gothams3rdrobin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gothams3rdrobin) wrote2007-08-02 11:12 pm
gothams3rdrobin) wrote2007-08-02 11:12 pm
WiP Amnesty
Okay so I lied...I haven't gone to bed after all. The sofa was too comfy.
I'm caught up with my lists now, and a post from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
phoebesmum got me thinking that I really should do something with my two-part Sports Night WiP...both parts of which have stalled, after I've been working on it for at least a year.
So, god help you all, here's the first story - if LJ will let me post all of it. I managed to get a good way in before I stalled. Hopefully it won't be necessary to be a regular listener of the Chris Moyles show in order to understand the story, but let me know if it is 'cause that means I need to correct that.
It's entirely possible that the man on whom the main character in this story (other than Dan and Casey, of course!) is based has now become a dad! As of about ten thirty this morning, his girlfriend had been in labour for about five hours, bless!
Title: An Englishman In New York
Genre: Sports Night
Characters: Dan & Casey, The Chris Moyles team (prominently Comedy Dave)
Authors Notes: Inspired by a trip the BBC Radio 1 breakfast team did to New York to promote the opening of the King Kong movie back in 2005. This may very well count as bad!fic....*sighs*
"Who wants another?" Dan asked as he drained his beer bottle. There was a chorus of "Yes please." from Dana, Casey and Jeremy, and a nod from Natalie.
"Coconut pina colada, please."
He nodded and walked over to the bar, where he signalled to Jack, "Four beers and a coconut pina colada, please."
"Hey, didn't I just see you on the television?" the guy next to him asked, speaking in what sounded like a British accent.
Dan nodded, "Sports Night," he held out his hand, "Dan Rydell."
"Dave Vitty," the guy responded, shaking his hand warmly, "Your station's local?"
"Rockefeller Center, over the road."
"Hey, that's a co-incidence! We're working out of there this week too - the Sirius radio network."
"You're a dee-jay?"
"Sort of, " Dave nodded, "I'm part of the breakfast team, though I also co-host a weekend sports programme on our station too. I really enjoyed watching your show - I don't get much opportunity to talk about American sports on our show."
"Just soccer, huh?" Dan grimaced in sympathy.
Dave nodded again, "Also rugby and cricket, but pretty much just football, yes."
"Man, I'd hate that. I can't stand soccer," Dan sympathised, "Unless Keira Knightley's playing, of course."
Dave grinned, "'Bend It Like Beckham' - good movie. Did you see 'Wimbledon', with Kirsten Dunst?"
"I did. Not bad."
"The guy I work with, Chris, had a couple of lines in that as one of the radio presenters talking about the competition."
"That's cool." Dan smiled a little. Dave checked his watch and grimaced.
"Yikes, we're on air in an hour - I gotta get over there. This time zone difference is killing me." he extended his hand, "Nice to talk to you, Dan."
"Likewise. Take it easy."
"Who were you talking to?" Casey asked when Dan returned to the table with the drinks.
"Some British guy who recognised me - he was watching the show earlier." Dan handed him his bottle of Bud, "He's in radio, and they’re working out of Rockefeller right now. He's due on the air in an hour, he said."
"Breakfast show?" Jeremy asked
"Yeah, how'd you guess?"
"Because it's currently six am in the UK." he smirked
"I think I remember hearing there was a UK radio team visiting the building," Dana nodded, "The Chris Moyles Show, on the BBC. They're here covering the premiere of that new movie with the giant ape."
"So that was this Chris Moyles you were talking to?" Natalie asked
Dan shook his head, "No, his name was Dave. He also co-presents a sports show on the weekends, he told me."
Casey looked interested at that. "Damn, I'm sorry I didn't get to talk him myself now."
*~*~*~*~*~*
Casey got his chance the very next night, when Dan spotted Dave sat at a table with other people he assumed were his colleagues. It took a little persuading, but he managed to talk Dan into going over and saying hi.
"Hey Dave, how'd the broadcast go?" he grinned, showing no outward sign of just how much he hated going up to relative strangers without an invite.
Dave looked up in surprise, but grinned back. "Hi Dan - it went fine, we're just working out the schedule for today’s show," he indicated the notepads that littered the table, "Let me introduce you to the rest of the team - this is Chris, who fronts the show. Chris, this is Dan Rydell from Sports Night."
Dan shook hands with a large, somewhat unkempt man, who smiled back at him warmly enough. “We just watched your show – funny stuff, man!”
“Thanks!” Dan nodded gratefully.
"This is our producer Rachel." Dan grinned at the small blonde woman.
