Joking apart, the maverick Eurosceptic, who pulled out of the race to succeed premier David Cameron to clear the way for May, made several points underlining Britain's commitment to be a strong partner in Europe.
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He released an autobiography in October 2011, called Joking Apart: My Autobiography.
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Joking Apart Theater is a small theater company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The name of the company is taken from the title of the play, Joking Apart by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. While Joking Apart has performed several of Ayckbourne's plays, the company is not solely dedicated to producing his works; rather it is dedicated to capturing the comic spirit of Ayckborn.Hicks, Dylan; "Aycking To Be: Edwin Strout strives to give a comic hero his proper due" ; City Pages; Vol.
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Moffat reused the surname 'Taylor', which is Mark's surname in Joking Apart, for Jack Davenport's character Steve in Coupling.
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Bennett's first major television role was in Coronation Street between 1982 and 1984 as Sharon Gaskell, the Faircloughs' foster daughter. She returned to the role in 1999. She played dim-witted blonde Tracy Glazebrook in the pilot of Steven Moffat's sitcom Joking Apart (1991),"'Joking Apart' Pilot Listing", jokingapart.co.uk, accessed 4 April 2012 a role which she reprised for the subsequent two full-length series in 1993 and 1995.
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However Mercer stayed with Joking Apart and rode another finely judged race. He delivered his filly at the distance (just as the previous year on Highclere) and leading up the Rowley Mile hill was run out of it in the final 100 yards by the winner Nocturnal Spree, finally finishing third. On such a tough course Joking Apart probably did not stay the full 8 furlongs and she was confidently expected to return to her 2yo winning form in Royal Ascot's Jersey Stakes.
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In 1991, he won his first major television role playing Mark Taylor in the semi-autobiographical BBC sitcom Joking Apart, written by Steven Moffat. Although only thirteen episodes were made (between 1991 and 1995), the role remains Bathurst's favourite of his whole career. After Joking Apart concluded, he was cast as pompous management consultant David Marsden in the ITV comedy drama Cold Feet, which ran for five series from 1998 to 2003 and again for four further series from 2016 to 2020.
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Moffat, Steven, Joking Apart Series 1 Episode 3, DVD audio commentaryMoffat, Steven, Joking Apart Series 2, Episode 3 DVD audio commentary Trevor (Paul Mark Elliott) is Becky's lover. His job as an estate agent regularly provokes derision from Mark. (Moffat's ex-wife was an estate agent.) He is himself cheated on in the second series, as Becky dates her solicitor Michael (Tony Gardner). His debut appearance is in the third episode where he and Becky go to Robert and Tracy's house for dinner, but generally features less regularly than the main ensemble.
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DVD Times reports that "Joking Apart looks much sharper than the average television show on DVD. The colours are also much richer and have obviously been fixed throughout to present a more uniform image while the picture is bright and clear." The featurette on the series 1 set is labelled "a great little feature", with Moffat particularly praised for his contribution. DVD Times identifies "a real sense of friendship and of a real liking for this show" within the commentaries, highlighting that Moffat "sounds really happy ... for Joking Apart to have finally gotten some recognition".
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Robert Bathurst (r) recording the DVD audio commentary for Joking Apart with co-star Fiona Gillies (c) and writer Steven Moffat (l). Joking Apart was Bathurst's first major television role, and ran for two series from 1993 to 1995. The filmography of English actor Robert Bathurst comprises both film and television roles spanning almost 30 years. Bathurst made his acting debut for television in 1982 in the never-broadcast pilot episode for the BBC sitcom Blackadder, though his character Prince Henry was recast when the Black Adder series was commissioned.
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While working on Up Yer News, Bathurst auditioned for a one-off television comedy called Joking Apart. Earlier in the day, he noticed a fellow Up Yer News performer reading the script to prepare for his own audition. As Bathurst went into the audition room, his colleague was leaving and told Bathurst he would "break his legs" if he got the part, a threat that seemed not to be "entirely jocular". Bathurst got the part and the pilot of Joking Apart was broadcast as an installment of the BBC 2 Comic Asides strand.
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Spiers particularly used tracking shots, sometimes requiring more dialogue to be written to accommodate the length of the shot. The other directors would come in and "do a Spiers".Steven Moffat & Julia Sawalha, Press Gang: Series 2 DVD audio commentary Spiers then directed all twelve episodes of Moffat's sitcom Joking Apart (1993, 1995).Gallagher, William.
