Chances are, to most Americans, the name David Mitchell means very little… unless, of course, they have a friend, relation, or acquaintance by that name. I speak, however, of a brilliant comedian by that sobriquet who currently plies his trade in the sceptred isle of England.
A cursory glance at the offerings on YouTube will bring you up to speed on Mr. Mitchell, as well as his comedy partner Robert Webb – both of which, since their Cambridge Footlights days, have written and starred in Edinburgh Fringe productions, radio (That Mitchell & Webb Sound), a live tour, and a trio of sketch shows (Bruiser, The Mitchell & Webb Situation, and That Mitchell & Webb Look – the latter two of which are currently available on DVD). They’re also the stars of the Britcom Peep Show (about to begin its 5th season), the feature film Magicians, and were cast as PC (Mitchell) & Mac (Webb) in the British versions of the popular Macintosh ads.
As a solo, Mitchell is quick-witted, erudite guest on such UK panel shows as QI, Have I Got News For You, and 8 Out Of 10 Cats, serves as team captain on Would I Lie To You, and is the host of BBC Radio 4’s The Unbelievable Truth.
I urge anyone smart enough to own a region free DVD player to hunt down everything listed above from your online UK DVD emporium of choice, or at the very least scrounge the internet and YouTube for a splendid sampler. For now, tough, kick back and enjoy our in-depth interview with Mr. Mitchell…
KP: I must say, I’ve been a fan of yours ever since I was a kid…
MITCHELL: Oh really?
KP: No, but I thought I would open with that…
MITCHELL: (laughs) How old are you then? That’s a rude question.
KP: I am 30. So not that far off from being a contemporary.
MITCHELL: No indeed. And I’m sure that I was certainly not doing anything that you could have seen before you’d reached the age of majority.
KP: Yes. Although I did see Bruiser.
MITCHELL: Did you?
KP: Yes.
MITCHELL: Well, that is early. How did you manage to see that?
KP: Well just about anything is available on the internet, if you know where to look.
MITCHELL: Really?
KP: That, and That Mitchell & Web Situation are both out there in the wild…
MITCHELL: Oh right.
KP: And obviously, so has Peep Show…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: So now, just about anything you’ve done is available on the web in some way.
MITCHELL: Oh, that’s good.
KP: That, and you have a massive fan base that ferrets out these kind of things.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Does that in any way surprise you, that that sort of thing is out there?
MITCHELL: Well, nothing about the internet surprises me. I suppose with something like Bruiser, because it got such a brief and unnoted broadcast here, I’m not surprised that people can access it. I’m more surprised that they’ve bothered or noticed.
KP: How do you look back on something like Bruiser?
MITCHELL: Well, I really enjoyed doing it. It was my first experience of being really involved in a program. Rob and I wrote about half of it and we’re in a lot of it. So we weren’t just writing on the show; we were really involved a lot. And I was sort of relieved to discover that I enjoyed it. Because it was very unlike the theater stuff I’d done before. But it was a really good fun process. You’d write something in a sketch and then people would go and make a room look like that and it was all tremendously gratifying. It was very important in that sense, to have a good experience at that stage. As far as the show was, it was not our finest work, but I think we learned a lot from it, and there are bits of it that I would stand by completely. Given the circumstances and everything, it was a decent piece of work considering our youth and inexperience.
KP: Were you worried about not enjoying it?
MITCHELL: Well, I was. When I first did the first tiny bits of filming things that I’d done before then, I basically couldn’t believe how tedious the process was. I couldn’t believe how many times you had to do it – how tricky… just how fiddly it was. And so how unlike theater, where you do it in front of an audience and you get sort of instant gratification. But I think when you’re involved in a whole show and you’re in every day and you’re involved with the editing process and all that, I think you take a very different view of the individual moments. You realize that the repetitive nature of it is necessary and can be used for good. But I was concerned, yeah.
KP: When you compare a theater and a television piece, how different is that sense of ownership of the material?
MITCHELL: I think in terms of the theater Rob and I’d done, our ownership was complete. In that we were just doing a little show at the Edinburgh Fringe, and so within the parameters of your budget and your venue you have complete creative control, and television is obviously never gonna be like that because you need a much larger team of people. That’s always one of the things about moving into television, that people… you can’t just do exactly what you want. But I think what was good about Bruiser, and The Mitchell and Webb Situation as well, is it was an example early on of having a fair amount of say and a fair sense of control even in the much more necessarily collaborative television environment.
KP: Is there anything in those situations you recall sort of hitting a brick wall on, where there was an obvious disagreement with something that you had wanted to do, either for practical or performance reasons?
MITCHELL: Well, I certainly remember when we did The Mitchell and Webb Situation we had a sketch… not the first sketch we’ve ever written involving some Nazis…
KP: Yes, it does see to be a recurring theme…
MITCHELL: Yeah. And I don’t know why, but I think all British comedians obsess with Hitler. Not in a (laughs) apologetic way, but you know, just there’s something, I don’t know, there’s something funny about the intensity of Nazism. Particularly when you’re lucky enough to come from a background that hasn’t really been affected in a negative way. But we wrote this sketch. It had these Nazi soldiers and they were just having a very normal kind of chat about each other’s ticks and what people did in certain situations who got stressed. This, that, and the other. And we thought it was a funny sketch because it was the contrast between the sort of macabre and evil nature of soldiers on the Eastern Front, and the everyday conversation they were having. And we were told we couldn’t do it as Nazis and we had to rewrite it as contemporary German soldiers. And the sketch was shot and was utterly unusable and pointless.
KP: Yes, contemporary German soldiers on the Eastern Front…
MITCHELL: They weren’t on the… I think we put them in… they were peacekeeping in Yugoslavia or something. It was full of… it was such a fudge it was meaningless.
KP: But you still went ahead and shot it?
MITCHELL: We did. Because the changes sort of came down from on high at the last minute. And you get this sort of tunnel vision about, “No, we can still make it work, we can still make it work. Why not? Why not?” And then you realize about three weeks after you’ve shot it and you’re looking at it in the edit that it’s an unusable fudged bit of material. It just begs so many questions. “Sorry, why are we looking at contemporary German military people talking…?” There are so many questions that no one is ever going to get to the point of laughing at the actual material.
KP: That was for Situation, right?
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Wasn’t there another piece that eliminated from Situation?
MITCHELL: Oh yes, there was. You’re talking about the organic backstreet abortionist sketch…
KP: Yeah, that one.
MITCHELL: Looking back on that sketch, I’m sort of quite glad it was eliminated. Because I think it was quite… I stand by the premise as a sort of solid premise about taking the piss out of bollocky crystals and holistic treatments and all this sort of thing and applying that to the grim world of the back street abortionist. I think there is a proper premise there – there is a proper humorous juxtaposition, but I think unfortunately the subject is just a little bit grim. I think the vast majority of people watching it would be kind of uncomfortable and not in a laughy mood. Though at the time I was sort of irritated that we had to exclude it, in retrospect I think that the, (laughs) the right decision was made.
KP: Do you think that you would have tackled that differently today?
MITCHELL: I don’t know. It’s very odd; having written the sketch as it was to that premise, I think… I would like to do a sketch one day about the whole issue of alternative and mainstream medicine. Because it very much annoys me the way the two sides both trade off each other’s enmity, if you know what I mean.
KP: Oh yes, there’s sort of a parasitic relationship both ways.
MITCHELL: Yes, exactly, and there’s no one… the point is… there’s clearly something to acupuncture. That’s clearly worked for lots of people. But why does it have to remain sort of couched in the mysteries of the east? Can’t it be brought into the mainstream, analyzed, perfected… you know, like antibiotics… or like an operation on a burst appendix. I find the whole division between, “No, you either come into hospital, you take a lot of drugs and you get cut up, or – oh no – it’s all crystals and…”
KP: Spirits and…
MITCHELL: Yeah. If everyone genuinely has people’s health as the priority, then these worlds should merge. And the truth of acupuncture should be incorporated into medicine, and the more dodgy areas should be excluded permanently. It offends my sense of organization that neither side seems to want to do that.
KP: Do you think centuries ago alternative medicine was western medicine being introduced into their system? “It’s not about spirits, it’s about this.”
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: “You gonna go to that quack who prescribes ‘medicine’?”
MITCHELL: (laughs) “They think it’s because of bacteria or something, when we all know…”
KP: “These little tiny organisms???”
MITCHELL: “… that the whole evil spirit analysis is a lot more plausible.”
KP: “And is well proven, in fact.”
MITCHELL: Yeah, (laughs)
KP: “It’s like the same spirit that lives in your home.”
MITCHELL: Yeah. (laughs)
KP: There must have been some kind of juxtaposition of that in the past.
MITCHELL: Oh yeah. Well, I think certainly the kind… well, western medicine was in the middle ages. A hell of a lot more dodgy than Chinese medicine then. But I do think however much… there are people who… ’cause I go to a chiropractor. I have a bad back. And he sorts it out to the extent that my life is fine, but I do have to keep going back there, so I don’t know – maybe he’s sort of keeping me in a certain amount of pain to pay for his retirement. But I vaguely think he knows what he’s doing. He will essentially try and pretend that the chiropractic approach is a general approach to all health matters. And I’m sorry, I’m not having it. What he is to me is a back dentist. I will lose a lot of confidence in him if he starts to say that a massive bacterial infection in my system can be treated with his back straightening measures.
KP: In fact, he’s got a plan for it.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: There have been claims that chiropracty is an addictive form of therapy.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: That you’re not really solving anything. It’s just adjustment.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And it’s unfortunate that they do tend to wrap things up within that. As you said, being a bone straightening form of dentistry.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Maybe that’s it. He keeps wanting you to come in for a cleaning.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: And the fact that they do have long term plans worked out does not… I thought, if you have a doctor, doctors are supposed to actually try and solve things.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: So this repetitive approach of bringing someone back in for continual adjustments doesn’t seem to be copasetic with that.
MITCHELL: No, absolutely. What they do is they have a… their rhetoric is saying, “What you think the problem is, isn’t the problem. There are underlying other problems that are really the problem.” And if feel like saying, “Well, no. No, actually what I think is the problem is the problem.” I don’t care anything about the iceberg apart from its tip. I’m not sailing through these waters, I just want to look at them uninterrupted. I hate going and giving him 35 quid each time. He has, in some way, won.