"I'll have to introduce you to our producer, Dana." He nodded back towards his own table, “I told my partner Casey about your weekend sports show, Dave. He was sorry he didn’t get to meet you himself last night.”
“Well hey, bring him over,” Chris said enthusiastically, “We could do with a break, right Dave? Rachel?”
“Sure,” they both nodded happily. Dan grinned and waved to Casey to come join them.
“Dave, Chris, Rachel, this is my partner Casey McCall.” They all shook hands at Dan’s introduction, Casey giving Rachel his most winning smile, obviously aiming to be charming.
“It’s great to meet you. Dan said you’re working out of Rockefeller this week? Something about a giant ape?”
“Yeah, we’re promoting the King Kong movie,” said Chris, “We ran a competition back home for two of our listeners to come to the Premiere with us.”
“What’s your station’s target audience?” Dan asked, taking a sip from his bottle of beer
“Late teens to early thirties, mostly,” answered Rachel, with a confident air that reminded him a lot of Dana, “We play chart music most of the day, with specialist shows in the evenings and weekends.”
“Like your sports show?” Dan turned to Dave, who nodded,
“Yeah, most of our sporting events are held on weekends. There can be several dozen football matches on at any given time, as well as rugby and cricket.” Dave and Casey sharing knowing grins as Dan rolled his eyes at the idea of reporting on so many soccer matches.
Meanwhile, Rachel and Chris were going over the production notes for their broadcast one last time.
“There’s a lot for you to fill, Chris.” Rachel sounded concerned
“We’ll be fine,” he said dismissively, “You know I can talk the hind legs off a donkey when I have to.”
“Is your script a bit thin?” Casey asked, sympathetically
“Just a bit,” Dave nodded. Then his eyes lit up, “Hey, I have an idea! How tired are you boys right now? I know it’s been a long day for you.”
Dan and Casey exchanged glances, and Dan said “I think we’re okay for now, right Casey?”
Casey nodded assent, “What did you have in mind?”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Good morning, you’re listening to the Chris Moyles show, live from New York. We’ve got some unscheduled guests coming into the show today – some friends of our very own ‘Comedy Dave’! You wanna tell us some more, Dave?”
“Well Chris, the Rockefeller Center isn’t just the home of the Sirius Radio Network, but also other companies. One of which is a cable television station called QVN, or Quo Vadimus Network. Their most popular programme is called ‘Sports Night’, and I met one of the hosts in the pub Monday night.”
“So you got talking about football?”
“Yes, partially, though Dan – Dan Rydell, his name is – doesn’t actually like what we call football.”
“Oh yeah, they call it ‘soccer’ over here, don’t they.” Piped up Rachel
“Dave actually introduced us to Dan and his broadcasting partner Casey McCall this morning when we were preparing for today’s broadcast,” Chris said to the listening audience back home. He chuckled, “That man’s head’s a perfect rectangle.”
“Who, Casey’s?” laughed Dave, “Yeah, I guess so. You actually watched their show earlier too, didn’t you?” As with all co-hosts he phrased the statement as a question, though his tone indicated he knew the answer.
“I did – I haven’t laughed at sports news so much in ages. They make Gary Linnekar sound like Trevor McDonald! Anyway, we’ll be talking to Dan and Casey in about ten minutes. First, it’s three minutes past seven, let’s get some news and sport with Dom and Carrie.” Chris shut off his mike just as Rachel ushered Dan and Casey into the studio.
“Hi guys. Thanks for this” Dave shook their hands, as did Chris.
“No problem.” Dan grinned.
“You all set?” Chris asked as they settled near the guest microphone, placing headphones on.
“Ready and raring to go.” Nodded Casey.
“Who’s that?” Dan asked, hearing a male voice through his headphones.
“That’s Dominic Byrne, our newsreader,” Dave explained, “He does the news right up till lunchtime, so he couldn’t come with us.”
After a moment, a woman’s voice started giving the sports news. To Dan’s horror it was almost exclusively football-related.
“Don’t you guys have any other sports over there?” he grumbled. Dave grinned, giving him a ‘leave that for later’ gesture.
Dominic came back on again with the national weather report – the idea that you could do a brief summary of the weather for an entire country seemed rather alien to Dan - and then Chris began to talk to him.
“Hey Dominic, guess where we went yesterday!”
“Where’s that then?” the other man responded, a warm grin in his voice.
“FAO Schwartz – the biggest toy shop ever!”
“Brilliant! I’d love to see that place.”
“I don’t think we’d ever get you or your kids out of there.” Dave chuckled
“Probably not.” Dominic agreed.