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Fiona Gillies (born 19 June 1966) is a British actress who has appeared on television and the stage. She first appeared in the 1988 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles as Beryl Stapleton. A year later she appeared in the mini- series Mother Love. Her first major television role was perhaps Steven Moffat's sitcom Joking Apart, where she played Becky.
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Bathurst speaks very highly of Joking Apart, identifying it as a "career highlight" and the most enjoyable job he has ever done. Retrospectively, he wishes that he had "roughened up" Mark, as he was "too designery". Becky Johnson/Taylor (Fiona Gillies) meets Mark at a funeral and they eventually marry. Although irritated at being his comic foil, she is capable of her own quick-witted put-downs.
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He arrived at a meeting with them in a New York hotel unaware of what they looked like.Bob Spiers and Stacey Adair, Joking Apart, Series 2 Episode 2, DVD audio commentary, replaydvd.co.uk He also directed two episodes of the Australian ABC series The Adventures of Lano and Woodley. He died in December 2008 in Widecombe, Devon at a family home after a long illness.
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In the commentary and the interview on the DVD, Bathurst says that he was told that they would be re-shot after filming everything else, an idea abandoned because of the expense. He has an idea of re-filming the sequences 'now', as his older self, to give them a more retrospective feeling.Bathurst, Robert; Steven Moffat. (2008). Joking Apart DVD commentary for Series 2, Episode 4. [DVD].
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Chalk is a British television sitcom set in a comprehensive school named Galfast High. Two series, both written by Steven Moffat, were broadcast on BBC1 in 1997. Like Moffat's earlier sitcom Joking Apart, Chalk was produced by Andre Ptaszynski for Pola Jones. The series focuses upon deputy headteacher Eric Slatt (David Bamber), permanently stressed over the chaos he creates both by himself and some of his eccentric staff.
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The producer contributed to the DVD audio commentary for the second series. Moffat’s proposal of a school sitcom was resurrected for Ptaszynski’s next television project after the second series of Joking Apart was broadcast. Two series of Chalk were transmitted on BBC One in 1997. The producer contributed to the documentary about the show, After the Chalk Dust Settled, included on the DVD release of the first series.
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Ptaszynski, Andre; Moffat, Steven, Joking Apart, Series 2, Episode 1 DVD audio commentary As he was separating from his wife, Moffat was going through a difficult period and aspects of it coloured his creative output. He introduced a proxy of his wife's new partner into the Press Gang episode "The Big Finish?", the character Brian Magboy (Simon Schatzberger). Moffat scripted unfortunate situations for the Magboy character, such as having a typewriter drop on his foot.
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They spend the evening trying to keep Mark and Trevor apart, each not knowing that the other is also there. Episode five makes extensive use of what Moffat labels "techno-farce", which uses technology, predominantly telephones, to facilitate the farcical situations.Moffat, Steven, Joking Apart Series 1, Episode 5, DVD audio commentary Moffat considers this episode the best of the show. Discussing the series as a whole, he feels that the story ends after this episode.
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Mary Frances Dowdall began her writing career with contributions to periodicals, including Time & Tide. These stoked five books of amusing non-fiction on the difficulties of housekeeping, marriage and social relations, published by Duckworth: The Book of Martha (1913, with a frontispiece by Augustus John), Joking Apart... (1914, self-illustrated), The Second Book of Martha, etc. (1923), Manners & Tone of Good Society (1926) and Questionable Antics (1927).British Library catalogue Retrieved 21 April 2018.
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"Joking Apart", Inlay booklet, Series 2 DVD, ReplayDVD. The show won the Bronze Rose of Montreux and was entered for the Emmys. His association with comedians Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders from directing their sketch show led to him working on individual projects from each of them during the 1990s. With French he worked on the macabre comedy anthology series Murder Most Horrid, with some episodes written by Moffat (such as "Overkill").
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"'Joking Apart' Episode Six Listing, 11th February 1993" jokingapart.co.uk, accessed 4 April 2012 She played Shirley's rebellious daughter Millandra in the film version of Shirley Valentine (1989).James, Caryn. "Review. 'Shirley Valentine'" The New York Times, 30 August 1989 In the 1980s she appeared in several theatre productions at the Library Theatre in Manchester, including Blood Brothers, Breezeblock Park (both by Willy Russell) and the UK premiere of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along.
