Graham Linehan

Graham Linehan on the Meaning of Laugh

Graham Linehan talked on a panel at the London Screenwriters' Festival. Here were some of the highlights.

So long has QI been going (a decade; we're now up to "K" in the alphabet) that some of the arcane facts presented in earlier seasons of the show (there's no way of knowing how old a lobster is) have since been disproved. That uncertainty forms the agreeable theme of tonight's show ("knowledge"). Here, the guests (Graham Linehan and Jo Brand) not only arrive circuitously at their answers, they also question their legitimacy. Incidentally, should you ever need to age a lobster, you cut off its eye stalks and count the rings.

A fitting finale - but left us wanting more

As to whether we may see Moss, Roy and Jen again in the future? Well it doesn't look likely any time soon. But if nothing else the finale reminded us what glorious characters we stand to lose in the event of the show being retired for good - and besides the ending would certainly leave it open to consideration. So how about it then Graham Linehan?

Those familiar with Graham Linehan's hyperactive Twitter presence will be unsurprised by some of the subjects tackled in this the hour-long finale of his geeky, live audience sitcom: embarrassing viral videos, anonymous hacktivists, the NSA. It's a testament to his fine plotting skills and mastery of tone that such dark fare is seamlessly woven into the shows usual cartoonish set pieces and Seinfeldian verbal tics ('small-person racist', 'emotionally artistic').

Along the way, our hapless trio of Moss (Richard Ayoade, whose new film The Double features original Reynholm Industries head honcho Chris Morris, fact fans), Roy (Chris O'Dowd, fresh from BBC2's Family Tree) and Jen (Katherine Parkinson, thankfully less shrill than in previous series) do battle with tiny baristas, pepper spray, women's slacks and, er, a van with breasts.

Naturally there are plenty of laughs to be had, especially from Matt Berry, on gloriously silly form as lunatic boss Douglas Reynholm.

But it drags in places and the same old problem remains: the main characters elicit no warmth. As a result, when the IT Crowd depart their basement lair for the last time this viewer was left feeling strangely unmoved. Adios then, nerdlingers: gone neither with a big bang nor a whimper.

The first episode of brand new Channel 4 sitcom London Irish opened and closed with the four twentysomething Northern Irish expat protagonists getting bladdered in the pub. That's right, writer Lisa McGee (a Londonderry woman herself) isn't afraid to confront those national stereotypes head on. This would also explain the scene riffing on a certain budget airline's baggage policy, and the cameo from Father Ted's Ardal O'Hanlon.

It was sweet of Mr O'Hanlon to bestow on this fledgling show the blessing of the Irish sitcom elders, but if the ultimate aim was to fool us into thinking London Irish owes something to Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthew's work, the ruse failed. As with any sitcom about a mixed-gender group of twentysomethings made at any time since 1994, it's to Friends that London Irish must pay reluctant tribute.

This weight of influence bears down heaviest of all on Kat Reagan, whose character Niamh is a mildly irritating kook in the tradition of Phoebe Buffay. Television doesn't need any more mildly irritating kooks - Zooey Deschanel in E4's New Girl has seen to that - so the angry, sweary, pathologically stingy Bronagh (Sinéad Keenan) was a particularly welcome foil. Ostensibly, there were also two male leads, the garrulous Packy (Peter Campion) and childlike dreamer Conor, but McGee's script betrays her obvious preference for writing female characters and they barely got a look in.

It may be unchivalrous to note it, but, at 35, Keenan is knocking on a bit for a role as studenty as this. It's testament to her energy and talent, then, that her performance was so enjoyable, regardless. Bronagh's righteous indignation at the one-handed man who failed to inform her of his missing appendage before they had a drunken "ride" at a party was easily the best thing in this opening episode.

It's also the strongest hint that McGee's writing might be ballsy enough to eventually transcend the over-familiar setup. If you must make yet another sitcom about the messy social lives of twentysomethings, the Nineties institution on which to model it is not mushy Friends but misanthropic Seinfeld. Might the characters of London Irish all turn out to be shallow, sex-obsessed reprobates with no moral compass to speak of? We can but hope.

Graham Linehan: I'm not changing a word of this

People often ask me for for writing advice and I usually respond by pointing them to my DVD commentary for The IT Crowd Season 4. But there is one piece of advice on which I may not have placed enough emphasis. Writing is rewriting.

The IT Crowd final episode

Graham Linehan delivers a perfect ending to the warmly-received sitcom.

Diet of Worms set for ITV series with The Walshes

Diet of Worms, , an Irish comedy troupe, is to have its web series about a family living in Ireland in the late 1980s turned into a television programme for ITV. Graham Linehan, the creator of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, is helping the comedy quintet to develop the series, entitled The Walshes, and has directed the pilot episode.

The television version of Steve Delaney's Radio 4 series has jaggedly divided both audiences and critics. But I will heretically declare that I think it's been a hugely successful transfer and I love the Count (Delaney) on television even more than I do on radio. So there.

There's been a subtle poignancy to the TV series and the feel of a proper ensemble comedy as Delaney and co-writer/director Graham Linehan surrounded Arthur with a clutch of endearing misfit friends. And one sensible friend, Michael, biographer and son of Arthur's one-time music hall collaborator, played by the peerless Rory Kinnear. As the series ends Arthur is still mourning the loss of his friend Katya and decides to hold a seance. It's sad and funny.

Canned laughter doesn't exist, so why complain about it

Count Arthur Strong has been criticised for using so-called canned laughter, but what does that actually mean? Graham Linehan and Steve Coogan explain the 'studio sitcom'.