KP: Any form of medicine that builds up a mythology around itself probably can’t be terribly good.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: What is it about that that keeps bringing you back, if you have a sense it may not be on the up and up?
MITCHELL: What, with the chiropractor?
KP: Right.
MITCHELL: I think that… I don’t really know. It seems to work a bit, I suppose, and I don’t know what else to do. And they all have something to say. When you say to people that your back’s playing up, they immediately start giving you cards of ten different sorts of people who can help you in ten different sorts of ways. And at least I can say, “No, I’m doing this thing and I do that. That’s my approach. And don’t make me go to your foot massage guy or your acupuncture person or whatever. And maybe I’m going to totally the wrong person, but essentially it’s not so bad that I could be bothered to reverse it fully.”
KP: I’m sure there’s some guy that works out of his shed that has a full body brace he could sell you.
MITCHELL: Yes.
KP: You’re now more machine than man…
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Is there anything that you’ve ever encountered sort of like that, that within the writing process you shoot down ahead of time? Like, “This is too far. This is something we can’t do.”
MITCHELL: Joke wise?
KP: Joke wise or premise wise.
MITCHELL: I’m trying to think. With things like… not many. We did a sketch on our radio show in which the queen was executed. That was an area where we had terrible trouble getting them to agree to put it on. I didn’t think it was such a dodgy idea because so many countries have executed their monarchs and it didn’t seem to me to be a massive or particularly offensive leap of the imagination to say that that could happen here.
KP: Well, it already has.
MITCHELL: Well yeah… exactly. I mean, we’ve executed one, but that’s all brushed under the carpet now, you see. But executing the actual current queen, that seems to genuinely offend people. With that, we had to be quite careful about the way we did it. And, in fact, I was slightly irritated that the way it was cut in the final broadcast took some of the sting out of it. That was something that we were aware it was a touchy area, even though it shouldn’t have been, because having a sketch in which it happens in a funny way is not the same as advocating it.
KP: Right.
MITCHELL: And I’m not a Republican. I’m perfectly happy with the monarchy as a thing to laugh at in the press, and it doesn’t do any harm, and I’m sure it attracts tourists. The fact that we were wanting to do a sketch about it didn’t mean that we were advocating it at all. But nevertheless, that was how some people treated it and it got quite a few complaints. (laughs) So that was one area where we had to be careful.
KP: That’s sort of an external thing. Do you ever find yourself internally self-censoring anything?
MITCHELL: There was one awful joke. A terrible, sick joke that I thought of for one of our Edinburgh shows, and we sort of had a horrible guilty laugh about it, and then realized we couldn’t possibly put it in. And I’m sort of nervous of telling you.
KP: Now you have to.
MITCHELL: I sort of do.
KP: But you’ve already prefaced it. You put the warning that it is, in fact, horrible…
MITCHELL: It is, yeah, so you can’t be offended by this because I’ve said it’s offensive. It was just we were writing… we basically… it’s just a line. And the previous line was “All evil plans have their teething problems.” And then the line I suggested was, “Look at Cyclon A…” And then something hilarious that Cyclon A did to people other than killing them. Do you see what I mean?
KP: I could see where…
MITCHELL: Are you going to now slam the phone down?
KP: My hand is above the cradle as we speak.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Isn’t comedy about, at the very least – in that sort of writing process – going to the wall?
MITCHELL: Yes I think so. It is joke shaped, if you know what I mean. It is a proper joke. But it’s an area that’s so offensive to people that it sort of made me shudder to have thought of it. It’s frustrating, in a way, when you’ve thought of something, because you’re sort of aware that jokes are in limited supply. You’ve thought of something that is definitely a joke, but it’s definitely poisoned to the point of unusability by its context.
KP: No pun intended.
MITCHELL: Oh sorry, (laughs) oh yes. That is frustrating. But yes, that was one of those clear moments saying, “Yes, that it a joke, and that is a joke we can never tell.”
KP: And now I’ve broken you.
MITCHELL: Yeah, yeah.
KP: What was Robert’s reaction to it?
MITCHELL: Rob was there, and also the director of the show, James Bachman, and we all… we guiltily chuckled. If you write a joke within the context of an area which is potentially offensive, it’s also potentially very funny. And going close to the line does make things funnier. And jokes that are entirely safe, you have to be so much better. A totally safe, warm joke that’s hilarious is a rare thing indeed. And almost no comedy career can be made up exculsively of those, I would argue. There has to be a bit of an edge to it. But yeah, we laughed and then said,” We are evil.”
KP: “That one’s just for us.”
MITCHELL: Yes, exactly. “I mustn’t ever tell someone from a website that.” I made a mental note.
KP: Well, I guess you should think twice about those mental notes, as they seem to be rather useless. When you talk about that warm, fuzzy, safe sort of joke, is there anything you can point to where you’ve gone in that direction and called yourself on it?
MITCHELL: No, I don’t think so. I think we’re very nervous of any sort of warmth in our work. I think it’s… I think that’s quite a common British trait, that we do like comedy to be quite harsh and cold. And I think it’s probably a failing, in the long run, in that the difference between… well, one of the many differences between the American long running sitcoms and the nearest British equivalent seems to me that in a show like The Simpsons, there are moments of genuine warmth. And they don’t compromise the jokes – and they still can have really tough, nasty jokes when they want to. But there’s a love for the characters there. And I think we found that very difficult in Britain. Immediately, everyone gets very cynical about that and goes, “Oh, come off it.”
KP: Do you think British comedy, at its core, is cold?
MITCHELL: Yes, I do, really. Well, certainly cold-er. I can’t imagine… we don’t come up with… it’s the difference between David Brent and Basil Fawlty on one hand and Homer Simpson on the other, really. I think that Seinfeld is almost like a British comedy, because it’s sort of cold. (laughs)
KP: It’s certainly filled with characters that are completely irredeemable.
MITCHELL: Yeah. I think it’s brilliant. But I think a lot of people here make the mistake of calling it the sort of archetypal American sitcom, when I think, in fact, it’s incredibly atypical.
KP: Obviously, since it hasn’t been repeated yet, as far as in premise or tone or style…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: It’s not the natural inclination of the creative process in this country.
MITCHELL: Hmm.
KP: I mean, how influential was something like that the other way around? How do you look at that American landscape of comedy?
MITCHELL: I suppose it’s kind of… just so incredibly impressive in the amount of good stuff that is produced as to be… to sort of not help to think about it. When you’re faced with something like Seinfeld or Cheers or The Simpsons, just as a body of work, it’s just so intimidating. You just think, “Well, I’m not going to think about that.” It doesn’t help. I think the way we make programs here, in batches of six – when we have no really effective team writing process – it’s basically a cottage industry in comparison to what you have over there.
KP: You can almost count on your hands shows that run any real length… even the talk shows are limited runs.
MITCHELL: Here?
KP: Yes.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Something like a Jonathan Ross, has maybe a run of 20 a year, if they’re lucky.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: What is it that limits the scope of how long something can run?
MITCHELL: I don’t know. It’s always been like that, and so that becomes self-perpetuating. And I suppose if you’re someone like Jonathan Ross, why would you, in an environment where there’s not pressure on your to do a show 50 weeks of the year, why would you? For your own sanity, why not do two batches of 10? I think the competition in America is such that he couldn’t’ get away with that. And also I think, with comedy, you can’t do a season of 23 episodes if it’s just you and your mate writing. The standard would drop. It would be a disaster. So you speculate to accumulate a bit. You have to have a system where you… I mean, I don’t understand the American system, but I imagine where the more investment is up front… where the people who come up with the idea are incentivized to let go of it to a certain extent in order to get other writers involved, in order to be able to produce the volume required. Here, all that would happen if you got other writers involved writing your show is that you’d lose the script commission. And so why would any pair of writers do that? There has to be an upside to the downside of losing creative control. And I don’t think any broadcaster or production company here has ever offered that. Because I don’t think they’ve ever had the nerve to think, “Yes, if we make 100 episodes of this thing in the next four years, then we’ll be on the gravy train for life.” Because there’s never been a British comedy show that’s done that. Successful comedy shows here run for four series of six episodes each, and we should be happy with that, and then maybe it’ll get shown on tiny stations around the rest of the world for hardcore comedy fans.
KP: Do you think that the writing process in the UK – whether it be in teams or writing personally – is rather fragmented? You’ve written for Big Train and Armstrong & Miller, and such. And Bruiser. Was that a group writing scenario? Was it always you and Robert writing independently, and then everything would sort of be put together with the contributions of the other writers to make the show? Was there ever a writing room in any of those series you worked on?
MITCHELL: For Armstrong & Miller, it sort of differed, really. With Armstrong & Miller, we’d have a weekly meeting and chat about ideas. We’d pitch sketches and pitch half sketch ideas and the group would kind of… what was very useful about that – and we’ve tried to emulate that in our own sketch show – is that ideas that aren’t fully formed get turned into ideas that are, by the collective input. But that would just be one morning a week, and the rest of the time you’re writing at home on your own. I worked on The 11 O’Clock Show briefly. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that.
KP: Oh yes. Would this be earlier in its run?
MITCHELL: This was late in its run. There was a big writers room for that. It was not a good environment. The show was failing. The channel had lost faith in it. And it was just a room in which a lot of men would be smartalecks at each other. I’m not one for… I don’t mind that sort of mouthy male environment. I can do alright in that usually. But this was too much for me.
KP: Would you say it was a deconstructive environment?
MITCHELL: It was more sort of… it was just… the thing that characterized it for me was the moment when I was trying to… I came up with half a joke. I can’t remember what it was, but it was about something I said, “Couldn’t we do something about how A is like B and it should be like C…” And somebody just said to me, “That’s not a joke. You can’t put that line in.” And I realized there is a process where I can’t speak until I’ve got a fully formed line in my head. And I thought, “Well, actually, we should all go away, write somewhere else, and then read out these lines to each other if that’s what we’ve been reduced to.”
KP: Because there’s no collaborative process.
MITCHELL: Exactly. It’s just binary. Anything you said either went in or didn’t. Nobody would try and work with you on it. Obviously, writers rooms don’t have to be like that, but that’s what that room quickly became like over here. And it may be that we just haven’t developed the culture of working collaboratively in a way that’s constructive.