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Moffat says that the character's name was inspired by his wife's: "Magboy: Maggie's boy". During the pitch meeting at the Groucho Club, Ptaszynski realised that Moffat was talking passionately about his impending divorce and suggested that he write about that instead of his initial proposal, a school sitcom. Taking Ptaszynski's advice, Moffat's new idea was about "a sitcom writer whose wife leaves him".Fool if You Think It's Over, featurette, Joking Apart, Series 1 DVD, Dir.
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The exclusive block of flats in Chelsea, London that were used as the exterior of Mark's flat The pilot, directed by John Kilby, was filmed at Pebble Mill in Birmingham on 9–10 August 1990.Gallagher, William. "Joking Apart", Inlay booklet, Series 2 DVD, ReplayDVD. It is practically identical to the first episode of the series proper; some scenes are even reused, notably the scene with Mark and Becky meeting when he accidentally turns up at a funeral.
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Moffat had written all six episodes of the first series before recording commenced. Never again would he be so far in advance of production. With series two, he had written only the first four episodes by the time recording had commenced,Moffat, Steven, Joking Apart, Series 1, Episode 4 DVD audio commentary only delivering the final episode by the first day of rehearsals. All of the location shots were filmed at the beginning of the production block.
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In the fantasy sequences for the pilot, Bathurst was filmed against a completely black backdrop, which Moffat describes as "hell to look at". For the series, the sequences were filmed in a real club. Moffat describes this as the "wrong direction" as it became unclear that the fantasy sequences were "not real". Moffat observes that, like Seinfeld, an American sitcom that used a similar device, Joking Apart would use less of the stand-up as the series progressed.
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Nesbitt got an audition through a mutual friend of pilot director Declan Lowney, and read the part in his natural accent because he was keen to play a Northern Irish character in a contemporary drama unconnected to The Troubles.Smith, p. 27. Baxendale was best known for her role in Cardiac Arrest and was hesitant to star as Rachel because she did not believe she could perform comedy. Bathurst was known to Langan for his starring role in Joking Apart.
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She has appeared in numerous TV shows. In Only Fools and Horses in the 1980s she played June Snell, a former girlfriend of Del Boy. She also appeared in The Rag Trade as Kathy Roberts, EastEnders as Cindy Beale's mother Bev Williams, in Heartbeat as Ruby Rowan, Nick Berry's character's mother, and as a prostitute in an episode of Joking Apart. Her other notable TV appearances have included Alas Smith and Jones, Bergerac, Minder, Carry On Laughing and The Bill.
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Writer Steven Moffat, and actors Fiona Gillies and Robert Bathurst recording the DVD audio commentary for the first series in January 2006 Joking Apart is a BBC Television sitcom. The show was produced by Andre Ptaszynski for the independent production company Pola Jones and screened on BBC Two. All twelve episodes from the two series were written by Steven Moffat and directed by Bob Spiers. The pilot was transmitted as part of its Comic Asides series of pilot shows on 12 July 1991.
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As an actor, Fellowes began his acting career at the Royal Theatre, Northampton. He has appeared in several West End productions, including Samuel Taylor's A Touch of Spring, Alan Ayckbourn's Joking Apart and a revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter. He appeared at the National Theatre in The Futurists, written by Dusty Hughes. As a writer, he penned the script to the West End musical Mary Poppins, produced by Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, which opened on Broadway in December 2006.
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Joking Apart is a BBC television sitcom written by Steven Moffat about the rise and fall of a relationship. It juxtaposes a couple, Mark (Robert Bathurst) and Becky (Fiona Gillies), who fall in love and marry, before getting separated and finally divorced. The twelve episodes, broadcast between 1993 and 1995, were directed by Bob Spiers and produced by Andre Ptaszynski for independent production company Pola Jones. The show is semi- autobiographical; it was inspired by the then-recent separation of Moffat and his first wife.
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Many of the first six episodes of Joking Apart were constructed non-sequentially, with scenes from the beginning of the relationship juxtaposed with those from the end. Moffat describes this non-linear technique as a "romantic comedy, but a romantic comedy backwards because it ends with the couple unhappy". Moffat had experimented with non-linear narrative in Press Gang, notably the episode "Monday-Tuesday". Various episodes of Coupling played with structure, such as the fourth series episode "9½ Minutes" which showed the same events from three perspectives.
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Craddock, though, had a written a song based upon a W.B. Yeats poem called "Before the World", which Morrison said he would like to record. "Before the World Was Made" was adapted by Morrison with music by Craddock, and appeared on the 1993 album Too Long in Exile. In the nineties, he provided, with Colin Gibson, the incidental music to Steven Moffat's sitcom Joking Apart. Craddock himself performed the show's theme song, a cover version of Chris Rea's "Fool (If You Think It's Over)".
