Presenting a massive exclusive content thing, courtesy of Catherine Bray from 4Talent, who interviewed Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong (writers of Peep Show and some of the various sketches in TMAWL/TMAWS in case you didn’t know) for a 4Talent project, read my blog and asked me if I wanted to put it on the blog. And I did. So here it is. And it’s very very great. And long. And…
Peep Show is widely agreed by critics to be one of the highest quality programmes of recent years. It has attracted industry awards, and outspoken praise from Ricky Gervais. Yet the audiences are staying away, with ratings for all four series languishing below 1.5 million. Is it time for TV commissioners with an eye on their budgets to throw in the towel and commission wall-to-wall reality cookery programmes? We asked a couple of unbiased cultural commentators: Peep Show creators and writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain.
(Oh, and we also asked what you really want to know: what happens in series five, are Mark and Jez based on David and Rob, and which bits of Peep Show are based on real incidents?)
I’ve just asked Peep Show co-creator and writer Jesse Armstrong for inspirational tips for would-be writers, and his advice would also make an effective tag-line for his show, with its constant depiction of thwarted dreams and humiliation. Perhaps the programme’s other writer and co-creator, Sam Bain, has some more upbeat advice on what makes a good writer? He ponders. “Unemployablity is a great asset for aspiring writers. I’m completely unemployable.” It seems the show’s relentlessly sardonic world-view isn’t a mere front.
If you’re not familiar with the programme – shame on you – it’s really no exaggeration to suggest Peep Show is one of the finest British sitcoms ever to air. The pitch, content-wise, is simple: we follow the everyday life of twenty-something flatmates and “very ordinary weirdoes” Mark and Jeremy, an odd couple as worthy of iconic odd couple status as Laurel and Hardy, Lemon and Matthau, Bert and Ernie, or – dare I say it? – PC and Mac.
Just as those inexplicably controversial Mac ads would later do, Sam and Jesse made use of certain natural characteristics in comic duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb when creating Mark and Jez. “We knew David and Rob’s relationship would be a good thing to play with. We tapped into a version of their characters; we were familiar with their comic tone, so it was always written with them in mind,” Jesse explains.
Style-wise, the show is slightly less conventional than its odd couple set-up, at least for television. Peep Show takes a favourite old trick of horror movies, the point-of-view camera perspective, and deliciously mixes it with that classic film noir staple, the voice-over.
The result is a gleefully subjective view of Mark and Jez’ lives. Anyone who’s ever seen Lady In The Lake or Dark Passage, a pair of noir films from 1947, where most of the film consists of a voiceover from the lead character playing over scenes shot primarily from his POV, with characters talking directly to camera when they address him, will be on familiar ground.
But forget all that for a minute. Peep Show would be worth barely a footnote on curiously shot early 21st century TV comedies if this technical trickery was all there was to it. The real reason Peep Show works is simply that it’s very, very funny, through the magic combination of being both well-written and well-performed by its cast, from the leads to secondary characters like fan-favourite Super Hans, a role, Sam says, where “we were lucky enough in Matt King to cast someone who made the character at least 20% better than he was on the page.”
With satisfying long-term plot arcs (series producer Phil Clarke is a big fan of Buffy, a series famed for its acutely planned series arcs) building to delicious conclusions, razor-sharp scripts with more punchlines in five minutes than some sitcoms manage in half an hour, and a cast who prove that virtuoso acting performances are possible in comedy, Peep Show has it made. Woody Allen-esque lines like “I suppose doing things you hate is just the price you pay to avoid loneliness” are almost throw-away, where in other series they would be the punchline we’d been waiting ten minutes for. And yet Peep Show was almost axed by Channel 4. Why?
The problem certainly isn’t bad reviews. The adventures of Mark (passive, insecure, yearning) and Jeremy (extroverted, selfish, optimistic) as written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain and performed by peerless comic duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb, have always attracted the exuberant plaudits of critics. The Guardian lauds it as “the best British comedy show of the decade”, The Times calls it “bleakly hilarious and brilliantly observed”, and The Mirror agrees, weighing in with the best come-on of the lot, describing it as “like the missing link between Hancock’s Half Hour and Seinfeld, while still being utterly unique.”
Perhaps even more important is the praise of fellow comedians, with Ricky Gervais famously ranting at the idiocy of comedy awards judges who had completely overlooked Peep Show. Awards duly followed, with gongs from the TV Comedy Awards in 2006 and 2007 and a couple of nods from Bafta. Despite all this, the show has struggled to pick up viewers, with the second episode of the reasonably highly publicized fourth series seeing a relatively low 1.4 million tune in, proving that, sadly, there’s perhaps sometimes a reason broadcasters end up believing they have to pander to the lowest common denominator to attract numbers.