KP: There also seems to be a very proprietary, almost auteur, approach to sitcoms and comedy within the UK. That there’s very distinct personalities, compared to that that massive almost group think of an American writers room. Do you think that… I don’t want to say ego, but do you think that sort of singular vision largely drives the UK method?
MITCHELL: Yes, I think so. And I think it does come down to… I don’t think it’s a thing that would necessarily always have to be. But I think when you’re making a short series of things and people can essentially… one writer or two writers can just do it all, and they’re not incentivized to work in a different way. And I think it probably has the advantage that you can produce shows that are quirkier here – but still work – than anything that would be produced in a more collaborative writing environment. But at the same time it does mean you can’t sort of stumble across a real winning formula and then make 200 of them and get all that involved in terms of it being a show that the whole world knows and… and I’m sort of frustrated in a way that no one here has ever really tried to go for that. I suppose the key would be whether or not it would succeed in America.
KP: Where do you think the failing is in something like that? Is it a case of just that no one ever pushes it through?
MITCHELL: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how…
KP: I mean, if you were to go pitch, say, a Channel 4 or BBC, “This is my idea, this is how we want to construct it, using the American system, and I’d like to get 200 episodes out of it…”
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Do you think it would be ludicrous to try?
MITCHELL: (laughs) I think what they’d say is, they’d look at the idea, decide whether they liked it, and if they liked it they’d say, “Okay, well, we’ll commission a pilot and then a series of six episodes.” That’s what they’d say. Because also… it’s so hand to mouth. There’s no… they wouldn’t… they’re not in the business of spending more money than they can recoup in the first transmission. Because they’ve got no evidence of how much money they could make further down the line if they had 200 episodes syndicated. And American audiences aren’t receptive to British comedies in huge numbers. The Office has done well when remade… I believe that’s right, isn’t it?
KP: Yes.
MITCHELL: And there’ve been plenty of examples of British formats remade succeeding in America, but the actual original British versions tend to be viewed by appreciative but small numbers.
KP: I think that’s more a matter of lack of presentation than the quality or acceptance of the material itself. The fact is, when you can barely find the material… the British Office was quite a success when it was actually presented as, “You should watch this… Oh, and we’re actually giving you the ability to do so.”
MITCHELL: Yeah, right.
KP: I mean, the fact that a lot of this stuff isn’t presented… Peep Show has done well for BBC America, when they’ve actually run it.
MITCHELL: Right.
KP: But I think it’s a matter of getting it… I’ve spoken with John Lloyd quite a bit about this in regards to QI, and I’ve tried to convince him that an American remake and rethink of QI is ridiculous. Because the fact is that humor travels, and funny is funny.
MITCHELL: That’s very reassuring to hear, because it’s kind of what I’ve always thought. On the basis that American shows have been really successful here. They’re all in English.
KP: I think it’s a reticence…
MITCHELL: The original version of a show always tends to be the best version of it, I think.
KP: Oh yes. Well, look how many times we’ve tried to remake Fawlty Towers.
MITCHELL: Hmm. It’s interesting, you saying about going… because I think if there was one example of a British show that had really been big in its original form in America, I think, then, going in and pitching that would be a lot easier. What it needs is it needs one example.
KP: I think it’s just… I mean, you have something like a BBC America that ostensibly is supposed to be a distribution point for the cream of UK material. But when the bulk of their schedule is filled up with Changing Rooms and What Not to Wear and Ground Force, what are they actually accomplishing when they’re actually supposed to be presenting everything?
MITCHELL: Yeah. I occasionally have a look at the schedule on BBC America and I can’t believe how much of that stuff…
KP: Is filler.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Do we have to see Antiques Roadshow in five hour blocks?
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yeah. And it’s not as if… I mean, there’s so much other stuff they could be showing.
KP: And they have the ability, and they’ve done before, to show Channel 4 and BBC shows. They essentially can pick the best of the best.
MITCHELL: Yeah, because Channel 4 and ITV don’t have equivalent channels. And they’re always glad for the exposure. Peep Show‘s not a BBC show.
KP: Right, it’s Channel 4.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And the fact that they’ve shown it before… it’s just such a poorly programmed channel. And now they’re trying to branch into original content, and it’s kind of like, “No, you have all this stuff you’re not showing! You could have all this for pennies compared to original content. Why aren’t you using what is essentially original content to an American audience?”
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: I think it’ll take a paradigm shift in how the stuff is presented here.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: The thing that concerns and confuses me is how many UK performers are almost… they think that the US market is closed because the stuff isn’t accepted over here or they don’t understand it or there’s not an appetite for it. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. If they’re not gonna come over and actually introduce the audience to themselves – because BBC America, let’s say, is not doing anything to change things. And I think it’s up to the performers to understand that, no, there is an audience. And the audience wants to be entertained. Bill Bailey came over – and I was talking to him around the time he came over – and he played like gangbusters. He sold out in L.A., he sold out in New York. The audience is there.
MITCHELL: Mm.
KP: And I think it’s just a matter of they have to actually see it first. And if they see it, just the same as… I mean, the audience is the same. Again, funny is funny.
MITCHELL: Yeah…
KP: I think something like QI is one of the funniest things that I think has come down the pike. And it’s based almost wholly on an excellent framework within which quite gifted performers can be quite gifted in their performance, presenting fascinating information in a funny way.
MITCHELL: Mm.
KP: And I think to try and reenvision that is a waste of energy and time.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Because I think it will play as is.
MITCHELL: Mmm.
KP: And Peep Show, when they showed it, played. I mean, it played enough to where BBC released the DVD here in the US. But again, I think it’s just presentation.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: What is your view in sort of… because you’ve never come over and done an American tour, or any kind of American run, have you?
MITCHELL: No. We’ve sort of only done one UK tour, really, properly, and that was at the end of last year. From our days of… before we kind of broke through, we did the Edinburgh Fringe every year, but then when television things started to happen for us we kind of didn’t do any live performing for four or five years. And then we did this tour last autumn which was a great fun, and great sort of suddenly realizing – contrast to our Edinburgh days – that we do have an audience now.
KP: You mean more than 11 people show up?
MITCHELL: Yes, exactly. But no, I mean… we sort of never considered doing anything like that in America, but maybe we should.
KP: What fuels that? How do you perceive performance in America?
MITCHELL: What, live performance?
KP: Yes. Is it something that you’re leery of, or interested in?
MITCHELL: I think probably a bit of both. It would be great fun to do a tour that did well in America. That would be very exciting. Just as a thing to do itself and in terms of what could come from it. But at the same time, I’d be terribly afraid of turning up and no one’s bought any tickets. But I think that’s almost just an exaggerated version of the performer’s constant nightmare, of you’re constantly oscillating between despair and megalomania.
KP: I think it’s one of those things that if you don’t build it, they won’t come.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And obviously there’s been certain UK performers that have almost pathologically pursued the American audience. You know, Eddie Izzard for example.
MITCHELL: Right.
KP: Where that was a very clear intended goal…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: … that he worked feverishly towards. And definitely he was rewarded with having an audience. It just seems that… I’d spoken with Alan Davies two years ago…
MITCHELL: Right.
KP: I always thought it would be a wonderful thing to do a… are you aware of that Kings of Comedy tour that was done a few years back? It was a whole bunch of performers that got together…
MITCHELL: Oh right.
KP: And did a presentation. Sort of like an all evening kind of thing, geared towards increasing their exposure without it depending on the strength of any one performer.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And the idea is to do a British comedy tour that way…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Where you could take a whole bunch of performers. Make a night of it, and with the multiple performers thing you could have comedians swap out when they’re were available. But it’s a themed evening, and use that as a vehicle to introduce American audiences to all these British comedians.
MITCHELL: Yeah… that’s a very good idea…
KP: It’s sort of like a tide floating all boats kind of thing. What is your view of that sort of approach to…
MITCHELL: That, I think, sounds like a very good idea, basically. That would be something I’d be very interested in.
KP: Why do you think there hasn’t been that sort of methodical approach towards breaking into America? And I hate that phrase “breaking in.” It just seems like there’s some kind of wall that’s perceived to be there, when there’s really not.
MITCHELL: Yes… I don’t know. Probably because people perceive that wall, and also because… well, I don’t know. I think a lot of British comedians would like to be able to work in America and be known in America, but wouldn’t necessarily want to live in LA. And wouldn’t indeed want to live in America.
KP: I know, I share that view.
MITCHELL: And I sort of feel…
KP: I don’t want to live in LA either.
MITCHELL: (laughs) And I think maybe the perception here – and I hope it’s the wrong perception – is that in order to “break America”, you have to kind of abandon Britain. And you’re essentially emigrating. And that you could emigrate and fail, and that would be awful. And even if you succeed, you’re a visitor in your own country.
KP: Do you think there’s a real resentment that’s perceived amongst your compatriots that, “If you go to America, don’t come back…”?
MITCHELL: I think it would never be expressed as resentment, but I think it’s probably a very British sort of resentment, which is essentially going, “Well, he took that choice and it’s good luck to him. But I’m very happy here…” kind of thing.
KP: “Even though I’d like to go over, too.”
MITCHELL: Yes, exactly. It’s the whole… I don’t know whether the sort of Peter Cook/Dudley Moore thing defines it.
KP: Are you afraid that Robert would go over and have his 10?
MITCHELL: Oh yes, perpetually.
KP: Just tell him, “Don’t come back.”
MITCHELL: (laughs) No. But yeah, so I think probably… yeah, maybe people are nervous because they think it’s a big risk, it’s a big jump, and it means you’re in some way changing. And I would certainly…
KP: Do you subscribe to that?
MITCHELL: I’d like to think of it as it’s just more audience. It’s just more… it doesn’t in any way invalidate what you do here. It’s just more work, if you want to be a freelance performer.
KP: Have you ever held that sort of view of it?
MITCHELL: I suppose I… yeah, I… I don’t know. I’m a bit frightened by LA.
KP: And rightly so. But I think it’s… if you’re not going there to live…
MITCHELL: Right. What you’ve been saying has been good to hear, in terms of it being not a market you have to think about breaking so much as just…
KP: Showing up.
MITCHELL: … turning up.
KP: And I think that it’s the kind of thing that has a carry back effect. Because if they know that there’s this material out there, they’ll go and seek it out. The material that you’re producing in the UK…
MITCHELL: Hmm.