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Thomas Anders remade "Fool (If You Think It's Over)" for his 1989 album release Different, said version being the third produced by Gus Dudgeon. The song has also been recorded by Dave (as "Le palmier du pauvre" French, 1978), Kirka (as "Luulitko kaiken menneen" Finnish, 1979), Greger (fi) (as "Luulitko kaiken menneen" Finnish \- album Greger, 1980) and Paul Nicholas (album Just Good Friends, 1986). The song served as the theme to the 1990s British sitcom Joking Apart. Kenny Craddock arranged and performed this version.
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Moffat threatened that if they ever did a second series he would write a whole episode in which Bathurst was naked.Moffat, Steven; Bathurst, Robert, Joking Apart, Series 2 Episode 4, DVD audio commentary After being mistaken for a flasher, Mark is punched by his neighbour's brother. When he awakens he is confronted by a man (Kerry Shale) in a red polo neck jumper who claims to be "his very best friend". In the fifth episode it transpires that the man, who identifies himself as Dick, is the personification of Mark's penis.
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It contains audio commentaries on all episodes: five featuring a mix of Moffat, Bathurst, Gillies, Bennett, Raffield and Ptaszynski, with episode two featuring Spiers, and production manager Stacey Adair that concentrates on the behind-the-scenes production. The pilot from Comic Asides is also included on Disc 2, along with a complete set of Series Two scripts in Portable Document Format (PDF) and a PDF article entitled "Joking Apart In The Studio". The release includes a companion booklet. Replay DVD was commended in reviews for the quality of the disc.
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A major new production of Richard III, Alan Ayckbourn's Joking Apart and a revival of The Ashes along with Kenneth Alan Taylor's 30th pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk completed the year. In 2014, 2015 and 2016 the Nottingham Playhouse and Headlong Theatre production of 1984 played at the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End to positive reviews. In Autumn 2015' it toured to Australia and the USA. In 2016' it was announced that the award-winning Nottingham Playhouse production of The Kite Runner would transfer to the West End from December 2016 to March 2017.
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Paul Mark Elliott is a British actor who has appeared in several television comedies and dramas. He is sometimes credited as Mark Elliott, or with the hyphen in his first name as Paul-Mark Elliot. He had several small parts in shows during the 1980s, including in Blake's 7, The Comic Strip Presents (The Yob), Sister Said (with Daniel Peacock) and Blackadder Goes Forth. After appearing in the 1991 episode of Press Gang “Holding On”, he went on to play estate agent Trevor, Becky's (Fiona Gillies) lover, in two seasons of Steven Moffat’s Joking Apart.
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More than half of the episodes were directed by Bob Spiers, a noted British comedy director who had previously worked on Fawlty Towers amongst many other programmes. He would work again with Moffat on his sitcom Joking Apart and Murder Most Horrid, and with Sawalha on Absolutely Fabulous. According to Moffat, Spiers was the "principal director" taking an interest in the other episodes and setting the visual style of the show. Spiers particularly used tracking shots, sometimes requiring more dialogue to be written to accommodate the length of the shot.
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Atkinson-Wood was a regular presenter of Central Television's controversial O.T.T. and had a small role in the 1984 Young Ones episode "Nasty". She is known for her role as Mrs Miggins in Blackadder the Third (co-written by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis). She was the only regular female cast member on the radio comedy programme Radio Active, where she played Anna Daptor and other roles, and participated in the televisual equivalent of Radio Active, KYTV. She also appeared in the final episode of Joking Apart as a morning television presenter.
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Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Bathurst appeared in episodes of The Lenny Henry Show, Who Dares Wins, The District Nurse, Red Dwarf, and Chelmsford 123, before starring alongside his Cambridge Footlights colleague Stephen Fry in the short-run series Anything More Would Be Greedy. He also appeared in the films Whoops Apocalypse (1986) and Just Ask for Diamond (1988). Into the 1990s, Bathurst gained wider recognition from television audiences, first as writer Mark Taylor in Joking Apart from 1991 to 1995, then as David Marsden in Cold Feet from 1997 to 2003 and again from 2016.Sturges, Fiona (30 November 2001).