“Carrie, you’d probably enjoy meeting our guests this morning,” Chris nodded at Dan and Casey,
“They present a sports show over here. Casey and Dan – nice to have you here, guys!”
“It’s good to be here.” Casey grinned
“Though you’ll forgive us if we start yawning, right?” Dan joked
“That’s right, you only finished your show two hours ago – that must be a long day for you, Dan?”
“Ten am to midnight,” he agreed, “But the adrenalin rush of the broadcast in the last hour means it’s hard to relax afterward.”
“That’s why I ran into you in the pub on Monday.” Dave nodded, “That a regular haunt of yours?”
“Most nights,” Casey replied, “Unless it’s a Thursday, when we go to another bar called ‘El Pero
Fumando’. If you wear something blue you can get giant blue margaritas at two dollars off.”
“So who writes your show, Casey?” Chris asked
“Myself and Dan. I take the verbs, he takes the adjectives and prepositions, and anything with
an umlaut we toss a coin for.”
Dan groaned theatrically, “He’s been waiting years for the chance to use that line again…”
“So what’s the show like?” sports newsreader Carrie Davis asked, sounding envious.
“It’s very funny,” Dave told her, “It’s a serious news show, but there’s an element of irreverence they’d never get away with on Grandstand or Match Of The Day.”
“You mean you don’t get to call Sven Goran Erickson a big honkin’ doofus?” laughed Casey.
“Not on television,” Dave grinned, “You know the England Manager?”
Casey nodded, “Unlike Dan, I don’t think soccer’s tediously dull. I follow the UEFA Champions League, the Barclays Premiership…”
“Hey, no-one in the States can hear this, right?” Dan interrupted, frowning
“They can if they’re on the Sirius network,” Chris told him, “It’s partially why we’re here, to make a small promotional effort ‘celebrating’ the fact our station now gets transmitted here. Why?”
“He’s supposed to keep his mouth shut about his opinion of soccer,” Casey chuckled, “We make him read the highlights when he’s done something to upset our producer.”
“It’s on tape-delay until seven,” commented Rachel, “So they can listen over breakfast too.”
“Great, I’ll just phone everyone in the country with a subscription and tell them not to listen.” Dan pretended to grumble.
“Well, while Dan goes and does that, we’re gonna play some music,” Chris chuckled, “This is the Arctic Monkeys with ‘I Bet That You Look Good On The Dance Floor’.”
A fairly heavy rock track started up as Chris switched off the mikes in the studio. “I’ve had an idea.” He announced, grinning widely.
“Oh?” asked Dave somewhat warily.
“Why don’t Casey and Dan do a mock News and Sport for us. Would you be up for that, guys?”
The two men looked at each other for a moment, as though conferring telepathically. Some agreement was obviously reached, as Dan nodded with a smile. “Sure. How long can you give us to throw something together?”
Chris looked at his watch, calculating the time zones in his head. “Well, it’s twenty past seven now…how does about ten past eight sound to you? We have to do the genuine news, obviously, but you could follow a few minutes after.”
“That sounds fine.” Casey agreed. “Can we talk to the news guys privately while we’re working on this?”
“I’ll get you a line to the studio back home.” Rachel nodded, “You can talk to them over the phone.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Forty-five minutes later, Casey and Dan had roughed out a short script between them that they were fairly pleased with. They went back into the studio and Dan gave Dave a thumbs up to say they were ready. Dave grinned enthusiastically as Rachel and Aled set the two back up at the guest microphones.
Through the headphones, they could hear Dominic giving a weather report. To their amazement, instead of advising the listening public what the weather was likely to be for that day, he was telling them what it had been like the day before! Dan and Casey exchanged amused looks, then Casey’s eyes lit up and he scribbled something on the sheet in front of Dan, who grinned and nodded in agreement.
Chris watched Dave, Rachel and Dan having a quick discussion, “Dave, Rachel, what are you and Dan talking about over there?”
“We’ve had another idea, and Dan’s checking with Rachel and Dave if it’s okay to go ahead with it,” Casey supplied. Just then, the three of them came to an agreement and Dan wrote down something else on the piece of scrap paper.
“We’re going to call one of Dan and Casey’s colleagues,” said Dave, settling back down in front of his own microphone, “Who’s apparently something of a weather nerd.”
“So we’re not only going to get a news report, but you’re also going to get someone to do the weather too?”
“That’s the idea.” Casey grinned at him. Chris shook his head in amusement as he led them into another record.
