THREAD: When I was 18 I got a job for a week working on a Channel 4 show with the directors of Ali G.
It was as the runner on a low-budget thing where a guy posed as a Syrian immigrant talking to people in the street for a series of 5-minute shorts.
It was by far the most exciting thing I’d ever done. I thought I might come up with the magic ingredient to make it the funniest series ever made (for 6pm on weeknights on Channel 4).
What actually happened was I made one comment in the cab to the first shooting location about “you look my uncle, he’s Austrian like me haha”
to the (non-Syrian) lead and the Ali G guys were legit confused by my words and then I kept very quiet for FIVE DAYS.
to the (non-Syrian) lead and the Ali G guys were legit confused by my words and then I kept very quiet for FIVE DAYS.
I basically stood at locations looking after equipment and every hour or so one of the directors would come over and ask for a tape to be unwrapped for the camera. I got really fckn good at unwrapping those tapes!
One day we (haha we) shot in a hairdresser’s and I had to stand outside with the equipment natch and the directors came out after a while and said “we need you to do something” and I was SO excited!
“We need you to move everything about 6 feet to the left coz you’re currently in shot in the window and it looks really shit”
Oh right.
Oh right.
On the final day they hired a rickshaw for the main guy to stand with on London Bridge for a fun skit. But they quickly realised the rickshaw didn’t work and had a better idea. My job was to wait with the rickshaw for: FOUR HOURS. Just sat with it all afternoon.
Every few minutes someone would ask if I could give them a ride and I would do the same laugh and say “sorry no” and explain why I was sat on the rickshaw and they’d look at me all confused like the directors.
At the end of the day the directors and the "Syrian" man said they were going back to the studio with all the equipment and could I take the rickshaw back to the hire place. It was only 5 minutes away and a rickshaw is just a bike so NO PROBLEM, CHAMPS!
At 18 I weighed under 7 stone and had the upper body strength of a baby bird. I wasn't ill, it's just the way I'm built but I should add at this point a rickhaw isn't like riding a bike at all, it's like Wild Wacky Action Bike from South Park.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
Good people of Twitter, it took me nearly half an hour to get that rickshaw back to its rightful home 5 minutes away. The best bit was when the handlebars just randomly flipped sideways and I rode in to the bath of a bus. The bus stopped and beeped me while I cried.
I cried because I couldn't get the rickshaw back in the bike lane and all I'd wanted to do was have a laugh with some TV people coz I was working for free.
When I finally got back to the offices, sweating, I walked past Armando Iannucci in the building and put my head down even though I loved Alan Partridge, his sketch show and the Friday Night Armistice because I didn't want him to recognise me in future.
PS Back at the offices everyone had left already coz why would they wait around for the runner who wasn't even good at driving a rickshaw.
The moral of the story to those trying to work in the media is: be a runner first. Every other job will seem like step up in comparison.
The moral of the story to those trying to work in the media is: be a runner first. Every other job will seem like step up in comparison.
Sorry if that thread wasn't very fun, somebody on Twitter asked me how to get in to "the media industry" today (they are 18) and this memory came flooding back to me.
Me at 18: 
If @Aiannucci sees this thread please understand that I remain a huge fan and sorry if my rickshaw driving is disgusting to you.
Path not bath, I hate autocorrect and I hate rickshaws.
