Nerd Do Well (35 page)

And so it was that a short chain of events, kicked off with meeting Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews after a gig at the Chiswick Comedy Club in west London, would end with me working with the creator of one of my favourite ever comedy shows.

It was 1997 and Linehan and Mathews were the writers of the now classic, then white-hot, Channel 4 sitcom
Father Ted
. The Chiswick gig had gone particularly well and Graham and Arthur came up for a quick chat after my stint was finished.

We hit it off immediately, and a few days later I was invited take part in a couple of TV pilots they were writing. The first was for a sitcom called A
Bunch of Hippies
, the second was a sketch show called
Big Train
. I loved the sound of both projects and being involved in the pilots was an unmitigated pleasure not least because I felt as though I was finally working with people whose creative motivations were more in line with my own. The
Big Train
pilot was particularly exciting for me as it was to be directed by a huge comedy hero of mine, the brilliant Chris Morris. Chris, along with Armando Iannucci, had been responsible for the aforementioned
The Day Today
.

As if this wasn’t enough, I soon after found myself having to sit on the wall outside Talkback’s production offices in London’s Percy Street waiting for my heart rate to slow down having been given the opportunity to audition for the Steve Coogan vehicle
I’m Alan Partridge
. The first time I was introduced to Steve, I was required to improvise with him in character, wig and all, as Partridge for about fifteen minutes. This was my first experience of performing with a character I had extensive prior knowledge of, and looking into the eyes of Alan Partridge was as intoxicating at the time as looking into the ears of Mr Spock would be twelve years later.

I got the part in
I’m Alan Partridge
, the pilot for
Big Train
was picked up, as was
A Bunch of Hippies
(now just called
Hippies
), although it wouldn’t go into production until after
Big Train
. As a result of being introduced to Steve Coogan, with whom I had established an immediate rapport, I was asked to accompany him on tour, along with fellow
Big Trainer
and exceptional comic mind, Julia Davis.

At the same time, after the critical success of
Asylum
, Crispin Laser, a producer at the Paramount Comedy Channel, approached Jessica and me with an idea about creating a vehicle for us to star in together. Naive and confident as we were, we accepted the offer on the proviso that we write it ourselves. We decided to fashion a modern take on the old flat-share sitcom model and create a show that was part
Northern Exposure
, part
X-Files
, a sort of live-action
Simpsons
by way of
The Young Ones
. It started out as
Lunched Out
but soon changed to
Spaced
.

I regarded this new-found autonomy as the perfect opportunity to drag Nick kicking and screaming into the world in which he undoubtedly belonged by writing a character in the show specifically for him. Similarly, Jess saw the show as a chance to return a favour to Katy Carmichael, who had facilitated her inclusion in
Six Pairs of Pants
.

And the final piece of the jigsaw arrived the day that Edgar Wright came round to Jessica’s house with a book full of storyboards he had put together for the first episode of
Spaced
. I simply had to marvel at his extraordinary and inventive interpretations of our script and felt so lucky and excited to have him on board. I remember looking up from the book to his face and studying it; trying to see his brain through his ridiculous mop of black hair. I felt as though he had seen into our own heads and somehow extrapolated exactly what was needed to make the show work visually, despite our own inability to describe it. He seemed to be so in tune with the script that it was evident his contribution was the missing part of the creative jigsaw which we hadn’t noticed was incomplete.

With Edgar on board as director, we began writing and created the first series piecemeal over the next twelve months, working at each other’s houses in between other projects.

It was while writing
Spaced
with Jessica that my love of the zombie was reanimated by Japanese video game company Capcom and the first instalment of their now classic horror survival title,
Resident Evil
.

The game enabled players to experience surviving a zombie outbreak first hand. Set in an old manor house,
Resident Evil
captured the spirit of Romero’s mournful, shuffling originals brilliantly, bringing back the same frisson of terror and fascination that inspired my love of these tenacious movie ghouls in the first place.