“So,” he said when the song ended, “As you know, we have Dan and Casey from the US sports news show ‘Sports Night’ with us this morning. They’re doing pretty well considering they just got done with a fourteen hour working day about three hours ago.”
“It can be hard to wind down after the show.” Dan agreed
“I can remember what it was like when I did late night shows,” Chris agreed, “Now, you very kindly agreed to do a special one-off news feature for us, as a little treat for Dominic and Carrie?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Casey replied, “They’ve been very helpful with the format for this.”
“I can’t wait to hear what you’ve put together for us!” enthused Rachel, trying to get a peak of the hand-written scripts. Dan covered them with a sly grin.
“So it’s now ten past eight,” announced Chris, “Let’s get an extra sports report with Dan and Casey!”
The news theme music began, and Casey put on his best ‘anchor voice’ as he read from his script.
“Double humiliation for David Beckham.”
“And Luciano Pavarotti shocks the sporting world by running the two-minute mile...in just thirty seconds!” chimed in Dan. They grinned at each other as the music reached its climax at just the right moment. Dave and Rachel gave them silent applause as Casey continued.
“David Beckham is today considering his position in English football after England Manager Sven Goran Erickson substituted him in favour of the team’s eight year old mascot, who promptly went on to score a hat-trick. His shame was later compounded when Manchester United was beaten ten-nothing by Port Vale.”
It was Dan’s turn; “Elsewhere, Luciano Pavarotti amazed onlookers by completing the two-minute mile within thirty seconds – smashing a record previously held by my mother – and boxing legend Joe Calzage was admitted to hospital with a hangnail.”
“Athletics fans were shocked when Paula Radcliffe actually completed a race at the Birmingham Indoor Arena, and finally in Rugby, Wales coach Mike Ruddock blamed singer Charlotte Church for Gavin Henson’s recent poor performance against the New Zealand All Blacks.” Casey grinned as Dan scribbled another note, passing it to Dave. “You’ve been listening to a special Sports report here on Radio One; for Dan Rydell and the Chris Moyles Breakfast team, I’m Casey McCall. Thanks for listening.”
“So what did you think of that then, Dom and Carrie?” Chris asked, chuckling.
“That was great!” Dominic enthused, “I liked the last one about Charlotte Church and Gavin Henson!”
“For legal reasons, I do need to point out to our listeners that the stories were entirely fictional. Dom and Carrie gave Casey and Dan the names of various famous British sports people, and they made up the news with the information provided. Now, you guys also got a friend of yours on the line to do the weather for us? Who are we calling?” Chris asked
“One of our producers, Jeremy.” Dan grinned. “He should still be awake too.”
The phone rang for a few moments, then a slightly sleepy woman’s voice came on the line.
“Hello?”
“Nat! It’s Dan. Is Jeremy there?”
“Danny? It’s almost three thirty – what do you need Jeremy for?”
“Just put him on the line, Nat!” Dan rolled his eyes. There was the sound of movement, and Natalie could faintly be heard waking Jeremy up and muttering something about punishment. Casey couldn’t help chuckling as Jeremy picked the receiver up.
“Dan? What’s the matter?”
“Jeremy! Listen, Casey and I need a favour from you. We’re on the radio at the moment – that British show I was telling you about – and we just did them a quick sports report.”
“Okay.” He sounded suspicious
“Now, they also have a feature on this show called ‘Yesterday’s Weather’ and we thought you’d be perfect to do that.”
“You want me to tell you what the weather was yesterday?”
“That’s the idea.” Agreed Casey, “Come on Jeremy, you’re on national radio in the UK right now!”
There was a deep sigh, “The things I do for you guys…okay. Well, this time of year, there's a low pressure system that moves down from Newfoundland. Ordinarily it moves out to sea once it hits Northern New England, but there's a particularly unusual Atlantic cold front that kept it coastally contained so the system had no choice but to move down here. As a result, New York State had about four hours of torrential rain between the hours of seven pm and one am. Until that point, it had merely been cloudy.”
....and that's where I lost it. *chuckles* I wasn't happy with the news report and the Yesterdays Weather was pretty poor too. I borrowed a great deal of it - if not all, I forget - from the show itself.
I'm caught up with my lists now, and a post from
phoebesmum got me thinking that I really should do something with my two-part Sports Night WiP...both parts of which have stalled, after I've been working on it for at least a year.So, god help you all, here's the first story - if LJ will let me post all of it. I managed to get a good way in before I stalled. Hopefully it won't be necessary to be a regular listener of the Chris Moyles show in order to understand the story, but let me know if it is 'cause that means I need to correct that.
