REPEAT TO FADE
TV Series - Comedy Drama
Raymond failed to become a rock star 25 years ago. But, having failed even worse at everything else he’s tried since, he’s going to have another go.
SUMMARY
Genre: Comedy Drama TV Series
Role: Writer / Producer / Director
Format: 6 x 30 minutes
Status:
Pilot script available
Writers Room attached subject to finance
Seeking: Production, International Co-Production, Executive Producer / Director (Pilot)
LONG SYNOPSIS
It’s RAYMOND REVERE’s 50th birthday, but he’s celebrating it despised, derided and alone. Raymond has screwed up everything he’s touched in the past 25 years – his marriage, his friendships, his finances, his hips. Ever since he treacherously split his first and only band The Fractals on the eve of their first and only international tour to embark on an ill-advised solo career, he hasn’t enjoyed a day’s luck. Having failed as a singer, he’s subsequently failed even more spectacularly in every other job he’s tried – as an estate agent, a restaurant manager and, most notably, as a husband, father and lover. Many would say he only has himself to blame – but that’s not how he sees it.
Even as he’s preparing to kill himself, he’s determined that he’ll reclaim some posthumous respect from all those fuckers who let him down, rejected him, didn’t take him seriously, or failed to appreciate his singular talents.
But – having redrafted his farewell note many times to capture just the right note of defiance in the face of the monstrous unfairness of his life, toasted his last day on earth with a bottle of the most expensive wine he could pinch from the shop on the corner, and selected the most perfectly ironic vinyl record to be playing on the turntable when his tragic end is discovered – his former band’s biggest non-hit single – he botches his death too.
His estranged daughter ROSE (19) arrives to find her useless father passed out and naked on the floor of his cruddy apartment. Having woken him and failed to extract the college fees he’s repeatedly promised to pay for her, her parting shot is to tell him that her mother (and Raymond’s former wife) VERONIQUE (48) has finally found a more reliable man to marry.
Stung by her words, the chastened Raymond makes a half-assed effort to drum up some money, which he predictably fails to do. But at his moment of deepest humiliation, he is unexpectedly accosted by a hulking young Dutch stranger HENK (25), who turns out, despite his youth, to be The Fractal’s greatest super-fan – and, despite his appearance, surprisingly wealthy.
At Henk’s urging, and with his promised financial backing, Raymond starts to consider the outlandish possibility of reforming his obscure and under-achieving band, despite having not spoken to his former band-mates – stoner drummer MOSSY, lothario bass player GEORGE, and introverted guitar genius PACO – since the day he walked out on them a quarter of a century ago. After all, touring heritage acts are suddenly all the rage, so The Fractals’ brace of modest indie hits might conceivably mean something on the nostalgia circuit.
All Raymond must do is persuade three separate men who hate him to agree to back him onstage once more – and then perhaps he’ll be able to persuade two separate women who have given up on him to give him one more chance.
Can rock’n’roll provide Raymond with one last opportunity to redeem his mistakes, repay his debts, rebuild his bridges and belatedly reclaim happiness, love and – just maybe – the stardom he’s always believed he deserves?
Repeat To Fade is a comedy drama set in the somewhat bizarre world of “Heritage” rock tours, where famous – and often not-so-famous – bands from decades past reform to perform their old music to their now-old fans (and a sprinkling of zealous new converts, like Henk, from the younger generation who never got to see them the first time around). It’s also, more generally, a story about growing old without necessarily growing up. While many of our key characters have reached or passed their 50th birthday, their behaviour is immature and ill-advised, and often disgraceful and delusional.
Our protagonist may be middle-aged, but as with Breaking Bad and The Simpsons, Raymond’s adventures will strongly appeal to younger viewers. (Just as Walter has Jessie, and Homer has Bart and Lisa, our show will also feature engaging representatives of the next generation in the shape of Rose and Henk in central relationships with our lead character.)
In tone, we are pitched somewhere between Barry and Extras, but with some darker moments more reminiscent of Better Call Saul or Baby Reindeer. At heart Raymond and his band are playing to drown out the ominous footsteps of their own fast-approaching mortality. (There will also be a “road movie” aspect to the drama as it unfolds: many of the episodes will find the band in a new location and situation – usually humiliating, professionally disastrous, and personally challenging or downright dangerous for at least one of the members – as they tour from weird gig to weird gig.)
They may be seeking to rekindle their brief dalliance with sex, drugs and rock’n’roll several decades earlier – and each of Raymond’s three former band mates will carry the flag for one of those classic tropes – but now they’re doing so through the filter of erectile dysfunction, memory loss and tinnitus.
