A COMEDY writer and producer who co-wrote The Royle Family, The Mrs Merton Show, The Parole Officer, and Coogan's Run will perform in Worcester.

Henry Normal also produced Gavin and Stacey, The Mighty Boosh, Oscar nominated Philomena, Moone Boy, Uncle and Alan Partridge.

He has worked in the television industry for 30 years.

"I wrote The Royle Family, The Mrs Merton Show, and Coogan's Run then set up Baby Cow productions. We have produced 450 TV programmes."

Mr Normal, from Nottinghamshire, who now lives in Brighton will give a workshop for those hoping to make it in TV.

He said: "I will be taking them through a list of 20 common problems and mistakes The first mistake is that they don't decide which channel they are writing for. The channels have very different personalities. Make sure your work fits which audience you are talking to and what they want, and how the channels present that. When I ask someone which channel they are writing for and they say 'I don't know,' you get something that falls in between one thing and another, that doesn't work for either. For example BBC Three is very different to BBC One."

He said inspiration comes from "all over life."

"With The Royle family we just wrote down things our parents said. My show will be generally about family too, they provide endless inspiration."

He said: "My favourite project was working on the film Snow Cake, which my wife wrote. Sigourney Weaver plays an autistic woman, and as we have an autistic son it was something very important to us. I was one of the producers."

Henry said working on BBC Three's The Mighty Boosh was exciting.

"I saw Noel (Fielding) and Julian (Barratt) performing and heard the radio show. People said you couldn't put that on TV, it's too bizarre. But it was all about the relationship between the two people, it reminded me of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the 'Road to' films. It's essentially about the central relationship between two characters with distinct personalities... an optimist and a pessimist, against an imagined backdrop, which is mainly from Noel's imagination."

He said the industry has changed over the years but still requires tenacity.

"It is more open than it used to be. If something is of sufficient quality it will be made but it can take a few years. We wrote the first episode of The Royle Family in one day, the second episode took a week, but then it took two years to be made."

Henry will also perform a comedy show of poems, jokes and stories he has collated over his life.

The stand up show, Henry Normal- Raining Upwards is Wednesday, May 16 at the Hive at 7 - 8.30pm. Tickets are still available and are £10 per person or £5 for concessions.

Book tickets at thehiveworcester.org/events.html

The day time work shop is sold out.