Creation

It Always Comes As A Surprise is the brainchild of Daniel Hill and Hugo Jackson, who have been carefully moulding its creation and growth since before it was even a blank Word document.

Previous to this, Daniel had written and partially-filmed a romantic tragedy called Stand By Me, in which a group of friends find their lives turned upside-down by a sequence of unhappy events which ultimately lead to the death of two of the characters. Filming was never completed, but even during its production, Dan had his mind set on his next project, this time to be an uplifting comedy.

Hugo, who had been playing the lead character in Stand By Me, being a writer and a long-time friend of Daniel, was asked if he would help collaborate on a story and script for their next project. With ideas already forming in their heads, they set upon working out the story.

It was in the last few months of 2005 that the details of the characters and storyline were finalised in a four-page treatment and numerous other pages of notes detailing characters’ habits, subjects and general personality traits. With these to hand, Daniel would read through the treatment scene by scene while Hugo sat at the computer and fleshed out the details, stage directions and dialogue. In this way, they were able to work through awkward lines and dodgy story elements to refine the script into what they (and the few people who were allowed to read it after its completion) thought was a sharp, original piece of work.

That was the easy bit done.