Georgia Pritchett's messy life

Scriptwriting is the perfect job for a shy person, says British writer Georgia Pritchett whose credits include the hit comedy Veep and the HBO smash Succession.

For years, Pritchett endured crippling anxiety as the only woman in the TV writer's room. So she did what she does best - started writing about it. 

The result is a memoir in vignettes - My Mess Is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety.

The book's title comes from a comment Pritchett heard herself making to her GP.

“One thing life keeps teaching me is that life is a better joke-writer than I will ever be, and indeed a better drama writer, it comes up with things I would never think of.

"It's amazing how often, when you write for shows like the Thick of It, or Veep or Succession, you write something that you think is outrageous and fantastical. And then it happens, and that can be quite sobering.”

Pritchett calls her anxiety ‘The Dark Overlord Beaver’.

“In my mind, that sort of gnawing feeling you get in your stomach, I thought, felt a bit like I imagined it would feel if a Dark Overlord Beaver were chewing on your intestines and doing Dark Overlord poos probably, that's the type of thing they do.

“And also, my younger son is big Godzilla fan. And there's very little I don't know about Godzilla and his nemesis and nemeses.

“There are times when it feels like some kind of inner Godzilla has destroyed your inner Tokyo and just flattened it, and you can't think how you will ever recover.”

Scriptwriting is a great job for a shy, anxious person, she says.

"You get to be at home in your pyjamas a lot of the time. And you can you literally put words in other people's mouths and hide, hide behind the characters and peep out between the lines you write and express yourself by stealth.

“So that's a great a great way to deal with any kind of anxiety or social inadequacy - it’s a good, anonymous job to have.”

Pritchett managed to keep her anxiety well-hidden at work.

“We all play roles, don't we? Whether it's in our family or our friendships, and I think as a comedy writer, it was easy to think, it's my job to be happy. And so you present a kind of cheerful, jokey persona, and don't ever let on if you're not really feeling it.

“I think people who I've known for decades, I've probably never said anything personal to. And so suddenly, it's all out there in this book.

“A few people have expressed their surprise to me. And, you know, that's one of the reasons I wrote it.”

As a screenwriter, Pritchett says she's known to have a knack for giving truly repellent characters some humanity.  

On Succession, she especially enjoyed writing about Roman Roy and Gerri Kellman’s "romantic" relationship.

“Roman ... he is such an evil pixie, isn't he? But he's also kind of tragic, he is so damaged, he is not capable of having a what you might say a normal kind of intimate relationship.

“He's only capable of something very strange and dysfunctional and that's kind of a tragedy and I think is interesting for people to see someone who seemingly has it all, actually has this huge kind of hole in his life, and in his character, that is making his life difficult.”

When the original writing team for Succession was formed, they soon realised they needed some help with the details of how the mega-rich live, Pritchett says. 

“We got all sorts of things wrong because we had no idea what it was like to be rich, and so they had to get rich consultants in, to come and tell us what it was like to be rich.

“It was fascinating, actually. They were saying, you've got these characters wearing coats, well, billionaires don't have coats - they go from their car, to their jet to their building, and their shoes never touch ground, it's always on a carpet of some sort.”

Pritchett's background in comedy writing gave her an an advantage.

“I think our sort of comedy sensibility paid off in that you really have to make every word count in comedy. And I think we've taken that into this drama and the dialogue.”

One of her favourite scenes to write in Veep was when Selena Meyer finally becomes president and her loyal bag man Gary has an unusual reaction.

“I describe in the book how being British and middle-class, which is essentially just code for emotionally repressed, I'm very bad at talking about my feelings or expressing my feelings.

“So in moments of high emotion, whether that's sadness or happiness, I tend to have nosebleeds - one of my more attractive qualities.”

This inspired Gary’s own nosebleed reaction, Pritchett says.

“When we were writing this scene where Selena finally becomes president, and she's got that wonderful bag man called Gary who's utterly devoted and besotted with her.

“We were trying to think how she'll be happy to be president, but he will be even happier. And how can we express that? And we tried him laughing, we tried him crying, and it seemed obvious to me. So, I said, ‘Well, he should have a nosebleed’. And everyone looked at me a bit oddly. And I thought it was completely normal. But we tried it. And it worked really well. Because I think probably Gary and I are similarly emotionally unevolved.

“It just made complete sense that he was unable to express his feelings so his body took over and did something weird.”

Writing lines for Michelle Obama was another career highlight.

“I was working on Veep. And this was back in those happy days when Obama was president.

“The President has something every year called the Correspondents Dinner, all kind of journalists and important people in Washington meet for this big dinner.

“And the only person who is not invited is the vice president, which is for security reasons.”

Pritchett was asked to write a skit for the occasion.

“They had an idea to surprise Obama with a sketch, which involved the real vice president, which was then Joe Biden, and the fictional vice president, which was Julia Louis Dreyfus from Veep, sort of having a slightly Ferris Bueller's Day Off adventure together while everyone’s back was turned in Washington.

“So we had to go to the White House and film for a few days. We spent time with Joe Biden and Michelle Obama and Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner.

“And it was an absolutely extraordinary experience and Michelle Obama's just a total hero of mine.”

“Writing lines for her to say was such a thrill and she had such good comic timing, willing to do anything and yeah, it was it was like a dream, really.”

Pritchett confesses she did purloin a souvenir during filming.

“We went to Joe Biden's vice president's residence and yes I must admit I stole a few things from his house - like cups and serviettes that said 'Vice President's Residence'. I mean, you couldn't not , really.”

One of the few good things to come out of the pandemic is that everyone is in the same situation, she says.

My Mess Is a Bit of a Life was written amidst a kind of lockdown madness.

"At the same time, people who were struggling with anxiety or depression or feeling isolated knew that they weren't alone, and that other people were going through exactly the same thing.

“I hope that that's made everyone more compassionate and feel empathy with anyone going through a struggle, because we've all had a really difficult time.

“I just keep thinking how well we've all done really considering it just seemed to come out of the blue, and change everything forever.”