You’re A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!

What a difference a celebrity endorsement would make. You would not believe the people I have contacted over the years. Not specifically for that purpose always but generally with creative ideas.

George Lucas, Tony Curtis, Gerry Anderson, J K Rowling, Alexander Armstrong, Richard Osman, Ant and Dec.

An ecelectic mix you might say. I may have mentioned some of this in my archived blogs before but it might amuse you how my brain works sometimes. I think these are in order but not necessarily.

When I discovered all the Star Wars books which took place after Return of the Jedi, being the continuing stories of Luke, Han and Leia, I wrote to George Lucas suggesting he continue the story with a TV show. I cited two average films that in my opinion spawned far superior TV shows – Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate. Just imagine what great films could generate for the small screen. The reply from his company stated that there was no intention at that time to continue the story – erm… I wonder what happened there? They did send me an Artoo bookmark though.

No replies from Gerry Anderson or Tony Curtis. As regards the former, I had an idea for a film to follow on from the series Space 1999 and end the story –Space 1999 Journey’s End. The latter was probably a mistake. I had been trying to float an idea for a new series of The Persuaders. I had already contacted the TV company that used to have the rights but they had sold them on. Tony Curtis had been on a talk show so I knew he was in the UK so tried to get a letter to him via the BBC. In hindsight maybe Roger Moore would have been better but I had no contact details for him.

The above then, although they might make amusing anecdotes, were not about my writing but the others are.

When finishing off Rewind, I wrote to J K Rowling to mention that I had made reference to Harry Potter in it. To prove that I could write (allegedly), I sent a copy of the only book I had in print then, my first novel Trance, my 18 year old attempt at writing. A reply came from her assistant who thought I was just a fan so just thanked me for writing. However, a little codicil to this. My surname, Wardle, is not an everyday surname although you do see it around occasionally. When The Cuckoo’s Calling was shown on TV for the first time, I was gobsmacked that there was a character called D.I. Eric Wardle. My take, no doubt completely and utterly wrong, is that Trance was now on J K Rowling’s bookshelf and she needed a character name.

Now Alexander and Richard are a double act and so my approach was a double header. I had wanted to get on Pointless for years but could not find anyone to go on with. By the time I did it was 2015 and we got an audition in January 2016. Now, I thought, usually on the show if someone is a baker they bring cakes for the hosts, I’m not a baker but a writer (allegedly) – so I will take them a book each. I did not know if we would get on the actual show so I took them to the audition and handed them over there to guys in charge. Each one personally signed. This was