Other Work
About a hundred or so years ago (well, it seems that way) I fancied myself as some sort of screenwriter. There was just one problem (besides the fact that I obviously wasn't good enough), it was so damn hard to actually get agents or production companies to read your script.
Large Medium is a series of six, half hour sit-com episodes and, before I go on, I better point out I didn't write it alone. If Andrew England doesn't see his name mentioned as joint writer/creator, I suspect he'll kidnap and melt my favourite Star Wars toys.
Anyway, here's what it's all about (coming to a TV screen near you sometime in the next several thousand years)...
We join ageing rogue Muriel Swann as she drags her long-suffering friend Ethel Williams to yet another psychic in an attempt to contact her recently deceased husband, Fred. However during the séance in a local church hall, they discover that Muriel’s bulky old mobile phone is receiving text messages from “the other-side.”
Ethel quickly sees the opportunities this magic Motorola possesses and appoints herself as manager to the “Mobile Clairvoyant.” As the news of Muriel’s “powers” spreads, customers start to flood in, along with the omnipotent and possibly mad - Mrs Gronk and local catholic priest, Seamus O’Conner.
Muriel quickly realises that she has become the unwilling link between the living and the dead and only goes along with it in the hope her husband will make contact. While Ethel arranges yet more showbiz parties for Muriel to attend and promote her unique services, Muriel only wants her beloved Fred to assure her that his death was merely a tragic accident. She wants to prove to Ethel that he wasn’t up to any unusual sexual practices when he was found hanging from a door with a belt round his neck and a pair of new (and presumably confusing) trousers round his ankles.
The first episode deals with the discovery of the phone’s powers and the persuasion of Muriel. It also introduces the main characters and their already all too surreal lives. Moving through the episodes Muriel becomes a psychic to the stars, a speed-dater, an important cog in a high profile police investigation, a reality TV star, the subject of a patronising documentary until finally she incurs the wrath of the government who attempt to shut her down. Muriel must deal with the trials and tribulations her new life brings, while at the same time being ripped off by Ethel, branded evil by Father Seamus O’Conner and dealing with Mrs Gronk’s eccentricities.
