In Their Shoes

Ricky Gervais’ Extras meets The Office for a theatre date.

-Genre: Sitcom, Ensemble - Dark Comedy

-Episodes' length: 25 to 30 minutes

-Setting: National Theatre, London, 2023

-Format: Workplace Mockumentary

-Programming: 6 Seasons, 8 to 11 episodes per season

SERIES LOGLINE: A dysfunctional cast of miserable actors each at a different stage in their careers deals with the daily unfairness their cursed life choice has cast upon them.

CHARACTERS:

MAIN

- Alistair Sanselmi (46) - The director in a mid-life crisis. Acclaimed by younger audiences for his silly comedy movies, he hates the industry because he’s always had to work on commission and no studio has ever optioned his dramatic writing, and he’s only ever been hired to direct existing screenplays. He wants to find his soulmate but every woman he dates dumps him after no more than a month. Very curious, shopping addict, exceptionally extroverted, great cook and a lover of cocaine and Dark Sambuca. He wrote the piece the crew is performing. Or did he?

- Tess Neat (38) - The assistant director with dissociative disorder. Although very committed to her job, she comes off clumsy to every single person she encounters. She tends to make a lot of mistakes both at work and in her life, such as communicating the wrong date for the kids-tailored show night to the cast and buying an outdoor swimming pool without having a garden. At some point she falls deeply in love with an audience member whom everyone seems to realise is a serial killer, but she has no clue whatsoever about it. The reason why Alistair keeps her around is that she’s the niece of a big West End producer, and she is actually lovely. Tess works on self-love and self-acceptance by working out like a beast and going onto exotic vacations to try extreme sports. Which is a bit too much, because she always comes back with some sort of injury. But this doesn’t put her down and, even with a broken arm, she will climb the kitchen counter to reach the jam on the top shelf... only to fall and get injured again. She is very humble and is normally quiet.

- Hunter T. Weston III (27) - The film star with covert narcissism. Obsessed with method acting, he has won a BAFTA Rising Star Award. Relaxed and calm, but his childlike humour makes him come across a bit like a jerk. This however is a trait he engages into so as to hide the pity he feels for the ugly, poor, losers he is surrounded by. Whenever somebody confronts him, he goes to find a spot to smoke and cry. He is versed in MMA because he is a safety freak. A drop of water on the floor will have him run to maintenance asking why a yellow sign wasn’t placed around the spot.

- Louie Rigg (23) - The drama school graduate with high hopes. He masks his shyness by acting like a sweetheart but can stand his ground very well in conflictual situations thanks to experience dealing with homophobic bullies. He gets nervous around authority and big personalities due to having grown up with a frivolous single mum. But realising that Alistair and Tess are not as strict and bossy as he thought, he soon begins taking some liberties at work that include smoking weed on the roof with Hunter, “borrowing” props and costumes, and hiring a heckler as a prank with Hunter for their (tragically dramatic) show. He wants to get back to the disciplined routine and life-style that drama school used to give him but keeps postponing because he is constantly horny so every night is a new hookup. He hates bad weather, the wind, being poor, his mother, slow-walkers, people who won’t let him pet their dogs, people in general, divas, cats, dancing, parties, punk music, Marvel, dirtiness, any dish containing basil, cab companies, phone companies, companies that make their products too tight to open, writers in cafes, people who do yoga in parks............................

- Becca Townsend (45) - The (super) talented actress with stage fright. She can cry on cue, do many accents, and has worked with many British and American film stars, but she is a shameless diva who always has to be at the centre of attention. Then she spends her hours off work overthinking all of her actions, getting high on red wine and Xanax and convincing herself that people hate her because she is an attention seeker, and, when she gets circumstant-- erm, sorry -- she wants me to say physical evidence of her worries, she has severe panic attacks on stage. Then she spends the days following the attack checking in with every single one of her phone contacts and colleagues to make sure she hasn’t upset anybody, thus keeping alive a never-ending cycle.