It's entirely possible that the man on whom the main character in this story (other than Dan and Casey, of course!) is based has now become a dad! As of about ten thirty this morning, his girlfriend had been in labour for about five hours, bless!
Title: An Englishman In New York
Genre: Sports Night
Characters: Dan & Casey, The Chris Moyles team (prominently Comedy Dave)
Authors Notes: Inspired by a trip the BBC Radio 1 breakfast team did to New York to promote the opening of the King Kong movie back in 2005. This may very well count as bad!fic....*sighs*
"Who wants another?" Dan asked as he drained his beer bottle. There was a chorus of "Yes please." from Dana, Casey and Jeremy, and a nod from Natalie.
"Coconut pina colada, please."
He nodded and walked over to the bar, where he signalled to Jack, "Four beers and a coconut pina colada, please."
"Hey, didn't I just see you on the television?" the guy next to him asked, speaking in what sounded like a British accent.
Dan nodded, "Sports Night," he held out his hand, "Dan Rydell."
"Dave Vitty," the guy responded, shaking his hand warmly, "Your station's local?"
"Rockefeller Center, over the road."
"Hey, that's a co-incidence! We're working out of there this week too - the Sirius radio network."
"You're a dee-jay?"
"Sort of, " Dave nodded, "I'm part of the breakfast team, though I also co-host a weekend sports programme on our station too. I really enjoyed watching your show - I don't get much opportunity to talk about American sports on our show."
"Just soccer, huh?" Dan grimaced in sympathy.
Dave nodded again, "Also rugby and cricket, but pretty much just football, yes."
"Man, I'd hate that. I can't stand soccer," Dan sympathised, "Unless Keira Knightley's playing, of course."
Dave grinned, "'Bend It Like Beckham' - good movie. Did you see 'Wimbledon', with Kirsten Dunst?"
"I did. Not bad."
"The guy I work with, Chris, had a couple of lines in that as one of the radio presenters talking about the competition."
"That's cool." Dan smiled a little. Dave checked his watch and grimaced.
"Yikes, we're on air in an hour - I gotta get over there. This time zone difference is killing me." he extended his hand, "Nice to talk to you, Dan."
"Likewise. Take it easy."
"Who were you talking to?" Casey asked when Dan returned to the table with the drinks.
"Some British guy who recognised me - he was watching the show earlier." Dan handed him his bottle of Bud, "He's in radio, and they’re working out of Rockefeller right now. He's due on the air in an hour, he said."
"Breakfast show?" Jeremy asked
"Yeah, how'd you guess?"
"Because it's currently six am in the UK." he smirked
"I think I remember hearing there was a UK radio team visiting the building," Dana nodded, "The Chris Moyles Show, on the BBC. They're here covering the premiere of that new movie with the giant ape."
"So that was this Chris Moyles you were talking to?" Natalie asked
Dan shook his head, "No, his name was Dave. He also co-presents a sports show on the weekends, he told me."
Casey looked interested at that. "Damn, I'm sorry I didn't get to talk him myself now."
*~*~*~*~*~*
Casey got his chance the very next night, when Dan spotted Dave sat at a table with other people he assumed were his colleagues. It took a little persuading, but he managed to talk Dan into going over and saying hi.
"Hey Dave, how'd the broadcast go?" he grinned, showing no outward sign of just how much he hated going up to relative strangers without an invite.
Dave looked up in surprise, but grinned back. "Hi Dan - it went fine, we're just working out the schedule for today’s show," he indicated the notepads that littered the table, "Let me introduce you to the rest of the team - this is Chris, who fronts the show. Chris, this is Dan Rydell from Sports Night."
Dan shook hands with a large, somewhat unkempt man, who smiled back at him warmly enough. “We just watched your show – funny stuff, man!”
“Thanks!” Dan nodded gratefully.
"This is our producer Rachel." Dan grinned at the small blonde woman.
"I'll have to introduce you to our producer, Dana." He nodded back towards his own table, “I told my partner Casey about your weekend sports show, Dave. He was sorry he didn’t get to meet you himself last night.”
“Well hey, bring him over,” Chris said enthusiastically, “We could do with a break, right Dave? Rachel?”
“Sure,” they both nodded happily. Dan grinned and waved to Casey to come join them.
“Dave, Chris, Rachel, this is my partner Casey McCall.” They all shook hands at Dan’s introduction, Casey giving Rachel his most winning smile, obviously aiming to be charming.
“It’s great to meet you. Dan said you’re working out of Rockefeller this week? Something about a giant ape?”
