Tamsin Greig

Video: Tamsin Greig interview

Tamsin Greig stars in a new BBC2 comedy 'Episodes' with Matt LeBlanc.

The sitcom looks at the pitfalls of trying to adapt a UK comedy to suit American tastes. It follows two British writers who are sent to LA to remake their award winning comedy.

Soon their school room setting is swapped for an ice hockey locker room and their lead actor has been replaced by the Friends star, Matt LeBlanc.

Tamsin Greig plays Beverley alongside Stephen Mangan as Sean. She told BBC Breakfast what it was like to work with Matt LeBlanc.

Episodes, which got uproarious laughter in cut-down form at the Television Critics Association press tour in July, does not disappoint an ounce as it rolls through a seven-episode season. It also signals a savvy return to television for LeBlanc, who manages to be the butt of the joke one moment then hilariously likable the next. It takes confidence to play yourself but not really yourself and to know that moving past Joey and Friends means a simultaneous embracing/mocking of the legacy.

The premise of Episodes is simple (and all too real). Over-the-top, hug-happy, faux-sincere network president Merc Lapidus (John Pankow) meets the happily married writing team of Sean and Beverly Lincoln (Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) right as they've snared a slew of BAFTA Awards for their (fictional) hit series, Lyman's Boys.

Lapidus loves the series and wants it on his network. He tries to woo the duo to the States, saying the show's perfect as is and would require a mere 20 minutes of their magic to make it Americanized. They can spend the rest of their time counting the money and screwing in the pool.

So they make the leap. And, not surprisingly, it's a long drop. Lapidus wants the British star of the series that has run for four seasons to audition - despite Sean and Beverly having told him he had the job.

Turns out, Lapidus doesn't watch much TV. "There's a chance that Merc might not have actually seen your show," says Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins), second-in-command to Lapidus. "What?!" Sean and Beverly say in tandem. "I'm not saying he hasn't seen it," Carol says. "Has he seen it?" Beverly asks. "No," Carol says, shaking her head sadly.

And so it goes. Episodes was created by David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik, the writing duo that knows more than a little something about how the industry works. (Crane wrote for Friends, and Klarik wrote for Mad About You; both wrote for The Class.) There's so much delicious fun-house-mirror truth here. When the British thespian (played with gravitas by Richard Griffiths) does the audition, Lapidus and everybody else howls with laughter. They ask him to step outside for a moment, and Lapidus says, "Is it me or does anyone else think he comes off a bit too English?" They then make him read it again with an American accent. Nobody laughs.

Episodes might be inside baseball to some, but viewers are savvy enough about real-life industry types to get the joke. (God help them if they really were to see how shows evolve.) One of the sly bits in the series is Myra (Daisy Haggard), the head of comedy development, who has the same sour smile and confused look at all times - a visual joke that never fails.

Mangan and Greig are exceptionally good as the fish-out-of-water Brits, horrified that their show is getting rejiggered. Mangan's Sean is seduced by Hollywood, and Greig's Beverly is repulsed and appalled at the cluelessness. When the network hires LeBlanc to play the lead, Episodes takes off to all kinds of unexpected places - with LeBlanc getting a glorious showcase - and the show avoids any potential trouble spots.

In fairness, not every network would take a British series called Lyman's Boys, about a headmaster at an elite boys boarding school, and change it to Pucks! about a hockey coach at said school. But then again, one or two would. And that's all the truth Episodes needs to tap into.

Navel-gazing comedy series starring Matt LeBlanc as himself, about a British sitcom-writing team (Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) and the humiliations they endure when the show is remade for American television. Written by David Crane (Friends) and co-produced with Showtime in America, it sounds like a recipe for disaster but is actually very funny.

"Episodes" concerns a pair of brittle - but improbably naïve - British writers (Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig). They are lured to Hollywood with the promise that their successful UK series about an elderly, erudite school headmaster and his charges will translate fabulously to the U.S. They are assured the show will happen with only minimal changes. Not! The stunned pair is forced to accept Matt LeBlanc (playing himself) as the series star. LeBlanc is deadpan and adorable riffing on his own image/reality as an actor whose best days were a decade ago (when he was one of the stars of "Friends"). Matt's got guts, and he can act. He is strikingly comfortable allowing himself to appear unsympathetic and cynical. And handsomer now; he has allowed the gray in his hair to grow in.

But the heart of "Episodes" is the dry, withering rat-tat-tat between Mangan and Greig. It's Nick and Nora Charles, it's Maggie Smith and Michael Caine in "California Suite." It's the real deal for anybody who has had to negotiate vicious showbiz bullshit. And even if you haven't had to do that, it is fabulous to watch, and to listen to. The writing is super-clever and spot on.

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Former Friends co-star, Matt LeBlanc, who is now starring in the new Showtime comedy, Episodes was on the stage with his co-stars talking about the show. Here was a brief exchange between him and co-star Tamsin Greig (pictured) about the nature of comedy that got us in stitches.

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