Tomorrow we shoot

Ketchup the Sitcom

Well, after many months of prep, sweat and tears… tomorrow is the day. We start filming the pilot of my sitcom, Ketchup, based on my More Ketchup than Salsa memoirs.

It’s been a long time coming, with many false starts over the past 20 years, but this time it’s for real. Although Kevin McNally is already here working on blocking shots and how he wants to shoot it as the director, later today we pick up Sandra Dickinson, Ty Tennant and Lauren Patel amongst other amazing actors.

Wednesday is our first scene - Ty and Lauren, as Joe and Joy, waking up in Bolton on the morning they move to Tenerife. It’ll be fun filming this with 11 crew members watching the pair play fight in bed - hopefully it’ll be funny to watch on screen, too.

The rest of the week we’re filming in the pretend Smugglers Tavern, the bar that Joy and I actually ran for seven years, and where all the original calamities occurred. There are some great scenes - some from the book, and some invented for the sake of comedy and pushing the story ahead in 30-minute episodes.

Although I’ve been authoring and travel writing for over 22 years, all of this sitcom writing is pretty new for me and involves a whole host of new writing rules, structure and discipline, but it’s a fun learning curve, aided and abetted by my script supervisor, the legendary Sam Snape.

Follow the journey here, and on my Ketchup the Sitcom Facebook or Instagram page for behind-the-scenes pics, videos and insights. It’s going to be a blast!