“Yeah, we’re promoting the King Kong movie,” said Chris, “We ran a competition back home for two of our listeners to come to the Premiere with us.”
“What’s your station’s target audience?” Dan asked, taking a sip from his bottle of beer
“Late teens to early thirties, mostly,” answered Rachel, with a confident air that reminded him a lot of Dana, “We play chart music most of the day, with specialist shows in the evenings and weekends.”
“Like your sports show?” Dan turned to Dave, who nodded,
“Yeah, most of our sporting events are held on weekends. There can be several dozen football matches on at any given time, as well as rugby and cricket.” Dave and Casey sharing knowing grins as Dan rolled his eyes at the idea of reporting on so many soccer matches.
Meanwhile, Rachel and Chris were going over the production notes for their broadcast one last time.
“There’s a lot for you to fill, Chris.” Rachel sounded concerned
“We’ll be fine,” he said dismissively, “You know I can talk the hind legs off a donkey when I have to.”
“Is your script a bit thin?” Casey asked, sympathetically
“Just a bit,” Dave nodded. Then his eyes lit up, “Hey, I have an idea! How tired are you boys right now? I know it’s been a long day for you.”
Dan and Casey exchanged glances, and Dan said “I think we’re okay for now, right Casey?”
Casey nodded assent, “What did you have in mind?”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Good morning, you’re listening to the Chris Moyles show, live from New York. We’ve got some unscheduled guests coming into the show today – some friends of our very own ‘Comedy Dave’! You wanna tell us some more, Dave?”
“Well Chris, the Rockefeller Center isn’t just the home of the Sirius Radio Network, but also other companies. One of which is a cable television station called QVN, or Quo Vadimus Network. Their most popular programme is called ‘Sports Night’, and I met one of the hosts in the pub Monday night.”
“So you got talking about football?”
“Yes, partially, though Dan – Dan Rydell, his name is – doesn’t actually like what we call football.”
“Oh yeah, they call it ‘soccer’ over here, don’t they.” Piped up Rachel
“Dave actually introduced us to Dan and his broadcasting partner Casey McCall this morning when we were preparing for today’s broadcast,” Chris said to the listening audience back home. He chuckled, “That man’s head’s a perfect rectangle.”
“Who, Casey’s?” laughed Dave, “Yeah, I guess so. You actually watched their show earlier too, didn’t you?” As with all co-hosts he phrased the statement as a question, though his tone indicated he knew the answer.
“I did – I haven’t laughed at sports news so much in ages. They make Gary Linnekar sound like Trevor McDonald! Anyway, we’ll be talking to Dan and Casey in about ten minutes. First, it’s three minutes past seven, let’s get some news and sport with Dom and Carrie.” Chris shut off his mike just as Rachel ushered Dan and Casey into the studio.
“Hi guys. Thanks for this” Dave shook their hands, as did Chris.
“No problem.” Dan grinned.
“You all set?” Chris asked as they settled near the guest microphone, placing headphones on.
“Ready and raring to go.” Nodded Casey.
“Who’s that?” Dan asked, hearing a male voice through his headphones.
“That’s Dominic Byrne, our newsreader,” Dave explained, “He does the news right up till lunchtime, so he couldn’t come with us.”
After a moment, a woman’s voice started giving the sports news. To Dan’s horror it was almost exclusively football-related.
“Don’t you guys have any other sports over there?” he grumbled. Dave grinned, giving him a ‘leave that for later’ gesture.
Dominic came back on again with the national weather report – the idea that you could do a brief summary of the weather for an entire country seemed rather alien to Dan - and then Chris began to talk to him.
“Hey Dominic, guess where we went yesterday!”
“Where’s that then?” the other man responded, a warm grin in his voice.
“FAO Schwartz – the biggest toy shop ever!”
“Brilliant! I’d love to see that place.”
“I don’t think we’d ever get you or your kids out of there.” Dave chuckled
“Probably not.” Dominic agreed.
“Carrie, you’d probably enjoy meeting our guests this morning,” Chris nodded at Dan and Casey,
“They present a sports show over here. Casey and Dan – nice to have you here, guys!”
“It’s good to be here.” Casey grinned
“Though you’ll forgive us if we start yawning, right?” Dan joked
“That’s right, you only finished your show two hours ago – that must be a long day for you, Dan?”
“Ten am to midnight,” he agreed, “But the adrenalin rush of the broadcast in the last hour means it’s hard to relax afterward.”
“That’s why I ran into you in the pub on Monday.” Dave nodded, “That a regular haunt of yours?”
