The Creative Mind of Peter G Butler

After performing my few stand up gigs last year, someone thought it'd be a good idea to give me  a 45 minute slot at the Norwich Fringe (2011). It was about December in 2010 my Granddad had just died and I had decided to cancel all my gigs over Christmas. I said yes to the slot and started thinking about what I could do. I didn't feel (as a solo act) I could come up with anything entertaining, so I thought it'd be a great idea to bring our podcast to life with it's first live show.

I rang up Renton and told him about it, he seemed reluctant at first. This could possibly have just been another crazy idea of mine that he would back me up on but probably would never happen.( like it has done before).He said yes and that was that " Leave me alone now! it's Christmas".

I started writing like mad in February, trying to come up with lots of sketch ideas.. I wrote about 30 sketches and sent them to Renton, who took forever to read them. Then he'd send them back and by then i'd have written another 5 or 6. it was like up until the end of April, we were just re editing all the sketches we liked and cut the shit ones.

Before we even wrote the script i knew i wanted a theme tune, a cool sexy tune that had elements of a James Bong opener. so I asked our sound man Andrew ( aka Fat Benjamin) if he wouldn't mind coming up with something cool. he did! it was great and that inspired me to write the dance sequence in with the accidental bond like shooting at the end. Although we all know James Bond wouldn't accidentally shoot someone.

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Well the day finally came to see my television debut as an extra in 'The It Crowd'.. On friday the 2nd of July 2010 at 10pm.

I seemed to pop up around 18 times and am on screen for a good 35 - 40 seconds collectively .. now you may think I was hogging all the good spots and that people missed out because of it.. well that couldn't be further from the truth.. I was placed there.. so please don't hate me..

Here's some sexual screen shots from ' The Final Countdown'

Click HERE to watch the whole episode on 4od

In 2008 I was trying to think of a project which would focus on my writing and performing, so decided to create a sketch based podcast called 'Comedy Poop Podcast'.  

We started Producing the podcast at the beginning of 2009, myself (Peter G Butler) my girlfriend (Lucy Burgess) and my best mate from uni (Peter Renton). together we would write and record various sketches.

We had later gained the support of webmaster Glen Mcnamee a man who runs Obscure Internet. He posted links to our podcasts and has helped raise our profile

Later in 2009 I started to record local comedians that are on the circuit, and post their work through the podcast, I often ask around for budding writers and sketch groups to submit some work. with 3000+ subscribers, the Comedy Poop Podcast is slowly becoming a good platform for writers and comedians to expose their work.

At the beginning of 2010 I got interviewed by fellow podcaster John Burns from Purple Comedy Podcast, he had taken a shine to our podcast and wanted to help us out with some exposure. Since then our Podcast numbers have shot up even more.

we've been featured on Podomatic so many time and have remained in the top 100 comedy podcasts for the last 3 months, regardless to the fact we've not posted any podcasts to this date.

Click Here to Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes

Click Here to join the Facebook Group

Click Here to Follow Comedy Poop Podcast on Twitter

 Stalker - Written by Peter Renton & Peter G Butler  - A song about a stalker who stalks people 

 And Now A Message From Adolf Hitler - Written by Peter G Butler & Peter Renton

Boned - Written By Peter Renton & Peter G Butler

Dom Joly Advert

 Peter G Butler Interview on Purple Comedy Podcast

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A few people have asked me "How did you manage to get on the It Crowd?"... The answer to that is through Twitter. In a tweet posted by The IT Crowd Support they asked for fans  to send in some photographs of themselves all geeked up.

So I took some photos on my phone and sent them in, about 10 days later i got an email from Talkback Thames telling me that I was successful and had won a place as an extra.

So on the March 11th (Day - 1) all us awesome extras had to meet outside a dis-used multistory carpark in Ealing,London

For anyone passing, the sight of 30 geeks hanging around on a corner in Ealing  must have been an exciting turn of events, have the geeks risen to power? are they now "IN"? or are they filming for a  remake of 'The Warriors'?... No! it's even better than all of those things, we were going to be on television.

So being the loner that I am, I arrived at the location... Alone, I got there and found some other geeky looking people there already, after 20 minutes of staring at people and then looking away when they noticed me,  they accepted me into their geeky bosom and we all started to mingle. to be honest alot of them were way more geeky than me, they'd be talking about stuff that flew over my head, so I started to act.. the slight nodding of the head and " oh yeah!...yeah!..yes! ahah" made me fit in enough to be mistaken as someone who knew stuff :P 

I don't know when, but suddenly we were being marched off to  the extras trailer/bus, where we met Chris Jones, who was the guy that had offered us the extra parts.  We were probably sat on the bus for an hour, the costume designer/director was making her way down the bus to see what people were wearing. when she got to me she said I looked a bit cool.

So she kitted me out with a nice yellow jumper, which complimented my man boobs really well.

The time to leave the bus had come, after a lot of walkie talkie action we found ourselves walking into an old dis-used multi story car park, I couldn't see well through my glasses, but as I walked in I could see a very blurry Richard Ayoade (Moss) waiting in the distance, wandering around and dragging his foot.

We were led to these little areas which were separated by metal fence, they were like the boxes that horses stand in before a race, only these held about 10 people in each one. we were joined by some agency actors ( hot looking woman) who as far as I know were there to play hot looking women, a very challenging role.

Once Graham Linehan made himself present, things started to kick off, our first job as extras was to run across the car park cheering, which explained why we were separated into these little groups, each group would run just as soon as the previous group has left their coop. this gave them a longer lasting shot of people running, rather than having us all run at the same time.. well that's what i figured.

After many takes we were done, and the production crew set up another shot, in this one Richard Ayoade had some Dialog.. I wont go into detail but they're having a wordy battle.