KP: I mean, if they enjoy you in the performance and you go, “By the way, we star in Peep Show.” People will know what to do. Multi-region players are available. There’s YouTube. This stuff is out there for people to find.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And it’s the kind of thing that, you know, you could tell them to go to someplace like BBC America and say, “We want to see more of this.”
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: It broadens the market. And I think that if there was a more concerted effort on the performers side to broaden that market… like, the thing I was telling Alan about, why not have this sort of mass influx? Because if people find something funny, they’re gonna look for more of it.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And I think to underestimate or dismiss the American audience… and I don’t know if you’ve encountered that. I’m actually curious if you have encountered an almost sort of dismissal of the American market as not being worth it as long as they’re a success at home…
MITCHELL: No, I’ve not come across that attitude. Because I think to dismiss a market from which such brilliant shows have come, if you see what I mean, is nonsense. How can you dismiss an audience that’s made a hit out of The Simpsons? So yeah, there’s no logic to that. But I think perhaps what people feel is that it’s not so much that the audience’s ability to enjoy British shows is so underestimated by the television people over there as to make trying to get on there an impossibility. Has that torturous sentence made sense?
KP: Yes. I’m diagramming it as we speak.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Because it’s not just… you don’t just have to not underestimate the American audience yourself; you have to be in touch with people on American television channels who don’t underestimate that audience.
KP: It seems like not only that, and in conversations I’ve had with John, even the British production companies like TalkBack underestimate the appeal. If it’s sort of undercut at home, before you even get over to the American side, as, “Let’s not even pursue that. It’s not even worth taking over there… ” Or the assumption at home that things have to be changed before they travel…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: I think it’s destructive.
MITCHELL: I think there’s probably also a kind of negative kind of, “Let’s not try things that we’re afraid might fail…” thing. If you know what I mean.
KP: Is that a view that you share somewhat?
MITCHELL: Oh, definitely, to a certain extent. I think in all sorts of areas. I don’t try to somehow rotate myself from failure. I’m always having to battle that. (laughs)
KP: I know that with the Mitchell and Webb material, I used to program a film fest every year, and I would program a lot of sketches from different UK shows to put into the mix, and they all went over gangbusters.
MITCHELL: Oh great.
KP: And obviously with You Tube it’s much easier to make things viral and spread things around. And some of your stuff from That Mitchell and Webb Look I’ve passed along and it’s gone quite far…
MITCHELL: Oh excellent.
KP: I think the Nazis sketch and the BMX Bandit sketch. The stuff travels.
MITCHELL: Oh marvelous. Well, thank you for doing that.
KP: It’s always my hope that the audience responds. I’ve never had anyone that I’ve shown the stuff to that have gone, “Well, why are you showing this? Can we move onto the funny American stuff?”
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: “Oh, they talk funny. You can’t laugh at that. And they’re so intelligent. How dare they!”
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: But it just seems that… I wish there was a more concerted effort… or more confidence, I think, is a better way to put it, and less insulting…. to sort of pursue that. Because I think it’s a shame that the material that you and Robert have done hasn’t come over here in the way it should. At what point is that even something that’s sort of within your wheelhouse to control?
MITCHELL: In terms of getting our material to a wider audience?
KP: Or yourselves.
MITCHELL: I think probably one of the reasons we’ve not thought about it very concertedly is because in the last two or three years we’ve been very busy here, and when things are just starting to happen you sort of deal with the things right in front of you, if you know what I mean. And also I think we’re not good at… we’re not our own impresarios. We’re not good at that. We were always, in the days before we had any kind of representation, the process of getting an Edinburgh show on would be a tremendously panicky, hectic process where we basically have to sort of spend all morning trying to put together a letter and get a stamp on it and, you know, we are bad at that. We’re badly organized. And one of the great things about when things start to go right is that those kind of problems get taken away from you to a certain extent. But I suppose the other side of that is then you’re, in terms of how you’re sort of… your area of reach is limited by the sort of capabilities or ambitions of people who are handling that for you.
KP: And if things are going smoothly then they have no real ambition to expand.
MITCHELL: Yeah. So it’s probably something we’ve just not really had serious enough conversations with people about because we’ve been always kind of thinking, “Well, we’ve got this coming up now and then that,” and our main state of panic is always about making sure the next thing we’re doing isn’t going to end up being shit because we haven’t put enough time into it. We do tend to be thinking more about that than about sort of longer term strategic goals.
KP: Have you ever had a conversation like that between the two of you – as far as a long term plan – or has it always been sort of thing-to-thing?
MITCHELL: We haven’t for a long time, I suppose. We used to.
KP: But were those pie in the sky, “We’re going to be fabulously rich one day!” chats?
MITCHELL: Exactly, (laughs). Essentially we used to talk about…
KP: “I’m going to own a gold woman.”
MITCHELL: (laughs) It’s a weird thing, actually. You sometimes get asked, “Did you ever imagine things would go this well?” And you feel like saying, “Do you know what an imagination can do? I imagined I was emperor of the universe!”
KP: “This is all a disappointment to me!”
MITCHELL: “I can certainly go on BBC 2. I can imagine, say, shoving off to BBC 1.” I am genuinely pleased with how things have gone, but I imagined much, much better. And also I feared much, much worse. And I wouldn’t appear half a human if I hadn’t.
KP: When would you say, then, was the last conversation you had about the future like that? Would it be back to the Edinburgh days?
MITCHELL: I don’t know. I think probably not that long ago. Probably about four or five years ago when Peep Show was just starting. Then we were sort of last thinking about… we talked to Sam (Bain) and Jesse (Armstrong) about Peep Show, strategically, in terms of wanting… we all decided we want to keep doing it as long as they’ll let us, which is actually quite an unusual choice to take over here. Things like The Office and Fawlty Towers having famously “quit while they’re ahead.”
KP: How detrimental do you think that sort of precedent has been to British comedy?
MITCHELL: I think it is a shame. I think, in a way, with a sitcom the proof of the pudding is in the sort of repetition.
KP: It seems almost like a badge of honor now that a comedy show will go, “Well, we decided to walk away. Let them want more.”
MITCHELL: Yeah. And I don’t understand it. I can see why it happened with Fawlty Towers, because there might just not have been another six remotely that good. But I don’t see why The Office couldn’t have carried on. Are you aware of The Young Ones?
KP: Oh yes.
MITCHELL: I worked with Adrian Edmonson a few years ago, and he said, “We stopped after two series for the noble Fawlty Towers ‘quit while you’re ahead’ reason,” and he massively regrets it. Because it was a great show. They could easily have done some more. And nothing they’ve worked on subsequently has been quite such a hit. I thought that was very interesting. I think it’s very healthy of him to have admitted it. But also it shows the dangers of just giving up on a successful show out of a weird sense of… I don’t know. A weird sense of pride, I suppose.
KP: Do you think there’s almost a resentment within the community for any show that runs longer than those two golden series?
MITCHELL: I don’t think… no, I don’t think it’s quite like that. But I think there will be… there’s always a sense that if you try and go on, you’re doomed to get worse. And I think that’s probably true in the very long term, but things can get worse a bit and then get better a bit. And a big, long running show like The Simpsons has gone up and down and up and down, but it’s still always been worth continuing with. They’re still creating good stuff. I suppose our feeling with Peep Show is that we don’t mind if the last series isn’t the best, as long as it was worth watching. (laughs) But if you obsess with quitting while you’re at your absolute best, then you’re always going to fear carrying on.
KP: I think the audience, even if there’s a bad season or something ends on a sour note, they’ll stick and rewatch for the stuff that they enjoy.
MITCHELL: Mm.
KP: So even if a bad thing is produced, let’s say, the audience knows well enough that they’ll still… they’re not gonna hate you for it.
MITCHELL: Yeah, you’ve earned a few… you’ve earned a bit of loyalty if they’ve watched a few good episodes. Then a slightly duff one they’ll forgive you.
KP: And it’s all selective anyway. People choose what they want…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: So they’ll just go, “Well, as far as I’m concerned, Season 3 didn’t exist. But 4 was great.” But it almost seems that there is a sort of comedy class system in the UK, to some extent…
MITCHELL: Explain that.
KP: If you look at the perception that there’s some comedians that have sort of “sold out” on certain things. But then there are purists that are somehow higher or elevated because they haven’t… I mean I was surprised and actually a little bit dismayed about all the attacks that you and Robert took for taking the Mac ads.
MITCHELL: Yeah, we were very surprised as well.
KP: Which seems like, well, if you’re offered a job, you take a job.
MITCHELL: Yeah, yeah.
KP: It’s almost like people believe comedians should be in a garret starving, writing their sketches. Just for the sketches sake.
MITCHELL: I think you’re right. The whole “sold out” sort of rhetoric is essentially damaging and meaningless. The problem is, I think a lot of people who enjoy comedy like to think it’s just for them. It’s their private little joke that they’ve discovered. And that’s not the point of television at all. It’s supposed to be for lots of people. The jokes are put there deliberately and they’re not just found by you. I think that any kind of movement or something, when shows become more popular, the assumption is that they must have become worse, by the people obsessed with this sense of purity.
KP: I remember… I forgot who told me, but they said they thought one of the worst things that happened for comedy was Edinburgh.
MITCHELL: Right.
KP: That it created this belief in comedy purity that was somehow damaged if a comedian wanted to make a living and eat.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yeah, I think that may very well be true. It’s certainly where the real comedy happens, is in Edinburgh. And actually that’s not the real comedy because it doesn’t pay its way. Television comedy is real comedy.
KP: Did you feel, when you were playing to four or five people at 10 in the morning, that that was the real comedy?
MITCHELL: No. (laughs) Absolutely no sense of being a sort of comic cutting edge. I felt like a failure. And I felt like I was never gonna get on TV.
KP: And it certainly undercuts the whole idea of comedy, which is it’s supposed to entertain. And it’s amplified, obviously, by the amount of people you’re entertaining. And as a performer I can imagine it being quite painful. Bill Bailey talked about he and Sean Locke walking on to do their show, and only one person was there, and they were just, “Well, you wanna just go have a drink?
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: It almost undercuts the comedy for it to be this sort of exclusive, exclusionary club.
MITCHELL: Yeah. The thing is, it’s like they say – everyone’s got their mate that’s funnier than any comedian. And that’s because, in a small group, it’s much easier to be funny because you know all the references. And the trick is to find the things that everyone gets. And so being of a wide appeal is very important. And I say that as someone who’s in relatively niche shows. But if lots of people don’t get it, it’s certainly not as good a joke.