When I manage to pin Sam and Jesse down for an hour’s chat, I’m lucky enough to catch them in the process of writing the fifth series, which in an unusual leap of faith was commissioned from independent production outfit Objective TV by before the fourth series had aired. “We’re lucky that the channel stuck with the show, despite the below par ratings. We’ve been very favourably treated,” Sam admits. “Luckily comedy’s pretty popular despite the vast expense involved in making it and the low ratings it attracts compared to formatted reality TV show, or cookery shows.”
“They must see something in it beyond ratings. Awards, perhaps…” Jesse suggests wryly. Or perhaps it’s a cunning long-game designed to keep the two stars of the show amenable to Channel 4 projects? A spokesman admitted as much when series four was commissioned: “It is such a good show and we didn’t want to get into a situation where we couldn’t get Robert and David when we wanted them. People who love it, love it, and rightly so, but for the next two series we will be hoping for it to do in ratings terms what it has always done in terms of its sheer quality.”
FIFTH TIME THE CHARM
So anticipate a rash of publicity come spring, when the next series prepares to air. But what to expect from the show itself as it enters its fifth season? Jesse tells us, “We’ll begin filming in February. Mark and Sophie won’t be married, that’s gone tits up, so this will be the dating series. They’re technically married, but this season is the boys playing the field, in their incompetent way. They’re a bit less young, but free and single. We’ll see Mark as a man about town.”
I ask Sam to fill in some more details: “Without giving away too much, we’ll see Mark stood up on a date, and hear his thoughts throughout that process – you know, ’she’s not late yet’, ‘ok, now she is late’, ‘and now she’s really late’ and so on, and that’s based on a real event. We’ve got a couple of things coming up based on real events, including a burglary where I apprehended a potential robber.”
And for those few who can be bothered to question sitcom economics – how could the cast of Friends afford those fabulous flats when they were never at work? Why wasn’t Bernard Black’s shop bankrupt long ago? – there’s some satisfying realism on the horizon: “For Jez, some chickens come home to roost.” Jesse tells us, “I think we’ve always known Jez gets some help financially from home. That might run out this series. We’ll meet Jeremy’s mum this series.”
Regular viewers will be pleased to see Jeremy getting his share of the action. Inevitably, given that it climaxed with his wedding, Mark felt like slightly more the emotional focus of series four. Sam says “If you’ve got a wedding coming up, you can’t help but focus slightly on that. Series four was an unusual series in that respect.” Jeremy largely provided comic relief, in the form of shagging Sophie’s mum, wanking off a famous musician, pimping out his girlfriend, pooing in a swimming pool, eating a dog he kills, and pissing himself in a church. Will the fifth series continue in a similarly shocking vein, I ask Jesse?
“People always remember the dog.” He sounds ever so slightly regretful. “Whether the last series was more shocking I’m not sure. Earlier, we’ve had terminal disease, and at one point in season one of course Mark urinates in a co-worker’s drawer. The people who have always been fans remember that.”
It’s not every writer that can cite pissing in a filing cabinet as evidence of their show’s consistency, but Peep Show is known for being dark and occasionally outrageous, although it’s frequently the banal everyday comedy that really sets it apart. As Sam puts it, “It would be a huge mistake to do the Costa Del Sol trip, or have them win the lottery. Series four did have a lot of burning barns and canal trips, but five will be a bit more in the flat or pub. We’ll also bit doing a bit more in the office, exploring the relationship fall-out for Sophie and Mark.”
He also points out, “It’s always a fight to get the banal moments in, because you do have to have things happen. In a first draft of the pilot, pretty much Jez’ whole plot was making some food and searching hopefully for porn. So I’m happy to have more exciting things happen.” Jesse adds, “Having them win an inheritance and go abroad on some sort of road trip sounds great but would probably be crap as an actual episode. It’s a balancing act. If the whole show was the small stuff it would get wearing.”
Speaking of balancing acts, how do Sam and Jesse divide their workload and make sure they don’t get on each other’s nerves? And where do you begin the intimidating task of writing a whole new series? “For the first five or so weeks, we just talk about storyline ideas,” Jesse explains, “and we make a huge document of ideas that would be funny, like if Mark became friends with a racist.”
