Stephen Mangan

Following a well-received pilot, Stephen Mangan returns as Douglas Adams's holistic detective. The first of three new adventures finds Gently and sidekick Macduff (Darren Boyd) probing the death of a computer whiz who thought the Pentagon was after him, and taking on a client convinced his horoscopes are coming true. At times it's rather dizzying as the script from series creator Howard Overman (Misfits) skedaddles along, but best just to admire the skill and mad energy of it all.

Compared to Whitechapel over on ITV1, the cases ­investigated by Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency make perfect logical sense.

But the first pilot episode of this BBC4 comedy screened back in 2010 got a mixed reception.

People who hadn't read Douglas Adams' original novels tended to like it more than devotees.

They were peeved that Dirk Gently wasn't played by a pudgy man wearing a red hat, a green striped tie and thick metal ­specs, but by Stephen Mangan.

Fans also objected to the way Howard Overman's script left out so much of the book's detail - which is a bit like complaining that you can't fit the entire British Olympic Squad on a push-bike.

Recommissioned for three episodes (they're nothing if not bold at BBC4!) Mangan returns along with Darren Boyd as his much put-upon partner Macduff.

It's a name that's perfectly suited to being chewed over and spat out with scorn as Gently does here.

Tonight Dirk must discover the connection between a man who thinks the Pentagon wants to kill him and another man who thinks his horoscopes are coming true.

According to Dirk's holistic view, these two seemingly unconnected cases must be linked.

And fans of Adams' novels will be pleased to see Dirk's theory of "Zen Navigation" comes straight from his book, The Long Dark Tea Time Of The Soul.

Basically, if you have no idea where you're headed, just find a car that looks like it knows where it's going and follow that.

After a successful pilot, Howard Overman's (Misfits) adaptation of Douglas Adams's detective tales gets a three-part run. Stephen Mangan stars as the gauche sleuth with a knack for solving cases by circuitous means. The opener finds Gently and put-upon associate MacDuff (Darren Boyd) in Cambridge tackling a conspiracy theory and a murder. Meanwhile, Macduff's girlfriend Susan (Helen Baxendale) is also in Cambridge at an interview for a new job which, if she got it, would mean the end of Gently and Macduff's detective partnership.

Stephen Mangan interview

Stephen Mangan talks to Metro about why he loved Coppers but could never have been a policeman, who he thinks is the best stand-up in the world and why he's a sucker for music documentaries.

Top 5 Douglas Adams characters

Stephen Mangan returns to BBC Four in Dirk Gently next week as the morally dubious, self-styled Holistic Detective. In anticipation, CultBox are thumbing a lift around the galaxy of creator Douglas Adams's finest characters...

Stephen Mangan interview

The new three-part series stars of Dirk Gently stars Stephen Mangan as the morally dubious, self-styled Holistic Detective...

A satire on TV production, specifically when hit British comedies get remade into terrible US remakes, Episodes was a leaden and unfunny misfire on most levels. There were performances from Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig (as a British screenwriting couple trying to keep their principles in the face of adversity), with a fairly amusing turn from Friends' Matt Le Blanc playing "himself", but it simply wasn't enjoyable to watch all the way through. It limped along after a poor start, with perhaps two episodes that actually rose to an acceptable quality level, which isn't enough. Given the talent involved and subject-matter that felt like it could have something to say about Anglo-American cultural differences, Episodes was one of this year's bigger disappointments to me. A comedy that had its handful of targets in mind, and bludgeoned them over and over, week after week...

Radio Times review

The 39th best TV show of 2011 according to the Radio Times.

Has a sitcom ever started so badly and finished so well? Hopes were sky-high for BBC2's Hollywood-set comedy that united the talents of a Friends star (Matt LeBlanc), a Friends writer (David Crane) and two gloriously on-form British actors (Tamsin Grieg and Stephen Mangan), so the actual show was bound to disappoint. Which it did, with a wince-making mess of a first episode and several ho-hum ones to follow. Then, something magical happened: by the end of its short run it found its feet and built to a brilliant finale - which, given that the plot was about sitcom writers finding their feet, was strangely apt.

Trolls, giants and damsels abound in this clattering sword 'n' sorcery spoof, starring Stephen Mangan as Sam, left behind when all the rest of the questors go off doing the heroic action stuff. In comes Eirwen (Sophie Winkleman), a lovely maiden, saying he's saved her. But who comes next? Lord Darkness (Alistair McGowan) trying to conquer Lower Earth, if only his servant Kreech (Kevin Eldon) can work out how. Aha! Kreech has discovered a prophecy which dictates that the Lord must impregnate a hideous creature to bring forth the UnChosen One. Look out, Kreech...

For the first time in six years, The Comic Strip, the comedy which was broadcast on Channel 4's opening night, returns with a film noir spoof on former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Stephen Mangan played the PM, who finds himself on the run from Inspector Hutton (Robbie Coltrane), who arrests him for a murder Blair claims he didn't commit. During his attempt to escape the law he pushes an Old Labour tramp off a train (Ross Noble), kills a spookily accurate predictor of the future (Rik Mayall) and ends up in bed with Baroness Thatcher (Jennifer Saunders).

This episode features some great performances, from Mangan as Blair, Saunders as Thatcher, Harry Enfield as an "f-word" fuelled Alistair Campbell (still think Malcolm Tucker is the better, ruder and funnier spin doctor), and Nigel Planer's spooky reincarnation of Peter Mandelson. There were plenty of laughs to be had, especially if you're a film noir fan; for example, Rik Mayall's Professor Predictor is a clear parody of Mr. Memory from Hitchcock's The 39 Steps.

There were also actual moments of tension. My favourite bit in the episode featured Blair in Thatcher's mansion, preparing to change for dinner and being told by the butler Tebbit (John Sessions) not to look in a cupboard. Blair obviously does and out of it pops the rotting skeleton body of Dennis Thatcher.

If I were to have any complaints about this programme, it would be that Tony Blair doesn't seem to be that much of a current satirical subject to mock. Not only is Blair no longer Prime Minister, he wasn't even our last Prime Minister. We've had two different people in the position since he's left. If this was made while Blair was still in power it would have had a much bigger impact.