by Ben Taylor and Edie Nugent

We were fortunate enough to have a chat with Robert Shearman, regarding his work with Dr. Who, Big Finish Audio, and his play Easy Laughter.  Below is a partial transcript of the interview.  To hear the full audio, you will need to click this link to hear it and enjoy.

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Ben Taylor: Good time of day internet, Ben here. I am with a very special guest, someone I’ve been really looking forward to speaking to…I am here with the amazing Rob Shearman. Hey Rob, how are you doing?

Robert Shearman: I’m very well and even better to hear you say I’m amazing. That’s a nice thing to wake up to, thank you very much.

Taylor: I’ve been really lucky the last month, I’m getting to talk to the authors of probably my three favorite Dalek stories ever –

Shearman: Oh, Terrific!

Taylor: I got to talk to Andrew Cartmel and Ben Aaronovitch, who did “Remembrance [of the Daleks]”  [Editors note: Ben flubbed here.. it should have been “I got to talk to Andrew Cartmel ABOUT Ben Aaronovitch“]

Shearman: Yes of course, yeah!

Taylor: And now I’m getting to talk to you, who did “Dalek” and “Jubilee.” So I’m completely nerding out!

Shearman: That’s kind of how I felt when I met Ben…there’s a weird bonding across the page when you are one of the people who’ve done it, you have this strange, troubled family…

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Taylor: So you’re in New York to have your play put on, what’s the title of the play?

Shearman: It’s called Easy Laughter, and it’s a very old play of mine actually I wrote it back in the 1990’s.

Taylor: Oh really?

Shearman: Yeah, and it kind of got my career going. It’s a very funny, I think – I hope – play, but it’s also a very angry play. It’s quite a nasty play. When I wrote it I was in my early twenties, and it won the Sunday Times Playwriting award. And it was because of that that I got a position at a regional rep theatre, and from that I began getting lots of commissions from other theatres around the world. It’s because of that that I got into things like the BBC and I write books now. So in some strange way for me this play feels like in particular if I hadn’t done this, I might not have a career.

And so, to have it revived, (by Dirt [contained] Theatre Company) and to have it revived over here as well is a slightly different place to see it. It’s also strangely humbling. I went to a run through, it was my first rehearsal yesterday evening and the cast are terrific. And actually it may be the best production of it that I’ve ever seen. Actually, I think it probably is. And they’re so committed to it.

And of course they were a bit nervous because I was there. There’s always a danger when the writer turns up that he’s going to start cutting their part or tell them that they’re reading all the lines wrong: that’s based upon his Aunt, and you’re meant to do it like his Aunt or something. But there’s something really, really moving about somebody doing work of yours that was written half a lifetime ago. And I just hope that audiences enjoy it. It’s a very confrontational piece. But it’s meant to be very, very funny.

Taylor: What are the themes in it? You say it’s a confrontational piece, what are the themes? Give us the one line episode synopsis?

Shearman: Well, I don’t want to spoil the revelation too much –

Taylor: But what is the setting?

Shearman: It’s a family Christmas, except they don’t call it Christmas, they call it ‘Christtide,’ and it’s set in a society which as the play goes on you begin to know has something very, very dark at the heart of it…the children have to behave in a certain way. The Grandfather’s coming to visit having just lost his wife…and you begin to see that Christtide is not just Christmas, it’s a celebration of something also much, much darker than the birth of Jesus – although that’s part of it. So it’s an odd piece…once you see how dark it goes it just goes darker and darker…but it’s also very funny, that’s what makes it sort of dangerous, because it invites you to laugh at seeing things on stage which you really shouldn’t be laughing at.

Taylor: How long does it run?

Shearman: Until May the 10^th. It’s a fairly short run.

Taylor: I’m wondering if I can get to New York by then.

Shearman: Well, I mean you are in the right country.

Taylor: It’s also 6 hours north and I’m really busy.

Shearman: It’s not a big country, I think Americans exaggerate it. I think you do. I’ve always thought that.

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Shearman: The audios [Big Finish Audio Doctor Who dramas] are very, very bold, and it was fun to –

Taylor: You wrote one of the most bold audios in Scherzo…

Shearman: Yeah, that is odd, that one.

