Graham Linehan/UK/2006; R4
Roadshow, $29.95 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

THE THING YOU’LL probably hear most about this show is that it was created/written by Graham Linehan (creator of Father Ted and Black Books) and produced by Ash Atalla (who produced The Office). It’s an easy way to sell The IT Crowd, reference three of the best comedy shows of the last decade and you’re guaranteed to get comedic gold. Right? Well if you can put aside the expectations, and a rather mediocre first episode, this is a very funny show. This is more in tone to Black Books than The Office, also relying on a kooky triumvirate of characters, surreal situations and stock set-up. Also Chris O’Dowd, who plays Roy, sounds exactly (and I mean exactly) like Dylan Moran.

The show centres on the lowlifes of Reynholm Industries, the IT pair of Roy and Moss (played by Richard Ayoade). When Jen (Katherine Parkinson) in applying for a job at Reynholm Industries puts down she knows computers, boss Denholm Reynholm (Chris Morris from Jam and Brass Eye) makes her the “relationship manager” of the IT team. It’s not very long before the IT geeks are annoyed by this intruder into their dark and messy workspace, especially since she doesn’t know much about computers. The first episode sets up the narrative, and doesn’t get past some pretty stock standard jokes. The second episode however builds up some steam where Denholm declares “war” on stress, and the emergency number is changed from 999 to 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3. The third episode is the highlight, where Jen ends up with a rather disastrous relationship with a security guard and Roy becomes convinced that women only like “bastards”. Denholm is a fantastic character, though a personal favourite is Richmond Avenal, a Cradle of Filth loving Goth who’s kept locked up like the Phantom of the Opera.

The show, as is the usual British way, only has six episodes. This does give ample time for the show and characters to develop. It’ll be interesting to see if the show can develop beyond the vaguely soap trajectory of the sixth episode, and also, not rely on one-dimensional individual character traits. Moss in particular is the funniest character – he’s the archetypal nerd – however, it’d be easy for him to turn into simply a kooky (and therefore boring) character like Phoebe from Friends. However, his inability to deal with a spider, or his online dating video makes for hilarious viewing.

This Channel 4 show is proving quite popular (Season 2 is due for airing in January 2007), and will be found funny by people who like Graham Linehan’s past work. The frequent geek-references may also attract a cult audience – there are references to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Frank comics, the 256th level of Pac-Man and cult music legends Guided by Voices for example. It’s not groundbreaking comedy, but is well worth a look. It’s also due for an obligatory American makeover, with an American version in the pipeline.


THE DVD itself is great too. The original menu (and introduction) is designed to look like a ZX Spectrum game and there are options for subtitles in L33T, an internet-type language. There are deleted scenes and audio commentary from Linehan and cast. The only downside to the extras is a quite terrible behind the scenes documentary. The filmmaker aims to make something different to the stock standard making-of documentaries, which is fair enough, but his comedy comes across as awful as David Brent and an insightful as an article in The Truth. It was just terrible. That’s a shame, because the rest of the extras were excellent.