KP: There almost seems to be a similar criticism for those comedians who frequent multiple panel shows. Which I don’t understand, because I think the base determiner should always be, “Is it funny?”
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Then if it’s funny, I think there’s a reason for it being extant. I probably found out more than I wanted to find out about you in Would I Lie To You. I’ve never seen someone quite so uncomfortable about the truth and the lies.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Oh, thank you.
KP: But it was funny! Was the show as painful as it seemed?
MITCHELL: No. I enjoyed it mainly, but I think they focused on the pain in the edit. Yeah, I found the truth. The lies I enjoyed doing, though I found the truths about myself awkward.
KP: You kind of present yourself as the perfect mark for a con man, though.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: It seemed like the lies, if genuinely told, you bought into pretty quick.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Oh dear.
KP: Now you’re going to be the target for every confidence man in the UK.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Derren Brown’s probably knocking on your door right now.
MITCHELL: (laughs) I think the sort of problem, and the reason the format works, is that when I know – you know that the truths they’ve given people are going to sound unlikely. They’re not going to pick obvious truths. And I think that’s what tripped me up many times. “Well, it could be true. It could all be true!” (laughs)
KP: Where else could you have a teammate who collected and ate belly button lint?
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: I don’t know how you sat there after that.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: I’m surprised she didn’t ask you for any. How much was actually cut from those tapings?
MITCHELL: Oh, quite. They were long recordings, actually. They were a couple of hours each. So yeah, more on the cutting room floor than in the program.
KP: You certainly made a wonderful team captain, though.
MITCHELL: Oh, thank you.
KP: Mainly deferring to your team going, “Oh, I don’t know. What do you think?” Which, I think, is the best sort of all-inclusive type of captain for a team.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Well, when everything goes wrong, I don’t want to be the only one blamed.
KP: But it seems like there are certain performers who are made for those sort of shows, which obviously require a large bit of attention and interaction and quick wit. Do you feel comfortable slipping into those kinds of programs?
MITCHELL: Yeah, I enjoy them, actually. I think I probably enjoy… the ones I enjoy doing most would be QI and Have I Got News for You. And I think they’re the best structured ones. But yeah, I find them fun. They’re a sort of outlet for a different kind of way of being funny from scripted material. You can sort of think of something on the hoof, get a laugh, and that’s the process completed. From idea to television in a few seconds rather than several weeks of writing and development and shooting.
KP: What was the first one you ever sat in on? Was it Have I Got News For You?
MITCHELL: No, the first one I did was several years earlier on a show that did not work on Channel 4 called Does Doug Know?, which was hosted by Daisy Donovan, and I did a couple of them. And I didn’t shine. I don’t think anyone shone on it, really.
KP: Do you think that was a format issue?
MITCHELL: Basically it was a format issue. And also it was a practice issue. But then I was not asked on another one for three years. And then I did one on Channel 4 where I was sort of hosting it for a week called FAQ U…
KP: Oh yes, I’ve heard of that…
MITCHELL: And that was sort of… Again, I don’t think that was a successful show, overall, but I was perceived to have done well on it. And that kind of got me on the list of people who get asked to do the other ones.
KP: Do you think there is a list that exists, even unofficially?
MITCHELL: I don’t know whether it’s a list that’s written down anywhere, but something changed. As a result of doing that show I was asked on Have I Got News For You, QI, and Armando Iannucci’s radio show within a week of each other. It was quite… something quite definite had changed in my status..
KP: Quite a trifecta…
MITCHELL: Yeah. And I found all three very intimidating but ultimately very enjoyable.
KP: So what was it like going into… because I’m real curious about Have I Got News For You, which always seemed sort of an odd atmosphere. Obviously being as topical as it is…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And also that, particularly since Angus (Deayton) left, it really is Ian Hislop and Paul Merton’s roost.
MITCHELL: Yeah. I’ve always been on Ian’s team. And he’s always been absolutely lovely. And very supportive. I’ve actually found it a very quite friendly, easy environment. But there are definitely tensions under the surface there that I’ve always been shielded from. But I think probably the most terrifying moment for me, because actually it’s been on since I was at school, and it was sitting there in the studio just listening to the signature tune play in on a show that I’ve watched as a teenager at home, and realizing I was in it, was tremendous in one sense, but absolutely terrifying at the same time. I just kinda, “Blimey, I really am doing this, aren’t I? I’d better not fuck this up.”
KP: How much rehearsal is there prior? There’s at least one camera rehearsal, isn’t there?
MITCHELL: Well, there’s a basic camera rehearsal. You don’t get any of the questions or anything. You get the least on Have I Got News For You and QI. And they are the best shows, and I think that’s sort of… that’s a sign that… I don’t think preparation of the panelist ever really works. Because I think the audience can spot, subconsciously, if some of the material is not off the cuff.
KP: That was one of the criticisms about Unbelievable Truth, wasn’t it?
MITCHELL: The radio one?
KP: Yeah.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Well, that was at least all… well, everyone had their own…
KP: Their prepared…
MITCHELL: Prepared thing.
KP: Their prepared story.
MITCHELL: At least that was openly prepared. And I certainly… it’s a legitimate criticism, but at the same time I think it’s much worse when you’re on a show where people are passing off as wit things that have been written in advance, and sometimes by others. I think when it’s openly read out – as the host’s script on all these things is openly read out from an autocue – I think it’s very different from passing off prepared material as on the spot wit. You can always spot it on They Think it’s All Over when Gary Lineker says a joke. You can sort of see him trying to remember how it goes. And there’s something about the remembering look in the eye is different from the thinking up look in the eye.
KP: That’s why I always feel sorry for, since Angus left, the guest presenters on Have I Got News For You that have been guests prior. When they’re sort of straight jacketed by that teleprompter.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And you know that they’ve shone as guests in the past but they’re now locked into the vagaries of that teleprompter…
MITCHELL: Yeah, you don’t get the same flexibility when you’re in that chair to join in, really. You just have to do the jokes that have been written for you in the week.
KP: Have they presented you with the opportunity to guest host at any point?
MITCHELL: I was approached last year but I couldn’t because I was on tour. I think I would do it if I was asked again, because I just admire the show so much and I feel that’s kind of a thing to tick off that I haven’t done. But I am sort of aware that if you go on as the host, you’re sort of out of it slightly. You have to deliver your autocue script as well as you can, and you might get to occasionally do a bit of banter, but you’re not primarily there to banter. And the banter’s the most fun.
KP: Obviously, being a fan long before you were on it, how do you perceive the Angus and the post-Angus years? What is your preference?
MITCHELL: I think they should go for a regular host now. I think, personally, it’d be impossible for them to get Angus back because there’s so much enmity there. And I don’t quite understand why. I’ve met all three people, they all seem perfectly nice. But anyway, they don’t like each other any more, (laughs) and there’s nothing to be done about that. But I think the guest hosting worked really well for a couple of series.
KP: As sort of a novelty?
MITCHELL: Yeah. And they were able to create a bit of buzz about as a single show by having interesting guest presenters. But now it’s essentially a rotation of people. It’s not news and it just means that the show is less stable. So yes, I think the novelty of that has thoroughly worn off and they should look to get a new permanent host. But I don’t think they will, because I think Ian and Paul like being in control of it.
KP: Yes, you can definitely see that they step to the fore of that.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Although I’m sure that they’ll just decide on Boris (Johnson).
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: A more pleasurable deer in the headlights I don’t think they’ve ever had.
MITCHELL: No, they get on very well with him. And they’ve probably made sure he’ll never be a mayor of London as well.
KP: Oh yeah. I don’t know, I think there’s something about… people love a novelty, and Boris as Mayor certainly would be that.
MITCHELL: Yeah. (laughs)
KP: I don’t know, Boris for President. After Bush, I’d vote for him.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: I think anything goes at that point.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yes.
KP: And then something like being a team captain. How, when you’re doing that sort of circuit – and obviously I’m assuming the shooting times really aren’t that long for a lot of these things. How do you juggle that with obviously wanting to do your own material?
MITCHELL: Doing the panel show stuff with Peep Show and the sketch show?
KP: Yes.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Well, as you said, panel shows basically take a lot less time. It’s kind of from middle of… it’s from like 4 or 5:00 in the afternoon into the evening of a day, and that’s your contribution done. So I just fit them in between. My priority is always to do the scripted stuff. Because that’s one of the reasons people want me to be on these panel shows at all. I certainly would never want the panel shows to become my main thing.
KP: Do you worry about that? Because obviously there are some performers that panel shows become the rest of their career.
MITCHELL: Mm. Yeah, well, I’m not worried about it at the moment. While the sketch and Peep Show are both being recommissioned I’m not worried about it. When that ceases to be the case, I’ll have to be careful, I suppose. And I’d also like to do more acting in other people’s things as well as being myself. And that’s… I’d love to be in a costume drama. For some reason I’ve decided that.
KP: Really? What period?
MITCHELL: Dickensian. I’d like to be some nasty Dickensian character in some adaptation. I think it would be fun to be able to do a bit of that kind of character acting as well as comedy.
KP: I’m surprised you haven’t been asked yet.
MITCHELL: Oh, well, thank you very much. So am I. (laughs)
KP: Heck, even Johnny Vegas has been in a Dickensian piece.
MITCHELL: Yeah, exactly. He was great in that. Probably the best thing he’s done.
KP: I’m actually shocked that more people haven’t offered you acting roles. I thought you and Robert were both very good in Magicians. Which I think was unnecessarily dismissed.
MITCHELL: Oh, thank you.
KP: I’m surprised they never tried again for an American distribution on that.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: How did you feel, doing film? That was the first film you had done, correct?
MITCHELL: Yes. To us, because we were doing it with Sam and Jesse, it felt very like television, really. In terms of, it’s just acting. I think that the real difference for film is the writing challenge, to make the thing work, whatever, an hour and a half, two hours rather than half an hour. And that was Sam & Jesse’s job, and I think they did a good job on it. But yeah, I’m always nervous saying this, but it was just acting for the camera in the same way. It maybe suffers because I didn’t, in some way, raise my game, but it did feel just so similar.
KP: Yes, you really should have at least put in an effort. Come on.