While the world of the heritage tour creates a consistent backdrop for our hapless bandmates, and their respective struggles to reclaim some belated solvency, purpose, respect and love from their frittered-away existences, there will be longer story arcs in play too. Characters will join and leave, actions will have far-reaching and permanent consequences and our heroes’ journey will bring them to new places from which they will not be able to return next week.
WHY NOW?
Longevity and the cult of individualism is having all sorts of strange impacts on our society. Nobody wants to grow up – and we’re increasingly told we don’t need to. But even if we personally feel we’re well able to go to Glastonbury, wear lycra and party all night, our bodies, minds and children may have other ideas. There’s a truth and tension between the indignant / fearful desire of children of the sixties and seventies to be allowed stay young and relevant – we invented punk, for fuck’s sake – and the urgent hunger of younger generations for these old farts to get off the stage and make room for the new, as nature has always intended. Nostalgia has never been bigger business. There is indeed a thriving festival circuit for “heritage” bands where 50- and 60-somethings can relive the music of their youths in comfortable, well-toileted indoor venues. The young of today aren’t immune to the appeal of yesterday’s music either and not just for the sounds – a recent statistic suggests that up to 40% of vinyl sales are made to hipsters who yearn for the retro image of being a record-collector but don’t actually own a record player. This is a world we haven’t seen portrayed before – but it’s high time we did, and I believe it would appeal to both the young mockers and older self-identifiers.
WHY IRELAND?
We’re famous for music – home to some of the longest-surviving musical acts in the world, including U2 and Van Morrison, and a rich seam of new young stars across an array of genres (Hozier, Fontaines DC, Lankum, CMAT). We’ve also got one of the youngest populations in Europe, meaning that the generation clash is pretty evenly matched. I believe that we can create great TV shows in Ireland that can resonate with a global audience and have thought hard about the kinds of shows we can aspire to make that might appeal beyond our shores. Repeat To Fade is a show grounded in Ireland, but with themes and a setting that will be resonant to international viewers – not least because of our own disproportionate global reputation as a centre of rock’n’roll excellence. And with a potential European tour in the offing, and an eager young superfan from overseas in the driving seat, Repeat To Fade also has great international co-production potential.
WHY ME?
I love this story and really know this world. I’ve spent half my life in bands and come tantalizingly close to pop stardom (with my own first band The Fat Lady Sings). While there have been various televisual attempts to portray this world, I’ve yet to see one that captures the dysfunctional four- (or three- or five-) way marriage that is at its heart, and the weirdly bi-polar lifestyle it is forces partners to embrace. Pursuing a form of success that is both irresistibly alluring and objectively a vanishingly tiny prospect requires a suspension of disbelief that only the most deluded or arrogant can manage, which makes this an inherently rich territory for comedy – and perhaps tragedy (something that I’ve previously explored in my feature film The Drummer and The Keeper). I know how hard it is to give up that dream once you’ve had a sniff of success – to quote the band James, “if I’d never seen the riches, I could live with being poor”.
Nick began writing and directing award-winning short films in 2003. His third short Shoe was Oscar-shortlisted at the 2011 Academy Awards.
His debut feature The Drummer And The Keeper premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh 2017, where it won Best Irish First Feature and went on to win 18 awards in on the international film circuit.
In 2019 Nick set up The Story Works, an innovative independent TV writers room with the aim of generating new television drama out of Ireland with global potential. He was selected for the Screenskills LA Writers Room Placements in November 2019.
Bedsitterland, a new feature film written and to be directed by Nick was selected for the Berlinale Co-Production Market in February 2020 and is currently in development. Another new feature project written by Nick, The Sea Lion, reached the Quarter-Finals of the Page Awards 2023. Welcome To Hell, an epic period crime drama developed by Nick and Carl Austin has been recently optioned by RedTed Media.
In June 2022 Nick initiated The Song Cycle, a novel project to raise awareness around sustainability in live music, for which he travelled to the Glastonbury Festival with all his gear by bicycle, playing concerts along the way and filming his journey. Nick’s resulting feature documentary premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh 2024 where it won Best Independent Film, and subsequently won Audience Choice at Dublin’s IFI Documentary Film Festival 2024.
In addition to his work in film, Nick is a multi-award-winning musical artist (both as frontman with The Fat Lady Sings in the 1990s, and latterly as an independent solo artist) and a Clio-winning advertising creative and commercials director.
