concerned that I'd not allowed many opportunities for the core cast to interact with each other, and while I think each episode is an absolute winner taken individually, I feel like as a season we'd have benefited from a few more stories that focussed on the core cast.

The strength of podcasts is the personal connection we have to the voices we hear. People subscribe to podcasts to 'hang out' with their favourite voices on a regular basis. Sitcoms have a similar audience attachment. So a podcast sitcom is really ALL ABOUT fostering relationships with a core cast of characters that you really care about, even more so than a TV or radio sitcom because you're actively carrying these characters around with you. As the creator, you pivot away from that at your own peril. 

However, our listeners still very much enjoyed the episodes - some of them like Altar Ego and Rudyard Takes a Hike are regularly cited as amongst our best. Whilst I at times lacked confidence in my own creative decisions, the performances and production remained stellar. The finale Putting the Funn in Funerals is a very emotional episode and I've received more emails and messages about that episode than any other. Oddly, for a season that in retrospect I felt split the core characters apart too often, it seemed to be the season that did most to cement these characters as a family.”

SEASON FOUR
”There was a big gap between seasons here, partly owing to the pandemic. But unlike Season Three, we had a strong purpose to this one going in: it was going to be our last season and tie everything up. We were getting increasingly busy with solo projects elsewhere and while there was a strong temptation to let the show run and run, I approached the producers about doing one last season and we thought that would help us to focus on telling the best stories we possibly could. 

The result I think is our most confident run of episodes, helped by a longer season (10 episodes instead of 8) that allowed for increased variety. I deliberately brought the focus back down to examining the dynamics of the core cast, asking writers to pitch ideas that revolved around at least two of the four (like Rudyard and Antigone at school) or preferably the whole group (like Funn Funerals does a pirate parade and Eric saves the day). We even had a Madeleine episode at long last, focussed on her dynamic with Rudyard. And of course we finally examined the mysterious backstory of Eric Chapman in a way that hopefully made sense while still subverting expectations in a satisfying way.

The final episode is a 90-minute spectacular, which I think we earned. It's exactly the sort of undisciplined writerly throw that podcasts allow for (even if it drove my producers up the wall). The final scene recorded was the final scene of the episode. We all cried. Even though we knew we'd all see and work with each other again, the characters felt so real to us that saying goodbye was incredibly sad.”