MITCHELL: I should have put on my film cowboy hat or something.
KP: Yes, your magic film underwear.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: That I’m sure they sell in all the special shops.
MITCHELL: Yeah… (laughs)
KP: Do you think that there is a belief that there should be some kind of different dynamic to that?
MITCHELL: Yeah. I think perhaps one of the problems with the British film industry is the perception that there’s some kind of magic trick to film that there isn’t to television. And I think in our fears that we haven’t got that trick, many a straightforward film is fucked up. And I think we just need to make a few more films and calm down about it. Everyone always tries their best in films, as in television. But this sort of weird rictor of panic you get in thinking, “This is a film for god’s sake! Justify the size of the screen!” I don’t think is very helpful.
KP: I’m always surprised by the lack of independent comedies…You look at your average film festival and 90% of them are coming-of-age dramas. The other 9% is some other hand-wringing drama, and you’ll be lucky if a comedy ekes in there.
MITCHELL: And the weird thing is how many people sit at home on a Saturday saying, “I really fancy going to see a coming-of-age drama tonight.” (laughs)
KP: “Oh yes, it was so wonderful last week. When the hell did they come of age?”
MITCHELL: Yeah… (laughs)
KP: “I wonder how the other half comes of age.”
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: What do you think it is about that makes that it so difficult… it seems like people don’t even pursue comedy as something to do in a low budget film. When comedy, you would think, is one of the easiest things, if you know what you’re doing, to sort of put together and have a universal appeal.
MITCHELL: Yes, and it’s one of those things that, when the various times when we have made any reasonable numbers of films here, what we have made quite well has been comedy. Yeah, I don’t understand it, really.
KP: Yeah, where is the Ealing of today?
MITCHELL: Well, they sort of tried to relaunch it, didn’t they?
KP: Yeah, well, in the worst possible way.
MITCHELL: I agree with you. We definitely… there are lots of comedy writers, lots of comedians in this country, and yes, a comic film… Magicians didn’t cost a lot of money to make. And I don’t see why we can’t be making two dozen of those a year. As a country. I think some of them would be real classics if we did. Because I think people would… but I think the difficulties of getting a film off the ground here are so overwhelming, it puts a lot of people off.
KP: I thought the lottery was supposed to solve that.
MITCHELL: Well, it hasn’t.
KP: I guess unless you’re a costume drama or a coming-of-age film.
MITCHELL: Well, yeah, so many films are just on a real wing and a prayer. Whereas television, you know where the money’s coming from.
KP: If you were to go in with a comedy to pitch, is comedy almost looked down on as being unworthy?
MITCHELL: Oh no, I don’t think that. I think we’d get a lot of interest, then the vastly slow process of getting these various funding bodies all to commit the money in the same tax year, would again… It took four years for Andrew O’Connor to raise the money for Magicians. And for my and Rob’s point of view, it was a great process because we just came in for the odd read-through over that period while the script was being developed, and then did it. But it’s such a lot… in many ways, one film is not a lot to show for five years work. If you’re in the business of making films, you kinda wanna make one a year, wouldn’t you? But it doesn’t seem to be the system in place. Andrew O’Connor originated that film, got the script together, directed it. I think he did a good job on it. But he’d have to go and start the whole process again. He’d be directing his second feature around the time of the London Olympics. That’s a pretty grim process.
KP: There’s no incentive to go through that grinder again.
MITCHELL: No. There just doesn’t seem to be a system where there are just people who are routinely saying, “Yes, you can make that, you can make that, don’t make that. There we go. There’s the money. It’s fine.” It’s always, “While we’re waiting on the Arts Council, the lottery says they’ll give us £180,000, but that has to be spent by March, and that is only in place if we get the £200 from this weird…” It’s incredibly tedious and inefficient.
KP: “And my uncle is giving a couple thousand…”
MITCHELL: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
KP: Does writing film even come into your view at this point? Is that even an interest?
MITCHELL: It’s an interest but not an immediate priority, I suppose. Rob and I have got a lot of sketches we need to write. But also we’d like to do a sitcom that we write as well. And I think that’s more of a pressing ambition for us than a film. So I’d like, in the next couple of years, to try and get our own sitcom that we write, as well as the performing, off the ground. Not in place of a feature – hopefully alongside it. I think we sort of feel that we – and I think it would be very different from…it’d be much more kind of heightened, and in a more sort of Father Teddy kind of level of reality…
KP: Sort of a Black Books kind of thing?
MITCHELL: Yeah. I think we’d like to do that.
KP: Do you think there’s still a perception out there that you and Rob write Peep Show?
MITCHELL: Oh yes. Lots of people… I think people still routinely assume that, which I find really embarrassing. Rob and I are pretty good about always making it clear that we don’t. But the look of disappointment on people’s faces when they sort of, when they have to readjust their estimation of you downward. And obviously it’s irritating for Sam & Jesse – and why wouldn’t they be irritated, because it’s brilliantly written.
KP: Do you get the sense that people almost wish they could retract the praise they just gave you?
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yeah. “We write most of our sketch show…” and they go, “Oh. Right.”
KP: “But I love Peep Show.”
MITCHELL: Yeah. “Peep Show made me come over.”
KP: Do you think that people approached That Mitchell and Webb Look as sort of a follow-up to Peep Show, even though it was the first thing that, since Situation, that you guys were doing?
MITCHELL: Yeah, I don’t know. I was worried when it came out that people would just essentially go, “This is nothing like Peep Show. What are they doing?” At the same time, I suppose it’s probably quite good that it was a very obviously different show. Yeah, I think we… a great feeling of justification of the sketch show was when it won its BAFTA – because at that point we kind of felt, “It’s all right now, we can say this show is also doing well. So the one we’re writing is doing well as well as the one we don’t.” And we were probably a bit insecure about it before that point.
KP: And if it hadn’t, would that have put a severe detriment on your enthusiasm to write another show post that?
MITCHELL: No, no. I think we’d definitely have kept it going as long as they’d let us, whatever. But it gave us a bit more of a spring in our step.
KP: Has your writing process changed in any fundamental way over the years?
MITCHELL: Not really. We write a bit more separately than we used to. We used to write absolutely every word both sitting next to each other. And we still do a lot like that. But we can sort of now divide up jobs to do and work separately. So that’s the only major change.
KP: Do you think that your interactions have changed in any way over those years?
MITCHELL: I’d be lying if I said that Rob and I haven’t at certain times felt the pressure of being constantly in each other’s company. I think we’ve had to be quite careful not to row, not to get too angry with each other when it’s essentially just the nature of circumstances. So that sort of pressure has been put on our friendship. But I think it’s weathered the storm quite well.
KP: How does that pressure usually express itself?
MITCHELL: Well, we’re neither of us… we don’t have rows, really. But we get kind of terse and a little bit sarcastic and a little bit quiet. And I think we both sort of fear having the row.
KP: You mean the one that says, “I want you out of here. It’s over…”
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: “We’re never going to write again.”
MITCHELL: We’re not experienced rowers, so we might say things… and we don’t like rowing, so we might say things that would be difficult to forget. So our policy is very much to bury things under the carpet.
KP: Maybe it will be some kind of arcane conversation that neither of you will fully understand.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yeah.
KP: Shouting some kind of 17th century epithets at each other.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yes, who knows. There might be a sketch in it, anyway.
KP: Yes – that’s the final blowup. Something that’s just so obscure in all of its references and points, that… “Are we actually fighting?”
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Is that an active worry? Is it always in the back of your mind that there might be a ticking time bomb?
MITCHELL: It’s not a massively active worry at the moment. There have been times that it’s been more of an active worry. But I think basically the fundamental strengths of our working relationship is that we really do agree about comedy. And we’ve got a lot of respect for each other’s work. And I think we both feel we’ve never done anything nearly as good without each other as we have together. And I think those are big strengths that we’d have to be very, very unhappy for them to stop.
KP: Would you say that you’re similar or dissimilar in temperament?
MITCHELL: I think we’re pretty similar, really. I think it’s one of the reasons why we work as a double act is that we seem different but are similar. Yeah, Rob’s quieter than me, and probably a bit less of a worrier. But we’re both worriers, really. If I’m stressed about something, I basically know he will be, as well. Even if he doesn’t necessarily moan about it quite as loudly. So yes, I think we are quite similar.
KP: Is there any comedic sensibility that you don’t share? Is there anything that… if you were to find one thing funny, is there any segment where it doesn’t overlap in that sensibility?
MITCHELL: I think, in the sketch world, Rob puts more faith in a character than I do. And I put more faith in an idea. That sounds like I’m just saying it in a way that makes me right. I don’t think it’s a right/wrong thing.
KP: It’s just a different approach.
MITCHELL: Rob sees writing more from performing point of view earlier, I think. There’s a slight difference of emphasis. And also, I think I’m the one that comes up with… well, I came up with the Cyclon A joke. And I occasionally come up with the nastier stuff, that he goes, “I don’t think we should put that in.” It’s not usually that bad. And on that occasion I was thoroughly with him. But if we’re having an argument about whether or not something’s okay to do, I think slightly, usually, I’m the one going, “I think this is fine, this is funny,” and he’s going, “I think that’s just… I see where the joke is but I think it’s just gonna hurt people’s feelings.”
KP: Do you find that you generally go towards the darker areas?
MITCHELL: I think overall we’re not a particularly dark… dark comedy is tremendously fashionable at the moment, and I don’t think we’re really very dark on that scale. But I think between the two of us I’m just… I’m slightly more… I more like to make a sort of horrible joke.
KP: Yeah, I don’t know how many people would do the Donitz sketch.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Which was brilliant.
MITCHELL: Oh, thank you.
KP: But I don’t know how many people would go into that area.
MITCHELL: (laughs) That kind of sketch I sort of feel is almost quite warm, in a way.
KP: Just the enthusiasm alone, that you would expect when someone gets a promotion – even if it’s to be the post-suicide successor to Hitler. You have him call his wife…
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Which you would assume a person would do in that situation.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: It does take a certain sort of skill in sketch writing to sort of walk that tightrope with material that in the wrong hands could be… I wouldn’t say extremely distasteful, because you would think that comedy should go anywhere. But that sort of button pushing material. And, obviously, stronger comedy is comedy of greater juxtaposition.
MITCHELL: Hmm.
