The recent campaign on Indie GoGo didn’t really take off for whatever reason, but it isn’t going to put me off making a documentary about The Sunday Alternative. I’ve been working on it a bit today, preferring to attempt to concentrate on one project at a time and see how that goes. I am writing it very loosely as I want to leave it open to improvisation when it comes to the interviews with the people involved, so am only really writing the narrative bits. As the show developed from the show I did on Sherwood Radio I am going to include that in the film along with talking about my lifelong love of radio, making it a sort of autobiographical story of my route to radio. My original plan as far as this project was concerned, was to make it a spoof documentary reminiscent of The Office or I’m Alan Partridge, but I get enough criticism from people who actually think I really am like that and have no concept of ironic humour. If I acted the part of the arrogant radio personality that I used to play on NottinghamLIVE then it would convince the idiots that I really am like that. This is why I stopped doing it on the radio, so it would be a backward step to recreate that persona. I take radio seriously and I now try to reflect that on air.

All the people who have been involved in the show will be invited to appear as ‘talking heads’ on the film, as will various different commentators from the music business. I have written an opening to the doc, with scenes in Bulwell and around the studio building. The filming I did on my camcorder of the live bands and singers will be also interspersed along with audio of conversations between the various co-presenters and me.

The little village of Ollerton will also be one of the locations, as I will be going right back to the start of my radio career at Sherwood Radio and reliving those moments. This won’t mean that I’ll listen back to the shows as research as they make me cringe. I was a terrible radio presenter back then, having never appeared on the radio before, so the shows do make an interesting piece of history. This is why I have put them online, as they are a fascinating way to document my radio career. New listeners to The Sunday Alternative might be interested to listen back to see that I wasn’t always a competent broadcaster.

The money thing is still an issue though, not that the documentary will have a massive budget of course. It will hopefully be screened at a small cinema in Nottingham and London for free entry, (and I am open to suggestion if anyone else wants it somewhere else), which I will introduce and take questions afterwards. This depends on how much money is left after the filming, as it might only be Nottingham that gets the screening (I won’t have to pay for travel you see, I have a tram pass that will cover it). Part of me wants to have another go at the big crowd-funding campaign, but I don’t have the time to be constantly tweeting and Facebooking about it, which of course would annoy people. If you’re reading this blog you can help by making a donation using the PayPal button.

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