Graham Linehan

Episode 3.4 Review

A good, solid episode all round. Once again, this was far funnier after the advert break than before it, which is quite common for IT Crowd's set-up and pay-off style.

Whenever he appears, playboy boss Douglas Reynholm threatens to take over this sitcom and make it his. Matt Berry's barnstorming performance as Douglas is entirely in tune with Graham Linehan's writing: it's daft but so confidently, riotously daft that you can't help wanting to know where it leads. If there's a drawback, it's that Linehan's ideas can be more brilliant than his plotting.

Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe took time off from spewing cheery vitriol across the television schedules to interview writers about the craft of writing.

These were clearly writers that Brooker admired, so his interview technique was disconcertingly sympathetic. The end result was a masterclass from such luminaries as Russell T Davies, Paul Abbott, Tony Jordan and Graham Linehan. All of whom spoke wittily and winningly about the combination of prevarication, panic and perspiration that produces a television script.

Ironically, the most pertinent point of a fascinating 50 minutes was made by a writer who wasn't even present. Abbott quoted Jimmy McGovern on the ever prickly problem of presenting exposition in dialogue: 'I would rather be confused for ten minutes than bored for five seconds.'

Episode 3.2 Review

Overall, 'Are We Not Men?' was definitely one of the better IT Crowd episodes in a long time.

In praise of the nerdiest of computer nerds

Graham Linehan's brilliant sitcom The IT Crowd, set in the computer support department of a large corporation, has just waltzed off with the International Emmy award for best comedy. Since it first booted up on Channel 4 in 2006, the show has gradually gained the respect and affection of critics and fans alike.

IT manager on The IT Crowd

The Guardian asks an IT manager what he thinks of The IT Crowd: There was one moment in this show when Roy, the main character, was summoned up to the top floor to open the lid of his boss's laptop, and I felt his pain. In my last job, I was asked by a lady to reboot the internet for her.

Comparisons to Father Ted will follow co-creator Graham Linehan to his grave (not helped by the fact The IT Crowd also features three oddballs, one of whom is a man-child), but it's never quite captured the Ted magic. As one of the few studio-based sitcoms that isn't pandering to realism right now, it's refreshing as a throwback to pre-Office times, but the characters lack much texture and charm (Roy and Mos are just a collection of tics and quirks) and the script's dependency on 'set-up and pay-off' for its laughs are badly shoved into plots.

I desperately want to love The IT Crowd. It has moments of genuine sparkle and surreal invention (as it should, coming from one half of Father Ted's creators), but it generally leaves me frustrated and disappointed.

The set-ups are just so forced and graceless that you start to mentally accumulate them yourself, just to see most resolved awkwardly in the last five minutes. David Renwick is a master of this style of writing (see any episode of One Foot In The Grave), but Graham Linehan is not. It's almost like the clunkiness is meant to be part of the fun and charm, but it's just annyoing.

The laughter from the live audience is another reason The IT Crowd can grate with me. When the studio audience are practically wetting themselves at every joke, it only causes mild confusion at home that we're not laughing as much.

Episode 3.1 Review

It was the thin writing that let this episode down. I'm more than happy to spend half an hour in the company of these talented comedy performers and their characters, but, on the evidence of this episode at least, they are not being particularly well-served by the script - and while I'm cautiously optimistic for the rest of the series, it's a rare show indeed that can survive on the charisma of its cast alone.

Graham Linehan: We're back!

The writer of The IT Crowd announces the arrival of the third series, saying he thinks it is the best yet.