“Most nights,” Casey replied, “Unless it’s a Thursday, when we go to another bar called ‘El Pero
Fumando’. If you wear something blue you can get giant blue margaritas at two dollars off.”
“So who writes your show, Casey?” Chris asked
“Myself and Dan. I take the verbs, he takes the adjectives and prepositions, and anything with
an umlaut we toss a coin for.”
Dan groaned theatrically, “He’s been waiting years for the chance to use that line again…”
“So what’s the show like?” sports newsreader Carrie Davis asked, sounding envious.
“It’s very funny,” Dave told her, “It’s a serious news show, but there’s an element of irreverence they’d never get away with on Grandstand or Match Of The Day.”
“You mean you don’t get to call Sven Goran Erickson a big honkin’ doofus?” laughed Casey.
“Not on television,” Dave grinned, “You know the England Manager?”
Casey nodded, “Unlike Dan, I don’t think soccer’s tediously dull. I follow the UEFA Champions League, the Barclays Premiership…”
“Hey, no-one in the States can hear this, right?” Dan interrupted, frowning
“They can if they’re on the Sirius network,” Chris told him, “It’s partially why we’re here, to make a small promotional effort ‘celebrating’ the fact our station now gets transmitted here. Why?”
“He’s supposed to keep his mouth shut about his opinion of soccer,” Casey chuckled, “We make him read the highlights when he’s done something to upset our producer.”
“It’s on tape-delay until seven,” commented Rachel, “So they can listen over breakfast too.”
“Great, I’ll just phone everyone in the country with a subscription and tell them not to listen.” Dan pretended to grumble.
“Well, while Dan goes and does that, we’re gonna play some music,” Chris chuckled, “This is the Arctic Monkeys with ‘I Bet That You Look Good On The Dance Floor’.”
A fairly heavy rock track started up as Chris switched off the mikes in the studio. “I’ve had an idea.” He announced, grinning widely.
“Oh?” asked Dave somewhat warily.
“Why don’t Casey and Dan do a mock News and Sport for us. Would you be up for that, guys?”
The two men looked at each other for a moment, as though conferring telepathically. Some agreement was obviously reached, as Dan nodded with a smile. “Sure. How long can you give us to throw something together?”
Chris looked at his watch, calculating the time zones in his head. “Well, it’s twenty past seven now…how does about ten past eight sound to you? We have to do the genuine news, obviously, but you could follow a few minutes after.”
“That sounds fine.” Casey agreed. “Can we talk to the news guys privately while we’re working on this?”
“I’ll get you a line to the studio back home.” Rachel nodded, “You can talk to them over the phone.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Forty-five minutes later, Casey and Dan had roughed out a short script between them that they were fairly pleased with. They went back into the studio and Dan gave Dave a thumbs up to say they were ready. Dave grinned enthusiastically as Rachel and Aled set the two back up at the guest microphones.
Through the headphones, they could hear Dominic giving a weather report. To their amazement, instead of advising the listening public what the weather was likely to be for that day, he was telling them what it had been like the day before! Dan and Casey exchanged amused looks, then Casey’s eyes lit up and he scribbled something on the sheet in front of Dan, who grinned and nodded in agreement.
Chris watched Dave, Rachel and Dan having a quick discussion, “Dave, Rachel, what are you and Dan talking about over there?”
“We’ve had another idea, and Dan’s checking with Rachel and Dave if it’s okay to go ahead with it,” Casey supplied. Just then, the three of them came to an agreement and Dan wrote down something else on the piece of scrap paper.
“We’re going to call one of Dan and Casey’s colleagues,” said Dave, settling back down in front of his own microphone, “Who’s apparently something of a weather nerd.”
“So we’re not only going to get a news report, but you’re also going to get someone to do the weather too?”
“That’s the idea.” Casey grinned at him. Chris shook his head in amusement as he led them into another record.
“So,” he said when the song ended, “As you know, we have Dan and Casey from the US sports news show ‘Sports Night’ with us this morning. They’re doing pretty well considering they just got done with a fourteen hour working day about three hours ago.”
“It can be hard to wind down after the show.” Dan agreed
“I can remember what it was like when I did late night shows,” Chris agreed, “Now, you very kindly agreed to do a special one-off news feature for us, as a little treat for Dominic and Carrie?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Casey replied, “They’ve been very helpful with the format for this.”
“I can’t wait to hear what you’ve put together for us!” enthused Rachel, trying to get a peak of the hand-written scripts. Dan covered them with a sly grin.
“So it’s now ten past eight,” announced Chris, “Let’s get an extra sports report with Dan and Casey!”