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In the DVD commentary for this episode, writer Steven Moffat reveals that up until a very late stage, the nanogenes in this story were called "nanites". However, script editor Helen Raynor decided this name sounded too much like similar nanotechnological devices in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Moffat had first used the line "Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh" in the second series of his 1990s sitcom Joking Apart. He reused it here as he thought it was a good line, but laments that people quote lines from this episode instead of that one.
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Young has made appearances in films such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, as an assistant to Elliott Carver, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in which she played the Grey Lady, one of the Hogwarts ghosts, and Johnny English, in which she played Pegasus' secretary. Young also has a non-speaking part in the 2010 re-make Clash of the Titans, playing Greek Goddess Hera. She appeared as Alison in a second series episode of Joking Apart. She was also a regular in Series 3 of The Demon Headmaster in 1998, playing Professor Rowe.
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Craig Robins Speaking about the autobiographical elements of the show, the writer jokes that he has to remember that his wife didn't leave him for an estate agent; his wife was an estate agent.Moffat, Steven, Joking Apart, Series 2, Episode 6 DVD audio commentary In 2003, Moffat told The New York Times that his "ex-wife wasn't terribly pleased about her failed marriage being presented as a sitcom on BBC2 on Monday nights". In an interview with Richard Herring, Moffat says that "the sit-com actually lasted slightly longer than my marriage". Conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based on his relationship with his second wife, TV producer Sue Vertue.
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In 1984, Craddock and Gibson founded Invisible Studios specialising in film and television soundtracks, often for director Bob Spiers. In the 1990s, they provided the incidental music to "It's a Small World" with Alexei Sayle and the series Upline by Howard Schuman, and Small World by David Lodge (screenplay by Schuman), The Love Child (with Sheila Hancock, Peter Capaldi, Alexi Sayle), Wild Flowers, Funny Business (1992 physical comedy with Rowan Atkinson), "Didn't You Kill My Brother?" (an episode of Comic Strip Presents 1988), and Steven Moffat's sitcom Joking Apart. They also worked on the comedy film Kevin of the North (2001; also known as Chilly Dogs), featuring Leslie Nielsen.
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Rose Bowl began her three-year-old season at Newmarket in the seven furlong Nell Gwyn Stakes, a trial race for the 1000 Guineas. Ridden by Lester Piggott, she started the 7/4 favourite and won impressively by three lengths from Posy with Cry of Truth unplaced. On 1 May, over the Rowley Mile course at Newmarket, Rose Bowl again started 7/4 favourite, but finished fourth behind Nocturnal Spree, Girl Friend and Joking Apart. Piggott had been unable to obtain a clear run on the favourite, who was boxed in on the rail and Rose Bowl appeared to have been an unlucky loser.
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She was then moved abruptly up in class for the Group One 1000 Guineas over the Rowley Mile course at Newmarket. Racing outside Ireland for the only time, she started at odds of 14/1 in a field of sixteen fillies, with Rose Bowl being made the 7/4 favourite. The start of the race was delayed for half an hour after a protest by striking stable staff. Ridden by Johnny Roe, Nocturnal Spree caught the French-trained filly Girl Friend in the last strides to win by a short head, with the Queen's filly Joking Apart in third and Rose Bowl an apparently unlucky fourth.
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Smith (2003), p. 115 Langan had seen him in Joking Apart and some other sitcom pilots and was attracted to his "disciplined comic energy".Smith (2003), p. 63 Hermione Norris first read for Rachel but Lowney asked her to read for Karen because her social class matched that of the character, and she had a good rapport with Bathurst.Smith (2003), p. 64 Other actors appearing are Mark Andrews as Howard, Mark Crowshaw as the waiter, John Griffin as Andrew, David Harewood as the Police Sergeant, Kathryn Hunt as Pru, Pauline Jefferson as the Old Lady, Jeremy Turner-Welch as the Neighbour, and Lewis Hancock as the Evangelist.
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The final episode begins after Becky and Michael had slept together while house sitting for Tracy and Robert, and Michael hides in the bathroom when the latter couple return. Tracy phones a morning television phone-in show (hosted by Michael Thomas and Helen Atkinson-Wood, with appearances by Rachael Fielding and Jonathan Barlow), and when she realises that the show's divorce expert is hiding in her bathroom she takes on his role (with a heavy Northern accent, actually a slightly exaggerated version of Bennett's own voice) to give herself advice on the other line. Bennett says this was the hardest thing she has had to do in her career.Tracie Bennett, Joking Apart, Series 2, Episode 6 DVD audio commentary.
