Matt LeBlanc

LeBlanc, Greig & Mangan on giggling during Episodes

Keeping a straight face appears to be the biggest challenge facing Matt LeBlanc, Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan as they shoot their hit TV comedy Episodes.

Radio Times review

It's men-only on Graham's guest list this evening as Joey from Friends (aka Matt LeBlanc) cosies up alongside Seth Rogen and Zac Efron who are in the UK to promote their new film Bad Neighbours.

Coincidentally, Le Blanc and Efron appeared on the show together in 2012 when there was much joshing about the High School Musical star's schmaltzy film choices. However, with reports suggesting that Efron has some issues with sobriety, it will be interesting to see whether Norton broaches the subject and explores the now commonplace transition from wholesome Disney star to troubled adult actor.

Doll & Em is a six-part comedy on Sky Living co-written by and co-starring the actors Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells and produced by Mortimer's husband, the actor Allessandro Nivola. There is also the question of the setting and target of the comedy: Hollywood.

It's very hard to escape the smugness that creeps into any LA-based show that is self-satirising. Even something with the British self-deprecation of Episodes couldn't help but trade on the shock value of a major celebrity (Matt LeBlanc) acting as we believe actors to act: spoilt and cynical. And yet, no matter how vile and superficial the stock pool party in the Hollywood hills is made to seem, the overriding impression is: but wouldn't you like to be here?

One such pool party duly made an appearance in the second episode of Doll & Em, which centres on the semi-autobiographical relationship between successful actor Em (Mortimer) and her best friend Doll (Wells), who has come out from England to work as her personal assistant. There were even some major film star celebrities present in Chloë Sevigny and Susan Sarandon. Was it going to be another dose of self-celebration masquerading as oh-so-cool irony?

That it worked a treat was partly because no big deal was made of it. There were no outrageously philistine producers or predatory starlets. The comedy was not in the manner of the party but its manners - the missed air kiss, the curious asides, the desperate passive-aggressive anxiety that goes into maintaining the unspoken hierarchy of stardom.

In truth, the Sarandon plotline wasn't particularly amusing, but the observation elsewhere was subtle yet forensic, like a sensitive but thorough strip search. It was particularly revealing of the intimate competition surreptitiously conducted between female friends.

As both women fell under the rakish spell of a smooth producer called Buddy (Jonathan Cake), they traded sob stories of their dead fathers in a semi-naked battle to be seduced. That we know in real life they are the daughters of the late John Mortimer and John Wells only added to the comedy of unsayable truths.

It's an awkward, funny and deceptively clever confection that is saved from Hollywood hipness by the unmistakable warmth of the complex relationship at its heart. Perhaps it also helps that it's made by HBO.

Episodes to send up LeBlanc's Graham Norton appearance

Showtime comedy Episodes will use Matt LeBlanc's real life appearance on The Graham Norton Show as a storyline for the fictionalised version of himself on the show.

Series two provided little respite for downtrodden British writers Sean and Beverly as they fought to keep their sitcom - and marriage - alive whilst all around them in La La Land were losing their heads. It didn't help that Beverley (Tamsin Greig) had slept with the show's star Matt LeBlanc (Matt LeBlanc), or that Sean (Stephen Mangan) was now sleeping with the female lead. The second season of Episodes continued to offer a smart, funny, hyper-real story of 'normal' people trying to make it in Hollywood.

Tamsin Greig mulls over life's mysteries

Why does everyone want to know what it's like to kiss Matt LeBlanc but not Stephen Mangan? Why do people only want to know about her marriage if it's wracked by jealousy? Why is laughing likely to tip over into crying?

Video: Stephen Mangan on emotions and giving birth

Actor Stephen Mangan, who has portrayed Tony Blair and currently plays a pregnant man on the London stage, spoke of emotions in the week when David Cameron's temper and the the "feisty form" of Conservative MP Ann Marie Morris were in the news.

Michael Portillo recalled losing his seat at Westminster - and also claimed there were "extensive similarities" between Andy Murray and Gordon Brown - as he debated political image and emotions with Andrew Neil and Alan Johnson.

The interview ends with the actor talking of his hopes for a new series of Episodes - in which he stars with Matt LeBlanc and Tamsin Greig.

After the unmitigated failure that was Friends spin-off Joey, this British-US comedy threw Matt LeBlanc a potentially dubious lifeline.

In it, British screenwriting couple Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig) are tasked with adapting their subtle sitcom for a US audience but it is rendered almost unrecognisable thanks to ratings-crazed network execs who insist on casting one Matt LeBlanc in the lead role.

LeBlanc plays the floundering fall guy with glee, creating a fictionalised version of himself as the epitome of LA douche baggery.

The success of Episodes' humour lies in its assassination of throwaway US sitcoms, coupled with the ever-so-English pair's squeamishness towards Hollywood life.

It is a risky comeback role for LeBlanc but the risk paid off - just one season in and he bobbed up clutching a Golden Globe.