So as luck would have it I was  visible in this shot, as were two agency girls next to me, so the actors did their bit, there were a few mistakes made and we had to re shoot quite alot, thats when the agency girls next to me started bitching about the conditions, they'd wander off and run back to the front when Graham called action.

One of the girls even changed her trousers between shots, she came back wearing green adidas joggers!! which confirmed my belief that she was a moron! anyway, they got moved to the back of the crowd and us geeks were brought forward more, most people were happy that the girls had gone to the back, i mean they didn't even know what the IT crowd was, all they cared about was getting their pretty selves on tv.. Justice had been served.

  As we continued to film, we were told at various points to react to what was being said, as I was more than likely in shot, I felt i should deliver some top class facial expressions, which I did, i feel i caught the attention of Richard Ayaode..I  definitely made eye contact a few times. i tried not to make eye contact too much as i didn't want to get moved for distracting the actor.

While we were filming another shot  i heard a very familiar laugh belonging to Chris O'Dowd echo through the car park, OMG! IT'S CHRIS O'DOWD!! time to impress him with my facial expressions!

After the shot with Chris we all got a 20 minute break. which is when something wonderful happened. I had gone to the toilet trailer and on my way out the loo who should i open the door for? Only Graham Linehan, who thanks me and asked me how i was.   I'm fine Graham, totally loving being here, this is such a great experience! he then spoke about how he liked twitter and by this time he was having a slash... and i thought as much as i would love to stay and chat... the guys about to have a piss, and as I'm not one of these people that piss and talk i felt i should thank him for this opportunity and go... so that's what I did.

Got back to the car park and hung around with other geeks until the next shot, Chris and Richard were chilling out too.

I wasn't in the next shot, so wandered off and watched the others, i mean i couldn't be in all the shots. i was chuffed that i got in the last one.

we wrapped up about 19:30 and all headed off. wow! what a day

March 12th ( Day 2)

Got to Ealing at 7:00am, Armed with a coffee and muffin I hunted down the Club Karma, which was the days filming location. As i was so early i was the first one there, soon people started to come and they let us in. the next hour was spent chatting and waiting for things to happen. Many people shared their stories of the Agency girls, apparently the girls that got moved to the back the day before, started sulking and moaning even more, saying that this show is shit and that they wont bother coming back for the next days shoot. 

Chris arrived with the Costumes and we all got changed... a lot of the morning was spent standing around on the dance floor while they filmed in the upstairs bar, every now and then a Runner would come down and scan all the geeks for extras to put in the shot, they picked someone and then changed their mind and replaced him with someone else, then they replaced him with me, and as i was on my way up to the shot a bloke looked at me and said, NO! Graham wants one with glasses, so they both walked off and got someone else, which was a bit annoying as i did have glasses, they were hanging over the top of my jumper, I decided to keep my glasses on from then on.

About 11:00am we got a call for all the male geeks to go up into the bar, we each got positioned in the bar with one of the agency girls and we had to mime a conversation (Backround Acting) they gave me some bling to wear and a glass of Ribena to hold.. it all went well.. again i was lucky enough to be in shot. after the shot was done the girl i was working with laughed at me and told me that i wasn't supposed to drink the ribena. she had said not to drink the drink earlier, but me being an idiot said " It's ok! it's not really alcohol!" and i continued to drink it.. i wonder if you'll see that on tv.

Spent more time in the top bar until lunch time, when i went and got a sandwich with Darren Wall, an extra who had hit gold and was given a line. he plays the Bar keep that takes the order from Moss and Roy. i also nipped into hmv (all geeked up) did turn a couple of heads.. it was fun

After lunch we got cracking on another shot, it had something to do with Moss and Roy's entrance to the club, it's an establishing shot from roy and moss's point of view. I was placed on there stairs with another agency girl, and basically we had to just walk up the stairs and past the camera. everyone had something to do and like others our cue to walk up was when the waiter walks past us, and his cue was coming from someone else. it took a few takes.

Then they went off and filmed  in another room, so we all just hung around, a lot of the younger extras started falling asleep on the sofas, the older ones were trying to get a 3g signal. I just wandered around chatting to people. To be honest it got a bit boring waiting around quietly.

After about 3 coffees and countless conversations about the agency girls not knowing what twitter is, we was called up for another shoot in the bar.   We were shooting Moss's entrance, they spread us all around the bar and gave us all an agency girl.

i had to share mine with another chubby guy also called Pete, it was obvious she didn't want to be seen on tv acting as if she fancied us, two larger men.  We could tell by that horrid/pissed off look on her face. so we ignored her :P and quoted Monty Python.

After they had got the shot they wanted with moss they did some random filming around the bar for ambiance, so Pete and I ordered some drinks, and we did include our little agency girl in the improvised acting.. it went well :) 

That was the last shot, after that Graham thank'd everyone and even posed for photo's with some extras.

I was more focused on signing the release form and getting my money. but while i was in that line which took ages.. Richard Ayaode and Chris O'Dowd started signing things and posing for photos with the extras, it was a tough call.. but i decided to stay in the line for the release form, it was going so slow that if i had gone and met the actors i would have had to re join the line and wait even longer.

After i signed the release form my new best friend Micha from Germany got a photo of me and the actors.. they were just about to leave, but we got them to pose for a group photo :)  which was awesome. they left after the photo was taken.. and as they walked away i don't know why i did it but i yelled " KEEP IT FOOLISH!" 

So i took my 90 quid and left, Those were two of the best days of my life.

As far as i'm aware the new series of the IT Crowd starts mid may and the episode i'm hopefully in and not on the cutting room floor is called

'The Final Countdown'