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Steven Moffat, Joking Apart, Series 2 DVD audio commentary, Replay DVD The Chula ships are named after Chula, an Indian/Bangladeshi fusion restaurant in Hammersmith, London where the writers celebrated and discussed their briefs on the scripts they were to write for the season after being commissioned by Russell T Davies."The Doctor Dances", DVD audio commentary"Waking The Dead" featurette on Doctor Who Series 1 DVD, 2Entertain The climactic scene of the episode at the alien crash site was filmed on Barry Island, Wales. Several scenes of this story were filmed at the Vale of Glamorgan Railway sites at Plymouth Road on Barry Island. Anachronistically, Jamie's voice is recorded on tape.
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The first three episodes were released on VHS in the United Kingdom on 7 September 1998 by BBC Video (now 2entertain). During a DVD audio commentary for Coupling, Moffat claims that "no-one bought it", including him.Steven Moffat & Jack Davenport, Coupling, "The Freckle, the Key, and the Couple who Weren't", Series 3 DVD audio commentary The complete first series was released on Region 2 PAL DVD by ReplayDVD, the independent label that had released Joking Apart, on 15 December 2008. The disc contains audio commentaries on all six episodes; Nicola Walker, Martin Ball, Geraldine Fitzgerald and John Grillo commentate over four of the episodes, with David Bamber and Amanda Boxer contributing to the remaining two.
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The second act has a longer scene, running into the night of the second day. This was modelled on the idea of "a thriller that starts in sunlight in a garden, and slowly the darkness comes in as the sun sets."Quote from Ayckbourn to Yorkshire Evening Post, 31 May 2002 , held on official Ayckbourn site This play was written specifically for the round,Production details on Ayckbourn site unlike Haunting Julia that was written for the proscenium but sometimes staged in the round for various practical reasons. The original 2002 production shared its set with a revival on Ayckbourn's 1978 play Joking Apart, also set in a garden, so there are some similarities between the sets of the two plays.
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"I think it simply boils down to Michael not wanting to spend that much money that late," was how one "insider" described the decision to The Sunday Times newspaper. He also delayed the transmission of the second series of the sitcom Joking Apart; this has been seen as ruining the momentum that the series needed to become established. Jackson's next move came somewhat unexpectedly in the summer of 1996, when the Director-General of the BBC, John Birt, unveiled a series of major — and controversial — changes to the structure of the corporation. The administration of the BBC was to be split into two main divisions; BBC Broadcast, responsible for the commissioning of programmes and the running of the channels, and BBC Production, responsible for producing in-house programme content.
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But he also was placed in both the Richmond Stakes and Champagne Stakes. 1975 started slowly for Mercer and at the end of April he had ridden only 5 winners, 3 of them for Peter Cundell plus a victory in the Earl of Sefton Stakes for Herbert Jones on Jimsun. Hern's stable was running plenty of horses (including Baronet (Craven Stakes), Harmonise (Free Handicap), Light Duty (Nell Gwyn Stakes) and School Bell (Princess Elizabeth Stakes) all ridden by Mercer) but not winning any and even Boldboy was only second in his opening race of the season. Mercer did not ride Hern's contender for the Fred Darling Stakes (Garden Party) and instead rode the Queen's filly Joking Apart for Ian Balding into 4th place. Bill Curling reports in his book ‘All the Queen's Horses’ that Irish trainer Stuart Murless (a great fan of Mercer's skills) was seeking Joe to ride his filly Nocturnal Spree in the season's first classic the 1000 Guineas.
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Moffat has integrated many references to secondary characters and locations in Press Gang in his later work. His 1997 sitcom Chalk refers to a neighbouring school as Norbridge High, run by Mr Sullivan, and to the characters Dr Clipstone ("UneXpected"), Malcolm Bullivant ("Something Terrible") and David Jefford ("Monday- Tuesday"/"There are Crocodiles"), a pupil who Mr Slatt (David Bamber) reprimands for masturbating. The name "Talwinning" appears as the name of streets in "A Quarter to Midnight" and Joking Apart, and as the surname of the protagonist in "Dying Live", an episode of Murder Most Horrid written by Moffat, as well as the name of a librarian in his Doctor Who prose short story, "Continuity Errors", which was published in the 1996 Virgin Books anthology Decalog 3: Consequences. The name "Inspector Hibbert", from "The Last Word", is given to the character played by Nick Stringer in "Elvis, Jesus and Jack", Moffat's final Murder Most Horrid contribution.
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