- Ramona Numa (65) - The veteran with zero fucks to give. She is starring in and has secretly ghost-written the piece the crew is performing, as per part of her deal with Alistair. Has won numerous Tony and Olivier Awards but she can no longer stand the theatre. She is very quiet but she’s as sharp as a knife whenever she makes a statement. Her main concern right now is buying a new house in Maida Vale because she wants to become a neighbour of Casting Director Nina Gold, befriend her, and get her to cast Idris Elba as the lead of her new screenplay about a fictional black rights activist. But she keeps having bad days due to fights with estate agents that won’t come down to her negotiations and studio executives that won’t take on her script’s premise.

- J.K. Klarkson (13) - The kid with a sharp tongue. She calls Hunter “Hunter T. Weston the turd” to his face, but he never gets the joke (or so it appears) and keeps correcting her “th” sounds. So she pretends to have bad articulation on “th” sounds whenever he’s around. She’s the one that always gets the crew back up from setbacks, by insulting each one of them. As Hunter will explain, he allows this kind of behaviour from her because he has taught her to do so: actors are like athletes, they need yelling at. For encouragement, whenever they’re being lazy, useless, self-deprecating sacks of shitty potatoes. She can’t stand the long hours and doesn’t get why her mum is forcing her to do this. She is very talented but her life aspiration is to become a police officer and beat the shit out of hippies.

- Cole Jules (32) - The sitcom star with depression. If there is one thing everyone should know about Cole is that it is not his fault that he is just an absolutely desperate case of an actor. He is not to blame. Even he doesn’t know how he got an agent in the first place. How he got cast in numerous sitcoms. Or how he hosted SNL. His agent doesn’t know why he signed him. His parents don’t know. His fantastic girlfriend doesn’t know (yes, fantastic - “NOT IMAGINARY!”, he’ll yell, because he is not imagining her, he is fantasising about the woman he’ll once meet). The reason why he is in the cast is that he saved Alistair’s life: during a busy Saturday night in Soho, Cole was walking his granny to a cab after a restaurant dinner, when a drunk Alistair stumbled into their way and into the road. To save Alistair from an incoming car, Cole jumped to tackle him down thus leaving his granny unguarded, upon whom the car skidded to avoid the two men, killing her instantly. Pervaded by guilt, Alistair has made the rest of the cast sign a top secret clause in their contracts by which they are to pretend that Cole’s acting is spot on at all times. During parties, Cole knows that he is always the mood killer and always ends up acting awkwardly. He is also aware that his acting needs a lot of improvement so he spends a lot of time in casinos to show off his wealth, so to make up for the awareness that his talent will never shine.

- Brent “Diesel” Herwing (21) - The actor from the streets. He is 100% normal. He supports abortion, gay rights, immigration, labour rights and environmental activism. But he is so high on the ADHD spectrum that his goal of becoming a famous rapper has faded behind a constant anxiety produced by the urge to stay up to date with every single interest, issue, information and opportunity the virtual world has to offer. He is too busy and distracted to focus on his goal and too lazy to work as a kitchen porter. So he sells drugs. He always thought of becoming an actor in the back of his mind, inspired by big classic gangster movies, but he didn’t know how to access the industry. Now that he’s made it, he is immensely grateful to Alistair and sees him as the powerful man that will open higher doors for him. So he becomes a professional ass licker.

RECURRING

- Valentine Sanselmi (50) - The producer. Alistair’s older brother and multimillionaire entrepreneur. Owner of a revolutionary mattress chain. Not a big fan of theatre and a bit clueless about the theatre world. Alistair’s career had come to a stall when no offers were coming in and none of his scripts was being optioned. His agent suggested he’d show producers he could make something out of his own writing by starting from the theatre. But with screen experience only, Alistair asked Ramona for help with the playwriting. Then after first showcases with a lesser known cast at the Edinburgh Fringe, the show managed to get a deal with the National Theatre and Valentine was thus seduced to produce it. However, Valentine's consideration of his brother is very low, as he has always been highly indisciplined. The magnate is always scared about his profit not returning because Alistair will surely drunkenly fuck it up as always.