The news theme music began, and Casey put on his best ‘anchor voice’ as he read from his script.
“Double humiliation for David Beckham.”
“And Luciano Pavarotti shocks the sporting world by running the two-minute mile...in just thirty seconds!” chimed in Dan. They grinned at each other as the music reached its climax at just the right moment. Dave and Rachel gave them silent applause as Casey continued.
“David Beckham is today considering his position in English football after England Manager Sven Goran Erickson substituted him in favour of the team’s eight year old mascot, who promptly went on to score a hat-trick. His shame was later compounded when Manchester United was beaten ten-nothing by Port Vale.”
It was Dan’s turn; “Elsewhere, Luciano Pavarotti amazed onlookers by completing the two-minute mile within thirty seconds – smashing a record previously held by my mother – and boxing legend Joe Calzage was admitted to hospital with a hangnail.”
“Athletics fans were shocked when Paula Radcliffe actually completed a race at the Birmingham Indoor Arena, and finally in Rugby, Wales coach Mike Ruddock blamed singer Charlotte Church for Gavin Henson’s recent poor performance against the New Zealand All Blacks.” Casey grinned as Dan scribbled another note, passing it to Dave. “You’ve been listening to a special Sports report here on Radio One; for Dan Rydell and the Chris Moyles Breakfast team, I’m Casey McCall. Thanks for listening.”
“So what did you think of that then, Dom and Carrie?” Chris asked, chuckling.
“That was great!” Dominic enthused, “I liked the last one about Charlotte Church and Gavin Henson!”
“For legal reasons, I do need to point out to our listeners that the stories were entirely fictional. Dom and Carrie gave Casey and Dan the names of various famous British sports people, and they made up the news with the information provided. Now, you guys also got a friend of yours on the line to do the weather for us? Who are we calling?” Chris asked
“One of our producers, Jeremy.” Dan grinned. “He should still be awake too.”
The phone rang for a few moments, then a slightly sleepy woman’s voice came on the line.
“Hello?”
“Nat! It’s Dan. Is Jeremy there?”
“Danny? It’s almost three thirty – what do you need Jeremy for?”
“Just put him on the line, Nat!” Dan rolled his eyes. There was the sound of movement, and Natalie could faintly be heard waking Jeremy up and muttering something about punishment. Casey couldn’t help chuckling as Jeremy picked the receiver up.
“Dan? What’s the matter?”
“Jeremy! Listen, Casey and I need a favour from you. We’re on the radio at the moment – that British show I was telling you about – and we just did them a quick sports report.”
“Okay.” He sounded suspicious
“Now, they also have a feature on this show called ‘Yesterday’s Weather’ and we thought you’d be perfect to do that.”
“You want me to tell you what the weather was yesterday?”
“That’s the idea.” Agreed Casey, “Come on Jeremy, you’re on national radio in the UK right now!”
There was a deep sigh, “The things I do for you guys…okay. Well, this time of year, there's a low pressure system that moves down from Newfoundland. Ordinarily it moves out to sea once it hits Northern New England, but there's a particularly unusual Atlantic cold front that kept it coastally contained so the system had no choice but to move down here. As a result, New York State had about four hours of torrential rain between the hours of seven pm and one am. Until that point, it had merely been cloudy.”
....and that's where I lost it. *chuckles* I wasn't happy with the news report and the Yesterdays Weather was pretty poor too. I borrowed a great deal of it - if not all, I forget - from the show itself.
no subject
When you're typing dialogue, the format is to use a comma after someone's done talking - like this:
“That’s the idea.” Agreed Casey,
It should be
"That's the idea," agreed Casey.
You're missing a couple of periods at the ends of sentences.
Watch for the constant, "He said, she said, he replied" deal, too. You don't need to always specify that someone's just asked something or just replied, since you've just done it. If you want to identify who said it in a multiple person scene, just have the responder say their name, or look over at them, rather than keep using the same convention repeatedly.
I think maybe part of the reason it's not flowing where you want it is maybe because the conversation doesn't seem to be flowing well either. It's a little stilted and there's no real humor -- you know it well enough, those little pranks or the verbal jibes that make the conversation dynamic and interesting.
no subject
I guess it is a little stilted, though I'm actually quite proud of the way I wrote Dave during the part where they're on air - that's fairly close to how he sounds on the radio of a morning. I think probably my Sorkinese isn't up to the job as normal, so Dan and Casey don't sound right. And Jeremy? Yeesh....
*sigh*
Thank you for the comment though, mate. No-one on my f-list from the fandom seems to have bothered.