OK, Caroline. I'm going now. Bye!
Hi. My name's Ken Korda. I'm a filmmaker.
In autumn 2005, I was approached to make a behind-the-scenes documentary
for a new Channel 4 sitcom.
That sitcom was called Ugh, You're Ginger. It was never commissioned in the end.
But shortly after that fell through,
I got the opportunity to witness the birth of a comedy classic, The IT Crowd
In my film, you'll see a little bit of what went into creating this classic sitcom,
and you'll meet its classic stars, as well as its classic writer and producer.
I hope you enjoy going behind...
The IT Crowd
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
It's a one-way ticket to Slammertown for us, Roy, with no return ticket.
Do some work to do with com-puters.
I've been feeling very gloomy all day.
Are you sure? Are you sure?
Argh-ha-ha-ha!
Argh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Argh!
December, 2005. 3 Mills Studios, East London.
Inside studio five, a publicity photo shoot is taking place for "The IT Crowd",
a new comedy about two dispossessed computer geeks
whose lives are turned hilariously upside down
when a woman enters their nerdy world
The show stars Richard Ayoade as Moss,
Katherine Parkinson as Jen,
and Chris O'Dowd as Roy.
Despite the atmosphere of crazy highjinks, the actors are relieved
that the photo shoot marks the end ofan epic and gruelling production,
a production that employed hundreds of sheets of A4 paper,
a children's clown, specially trained to say "Argh"...
Argh!
..and a visual-effects budget of well over £25.
Here, with the aid of time-lapse photography,
you get an idea of the sheer scale of the production
as the main set comes together before your eyes.
Although, even all sped up, you don't see that much of a change.
But trust me, it was one of the most epic undertakings
in the history of television comedy
For writer-director Graham Linehan,
co-creator of "Black Books" and the wonderful "Father Ted",
It's just another classic feather in his delightful cap.
Soon after the photo shoot last December,
I was lucky enough to talk to him about his extraordinary achievement.
What was the moment you realised, "This is something special"?
- About The IT Crowd? - No, Father Ted
Father Ted
I think when...
Oh, you know, when we wrote the first thing.
Arthur was this... Arthur was a very funny writer and the scripts made us laugh, so...
I loved the tea lady, Mrs McDowell.
Have some tea, Father Ted. Oh, you should have. You should have.
I love it when she says that.
People are always asking her to say, "You should have".
When are we going to see more Father Ted?
Cos I love that show and the priests, they're so funny, these Irish people.
Let's talk about My Hero.
What gave you the idea to put a superhero,
that most people would expect to see in America,
slap bang in the middle of West London, going out with a nurse?
- I didn't actually write My Hero. - Oh. Don't be modest.
- No, I really didn't. - Directed it?
No, no, no. I wasn't involved in any way.
The superhero?
- No. - And he goes out with a nurse.
- Yes, that's right. - The baby's got superpowers.
I know, yes. It's a good show. I've seen it, though.
I could talk about it in the sense of my having seen it.
What gave you the idea...
...for the superhero? He lives in... he lives in London, of all places.
But Linehan isn't the only modest member of "The IT Crowd".
Richard Ayoade,
The actor whose bookish diffidence made him perfect to play Maurice Moss,
is, for me, the absolute king of all geeks.
Yet when I put this to him, he seemed, for some reason, reluctant to accept the mantle.
What is it about geeks that we love so much?
I don't know. What do you like about geeks?
They're so nerdy.
They wear specs and they're nerds.
You must get a lot of people coming up to you and saying, "Hey, you're a geek."
Um...
I don't really have anyone coming up to me.
"Look, you're the geek. Look, everyone, it's that geek from the TV show."
- Do you hate that? You must hate that. - I guess.
Though Richard was keen to chat further about nerds,
it was time to meet his partner in crime, Roy,
played by the wonderfully cheeky Chris O'Dowd,
who, I'm thrilled to discover, is a real Irish person...
I'm just an Irish bastard.
...with a sparky personality and a funny voice, every bit as zany as his character.
- Irish people are very funny, aren't they? - They are.
And they say things like, "Oh, stop it. Oh, get out with you."
"Put that over there. Stop that."
- It must be fun saying all that. - Yeah.
Stop it with you.
Do some.
- Oh, get out of that. - Get out of that.
- You mad thing, you. - Go put that over there.
- Oh. - What are you like?
- Exactly. What are you like? - You big eejit.
- I love that. I love it. - Yeah. They're crazy.
I notice, though, in the series,
that you don't really tackle any of the really very tragic sides of the Irish.
No.
Keen to lighten the mood, I asked Chris whether the atmosphere on set
was as mad and funny as it looked on screen.
Here's the actual moment I asked him the question.
When you were doing the show,
did you and the rest of the cast just laugh and laugh
and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh
and laugh and laugh?
- There was actually a lot of tension. - Yeah.
- Things were often fraught. - Frotting?
- I didn't understand it. - Fraught.
- Yes.
There was a couple of people that were in the show got fired. It wasn't...
Foy-red?
What's it like being mad?
Cos you're mad. The character Roy is mad.
What's that like? Being mad?
He's not mad. I'm not mad. I mean, mad is something else.
