#jfsp

[restlesshush]

My friend made me this 🥰

[o-uncle-newt]

I MET JOHN FINNEMORE

It is a thing that happened and I still kind of can't believe it

I went to Tall Tales and it was so lovely and there were such talented people (including Susanna Pearce of the JFSP musical element who sang two songs from a musical she's working on) and JF did a 35 minute staged reading with three other people of something he's working on that's essentially fanfiction of one of my favorite book series and it was so much fun

AND THEN I STOPPED HIM IN THE AISLE AFTER AND TOLD HIM HOW MUCH I LOVE HIS WORK AND HOW MUCH IT'S MEANT TO BE ABLE TO, IN MY WORST MOMENTS, JUST SWITCH ON HIS SHOWS AND CARRY ON AND FEEL BETTER

AND HE WAS SO NICE! I HAD ALWAYS HEARD HE WAS NICE AND HE REALLY WAS, I'M SURE HE HEARS THIS KIND OF THING ALL THE TIME BUT HE WAS SO SWEET IN HOW HE RESPONDED, I'M KIND OF FREAKING OUT, IT JUST FELT SURREAL BECAUSE I WAS TALKING TO HIM AND EVERY SO OFTEN A SYNAPSE WOULD ACTIVATE AND I'D BE LIKE "I'M TALKING TO JOHN FINNEMORE RIGHT NOW"

Anyway, sorry for yelling, I'm just very not over it. Didn't get a photo because I was too chicken to ask in the moment and then too chicken afterward to go up to him later at the bar and then our cab came

Red letter day, is all I can say

[timespanner]

(x)

[pea-green]

not to harp on about John Finnemore's writing but I want some appreciation for him writing gay people as completely ordinary, where the sketch wouldn't change if they were heterosexual (the train manager/driver, the bassoonist who hides his job from his husband), while others speak deeply about homophobia and acceptance (Gally and Susannah, the entirety of the double act Rebel Alliance) and others, most importantly, are funny (Patsy Straightwoman having a wife, who is also called Patsy Straightwoman).

[thekenobee]

Sharpe Crack 1

[movietonight]

John Finnemore is so good at writing autistic characters. He deserves some kind of honorary membership.

[sassy1121]

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme series 9 transcripts are up!!

https://jfsp9.neocities.org/ Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Wilkos!

[friend-through-teenage-nights]

Transcript under cut:

Newt: Well, since you have summoned me to celebrate Jeremy Wilkinson's life, with a paeon of praise.

Jeremy Wilkinson, boy for all seasons

From conkers in autumn to swimming in spring

Hobbies, achievements, so many and various

O muse of poetry, now let us sing

Jeremy Wilkinson, friend of humanity

Put up the blackouts for old Mrs Moor

Tireless cadger of Saucepans for Spitfires

Can't be long now til he wins us the war

Jeremy Wilkinson, promising pianist

Firm with the left hand, loud with the right

Just let him loose on the William Tell Overture

That's when you'll know that you've been in a fight!

Jeremy Wilkinson's shrapnel collection

Viewed by his rivals with envious eyes

How very cunning to pick a collection

Where daily new specimens fall from the skies

Jeremy Wilkinson, grizzled old veteran

Eighth of October, an auspicious date

This is the day that, at least unofficially

He stops being seven, and starts being eight

Jeremy Wilkinson, famously courteous

To please his old uncle, will now close his eyes

Sadly, his mother is stuck on a narrowboat

Somewhere near Stratford

Or is she?

(door opens)

Vanessa: Surprise!

Jerry: Mummy!

[End credits]

John: (voiceover) 1943, Spetwith.

Newt: And so, Jack returned in triumph to the village, and his mother wept tears of joy, and the villagers sang paeons of praise. The end.

(Jerry clapping)

Jerry: What's paeons.

Newt: Paeon is a long poem about how wonderful you are.

Jerry: Oh! Can I have one?

Newt: Not now. Maybe for your birthday.

Jerry: Ohh, alright. Goodnight.

Newt: Goodnight. Sleep tight!

Jerry: (chanting) Don't let the bedbugs bite.