- Freddie Baxter (17) - The box office clerk. He is lying about his age to appear older. Starts a relationship with Becca.

- Devon Kinnings (27) - The understudy. Not always around and only called when needed. He is supposed to replace Hunter in case something happens to him. Therefore Hunter calls him his "kryptonite" and is always extremely wary of him.

- Katiushka Verzvikoya (41) - Hunter’s agent. She acts like Hunter's mum and Hunter treats her like his mum. She is always trying to get Hunter to take on multimillion superhero projects but he wants to do more niche work and keeps rejecting every offer. But Katiushka is an uncontrollable, unscrupulous manipulator who masks her own agenda with a stunning smile printed on her face. So she constantly manages to get him into some rooms for auditions with some sort of bribe, blackmail or pretext and Hunter finds always a way to not get the part and blame it on the casting departments.

- Polly Klarkson (43) - J.K.’s Mum. She acts like J.K.'s agent but J.K. doesn't take any of her shit. She will instead start a shameless tantrum if ordered to do anything.

EXTRAS and APPEARANCES

Random appearances from other people considered in the series' cast but with no particular dialogue are the theatre staff, the rest of the cast (people playing extras in the play such as police officers and nurses), the stage workers, the audience and the press.

The objective with some of these characters would be to increase the relevancy of their roles as the series progresses by giving them more lines. These can come across as quirky, intrusive characters with exaggerated traits aimed for laughs (see Nate in The Office).

PILOT LOGLINE: With a looming deadline to save their show, while Director Alistair goes on a hunt in London to find a fine actor who can portray a road-man, Assistant Director Tess introduces the new shy drama school recruit, Louie, to the rest of the flamboyant cast.

PRESS NIGHT (PILOT) - SYNOPSIS:

Note on format: the format follows the classic mockumetary style utilised in The Office with 2+ camera units so to follow multiple storylines in the same episode.

COLD OPEN

9am. Alistair and Louie wait for Tess to show up at the bar of the National Theatre. As they chat about their favourite shows in London and Louie grows certain that Alistair knows nothing about the current theatre scene, Tess calls her boss saying she won't be there for another 30 minutes as she drove to her sister's house by mistake. Alistair takes Louie for a walk by the Southbank as they wait, and starts asking Louie a lot of personal questions, such as if he does drugs and if he would like some cocaine, and if he likes men or women. Louie is at a loss for words and prefers not to answer. So Alistair gives him a pep talk where he motivates him to not give a damn about what people think, managing to move Louie and change his mind. But, as soon as Louie is about to answer all his questions, a skater boy skates by and mocks Alistair's colourful foulard, at which Alistair shouts back obscenities.

END OF COLD OPEN

With Tess now on the premises, Alistair leaves Louie with her as he jumps on his motorbike and leaves.

With Louie being quite shy and Tess being failingly self-aware, the interactions between the two are all quite awkward. When he asks where the toilet is, she asks if he wants her to walk him there, and, when she is explaining to him how lunch breaks work, she offers to cook him meals daily after feeling ebarrassment for how costly the bars and restaurants are around the area. Louie is astounded by the offer but he quickly rejects it with a red face.

In the meantime, Alistair has driven to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he is introduced to the Artistic Director and brought to a rehearsal room with three Acting students. The students perform a monologue to him with very tight ML and Cockney accents, using road slang. But being from quite posh backgrounds, they all sound ridiculously exaggerated. Alistair leaves the school with a fake smile on his face.

Back at the theatre, Louie is brought to Rehearsal Room 10, where he is introduced to the rest of the cast: Hunter, Ramona, J.K., Cole and Becca. Hunter immediately takes the scene and marches to give a quick speech to the documentary crew's camera, explaining what is going on. He then turns to greet Louie who already knows who Hunter is. Tess gives the cast 1 hour to get to know Louie as she does some paperwork for him, informing them they will do a run of the show soon after.