“We plan the whole arc in advance,” says Sam. “There’s always that fear of a dip in quality. It’s a special show for us – it’s reached five series, which is unusual in British sit-com.” It’s true that British comedy, from Fawlty Towers (in which, coincidentally, Sam Bain’s grandmother featured as one of two permanently resident little old ladies), to The Office has been slightly obsessed with the concept of quitting while you’re ahead, instead of taking the more difficult route of attempting to maintain a consistent quality over many series.
Perhaps part of the key to this achievement is the healthy collaborative attitude of all involved, together with the ability to work on side projects as and when. “Sam’s written a novel, I do In The Thick Of It. It’s a happy collaboration. We’re natural collaborators. It works for us and we’re very happy,” says Jesse, sounding only fleetingly like a half of a Hollywood power couple telling OK! about their marriage. So how did the pair meet, Sam? “I met Jesse in a writing class.” So far, so sensible… “I’d gone along because my ex-girlfriend had said her new boyfriend was going to be there, so I spent the entire first lesson looking around trying to figure out who it could be,” he continues.
“I got it narrowed down to two guys, Jesse and this other bloke, and in the end it turned out it was this other bloke, which probably doesn’t make quite such a good story. But essentially, I spent the first hour or so in Jesse’s company picturing him in bed with my ex and fuming.” It’s a tale so clearly worthy of Mark that it feels appropriate to finally ask the question that surely follows them everywhere: is one of the pair more Mark and the other more Jez?
Jesse suggests that on at least one “research trip” – to a hippy dance class in Brixton – it was he who reacted as they went on to have Mark react: “I’ve walked into my own personal nightmare. Must remain non-uptight for Sophie. Even if they make me play trust exercises with their genitals,” while “Sam was more comfortable with the dance class, he’s a bit of a hippy. Going along was commissioning editor Ian Morris’ idea. He’s a genius.”
Ultimately, and perhaps reassuringly, they agree there’s no cookie-cutter answer to my simplistic question. “It would be too easy to say either Jesse or myself are most like Mark and Jez; they’re definitely based on elements of each. Massively exaggerated.” It would equally be a surprise if there was a straightforward answer to the next obvious question: which of the two pairs, actors David and Rob or writers Jesse and Sam, are most like the fictional flat-mates?
“They are, because they look more like them,” Jesse bats back. “Actually it’s a big mixture. I probably read a lot of the same books as Mark would read, and so I think does David. Sam’s a better dancer, but probably more obsessive. We both have some of Mark’s quirks, but I can’t think of anything funny there I’d want to share. It’s probably more alarming than funny.”
Surely the man who gave us dog as dinner can’t be getting reticent? Jesse laughs. “It’s easier to uncensor yourself in the writing. Talking to you now, I can get embarrassed, but getting someone else to say it through a script is less weird.”
Seemingly, it’s also easier to get a certain type of person to speak your darkest thoughts: specifically, another bloke. The only real criticism of Peep Show you’ll occasionally hear is the idea that the show might exclude women. “I would hope not,” Sam says, and quickly turns the tables: “I don’t know, I’m not a woman. I’d like to know. You’re a woman, what do you think?”
Suddenly I’m the interviewee. I give it a shot: “I think the appeal of Peep Show is universal because the inner monologue of men and women (Mark’s paranoia about his weird nuts aside) is pretty similar. Most female fans of the show, I would guess, identify with either Mark or Jez more than the female characters, which is not to say the girls are not well drawn, but without that inner monologue, you’re never on board with them to the same extent.”
Time to get back in the interviewer’s driving seat: have they ever considered writing a female voice-over? “We originally wrote a voice-over for Sophie some of which is in the pilot, but it didn’t feel right. I’d love to write a female monologue, but I don’t know if I could really capture a female voice,” Sam tells me. A few days later, I see the pilot episode, back when the show was going to be called POV, and he’s right. It’s nice, but doesn’t quite work somehow.
Other pilot episode changes are more minor. Mark Corrigan was originally Mark Davies; a joke about Hitler (“at least he had a girlfriend”) started life as Bin Laden-envy (“at least I could get my side of the story out in a video”); and the footage in general is more relentlessly POV, causing David Mitchell (at the live BFI Southbank event where the pilot screened) to complain amiably about the two actors “playing second fiddle to footage of the toaster.”
Sam acknowledges, “Originally there was going to be much more of the guys talking over TV and films, we’ve kind of lost that element.” He pauses. “We’ve come a long, long way, since the beginning.” And most people who have seen the show will be hoping that there’s a long future ahead of them too.
Catherine Bray, courtesy 4Talent, www.channel4.com/4talent
Thanks again, Catherine.
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