At the time, the freedom to co-write my own sitcom was affording me a certain amount of wish fulfilment. Just as I wanted to comically play out the grand tropes of the war movie and deliver a truthful and honest representation of the London rave scene, I realised I had the perfect opportunity to posit myself within one of my most beloved fantasies. The set-up wasn’t even particularly tenuous; my character Tim, a shadow version of myself, was, like me, a gamer and as such would doubtless be engrossed in the first sequel to
Resident Evil
, which had soon followed the original game. The show was given to literal metaphors as Tim and Daisy fluctuated between reality and fantasy and it only took a few extra narrative grams of bathtub speed for Tim to find himself living out the game for real.

During the writing process, I discovered that Edgar had been equally beguiled by Romero as a youngster and he jumped at the chance to direct a slice of George-inspired carnage. So it was at nine thirty on a Friday night in October 1999, less than five minutes after Joey, Chandler, Rachel et al. had finished smart-mouthing each other in a fictional Manhattan coffee house, I blew the back of a dead man’s head out with a silver, pistol-grip, pump-action shotgun.

We hoped and prayed that there were people out there who hadn’t switched channels, as they idly wandered out to make a cup of tea, returning to witness their cosy Friday-night entertainment awash with blood. The opening scene of
Spaced
, Episode 3, ‘Art’, was the first sequence Edgar tackled in the edit after principal photography was complete. He used it as a personal mission statement for demonstrating his intentions for the series; it was the first fully formed moment of
Spaced
ever to exist and it set us out on a journey that would take us much further afield than Tufnell Park, north London. On the morning of the shoot, having completed the scene before lunch, Edgar and I both remarked that it would be fun to do that again sometime.

In the early half of 1998, I disappeared off on tour for six months with Steve Coogan’s live show,
The Man Who Thinks He’s It
, taking in what must have been every major city in the UK. Together with Julia Davis, we filled in the gaps during Steve’s costume changes with characters and material Julia and I wrote with Steve and his long-time collaborators Henry Normal and Peter Baynham. I played a neurotic stage manager attempting an onstage proposal to Pauline Calf’s best friend, Michelle, played of course by Julia (Him: ‘I’ve picked your ring.’ Her: ‘That’s no basis for a marriage!’), a hapless actor by the name of Alex D’Arcy (that’s D, apostrophe, arsey) and Paul Calf’s new romantic friend, Keith Todd, who together with Julia’s militant folk singer, Emma From, had given birth to a mutant child with seven ears (Keith: ‘He’s an ugly little bastard.’ Emma: ‘Be quiet, Keith, he’ll hear you!’ Keith: ‘He’s back at the hotel.’ Emma: ‘I KNOW!’).

The tour was an amazing experience and Steve was extremely generous in ensuring the cast, dancers and hair and make-up artists all stayed in the very best hotels en route, something he didn’t actually have to do. By the time June came round, I was physically and emotionally exhausted, although I barely had time to breathe before starting my next job.

We shot the first full series of
Big Train
that summer and had a thoroughly fun time doing it. There was a real excitement on-set, with both cast and crew aware that something genuinely different and inventive was being hatched. Joining Julia Davis and myself in the cast (Julia and I saw a lot of each other that year) were Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap and Amelia Bullmore, brilliant actors and formidable improvisers all. For the first time in my television career I felt as though I was contributing to a project which represented my own sensibilities completely, as did the rest of the cast. Whether we were protesting a ban on wanking in the office or playing showjumpers desperate to be firemen, we did so with total commitment to the moment, which made the comedy all the more strange and hilarious. Writer Graham Linehan stepped in to call the shots this time, infusing ingenious comic flourishes, which ensured its unique feel. The show was at once subtle and outrageous, and day-to-day shooting was never short on giggles, particularly from Amelia, Julia and me who couldn’t match Kevin and Mark’s uncanny ability to keep a straight face. I actually managed to blag Nick Frost a small part in one episode, as a lascivious builder, making eyes at an attractive marionette, marking his first ever appearance on TV.