Alistair travels to another drama school, LAMDA. He auditions what the teachers are calling the "most promising student in the whole school", and he is perfect. After the audition, Alistair has a short interview with the student, who suddenly recognises him as the director of some of the silly comedies he watched on TV as a kid, but does not make any particularly praising comment. Already quite offended by the lack of a compliment, Alistair asks why "on TV" and not "at the theatre". The student says he did not want to pay to watch those films. Alistair leaves the school irritated and without a deal and, as he is leaving, the student can be heard shouting at his teacher "You said if I'd be myself more often I'd be every director's dream!".

The cast asks Louie when he received the script and Louie says the night before, to which they are all quite impressed as Louie claims to know all the lines. When asked how he can do that, he informs them that he is fresh out of drama school. J.K. is not impressed and deems his choice of course of studies childish and irresponsible. Ramona is playing CandyCrush, Cole is fascinated and Becca starts talking about her experience in her 20s receiving an offer from 4 different drama schools. She won't spit, so Louie gives Hunter an inquisitive look and Hunter nods at him. Then he looks at the camera and goes "Yeah, she does that".

Alistair walks around Piccadilly Circus and goes to talk to a crew of street dancers. He asks them to do road accents but he gets nearly beaten and threatened, so he leaves in fear.

Louie walks in on Hunter having a cuppa in the kitchen. Hunter teases him saying he himself didn't need drama school. He was already a talent. Louie gives him no reaction and Hunter suggests they should familiarise with each other as they are going to play brothers. Louie agrees and is up for scheduling a 1 on 1 session where they go through their characters' backstories, but Hunter baffles him by remarking he doesn't need to do that kind of work either, because for him it's all about going into his own character and adapt his acting with scene partners, in the moment, thanks to the “solemn instrument of sheer, simple... lllissssstening". And he leaves the room.

As he travels on his motorbike, Alistair receives a call from his brother Valentine and puts him on speaker mode. Valentine asks for updates with the actor hunt, putting pressure on him. Here we learn that if Alistair does not find an actor by 4pm, Valentine will have to take his money out of the budget, killing the show, as today is press night at 9pm. Alistair calms him down saying he will take care of it, and calls him affectious names. As soon as he hangs up, he starts insulting the shit out of him, but he has just stopped at a traffic light and the man in the car in front of him thinks the cussing is referring to him, so he steps out and goes to confront Alistair aggressively. Freaked out, Alistair drives away.

The cast rehearses the play with Tess reading in for the missing part. But she keeps stealing Louie's lines by mistake and Louie is too polite and insecure to correct her, so he starts making up lines. Hunter begins mocking him for "not remembering his lines", J.K. scolds Hunter for being immature and unprofessional, and Hunter starts mocking her age. Becca, who doesn't like conflict, begins singing musical theatre songs. Cole is upset because the others are wasting time and he needs to go to the toilet but his character is meant to be on stage. Tess screams from the top of her lungs and gets the cast back to order. They restart the run but she keeps stealing Louie's lines. Louie throws a helpless look at the camera.

Alistair checks in at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and auditions three students one after the other. Only one works and Alistair is happy to sign him but through the boy's surname he learns that the boy is related to Alistair's archenemy in the industry. Again, Alistair leaves empty handed.

The cast have finished their various runs of the play and Tess is giving notes to each of them as they sit in a row. Louie would like to listen to what kind of comments she has for the others before she gets to him, but Ramona keeps showing him photos of beautiful houses she has found in Maida Vale. When Tess gets to Louie, she has no notes for him and she praises his work.

Later, as they are waiting for Alistair in the lounge, Hunter goes to compliment himself with Louie but he does it in a way too teasing manner that is almost flirtatious. Louie takes it as a homophobic remark and tells him that he is a jerk and should go fuck himself.