KP: So to have the newly appointed head of the Nazi regime absolutely giddy about it, as everything is coming down around him, and wanting to enjoy just that little moment, and having his little tiny notebook of… “These are my plans.” His happy book.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: I think was sort of wonderful. And I think there were a lot of things within it that sort of pointed to that. It’s obvious that I’m assuming that you get a real sense of elation writing sketches that sort of pull those two opposing sides together.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Yes, I think that’s… as you say, it’s that kind of juxtaposition that I think is very satisfying when you feel it’s coming together and it’s worked.
KP: Would you say that the writing process for you, generally, is difficult? Or does it seem to proceed along at a nice clip?
MITCHELL: I think it varies massively. I think what Rob and I try and do, more over the years, is avoid trying to write when it feels impossible. And try and give yourself enough time and enough space and enough sort of ideas in the bank that you don’t have to succeed that day. I think that’s the kind of danger. When you’re sitting in front of an empty screen and it’s a situation in a show where you kind of have to come up with something great *now*, I think that’s the worst circumstances in which to come up with anything great.
KP: Do you generally find that you’ll throw away any material that you come up with during that situation?
MITCHELL: Yes, I think, quite often. I think with a sketch show, in a way, the proof… the sketch show is as good as the best sketch you don’t include, if you know what I mean.
KP: Right.
MITCHELL: So I think you always want to have surface material. You always want to be feeling, when you’re deciding what to shoot, “That’s a real shame that we can’t do this, this and this. But we absolutely have to prioritize this, this…” And, you know, when you’re feeling like that all the way through, then I think that’s when the show will come together well. Because there’ll always be mistakes. Things you just think are hilarious and aren’t. And you often realize that in the edit. But if you’ve not shot anything you were unsure about at all, you should have enough stuff that really comes off to fill a show.
KP: I thought it was interesting with Look that you went back to sort of a Marx Brothers technique of putting the stuff in front of an audience before you shot it.
MITCHELL: Oh, doing the tryout?
KP: Yes.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Well, we did that with our radio show, as well, and it’s something that our producer, Gareth Edwards, suggested. And I think it’s really handy. It’s very handy with material that you kind of really like but think might just not work at all. And there’s quite a lot of that, usually. There’s quite a lot of stuff that you say, “This is either great or it’s unusable.” I sort of enjoy those tryouts. It’s also very enjoyable how an audience will really join in with the process of, you know – even though we’re just reading out stage directions to them, they will sort of listen and tell you how funny they think it is.
KP: Is there anything that didn’t fly that you’re disappointed didn’t work, that you really thought would work?
MITCHELL: There are things. Yes, well, for the first series we wrote a sketch about a monastery, about some monks. We just thought it was very funny, the idea of two monks in a very civilized, pastoral little monastery kind of environment. And one’s saying to the other, “So, are you getting any?” It just made us howl, just that thought. And these monks who’d come to this monastery thinking it was a great place to get loads of sex.
KP: You have that sketch on the DVD, right?
MITCHELL: Oh, is it on the DVD?
KP: Yes. That sort of Spring Break monastery.
MITCHELL: Yeah. I don’t think it really came together. I’m glad they put it on the DVD.
KP: Treating it like a party college or something.
MITCHELL: Yeah. With the abbot who just has a fantastic time. That was one bit of material we absolutely loved, and we shot it and it didn’t really come together. It didn’t quite work, I don’t think. And so that’s why it’s a DVD extra! (laughs)
KP: I think the premise was strong. How do you feel about those sort of things having an afterlife on the DVDs?
MITCHELL: I’m happy with that. I feel my priority is the program, though. DVDs are so important now, there’s increasingly more pressure to care a lot about the DVD. And I’ve sort of bloody mindedly want to care most about the program. So our stated aim in making it was to make six half-hour episodes. Now, anything on top of that, if people don’t like it, I’m not taking that… that’s not legitimate criticism, if you know what I mean. If people don’t like the monk sketch, fine, they didn’t have to watch it. It’s not in the program. But anything in the program they didn’t like, fair enough. I’m sorry, I’ll try harder… (laughs) Kind of thing.
KP: Do you find that there are any lessons that you took away from the first series that you’re bringing to the second?
MITCHELL: Yes, I think… Well, the sort of main lesson – or the good lesson, which is that we felt that the kind of behind the scenes of us being ourselves bits did work. And so we sort of had the confidence to do them some more. But we sort of felt that people responded to the fact that the sketches didn’t repeat themselves that much and we’ve kind of continued with that.
KP: You mean the sort of Little Britain method of sketch writing?
MITCHELL: Yeah. We very definitely wanted to get away from each episode having the same sketch in every week. That seemed to come off, avoiding that, and people seem to appreciate that. So we’re sticking with that. In fact, we’re not even having the snooker commentators this time. Which I’m sad to see them go, but I think we’ve done all the jokes there.
KP: You kind of run the risk of that running into the ground.
MITCHELL: Yeah, exactly.
KP: Is there any kind of pressure you feel, that if you have something that works, to keep it going because that’s an easy write, or an easy character to slip into?
MITCHELL: Yes, I think there is always that pressure, and I think – touch wood – we’ve sort of avoided it. And I think our producer, Gareth, takes a lot of credit for that because he’s always been very firm on not repeating a sketch more than you should. If you’ve done the joke, then that’s it. Don’t do it again. For the people who missed last week’s episode, they can watch it on DVD.
KP: There’s a sense that there’s an afterlife to all these things.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Either in digital form or in repeats. Which I’m sure there’ll be more of on the BBC now.
MITCHELL: That’s just day to day! (laughs)
KP: Certainly they’re going to be able to see that material in perpetuity…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: How do you feel, knowing that there is sort of a long life for this material, and that even if it was a one-off series, it would be around for quite a bit?
MITCHELL: Well, I find I like that. A lot of work goes into it, and I’m glad it’s not all disappearing after its first transmission, because the television has less impact now, so I think it takes a while for shows to get into the public consciousness. It is through not just broadcast, but people seeing clips on YouTube, people watching DVDs, and that’s how you get your stuff out there now. It’s more complicated than it used to be. But yes, I think when you’re shivering on a beach in the rain pretending it’s Australasia at five in the morning, you want to think that you’re doing it for a reason. (laughs)
KP: I think you need to go out and film one of those pitch tapes of yourself for one of the Dickensian costume dramas.
MITCHELL: Yeah, (laughs) I should do that, shouldn’t I? Maybe I should start sending photographs of me with mutton chops on.
KP: I think you should. I think you should start your “David for Dickensian” website.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Just have your head shots in various poses.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Get yourself an accounting house.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: An orphanage.
MITCHELL: Yes, you’re right. This is just the kind of marketing idea I should be thinking about more seriously.
KP: Just random 8x10s of you with an urchin of some kind.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: I think you’d be a shoe-in at that point.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Just do a little enquiry button that they can hit – just, you know, “Would you like to cast David? Have you got a production going?”
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: “He’ll do day work.” How do you view the internet and that component of being a performer in this day and age?
MITCHELL: I sort of… I don’t know, really. It’s great in terms of people being able to see stuff more easily. But I don’t know what it’s going to do in the long run, and I sort of fear instability in my profession. I don’t find technological advances in my own lifetime inspiring. Because there are so many historical examples of people who’ve been fucked over by perfectly necessary technological change, and I don’t want to be one of them. (laughs)
KP: What’s the piece of technology that you point to as being the clearest example of that?
MITCHELL: In terms of a writer/performer?
KP: Yes.
MITCHELL: Yes, well, I think potentially it’s the internet. The internet threatens the ability to pay people for making stuff.
KP: Do you think the converse of that is it offers a much more direct access to the people that do pay and support you as a performer?
MITCHELL: Oh yes, absolutely. And I think it will… I genuinely think it will all be fine and, indeed, be better. I think it will be something that, in the long run, rewards quality material and brings it to a wider audience and all will be well. My only fear is that the transitional period could be a little bit dicey, and it might last for my whole life.
KP: Well, you said you want to be in some kind of Dickensian thing.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Some performers have fully embraced the web and have their MySpace page and their Face Book page and monitor the Wikipedia page…
MITCHELL: Yeah. I think I would like to be like that, but I’m just not that… what’s the word?… enterprising. Should I watch now? So I’m always a bit behind with that kind of thing, and I find it difficult to concentrate on two things at once, essentially. This, I think, links in with the whole not having thought about America much. What I’m thinking about usually is making the thing I’m trying to make, rather than the broad issues about our web presence, about our profile in America, all these issues that…
KP: Do you view them as largely esoteric?
MITCHELL: I view them as just as important but utterly beyond me.
KP: When, really, it comes down just to you.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: And you and Robert famously have the most minimalist web presence you possibly can, with a perpetual “coming soon” page.
MITCHELL: Yeah. No, I’m sorry about that.
KP: Well, thank you. Are you going to personally apologize to everyone who’s visited?
MITCHELL: (laughs) We’ve got a MySpace page!
KP: Well, it’s one of those highly impersonal MySpace pages that’s clearly maintained by someone on staff at an agency.
MITCHELL: Okay…
KP: It’s the kind of thing where, like, “Oh, this is the Mitchell and Webb page, and I’m a PA.” It’s the kind of thing that it’s sort of… it’s sad to read the comments on pages like that, when people obviously think they’re interacting with the performer. “I love your work, I love everything you’ve done, I’ve been to all of your shows, you mean the world to me…”
MITCHELL: Oh dear. It’s actually maintained by a friend of ours, not an employee. So I don’t know whether that makes it better or worse. We’re not even paying someone.
KP: (laughs) It just means you’re more of a user. It makes it that much colder. You really are living the Dickensian thing, aren’t you?
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: is it something that you’ve ever entertained the idea of taking a more active role in, or it just doesn’t interest you in the least?
MITCHELL: I sort of want to have what we should properly have, but I don’t want to, if I’m honest, spend lots of my day replying to well meaning messages from people I don’t know. I suppose. That sounds bad now.
KP: I don’t think it sounds bad. It’s certainly a practical approach to how much of a time investment it is if there wasn’t a sort of filter.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: There. Although I don’t think that any of those things mean that you have to be there replying to every single message that comes in.
MITCHELL: I think we certainly hope to do better.
