This interview also appears on Uvi Poznansky’s blog ..
Why did you write Remote Control?
I began Remote Control because I had been writing screenplays in American voices and I wanted to write something closer to my own voice. I was raised in England so I wanted to write British characters.
I started writing what was to be a two-man multi-media stage-play. Harold and Fred were two British ex-pats who lived on the upper floors of a cheap hotel in Los Angeles in the 1980’s. They watch television and become the characters they watch.
The stage would be simply divided into three areas – on the left, an old worn couch facing the audience; on the right a small kitchen table with two chairs. Up center would be a huge rear projection 10′ x 15′ screen which would use a combination of slides and video to provide a variety of abstract and/or realistic images as a backdrop to support the scenes.
So, Harold & Fred would begin a conversation on the couch and at the appropriate moment at the end of the scene one of them would aim a TV remote at the audience and click! The lights would fade on the couch and an image would appear on the screen and Harold or Fred would stand before the screen and become whoever they were watching on Television.
So this was the conceit, that the whole piece would play out as if they were channel surfing – and the action would unfurl like flipping channels.
How long did it take you to write?
I wrote the whole thing in a flash – about six weeks. The whole play came out complete like “automatic writing” – I was possessed.
The structure allowed it to be dramatic, funny, tragic, surreal.
I didn’t really know what I had until around page forty – I suddenly understood what I was writing, but I can’t reveal that here so you’ll have to listen to the audiobook/radio dramady!
I should say here that there are drums – African tribal drummers that play us in and out of the scenes. The significance of this will be shown later.
At its core, this is a love story, not only between Harold & Elena, but between the two characters Harold & Fred. Tell us a little about the twists and turns of the story?
Fred reveals in an opening monologue that he fears he might be a woman trapped in a man’s body. He’s not sure about this but desperate, he indulges the possibility and wears a dress, sloppy make-up & stays in the apartment in preparation for the big event. Harold indulges him – they are old friends.
Harold has been secretly writing letters to Elena, a woman he met through the personals in the local paper. Since he has decided he will never meet her, he writes fantastic stories about his life that are pure fantasy. Elena we learn is a caregiver, taking care of her ailing mother.
In one letter Harold tells Elena of one of his adventurous “trips” to Africa on Safari and how he parachuted from a small plane…
After a while Elena begins to fall in love with the dashing man in her letters.
Harold hides the letters from Fred but one day, Fred finds Elena’s letters stuffed under the cushions of the couch and reads them. Fred is shocked and amused, hurt and threatened all at once that Harold has had this secret.
Later when Fred reads that Harold & Elena are planning to meet, Fred writes a letter in Harold’s name (unknown to Harold) canceling the proposed meeting.
How did you go from a stage play to the audiobook?
Well it occured to me much later that this could work as a “radio play” without much adjustment.
So I decided to produce it myself with music and sound effects. My brother Brian George (Babu on Seinfeld, The Indian father in Big Bang Theory) agreed to play Harold and other multiple roles; I would play Fred and other multiple roles. I had written Harold for Brian to play and he was familiar with the role.
Here is an excerpt. My brother Brian George as Harold writing to Elena about his “travels” in Africa:
HAROLD: Dear Elena, when I was in Africa I had an opportunity to sky dive which I naturally ‘jumped’ at the chance to do.
(pause)
I have to tell you this has to be one of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had. Have you ever tried sky diving? The most wonderful feeling is to leap out of the side door of that small aircraft. I remember preparing to jump, the loudness of the twin engines vibrating the body of the plane: the density of the wind blowing outside the door. The air is as thick as…cheese! You get a definite sense of what’s holding you up. I can’t remember actually leaping out, but there I was in a free-fall – arms and legs outstretched.
The roar of the engines diminished to a distant hum, and then…silence.
(pause)
This was the closest thing to flying I’ve ever experienced except maybe in a dream. I was driven to delay the chute opening for as long as possible to maximize the thrill. I looked from side to side…
…while the air pushed against my face and pressed up against my opened palms. Below, I could see the African Veldt, stretching out like a painter’s canvas. In one corner, there was movement: a microscopic herd of Spring Bok darting across the wild, yellow, grassy, plain. They were barely visible except for their long shadows in the rising sun. I looked over at my right hand. The slightest movement of either hand will change your direction in a freefall. I tilted my hand slightly…
(pause)
I was now facing a mountain range to the south, and beyond the mountains I could see the ocean shining like a sheet of blue glass. I pulled the cord. The rustle of silk and rope: then a whoosh! The harness dug in as my body lurched and the chute opened!
(pause)
I floated down to earth as it rushed up to greet me.
(pause)
A new perspective. Trees towered above my head. I was knee-deep in tall grass, and the sound of the African birds filled my ears with their wild song! Elena, you should have been there!
Lights fade on Harold.
Remote Control by David George available on Audible & iTunes
5th excerpt from my two-man play REMOTE CONTROL. Did you ever feel like your life was interrupting the television commercials?
Los Angeles 1980′s. Harold & Fred watch television: they become the characters they watch.
