© Felix Trench
Rudyard Funn runs a funeral home on the island of Piffling.
It used to be the only one.
It isn't anymore.
It used to be the only one.
It isn't anymore.
In late August, the project I've been working on since January 2nd this year was finally announced, in Copenhagen of all places. (FLYD, the annual Danish Radio Drama Festival. I know. Mental.) And very soon, the world will be able to download all eight episodes of it. Whether they will or not, well, I don't know. But the opportunity will be there.
© Tom Crowley
Wooden Overcoats is a new audio sitcom created, developed, recorded and produced this year in a turnover that would make anybody at the BBC gibber into an early retirement. It began when lead actor, Felix Trench, posed to me the notion of writing a radio series about two rival funeral directors. I pounced on the idea, sketched out the broad fundamentals of the show, batted around core characters with Felix and co-star Tom Crowley, and then brought on a team of four additional writers to help me out (Christopher Hogg, Tiffany Woodsmith, Cordelia Lynn and, um, Tom Crowley again). When producers Andy Goddard and John Wakefield came on board we went full steam ahead. And so in June, in a small studio in Brixton, we recorded eight x thirty minute instalments of tragicomic action involving funerals on a tiny island.
 Andy Goddard, Tom Crowley and Felix Trench |  Andy Hamilton (!!), Beth Eyre and Andy Goddard |
The cast for the show is incredible, far beyond what I could ever have imagined at the outset. Alongside leads Felix Trench, Beth Eyre and Tom Crowley (all fresh from Drayton Trench) we had the insanely energetic Ciara Baxendale (My Mad Fat Diary), who's one of the most perplexing and wonderful people we've ever met. Steve Hodson, Alison Skilbeck, and Andy Secombe (yes, son of Harry Secombe, and Star Wars voice actor) all leant their invaluable decades of experience to the roles of Mayor Desmond Desmond, Agatha Doyle and Reverend Wavering, respectively, and regaled us with an endless supply of cracking anecdotes between scenes. And providing narration throughout the entire series is Belinda Lang (2point4 Children), which is beyond amazing.
 Andy Secombe and Ciara Baxendale |  Elle McAlpine, Paul Putner and Felix Trench |
What was especially thrilling was the opportunity for comparatively unknown actors (we tip our hats to Elle McAlpine, Pip Gladwin, Sarah Burton, Max Tyler and Holly Campbell who play an inordinate number of Piffling residents) to work alongside established comedy names like Andy Hamilton (Old Harry's Game, QI, Have I Got News for You), Sarah Thom (Clare in the Community), Paul Putner (Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, Rock & Chips) and Julia Deakin (Spaced). And then there's the roll call of popular fringe comedians like Thom Tuck, Catriona Knox, Max Olesker, Freya Parker, Kieran Hodgson, Jason Forbes, Phil Wang... Every one of them a delight to work with. Especially Kieran, who popped by simply to orgasm in a French accent. To have scripts I'd written and/or edited being performed by a cast this large and this experienced is something I won't soon forget. And neither will you, hopefully, because you'll be able to download all four hours of it over the next few months.
 Freya Parker and Kieran Hodgson |  Elle McAlpine and Catriona Knox |
The series is being released weekly from Thursday 24th September on iTunes and other platforms. You can keep updated by following us on Twitter @overcoatswooden, or by liking the Wooden Overcoats Facebook page, or by going to www.woodenovercoats.com. And if you're in London, there'll be a series of fortnightly live readings from October 5th, 7.30pm, at the Horse & Stables (near Lambeth North tube station). But for now it remains for me to say that I'm really, really, really excited about this show, and the whole Wooden Overcoats cast and crew (all fifty of us) can't wait for you all to hear it.
Enjoy yourselves.
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