The truth is out and Playback’s audience needs to know this: when they’re writing tv industry spoof Made In Canada, they don’t actually think too much about the Canadian tv industry.

‘We actually think about stories that make sense to us,’ says Mark Farrell, a writer and story editor who is nominated in the best writing in a comedy or variety program or series category for an episode entitled ‘Connect the Dots.’

‘People actually read in and think, ‘Oh, they’re making fun of so-and-so,’ which is good, which we like,’ Farrell continues. ‘But it’s actually about these idiotic people interacting. A lot of things that actually happen [in the real world of television production] are so farfetched, like the hoops you have to go through for funding, that they would make for bad writing, and would be so implausible.’

Instead, Made In Canada has plots like the one in ‘Connect the Dots’ in which prodco honcho Alan (Peter Keleghan) gets hold of a book by one of those omnipresent management gurus, and proceeds to try out its theories on his staff, with ridiculous results. Alan tells producer Richard (Rick Mercer) to put an Asian character onto their Beaver Creek series, so Richard makes the Asian a Kung Fu character…

Farrell, a native Haligonian, began his route to Made In Canada, coproduced by Island Edge Productions and Salter Street Films, with nine years of standup comedy, from 1988-97. Awards shows were his entree to tv writing, including the NHL Awards, the Geminis and the Genies. Eventually, he landed a part in Ken Finkleman’s seminal cbc series The Newsroom. From there, he moved to a role as writer on Salter Street’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes (for which he’s also nominated). Now, he is writer and creative producer on 22 Minutes – that’s his fall and winter day job – while his work on m.i.c. stretches from spring into summer.

Farrell says he never really knew what might come next. ‘Luck has a lot to do with it. When they were looking for writers on 22 Minutes, I was on their radar because of the acting work I did on The Newsroom. I worked with Rick [Mercer] on 22 Minutes and he asked one summer if I’d like to work on a show that would become Made In Canada.’

His current assignments afford plenty of opportunity to write satire, commentary, ‘and a lot of chances to do plain old joke writing. Lots of comedy writers don’t know how to write jokes.’

Up next? ’22 Minutes has a contract for another two seasons with cbc. With Made In Canada, everyone seems to be happy with it, so it should continue on.’ *