[alisonscotlock]

jfsp s9 might be about intergenerational relationships and family traditions and many other excellent things and, most importantly, about LOVE 💛 but we cannot ignore the fact that it is also about seven generations of autistic people

[anditendshowyoudexpect]

We don't have anything as… you know, the Wilkinsons are, in particular that middle family, the Wilkinsons and associated tribes are particularly fond of that sort of thing, the hat ripping and so on. So, we don't necessarily have things quite that marked, but we all have little, you know… Certainly my family, we all have odd little jokes and things we don't even know are jokes, things we just take for granted. Which is how i think of things like "half a glass" that Russ doesn't really know that's a family tradition, he certainly doesn't know where it comes from. But Walter said it to Jerry and Jerry said it to his kids and they also, it just became a thing that the family say when they are feeling tearful, and so that's instinctive in Russ when the bully approaches, you know, when he's feeling scared, just to blurt out "half glass", he's no idea why, so i'm sure there's things like that in my life, little catchphrases we all… yeah. In my family, if anyone describes something with lukewarm praise, especially with the phrase "quite nice" then whoever they're talking to will immediately go, "clean anyway", because of the famous occasion when apparently my auntie… my great auntie Phyllis went to visit my great auntie Brenda's new front room, which had just been done in new wallpaper and went, "Quite nice… clean anyway."

from John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme Season 9 Zoom discussion with Q&A with John Finnemore (bless you lovely people for recording this and @musicalheart168 for telling me three years later because apparently i'm bad at youtubing. even if you still haven't seen it yourself. just this tiny one, come on)

btw i have totally appropriated quite nice... clean anyway

[captainclickycat]

If you picked the 5th option here you go.

[restlesshush]

Jeremy Wilkinson, grizzled old veteran.

The Eighth of October, an auspicious date.

This is the day where – at least unofficially –

He stops being seven, and starts being eight.

[o-uncle-newt]

So the JFSP 2024 special was... different, wasn't it? I'm trying to suss out what I feel about it.

I think I probably need a second listen to the full thing. (I did listen to the first third of it while busy with something else, didn't get into it particularly, and then relistened to the whole thing in order while walking in the park and liked that first third much better. So I think that relistening to the whole thing all together will be helpful.)

As anyone who has listened to JFSP S9 and has seen my username here can tell, I LOVED JFSP S9, in fact loved it more than I loved the regular sketch show, and the first thing that came to me after listening was "so this is clearly meant to be more like S9." But it didn't feel like that to me, and I'm not sure why- I think maybe because S9 had lower-octane jokes and no audience laughter, meaning that scenes felt like they were servicing the characters and arc rather than only the jokes. So there, the punchline didn't need to go at the end for the audience to know where to applaud, whereas here we had that more low-key, fittingly bucolic gently-told-story feel that didn't always have a punchline, but the audience still felt like they were trying to FIND the punchline and the ends of sketches in how they were laughing. (Or maybe it was part of the editing...?)

I usually LOVE audience laughter, so it feels weird for me to say that I wish I could find a version of this without it to see if it feels more S9-like, but I do kind of want that.

It felt like it was not one thing or another- not like the rest of JFSP, but not like S9 or JF's other narrative work either. And it's not meant to be like any of those, I'm sure... I just need time and a relisten or two to suss out what I think it is, or rather how it makes sense to me.

I loved the standup concept, and there were some very fun slice of life stories told through it. (Also, obviously, the cast was, as always, phenomenal.) As storytelling, I thought it was great, even if the ending felt a bit sudden. But I do need to listen again to figure out what I think it is, and I wish I could do that without audience laughter, and without the feeling like this was meant to be a sketch show.

[timespanner]

Newt: There was a... misunderstanding.

Gally: Was there? Or an understanding?

Newt: No. A misunderstanding. I think perhaps the same misunderstanding you're making right now.

Gally: Oh! Then... I thought perhaps we shared a family failing.

Newt: Why have you asked--

Gally: Because after all, you know, you've never been much of a one for the girls.

Newt: No! Look. Since you-- since you insist upon asking me, Gally, I, I don't have the least use for the whole silly business.

Gally: Ah.

Newt: Leaves me entirely cold.

Gally: You've tried it then.

Newt: Never. And I never shall.

— John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, s09e06

[holliano]

@bumblingest-bee (sorry you apparently can’t add a video in a reblog)

[placetnemagistra]

Just need to shout derangedly about the Cabin Pressure / JSFP allusions in Good Omens 2, please add your own!!

Yellow Bentley — yellow car

Aziraphale as the incompetent detective / newspaperman with a Clue — the Birling Day episode where Arthur & Martin incompetently investigate Douglas’s theft of the Tallisker

Crowley ordering a large Tallisker — also Birling Day

A number of JSFP sketches where people who are total opposites are thrown together for long periods of time (eg the wildlife cameraman who doesn’t like snow leopards and the gay leopard Professor who absolutely adores them) or are bickering/unlikely but devoted spouses (the train driver and the train manager; the “Don’t Know Much About History” song sketch) - it’s a whole dynamic!! It has prepared him for this assignment!! (As has the practice of people being irrelevantly but cheeringly gay)