Alistair is at a loss because he has no more appointments scheduled for the day. So he goes shopping in Wood Green's shopping centre. He comes out into the street with branded shopping bags and, down the main road, he can spot a group of street dealers by a chicken shop. He removes his foulard and goes to approach the dealers asking for 5 grams of cocaine. As they prep his order, another guy goes up to the same dealers and asks to pay later. One of them, Diesel, pushes the guy against a wall and tells everyone not to take his deal as he never pays. Alistair's eyes enlighten: he has found him.

Alistair comes back to the theatre with Diesel behind him on the motorbike. He explains to him his generous pay and contract and he tells him to lie to his brother Valentine saying he is a trained actor, in case he is ever asked. He comes to introduce Diesel to the crew and he orders to have runs of the play with Tess feeding Diesel lines from the side. However, they all quickly realise Ramona is nowhere to be seen. So Alistair orders to still do a couple of runs to get Diesel on his feet, and to enact their "plan B section 2d" immediately after.

It is now 9pm and a crowd of journalists is waiting outside the theatre. The cast comes running out escorting a seemingly sick Hunter out of the theatre. He has a swollen face and he is vomiting. They rush him to a car at the back of the theatre and drive him away. Alistair goes to give a statement to the press saying that Hunter was stung by a bee and had to be rushed to the hospital, and that the show is postponed to the following day. One of the journalists argues that Hunter has an understudy. Alistair does not know what to answer and whispers in Tess's hear "You came up with the plan". Tess thinks for a second and then she says the understudy also was stung by a bee. And they both flee.

The day after, they learn Ramona had gone to an unmissable house viewing the evening before, and when Alistair almost loses it she gives him a sassy look that screams "You know what I'll do", immediately sitting him down. After rehearsing the piece the whole day, they perform the play for the press in the evening, with Diesel doing alright having Tess feeding him lines from the side. Louie forgets his lines during the play and Hunter feeds them to him, helping him.

The day after, they read in the papers that the critics are raving about Diesel, and they all stare at him with a grotesque, perplexed look.

END OF PILOT

STANDARD EPISODE STRUCTURE:

Every episode starts with a cold open. Two or three storylines are followed in each episode. The setting is mainly the National Theatre and the surrounding Southbank area filled with cafes, clubs and restaurants by the Thames. Locations relevant to each character are also explored across the series, for example when Alistair throws a house party or when we follow Hunter going to auditions for his agent etc.. The storylines likely intersect at the end of each episode creating a grotesque denouement, but this should not be considered canon, as storylines may simply exist as standalone storylines aimed at character and relationship development. Normally, each episode includes either a matinee or evening performance that the crew performs on stage, but this scenario has no particular place in an episode. It could come at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end.

SEASON 1 EPISODES AND COMEDIC HIGHLIGHTS:

The order of the following should not be taken as canon. They are simply suggestions. Some are brief synopsis, some are quick loglines.

Episode: The Piece is Shit. After a disagreement on film taste, Alistair convinces himself that Ramona intentionally wrote a bad story to sabotage his career. So he bribes a critic for an outstanding review. When this does not work, he gives the crew food poisoning to sabotage the show and have the night performance cancelled, so he can talk with Ramona.

Episode: Subtlety. During a performance, Cole forgets his lines and starts taking his time, acting silently, and walking around pretending to think in character while he tries to remember the lines. When it becomes clear to the audience that he has forgotten his lines, J.K. feeds them to him but not subtly at all. In the backstage, later on, Cole gets mad at J.K. due to her blatancy, and argues that what she did was unprofessional.

