New Episode: In the Room Where It Happened — Richard Sparks on Writing for Rowan Atkinson, Robin Williams, and the Golden Age of British Comedy
he was in the pub with rowan atkinson when john cleese called.
He watched rik mayall and adrian edmondson do their very first television appearance. he stood at the back of an empty auditorium the night stéphane grappelli played and made a seasoned guitarist stop mid-conversation just to listen. he was there for so much of it — the writers' rooms, the charity stages, the moments that quietly became history.
and then decades later he sat down alone with twenty-four strangers in a role-playing game, and asked himself: what would it really be like to actually be this person?
that question became a novel. then a series. then four books.
richard sparks has had two full creative lives. in this episode he talks about both — what the room was really like when rowan atkinson switched on, the night robin williams held thirty people in physical pain from laughing, and why the most important decision he ever made was quitting the safe job he hated two weeks after signing on for another year.
he also reads live from his new rock series. a chapter so quietly constructed that it gives you the answer to everything in chapter nine, and you don't realize what you've been handed until much later.
learn the melody before you give anyone the riff. he's still proving that with his own work.
s7-ep2 out now: https://www.spirittalkshow.info/e/s7-ep2-in-the-room-where-it-happened-richard-sparks-on-writing-for-rowan-atkinson-robin-williams-and-the-golden-age-of-british-comedy/
find richard and the new rock series at www.richardsparks.com
#spirittalkshow #richardsparks #newrock #britishcomedy #rowanatkinson #robinwilliams #writing #podcast #storytelling #goldenage #bedtimestoriesforgrownups #creativelife
