My Day with English Breakfast

Television. I suspect most of the readers of my blog don't watch all that much TV, but you probably did at some point or another in your life. The average American spends 5.11 hours/week watching TV. An American youth will spend 1200 hours a year watching TV, and 900 hours a year in school. I'm no different than that average American. At some point, watching all this TV, the viewer in most of us thinks, “Gee, I wish I could be on TV.” I've certainly thought that myself.

I've always wanted to be on TV. I wouldn't call it a goal or ambition, just a desire. Well, in a couple weeks, that lifelong wish will become a reality. I will be on Thai television, and unless I tell them to, no one I know will happen to be watching, but that's okay.  I know.  I'm going to be on TV.  Just  yesterday, I got to perform in a small role on a Thai educational TV program called English Breakfast.

“EB” is unique on the airwaves here in it's combination of bilingual content with an inherent irreverence and an almost cartoony sense of humor. I really admire my friend who writes the show, and was very impressed with the energy of the actors, the professionalism of the crew and the spontaneous nature of the whole production.


From my own experience, I think people appreciate video that has an off-the-cuff, spontaneous, unpredictable charm with just enough production value. You can't force that kind of perfect blend of a 'real' network show with the feeling that you're watching someone's goofy home video. EB does that very well.

How did I get this gig? Well, the writer/director of the show happens to be someone I've befriended since I've arrived here in Bangkok. He needed someone to play the role of the ukulele-playing Dad of one of the main characters of the show. This guy gets drafted into being a high school English teacher. Yeah, that role was a stretch for me.