Episode: Pierce's Next Top Victim. Tess starts dating an audience member, Pierce, without any clue that he is a serial killer. Through subtle visual clues, the whole cast gets a hint that his next victim will be Becca, so they try to warn the two women. Tess does not believe them and Becca is thrilled to be the chosen one because she is hands down sure he wants to kill her because he fancies her. Becca becomes stalkative with Pierce to the point that the killer becomes annoyed with her harassment and confesses to her that he was going to kill her indeed, but he now hates her, so he has no business being with Tess no more, and he leaves town. Realising she has ruined Tess’s love life, Becca self-inflicts wounds and bruises to make her believe that Pierce assaulted her to kill her, but she fought back and he flee. So she basically saved Tess too.

Episode: Like Christian Bale. Hunter drives Louie so deep into method acting that the two become more brotherly than ever. But when they start having sex they start thinking they're having an incest and their relationship turns unusually awkward. So they seek psychological help. The psychologist suggests they seek other people and so they do, but they keep coming back to each other. Alistair intervenes and works on them to change their characters’ backstories. They work out that they are no longer brothers in the play, but stepbrothers. So it’s all cool and they can now keep shagging. From this point on, their relationship turns into public, mutual insulting and bullying but with passionate love behind closed doors.

Episode: Be Ma's Lil' Girl. Ramona tries to adopt J.K. after the child publicly slams the whole company for bad reviews and her mother disowns her thinking she will get fired from the play.

Episode: The Ultimatum. After a romantic setback, Cole gets a dog for the crew but it’s a Dobermann. The National Theatre forbids him to keep an unauthorised animal on the premises and he threatens suicide. However Alistair opens up to him about his own suicidal tendencies and seeing how Alistair is more miserable than him, Cole stands down.

Episode: Climate Change. Upset that Hunter won’t drive them to a protest, Diesel and J.K. steal his car.

THE 4 MAIN CHARACTERS' DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE SERIES:

Alistair: He becomes more confident and manages to write his first ever play and screenplay thanks to his relationship with Ramona where she teaches him tricks for writing. He develops feelings for her but, when rejected, instead of crying on himself as he used to do with every woman, he is able to go out and find the spouse of his dreams.

Tess: After accidentally setting her own house on fire, she enrols on a firefighter apprenticeship and becomes a local hero after saving a bodybuilder.

Hunter: He learns to be less self-absorbed and more considerate of others thanks to his relationship with Louie. By the end of the series he becomes the new Keanu Reeves of the internet.

Louie: Thanks to Hunter's help, he builds his own film company and he and Hunter start writing really interesting scripts that get them many good deals.

FORMAT SETUP:

The reason why a documentary crew is perpetually following the theatre company is that Valentine and Alistair agreed to hire the crew following a brutal, visceral public fight that ensued between two former cast members, a week before the start of the pilot. Along with the fight going viral came several allegations from Alistair’s former employees against Alistair, deeming him a toxic boss who’d set his cast members up against each other. The National Theatre threatened to shut the stage. So the decision to have perpetual recordings of the backstage, the rehearsals, the shows and the cast’s lives, was to confute all the nasty statements about Alistair.

There are no sit-in interviews with the characters and the characters do not interact with the filming crew and vice-versa as per stated in their contracts. Except for Hunter, of course, despite having an obligation on his contract not to do so as everybody else. However, he never gets fired for it, for two reasons: number 1) he’s too damn good at it. He does it proper Malcolm In The Middle style, eye to the camera, talking to the audience. Number 2) the production can’t afford it.

Some if not most of the characters do throw glances at the camera when something mad, hilarious or unexpected happens, but never make a comment to the camera.

The dialogue style should always maintain the most naturalism as possible to counterbalance the verisimilitude and absurdity of physical events.

The piece the crew is performing is called SINNERS. SINNERS is contracted to run at the National Theatre for 3 months every year, for a period of 4 years, with two months of rehearsals each year starting from the second year. The first 2 seasons of the show will follow year 1 and 2 respectively, while the remaining 2 years will have 2 seasons each.

SINNERS is a tragic piece revolving around a college teacher (played by Becca) having an affair with an underaged student (played by Louie).