Navigate:

Home
About
Characters
Credits
Interviews
+ Tim Scott
+ Michael Marshall Smith
+ Tim Firth
DVD
Multimedia
Site Info
Community
Links
Contact

Interviews Michael Marshall Smith Michael Marshall Smith is a successful novelist and has been a cast member in both series of Dare To Believe, and also wrote material for series 1. He kindly humoured us as we amateurishly interviewed him. Lazily we first asked him to introduce himself…

Q. How might we know you already?

A. Well, quite a few years ago - and under the name 'Michael Rutger' – I was part of AND NOW, IN COLOUR... We did two series and two Christmas specials for BBC Radio 4. Tim de Jongh was another member, as was a writer called Tim Firth, who also did some bits and pieces for the first series of d2b. The fourth member of the team was William Vandyck, who sensibly steered well clear. We met while writing and performing for the Cambridge Footlights and various other revue groups at college. ANIC sort of ground to a halt after a couple of unsuccessful television pilots, and we largely went our separate professional ways. I evolved or regressed into a novelist, writing three kind-of-sf novels under the name Michael Marshall Smith. I've now moth-balled my last name and am writing thrillers under the name Michael Marshall. The first - THE STRAW MEN - came out in 2002, and the follow-up is due out May 2004. Also I suppose you might just have met in me in a pub, or something, in which case I apologize.


Q. Who do you play in the show? You have a cast credit but we can’t work out which one you are.

A. I was, for what it's worth, the 'Musing Vicar' in the first series (very cold pint of lager, etc) and The Man Who Sets Things Free. I also did a fair amount of voice overs, including the 'What's this?' stuff. In the second series I wasn't on camera at all, but just did voiceovers, including Jabbing Jimmy. My face is more suited to radio work, really.


Q. How did you get involved with the show?

A. Tim rang me with the astonishing news that ITV had seen fit to let him make a television series. I still don't really understand how that happened, or indeed why. Over the next few months I jotted down ideas - usually things that were simply too zany to get away with under any other circumstances - and Tim went with a few of them. After that it was a case of a couple of days in Soho recording studios going VO, and a very, very cold day on location near Norwich. There were supposed to be more of The Man Who Sets Things Free but it was just too bloody cold. And there were some scary horses.


Q. What were your ideas that didn't make it? Were there any other sketches that didn't make it into the show?

A. I'm sure there were lots of ideas that didn't make it. Tim is a zane-factory, and some of it is just too out there for normal human consumption. I don't remember any of my major ideas not getting in; there was a one-off gag involving a man dancing around his garden with a picture of his wife singing "I've got you, under my... Patio."


Q. As I remember it you had a writing credit for the first series. Which sketches did you write and why no writing credit for series 2?

A. No writing credit for the second series for the simple reason I didn't write anything. I was late getting my new novel finished, and – though invited to contribute - I just didn't have the time. In the first series I wrote the Musing Vicar and The Man Who Sets Things Free, and a few other one-off bits and pieces, and was also on hand during the filming of some other sections (The Weather Forecasts, for example), most of which were being written about five minutes before being filmed.


Q. What is d2b like to make?

A. Very relaxed, and great fun. Bloody cold, though, at times.


Q. What sort of reaction do you get from people about the series?

A. I haven't had that much, actually. Generally people asking me if I'd like a very cold pint of lager, which is excellent. Except then it turns out they're just quoting the show, not actually promising to buy one. One time I was at a wedding of a friend of mine, which ended up in a pub, and three strangers came out of nowhere and insisted I sign napkins for them, which was odd.


Q. What are your favourite parts of the show?

A. The bits I'm not in.


Q. What sort of people do think you would enjoy d2b?

A. Insomniacs. Close relatives. The lightly disturbed. Not Michael Winner, probably, because he's a *wanker*.


Q. Will there be a third series?

A. You'd have to ask Tim that. I'm still amazed there was a first series.


Q. What’s this?

A. A question.


Q. What’s this?

A. A question.


Q. What’s this?

A. A question.


Q. What’s this?

A. A question.