The overnights were all right, but not brilliant. I think we averaged about three and a half million viewers and it held pretty steady, though we lost a few in the last fifteen minutes, which I think we might be able to put down to the Big Brother Nigga controversy. If only I had got Anton Rodgers to start shouting racial abuse at about five past ten then things might have been different. Hopefully at least having written the (non-existent) word "Nigga" in my blog three times in the last two days should have boosted the number of hits I have been getting here. The majority of the reviews were good, but a couple of stinkers in the Standard and the Times. They will all be up in the downloads section as soon as I have them, if you want to see what the critics had to say. But the response from you lot has been very positive and as I sat looking myself up on the internet in the Moto service station on my way back from Telford, a meek middle-aged lady came up to me and asked if I had been on a comedy drama on TV last night. When I admitted I had she told me how much her and her husband had enjoyed it. But as the short conversation took place I am sure that we were both aware of the fact that this complete stranger had seen my arse. Along with 3,499,999 other people. What's that? About one in twenty people in the country have seen it too. One in ten if you include all the people who have seen it in real life too. Yes, I admit it. I am the as yet uncaught bum flasher of Shepherd's Bush Green. They will never know it was me.
No immediate news on whether there will be a series, but we should find out one way or the other pretty soon.
The show has taken some criticism for being middle class, but I don't quite understand why that is a problem or indeed an insult. I am middle class and I am not ashamed of it. I don't know if people would think I was more edgy and dangerous if I wrote about a working class family or gangsters or whores, like the rest of the middle class writers seem to do. And I would argue that in a way it is actually much more risky and edgy to write about subject matter that is seen as being uncool. But whatever, I expected some people to find it unsettling that I was doing something a bit more mainstream. It doesn't mean I will stop doing my other stuff. I watched the show when I got home after a night out with friends tonight and enjoyed it. I found it watchable. But then again I was drunk, so maybe that's the secret.