The show ran on BBC2 later that year and was critically well received, winning an
ITV
Comedy Award the following year for ‘Best Broken Comedy’ (whatever the hell that means). A second series followed three years later, which despite being very funny never quite reached the heights of its predecessor. It felt a little belated and, from a purely selfish perspective, I look well fat in it.

After shooting the first series of
Big Train
, it was back to the stage and
The Man Who Thinks He’s It
, which transferred to the Lyceum Theatre in London’s West End, remaining there for three months. I played out the rest of the year as Steve Coogan’s sidekick and was extremely happy to do so. Steve has the kind of mind which is constantly ticking over, and spending time with him is always huge fun. He taught me a hell of a lot . . . about cars.

It was a big year for me, 1998, and in a different book I might have lingered longer on the details, but I feel momentum gathering as the end draws near, and stories about exploits on the road and random anecdotes about the business of filming television shows and even films feel less relevant here, particularly in the light of how this book has evolved during the writing process. What’s important is the fact that in the space of twelve months, I found myself working with Bill Bailey, Steve Coogan, Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, all of whom had been an inspiration to me as a young comic. Comedy fans are nerds after all, in fact arguably one of the fiercest nerd tribes out there. I felt very lucky, as did Julia, who had sent her home-made comedy showcase video to Steve, never expecting him to even watch it let alone hire her as a result. It was good to have a fellow newbie sharing all the wonder that year; geeking out is always more enjoyable in groups of two or more.

Most people find a pub they regard as the best pub in the world; the difference with me is that I really did. The Shepherds, on the corner of Archway Road and Shepherd’s Hill, in Highgate, London, became a sort of home from home for Nick Frost and me, when we moved into a nearby house in 1999. From the outside, and indeed from within, it appeared to be a somewhat old-fashioned London boozer, lacking any of the gastro pretensions displayed by so many of the area’s watering holes. The carpet was old and sticky, the jukebox a dearth of choice and the clientele an odd mixture of quiet drinkers and rowdy young men.

Behind the bar under the perpetual watch of a grizzled old German shepherd called Bobby was John the landlord, a gruff old Gooner
¹⁸
who’d manned the taps in several drinking establishments over his long career as a publican. His wife Bernie, a mercurial Irish matriarch who would glam up for her weekly excursions to Brent Cross Shopping Centre, worked ‘front of house’ with an irresistible charm that made her affection something to strive for and be proud of. Together with their daughters, Michelle and Vanessa, they ran the pub as a family affair, with everyone living on-site. This removed the tension from closing time, since the staff only had a staircase to climb to get home.

Nick was the first to go in, immediately loving the pub’s simplicity, its lack of frills and transparent attempts to claw at custom. Sitting in the corner he would enjoy a few pints while people-watching, becoming familiar with the regulars, an eclectic mix of people whose drinking patterns were often as regimented as they were prodigious.

I initially resisted the idea of going into the Shepherds, dismissing Nick’s persistent patronage as a truculent expression of his tendency to champion the underdog; Panda Pops over Coca-Cola, shop-brand ketchup over Heinz,
The Fifth Element
over
Battleship Potemkin
. Eventually, though, I succumbed and joined him for an evening session.

That first night, we sat together near the door and watched as the various patrons came and went. After a few visits we began to give them nicknames, to amuse ourselves. There was Rugby Jim, a talkative regular who always switched the TV over to his sport of choice; Pollit Bureau, so called because he looked faintly Russian; Peter Stuyvesant, an always sharply dressed septuagenarian with a walking stick who would usually come in five minutes before time was called. There was White Man-Bruised Man, Fat Eye Blind, and a middle-aged woman with long blonde hair who Nick insisted was a retired stripper (his name for her was Fried Gold).

Thursday night was quiz night, which Bernie would host with show-business panache, even if there were only a few people in. Nick and I joined in one Thursday and did fairly well, probably because there were only three teams. Nevertheless, we decided to make it a weekly engagement, determined to win the first prize of eight free pints or the equivalent in spirits. Not that the prize ever really mattered; it was bragging rights we were after.