Since his days as front man with Something Happens – one of the wave of Irish bands that dominated Irish music around the heady days of Italia ’90 and still comes out of retirement for Christmas and special occasions – Tom has taken the advice to “move sideways” in the business very seriously. He has variously…
Presented award winning radio shows both on Talk (Newstalk) and Music radio (TodayFM) stations…
Interviewed pretty much everyone, from Brian Wilson to Paul McCartney, Nick Cave to Willie Nelson, Kylie to Al Pacino, William Shatner to Beyoncé, and beyond…
Compiled multi-platinum-selling CDs of Irish music (Tom Dunne’s 30 Best Irish Hits)…
Presented on TV (Planet Rock Profiles, Pop Scene), narrated documentaries, and is the voice of The Zoo now in its tenth season…
Curated the phenomenal return of the 1990s Féile Festivals to Semple Stadium in 2018…
Is a regular columnist for The Sunday Times and Irish Examiner…
And, most recently, launched a one man stage show (Abandoned Happenette) and developed a hugely successful touring show with Fiachna O’Braonain from Hot House Flowers with whom he is also developing a soon to launch music podcast called The Magic Bus.
Hannah is a writer, director and performer based in Dublin.
She has written four award-winning comedy/theatre shows. Stars (2023) won her the Best Performer Award at the most recent Dublin Fringe. Symphony of Worms (2019) also premiered at Fringe and won the Spirit of Wit Award. The Egg is a Lonely Hunter (2017) which was nominated for three awards and went on to tour Ireland and Edinburgh and Speak Softly Go Far, an audio piece commissioned by The Abbey Theatre and Dublin Fringe for the 2021 festival.
Hannah’s work has appeared on BBC1, BBC3, BBCR4, RTE2 and RTE Radio One. She has developed projects in writers rooms for Element Pictures and Green Pavilion.
Her first short film Baby Steps premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh 2023 where it won the Best New Short Drama Award and Hannah was nominated for the Bingham Ray New Talent Award. Hannah went on to win the Taking Flight: Rising Talent Award at Kerry International Film Festival and the Audience Award at Dublin International Film Festival. There she was also nominated for the Aer Lingus Discovery Award. Most recently she won Best Comedy at Fastnet Film Festival and the Prix Très Chic Pour Le Film Le Plus Extraordinaire at Vienna Shorts.
This year she has co-written Good Boy a sitcom for RTE which is currently in production, and her pilot script Spinning is being developed by Keeper Pictures.
Madeleine is an award-winning fiction writer based in Cork City.
Her first collection of short fiction, Waiting for the Bullet (Doire Press, 2014), was awarded the Edge Hill Readers’ Choice Prize 2015 (UK).
Her second collection, Liberty Terrace (Doire Press, 2022) won a FAPA President’s Award (Bronze) 2022 (US) and was Cork’s One City, One Book 2023.
Her other awards include the Hennessy Literary Award for First Fiction and the overall Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writer.
She has recently completed her novel Feeling Savage, set in Cork and London during the years 1979 to 1985. Fictional characters featured in this work include members of two punk bands: The Dirty Pups and Gog’s Evil Design.
Madeleine co-edited Cork Stories (Doire Press, 2024) with Laura McKenna, including contributions by such notable writers as Kevin Barry, Danielle McLaughlin, Mary Morrissy, William Wall, Jamie O’Connell, Danny Denton and Tadhg Coakley
Residencies include the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Heinrich Böll Cottage and the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris. Madeleine received a scholarship to complete an MA in Creative Writing (UCC, 1st). Her fiction has been translated into French, German, Serbian and Turkish. She has been awarded a number of bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland and Cork City Council.
She has also written and directed a short film, Dog Pound, featuring the late Frank Kelly
Boo is an English musical artist and record producer, described by the BBC as “one of Britain’s most consistently accomplished songwriters”.
Having originally come to prominence as lead singer and creative force behind Cambridge band The Bible in the 1980s, Boo has subsequently received acclaim both as a solo artist in his own right, and as a songwriter and producer for a variety of successful artists, including most notably Eddi Reader, with whom he has enjoyed a long association and for whom he wrote her biggest hit, the Ivor Novello-winning Patience of Angels.
He has produced for The Corrs, Heidi Talbot and Laurie Freelove, and co-wrote and produced Chris Difford’s 2008 album The Last Temptation of Chris.
His songs have been recorded by artists as varied as k.d. lang, Paul Young, Melanie C, Marti Pellow, David McAlmont, Brian Kennedy, Kris Drever, Sarah Jane Morris, Alex Parks and Natalie Imbruglia.
His compositions have been used in many film and TV productions, He was invited by Nick Hornby to write music for the soundtrack of the film adaptation of his noivel Fever Pitch. With Neill MacColl he wrote music for the soundtrack of Shane Meadows’ Twenty Four Seven and David Evans’ television film Our Boy. He had a track included in the soundtrack of Christine Lahti’s My First Mister, and his song Different God was used in the film Intermission. Boo’s song Bell, Book and Candle has been used in several television dramas, including an award-winning death scene in Emmerdale.
Famous for his wry onstage banter, Boo has in recent years bravely dipped his toes into the treacherous waters of stand-up comedy.