Taylor: But we’ll come to Scherzo, but: the process of the audios. Do they come to you and be like, “we want you to write a Fifth Doctor story, using this companion…” or in your case, “a Colin Baker story with Evelyn, and we want the Dalek’s in it.” Or do you go: “here’s a story” and they go “this is cool.”

Shearman: It’s kind of a mix, I mean I’ve asked them in the past something like; “I’ve wanted to write for Colin” because I think Colin’s Doctor is very interesting and I think her was given very, very short shrift on television. And there’s something very exciting about trying to recreate afresh a Doctor that you feel could possibly do with a little bit of reinvestigation. And I wanted that or Paul McGann, so I’d say, “give me Colin or Paul SOT,” and then, I dunno. With Jubilee they had asked if I wanted to do a Dalek story at some point. So that came in the actual brief. Otherwise, pretty much they just let you create what you want. As long as you know you’re writing for a SOT, and if that’s not the SOT you want…they encourage you to find your own story, because it produces better work. And it was always such fun to do. I mean, I’m hoping to do another one at some point.

Taylor: See, that’s what I was going to ask you because it’s been since like, 2007? Was your last one I think?

Shearman: Yeah, and that was sort of a one-off? I think my last regular Big Finish things were about 2003?

Taylor: Yeah that’s Scherzo [Shiz-zer-o], I dunno If I’m pronouncing it right?

Shearman: I think its [Skirtz-zo]. Because it’s a genuine Italian term for music. I just call it [Skirtz-zo]. Some people call it [Cher-so]. Go with whatever you want I say. But that was the last regular release I did. It’s been a number of years.

Taylor: I remember. Because I dipped back into my large collection of CD’s. I’m still one of those guys who gets the CD’s every month because I like having them. And when I listened to it [Scherzo], and it’s just such an interesting character study with Paul McGann’s Doctor and Charley Pollard. It’s this very interesting character study,

Shearman: Thank you.

Taylor: Just seeing the way that they mirror each other but yet are completely the same, that sounds very generic praise because people come with that all the time, but

Shearman: No, no, Scherzo is an odd one because for a number of years no one seemed to like it, it’s quite an abrasive one…and it’s just two people who talk and talk and talk and they say terrible things to each other. But I only discovered people liked it a few years ago, when I went onto Tumblr. I’ve never done Tumblr and a friend of mine said you really must check out Tumblr, it’s the only place where they like your audio Scherzo. And you do #Scherzo and you find that people discuss it all the time and they do artwork for it, and they write songs about it. It’s enormously ego boosting to think that something you thought people didn’t like very much…but there’s an audience out there who really got it, yeah.

Taylor: You’ve done seven audios, well, six and a bit, I shouldn’t be interrupting you because you’re the guest, but, two of yours have had the fantastic Frobisher in them.

Shearman: Yeah, Frobisher’s fun!

Taylor: For our audience, who don’t know who Frobisher is, if you’ve only ever been exposed to the TV show, why don’t you tell us who Frobisher is?

Shearman: Frobisher is a very good, audio drama companion. He is a shape-shifting penguin, really. He comes from a race called the Whifferdills. This is not my invention, this is a-

Taylor: Didn’t he appear in the comic or something?

Shearman: yeah, there’s a great guy called John Ridgway who invented him back for the Colin Baker run of comics and he’s just a really great character, he’s a private investigator who’s designed so he can look the way he wants to, but when pretty much left to his own conscience, prefers the body of a penguin most of the time and walks around as a penguin. And he’s this wise-cracking, quite cynical penguin. And when I was invited to write my very first Doctor Who story for this company, and all they really asked me, they said: “would you mind it featuring Frobisher?” I must admit at the time I thought, “Oh well, it’s going to be my one ever dipping my toes into Doctor Who and I’ve got to put a bloody penguin in it.” But actually to me that was the really exciting bit, because it was just fun to have him. Most of the companions in Doctor Who kind of *know* that they’re companions? Frobisher thinks that he’s the star of the whole series. And that the Doctor is *his* companion. And it’s just fun to write for a character that is that comically clueless.”