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Ash Atalla on sitcoms - Radio Times, January 2006 |
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Producer Ash Atalla identifies the key elements common to all good situation comedies, and explains how they were utilised in creating The IT Crowd.
Good writing
Easily the most crucial is the quality of the writing. The IT Crowd is written by Graham Linehan, who co-wrote Father Ted and is certainly one of this country's finest comedy talents. And like many good writers, he has patience, as it's true that the process of writing and endlessly rewriting is often slow, painful and not very glamorous. But being lazy at this stage is a false economy because the cracks in the show get bigger as
you go on. Start with a good script and you've got a chance.
A situation the audience can relate to
Next, the setting or situation (the "sit" part of sitcom). Whenever I tell people I'm working on a new comedy about some geeks in an IT department, they launch into "geek" anecdotes of their own. Everyone has an IT department at work, so before you begin there is a familiarity and simplicity to the subject area. A good sign, I'd say.
Talented actors
Then, of course, you need brilliant performers to bring it all to life. If you cast well, you'll have performers who not only execute the jokes on the page, but will also add a layer of their own. The problem is, good comedy actors are strangely rare and the casting process tends to have some dark days - days when you've seen actor after actor read what you thought was the perfect scene, and make it sound like a piece of wood.
Your confidence wobbles, and you start to worry whether anything you thought was funny actually is. But suddenly, into the room walks "the one". The jokes work and the
character takes shape before your eyes. Phew! In my corrupt opinion, we've found three top-notch leads, and already I can't imagine anyone else playing their parts. Even better,
they're not yet famous, which means they're not yet a pain in the arse.
The making of the show
The IT Crowd was recorded in front of a live studio audience. It's not a very fashionable way to make comedy these days, but The IT Crowd isn't a very fashionable show - that was sort of the point. The intention was to make a silly, colourful, family sitcom with lots of (clean) jokes in it; for it to be visual and unpredictable, funny, sweet and all rather innocent. No effing swearing, and no nudge-nudge, wink-wink smut. Ahhh…
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Now take a look at our full guide to The IT Crowd.
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