Mad is, you know... Harry Potter is mad.
We're just a couple of IT guys trying to struggle our way through life. It's...
But you're mad. You do mad things and they say ma... all these mad things happen
and misunderstandings and...
It's sad. It's not mad. It's not supposed to be like Benny Hill.
What's the maddest thing you've ever done?
- I once raped a pig. - Ripped a pig?
Raped.
Ripped...
Finding it increasingly difficult to understand what O'Dowd is actually saying,
I move on to my next appointment,
with the first lady of "The IT Crowd", Katherine Parkinson,
who plays the part of Jen.
Katherine is, of course, best known for her performance as Pauline Lamb,
the lovable secretary in "Doc Martin"
The Martin Clunes-based seaside doctor drama.
What was it like working on Doc Martin?
That was really good fun, actually. It was down in Cornwall.
And it was a really nice job to have, you know.
I want to ask you about Martin Clunes.
The character he plays in Doc Martin is quite stern.
That's a big change from the lovable galoot we knew and loved in Men Behaving Badly.
Which is the real Martin?
I think a wonderful, potent mixture of the two.
He's one of the most charming, most witty,
most attractive, most generous men I've ever met.
- And so... - He's got big ears.
I love that guy. You know what?
I thought they missed a trick on Doc Martin
by not giving all the characters names that were in some way footwear-related.
Right.
So, for example, your character, she could have been called Penny Pumps.
- She could have been, yeah. - Or Nancy Sandal.
Yeah.
And then it would've been Doc Martin and Nancy Sandal.
Yeah, although it would be repeating the joke, though, wouldn't it, but I see your point.
But, yeah. Then they would all... it would all be like... they were called after shoes.
Yeah, it would be good. It would've been good.
There is one other person who can empathise with Katherine's struggle
to live down a successful TV show
that some people seem incapable of seeing beyond
Ash Atalla was the Egyptian producer genius behind my favourite ever sitcom, "The Office",
and is now a series producer of "The IT Crowd".
Although "Crowd" was also produced by Derrin Schlesinger,
it's Ash I'm keen to talk to, as he's far more famous.
Did you always know it was gonna become this big thing?
- What? The Office? - Yeah.
Um... Uh, no, not at all, no.
- How is anyone supposed to tell? - How would you know? How could you know?
- How could I know? - So how did you know, then?
- So how did I know? Well, I didn't know. - How could you?
- No, well, I can't. - No.
- I mean, only afterwards do you know. - Exactly.
So that's when I knew.
- Let's talk about The IT Crowd now. - Yeah.
- What's Ricky Gervais really like? - Mm. Yeah.
He's... he's... he's not in The IT Crowd
He was in something that I did a couple of years ago.
- In The Office? I love The Office. - Yeah. It is good, isn't it?
He's awful. He's so awful. You think, "Oh, God. He's so embarrassing, saying all that..."
- What's Ricky like? - Forget The Office. Forget that show.
- Hey. - Hey, forget it.
- That's old news. - Look at me. Gone.
- Let's move on. - Let's move on, if we could.
- Sure. - Sure.
Um...
Don't.
I know what you're going to do. You're going to ask a question about The Office.
- No. - No. Good.
- Cos I've made it clear that this isn't... - Have you met Jonathan Ross?
I have met Jonathan Ross, yeah.
When Ricky and Jonathan are together, that must be very funny.
- They're very good friends, aren't they? - Does Ricky dance...
- Jonathan starts dancing and says, "Ricky..." - I'm gonna stop you.
I'm gonna stop you there, because you're wasting my time, all right?
And your own time's probably not that precious, but I'm really busy. Really busy.
Are you going to see Ricky?
Sadly, my time with Ash is at an end
It's a shame, as I could've chatted to him
about my favourite moments from "The Office" for hours.
There is, however, one last question I want to put to Graham Linehan,
seen here saying "Suzanne" on set.
Suzanne.
It concerns the only key cast member I haven't been able to speak to.
Roy!
I'm sorry, Roy. I may be speaking louder at the moment because I'm wearing ear plugs.
Chris Morris, who plays the manic boss ofRenholm Industries,
is the most enigmatic figure in British comedy
He famously can't bear human contact
And lives on top of a mountain in Peru with 28 deadly cats.
Although his contract for "The IT Crowd" forbids anybody
from even mentioning his name, I simply can't resist.
What was it like working with Chris Morris? He must have messed with your mind.
Working with him was very interesting,
and it's very nice of him to agree to be, you know, pushed around by me,
when he's usually the ruler of his own roost, if that's the phrase.
So he was great.
Does he say things like, "I want a leg basket, you eggnog"?
Um, no. Not as much as you might imagine.
"I'm up the hand pipe."
I bet he says things like that.
Yeah, he said that a few times, when he was late, yeah.
- He's a genius. - Yes, he is.
What do you think it's like to be a genius?
I imagine it's very demanding.
I imagine there's a lot to do to keep the image going.
- Would you like to be a genius? - I'd love to be a genius.
- Graham, thank you very much. - Thank you very much.
- It's been really nice to speak to you. - I'm loving Father Ted
I'm sorry. I love it.
- Thank you very much. - I'm loving it.
When are we going to see more Father Ted?