HAROLD AND FRED’S APARTMENT – LATE AFTERNOON Harold and Fred on the couch. Harold is transfixed by the TV; Fred is distracted trying to remember something with no luck.
FRED: …Don’t you hate it when you try to remember someone’s name and it’s gone right out of your head.
HAROLD: (quickly) Who were you trying to think of…?
Fred strains to remember.
HAROLD: That’s a trick. Sometimes if you do that it might pop back in.
FRED: No. Shhh! Wait a minute! It’s right on the tip of my tongue…What was his name? The one who died?
HAROLD: I don’t know who you’re talking about. (pause)
Anyway, that’s the first thing to go.
FRED: Shhh!
Fred struggles to remember the name.
HAROLD: (needling) Short term memory. (pause)
Short term memory is the first to go. It’s all over.
You’re as good as dead. (pause)
Did you know, there’s a small fish – what was it called? (pause)
I only read about it last week. (pause)
Anyway, this small fish has a very short memory. It’s swimming about in this small tank up and down and around and every time this fish turns the same corner, it’s a brand new experience for it! (pause)
So! There’s something good to be said for the loss.
FRED: What are you rattling on about?
HAROLD: Short term memory. It’s the first to go. There’s one other consolation though, isn’t there?
FRED: What’s that?
HAROLD: Well, your long term memory supposedly improves with age. When you get even older and more senile, you’ll remember everything from years ago as if were yesterday. (pause)
Unless you’re too busy trying to remember where you put the tubes that go up your nose. (pause)
In twenty years from now you’ll remember your dead friend’s name clear as crystal. It’ll take it’s place in a shining list with hundreds of other little things you forgot or misplaced. Things you didn’t even want to remember will pop up: like the manufacturer’s tag on a lost sock…
FRED: I was just thinking: if your short term memory fails when you’re young, how can your long term memory possibly improve? There’s obviously nothing to inform it. How does that work?
HAROLD: I don’t know, it’s probably.
FRED: (lights up) Henry Bringham!
HAROLD: What!
FRED: That’s the guy who died! Henry Bringham…or Bingham.
HAROLD: Well? What about him?
FRED: (lost) I don’t know, I can’t remember what I wanted to say about him now.
4th excerpt from my two-man play REMOTE CONTROL. Did you ever feel like your life was interrupting the television commercials?
Los Angeles 1980′s. Harold & Fred watch television: they become the characters they watch.
HAROLD & FRED’S APARTMENT – LATER – DAY Fred and Harold sit on the couch wearing bathrobes. Fred, with his hair in curlers, scours the LA Times Help Wanted ads. Harold raises the remote and aims it at the TV (i.e.The audience).
FRED: I can’t find a thing.
(pause)
Your unemployment check came today. Did you get it?
HAROLD: Yeah.
FRED: How long do you think you can stand not working?
HAROLD: It doesn’t bother me anymore really.
FRED: How’s that then?
HAROLD: That’s ’cause I’m ahead of my time.
(pause)
In the future there’ll be massive decreases in the working population, won’t there?
(pause)
Technology will’ve taken over eighty per cent production of the Gross National Product.
(pause)
The government will be forced to pay people not to work.
FRED: Why would they do that then?
HAROLD: They wouldn’t have much choice, would they? Could you imagine masses of hungry, desperate, people with no money? Crime would be rampant and uncontrollable. That’s why the government would be forced to pay people not to work.
(pause)
The government pays me not to work now. I’m ahead of my time.
(pause)
Pass me some chips then.
3rd excerpt from my two-man play REMOTE CONTROL. Did you ever feel like your life was interrupting the television commercials?
Los Angeles 1980’s. Harold & Fred watch television: they become the characters they watch.
HAROLD & FRED’S APARTMENT – DAY Harold is in his bathrobe and Fred is in his frock on the couch playing solitaire.
HAROLD: It was her muddledheadedness that was the problem.
FRED: Couldn’t follow a line of logic?
HAROLD: That’s it exactly. We’d go and see a film, for instance, a war film that was about the horrors of war. The film clearly champions peace and tries to show that war is stupid…
FRED: …And does it by showing the atrocity.
HAROLD: Well, of course. She would get so stuck on the idea that the film was glorifying violence by showing it at all, that she’d instantly dismiss this film that essentially agreed with her point of view. Well, you want to have a conversation with someone like that about what the film was all about but you can’t, can you? You get stuck in the debris of irrelevance.
FRED:Right. So what happened?
3rd excerpt from my two-man play REMOTE CONTROL. Did you ever feel like your life was interrupting the television commercials?
Los Angeles 1980’s. Harold & Fred watch television: they become the characters they watch.
TRANSITIONAL TV MONTAGE The rear projection screen comes to life with images of video noise. One image fades into the next to the tempo of the drumming and an intermittent buzz. All sounds reach a climax as The Local Evening News theme music fades in and the screen provides a suitable background for the news. An ANCHOR (Fred) sits behind a desk.
The Round Table 
Interview with David George on Remote Control
Posted: March 8, 2014 in Audiobook, Comedy, Commentary, DramaTags: audiobook, Brian George, David George, Harold & Fred, Remote Control, Voice over, voice overs, Voiceover
Why did you write Remote Control?
I began Remote Control because I had been writing screenplays in American voices and I wanted to write something closer to my own voice. I was raised in England so I wanted to write British characters.
I started writing what was to be a two-man multi-media stage-play. Harold and Fred were two British ex-pats who lived on the upper floors of a cheap hotel in Los Angeles in the 1980’s. They watch television and become the characters they watch.
The stage would be simply divided into three areas – on the left, an old worn couch facing the audience; on the right a small kitchen table with two chairs. Up center would be a huge rear projection 10′ x 15′ screen which would use a combination of slides and video to provide a variety of abstract and/or realistic images as a backdrop to support the scenes.
So, Harold & Fred would begin a conversation on the couch and at the appropriate moment at the end of the scene one of them would aim a TV remote at the audience and click! The lights would fade on the couch and an image would appear on the screen and Harold or Fred would stand before the screen and become whoever they were watching on Television.
So this was the conceit, that the whole piece would play out as if they were channel surfing – and the action would unfurl like flipping channels.
How long did it take you to write?
I wrote the whole thing in a flash – about six weeks. The whole play came out complete like “automatic writing” – I was possessed.
The structure allowed it to be dramatic, funny, tragic, surreal.
I didn’t really know what I had until around page forty – I suddenly understood what I was writing, but I can’t reveal that here so you’ll have to listen to the audiobook/radio dramady!
I should say here that there are drums – African tribal drummers that play us in and out of the scenes. The significance of this will be shown later.
At its core, this is a love story, not only between Harold & Elena, but between the two characters Harold & Fred. Tell us a little about the twists and turns of the story?
Fred reveals in an opening monologue that he fears he might be a woman trapped in a man’s body. He’s not sure about this but desperate, he indulges the possibility and wears a dress, sloppy make-up & stays in the apartment in preparation for the big event. Harold indulges him – they are old friends.
Harold has been secretly writing letters to Elena, a woman he met through the personals in the local paper. Since he has decided he will never meet her, he writes fantastic stories about his life that are pure fantasy. Elena we learn is a caregiver, taking care of her ailing mother.
In one letter Harold tells Elena of one of his adventurous “trips” to Africa on Safari and how he parachuted from a small plane…
After a while Elena begins to fall in love with the dashing man in her letters.
Harold hides the letters from Fred but one day, Fred finds Elena’s letters stuffed under the cushions of the couch and reads them. Fred is shocked and amused, hurt and threatened all at once that Harold has had this secret.
Later when Fred reads that Harold & Elena are planning to meet, Fred writes a letter in Harold’s name (unknown to Harold) canceling the proposed meeting.
How did you go from a stage play to the audiobook?
Well it occured to me much later that this could work as a “radio play” without much adjustment.
So I decided to produce it myself with music and sound effects. My brother Brian George (Babu on Seinfeld, The Indian father in Big Bang Theory) agreed to play Harold and other multiple roles; I would play Fred and other multiple roles. I had written Harold for Brian to play and he was familiar with the role.
Here is an excerpt. My brother Brian George as Harold writing to Elena about his “travels” in Africa:
HAROLD: Dear Elena, when I was in Africa I had an opportunity to sky dive which I naturally ‘jumped’ at the chance to do.
(pause)
I have to tell you this has to be one of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had. Have you ever tried sky diving? The most wonderful feeling is to leap out of the side door of that small aircraft. I remember preparing to jump, the loudness of the twin engines vibrating the body of the plane: the density of the wind blowing outside the door. The air is as thick as…cheese! You get a definite sense of what’s holding you up. I can’t remember actually leaping out, but there I was in a free-fall – arms and legs outstretched.
The roar of the engines diminished to a distant hum, and then…silence.
(pause)
This was the closest thing to flying I’ve ever experienced except maybe in a dream. I was driven to delay the chute opening for as long as possible to maximize the thrill. I looked from side to side…
…while the air pushed against my face and pressed up against my opened palms. Below, I could see the African Veldt, stretching out like a painter’s canvas. In one corner, there was movement: a microscopic herd of Spring Bok darting across the wild, yellow, grassy, plain. They were barely visible except for their long shadows in the rising sun. I looked over at my right hand. The slightest movement of either hand will change your direction in a freefall. I tilted my hand slightly…
(pause)
I was now facing a mountain range to the south, and beyond the mountains I could see the ocean shining like a sheet of blue glass. I pulled the cord. The rustle of silk and rope: then a whoosh! The harness dug in as my body lurched and the chute opened!
(pause)
I floated down to earth as it rushed up to greet me.
(pause)
A new perspective. Trees towered above my head. I was knee-deep in tall grass, and the sound of the African birds filled my ears with their wild song! Elena, you should have been there!
Lights fade on Harold.
Remote Control by David George available on Audible & iTunes