KP: Having a web presence like that, when you talked about that sort of paradigm of technology taking money away from performers…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: If you have that sort of portal where they know where to get the material… If you say, “Listen, here’s our DVDs. Here are the projects we have coming up. Here’s our show schedule.” A lot of people don’t like MySpace just because it’s poorly designed and an eyesore to look at…
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: … whereas if you have sort of an easily navigable, straightforward, easily maintained web presence, it seems like that’s the perfect portal to say, “Here’s all the ways you can support us as artists.”
MITCHELL: No, you’re right, that’s what we should do.
KP: As far as dissemination of information.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Maybe there’s another friend that would do it for free.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yes.
KP: I’ve allowed you to paint a horrible portrait of yourself.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Horrible, mean spirited, victorian who makes horrible jokes about the holocaust.
KP: I’ve really done a poor job. Now you’ll never give another interview.
MITCHELL: (laughs) My life as a hermit.
KP: Well, you’ll finally have an interest, then, to actively avoid the press.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yes.
KP: Is that accurate? Your representation of yourself as a man with no interests?
MITCHELL: No, I sort of… I hope not. I don’t have a mad hobby, I suppose, because comedy was that and now it’s my job. But I like reading history books, reading novels, going to the cinema, playing tennis. You know, normal things lots of people like. But none of them are a passion, I suppose, in the way comedy was. But you can’t really call it that. I mean, it is still that, but it becomes less of a legitimate thing to cite as an interest when it’s your job. I can’t say all I want to do on the weekends is go and fish for salmon or anything.
KP: Do you find that, in any ways, you regret the idea that your passion has become your job?
MITCHELL: I think there is a downside to it. Definitely I’m less… I find watching other people’s comedy less enjoyable than I did before.
KP: Because you view it as a professional exercise?
MITCHELL: Yeah, exactly. And I sort of regret that. But the up side is fantastic. Because essentially my job is fun. And I would do it for free. I used to do it for free.
KP: Do you think that UK comedians, as closed as they are, as communal, staying within the UK as they are, with not many making the transition over to the US – do you think that’s potentially why they hold or find the US comedy so dear, is because it seems like a foreign object to them? That they’re not personally involved and that sort of distance is key?
MITCHELL: You mean sort of not threatened by it ’cause it’s so separate?
KP: Right…
MITCHELL: Yes, I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I find, yes, watching a new British comedy show – which will almost certainly involve people I know – is a stressful experience. I’m thinking, “How good is that? Am I angry that it’s so good or angry that it’s so bad? Worried that it’s mediocre.” You know, “What’s my view?” Whereas watching an episode of Seinfeld, I’m just enjoying it.
KP: So you’re completely divorced from a professional mindset, looking at it.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Watching the big American comedy, it’s like the closest I get to my former innocent enjoyment of comedy.
KP: I found it fascinating that so many revere our comedy, whereas from my perspective I obviously get a huge, huge delight out of discovering new UK material.
MITCHELL: Hmm.
KP: I suppose it all comes down to your sort of the perspective on it.
MITCHELL: Yes. I think that’s a very good analysis.
KP: Some kind of familiarity breeding contempt kind of thing.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yes.
KP: Speaking of interests, it seemed like the biggest shock that anyone had was when you sort of revealed your not particular passion for music on Would I Lie To You…
MITCHELL: Yeah. I slightly regret having… I’ve never been that interested in music, but I don’t mind it being on in the room, and I never thought that that was as odd as I now realize it is.
KP: There goes that booking on Buzzcocks.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Well, they still approach me, but I said, “No that wouldn’t be right. I really wouldn’t know what to say.”
KP: So there’s some ethical boundary of, “I’m not a real music fan…”
MITCHELL: Oh, to stop me going on?
KP: Yes.
MITCHELL: Yeah, I sort of think I’d be slightly taking the piss.
KP: I don’t know. You could have a lot of Phil Collins questions. Do you still own the album?
MITCHELL: I do somewhere, yes. I haven’t listened to it for quite a while. I’ve got an iPod which my flat mate put all of his music collection on for me. So I’ve got quite a lot of music on that, I just don’t know what any of it is.
KP: Isn’t that wonderful, to have someone else’s taste programmed onto your iPod?
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: What would you fill it up with if you had your druthers to put anything on there? Is there anything you just detest listening to?
MITCHELL: Jazz. I don’t like jazz. What I think is jazz, I don’t like.
KP: What in particular…
MITCHELL: Sort of just generally. The kind of…
KP: Lack of order?
MITCHELL: I actually haven’t even got the vocabulary to describe it. But yeah, the slightly disordered sort of swinging tune crap. I can’t get into that at all. But god knows, that’s fine. I cannot sit in judgment against it.
KP: So now, if someone were to sit here in analysis, they’d go, “So, you distaste something with a lack of structure?”
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yes. I think that would be good analysis. But also analysis I’d be unwilling to pay for.
KP: Oh, so then I should do your website, too! I see a pattern emerging here…
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yes… “Freeloader Mitchell”…
KP: Is that your nickname within the community?
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Do you regret in any ways not fulfilling your childhood dream of being Prime Minister?
MITCHELL: No, I don’t. It was a very quick… My swap from politics to comedy was a very quick experience when I met a few student politicians. I think politics is a tawdry business.
KP: Do you think you could have gone in a different path had you not gone into performing?
MITCHELL: I hope not. I hope, if I tried to be a politician I would have failed, because I think it would reflect quite badly on me if I succeeded. Yes, I think you have to… it seems to me that a lot of modern politicians, I don’t think they’re for a moment evil. Nothing so interesting. But what they are is people who’ve been able to believe logical inconsistencies in their own behavior, and believe that they’re doing things for the common good when they’re doing them out of self interest. And I don’t think it’s healthy to court such powers of self delusion.
KP: Do you think they’re the ultimate rationalizers?
MITCHELL: Yeah. Yeah. Tony Blair is the perfect example of that. He’s someone who’s made himself believe that he’s done no wrong. That’s what’s ultimately untrustworthy about him. I believe he believes that. If you can get to the point where you’re such a developed politician that you don’t even have to lie, that’s not a business I regret not being involved in.
KP: And you can sort of revise your own personal view of your history despite the well-documented reality …
MITCHELL: Yes, exactly.
KP: … of former stances and opinions.
MITCHELL: Yeah (laughs)
KP: It’s an amazing ability to warp reality.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: Almost superhuman.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the horrible thing, is they’re some sort of modern mental superheroes.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: With the ability to warp time and space.
MITCHELL: Only inside their own skulls.
KP: Yes. (laughs) Everything’s sunny there. Iraq’s going fine. It was the right thing to do, and one day it’ll be proved.
MITCHELL: The right thing to do, and everyone has always agreed.
KP: “My wife loves me, my kids adore me.”
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: “I’m handsome.” It’s amazing to see what other convictions you could convince yourself of.
MITCHELL: Mm.
KP: Do you find that you’re strong in your convictions?
MITCHELL: I don’t know. I think probably… no, probably not in the overall… I’m more inclined to doubt my own opinions now than I used to be. And it’s something I’m wary of in the world of the panel show and the quick remarks, that you have to say something and be very sure of it. I do that a lot, and then afterwards kind of think, “Oh, does that hold together at all, what I was banging on about there?” So I think the older I’ve got the more I come to be not sure about a lot of things.
KP: Do you think that sort of caution can be crippling?
MITCHELL: Yes, it can be, but I think it’s also… it’s all about sort of balance. And I think, certainty, it can be damaging.
KP: Is there anything you regret having said in one of those shows?
MITCHELL: Lots of little things I regret. In general, you regret saying something that doesn’t get a laugh. But I had a massive rant about Ann Robinson. And it sort of went down well, I think. And I don’t like Ann Robinson’s work. I’ve not heard well of her as a person. But I haven’t met her. And she’s not killed anyone.
KP: As far as you know.
MITCHELL: Yeah, as far as we know. So, I did feel afterwards that I… yeah, I felt slightly dirty.
KP: Do you find that… I’ve noticed particularly with Would I Lie to You, that you sort of have almost perfected the art of the rant.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: And can build quite nicely a head of steam into an incredible crescendo.
MITCHELL: I enjoy doing those rants, but they are the things I think… those are the things that sometimes worry me afterwards. If I feel I’m not on as strong a logical ground as I perhaps wished or behaved as if I was.
KP: I think that, with Would I Lie to You, the things that really provoke your massive rants, because of the structure of the show and that you’re telling personal lies, is that you seem to have reacted strongly against people’s perception of what you would or wouldn’t do.
MITCHELL: Right.
KP: I remember the one thing about walking out of the Tarantino film Kill Bill in disgust…
MITCHELL: Oh yes, yeah…
KP: That you took particular umbrage in that anyone would believe that you would be that sort of sheltered.
MITCHELL: Yeah, that the reason they didn’t believe my lie was because they thought I would have never have seen Kill Bill. And that I’m that tweedy that I would have just have been… yeah. And I had seen Kill Bill, and I wanted the credit for that.
KP: Do you think that’s the biggest misconception that people potentially have about you?
MITCHELL: Well, I think people are very quick to… they want to pigeonhole you as a comic type, and that’s something that I’m at least as grateful for as I am irritated by.
KP: And obviously Peep Show has done nothing but encourage that perception of you…
MITCHELL: Yes, exactly. It’s very difficult to come across as a fully rounded person and a lot harder to be funny. So, essentially, stereotyping probably does me more good than harm in terms of helping me get laughs. But it’s always fun if I can then get a few laughs by getting annoyed by it. And obviously everyone wants to… you know nobody… the sort of slow realization of how people perceive you is not always an entirely painless process.
KP: What has been the thing that really draws blood?
MITCHELL: Sorry, what?
KP: What has been the one thing that you can point to that really draws blood when it comes to how people perceive you?
MITCHELL: I don’t know. I think it’s when people… sometimes people sort of slightly angrily assume that I’m massively privileged. That I was very… while my parents are perfectly well off, they’re not rich. And I’m not very posh. I’m certainly no aristocrat. And some people have sort of thought I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth kinda thing. And that’s a bit annoying, because it also implies that nothing you’ve done in your life is a real achievement. And actually, I come from just a normal, middle class background. Like most people who are involved in the media. It’s certainly not… the media are more middle class than the country, but I don’t think I’m more middle class than the media, if you know what I mean.
KP: Right. Do you think coming from that Cambridge Footlights school of comedy, that’s automatically the assumption that people make?
MITCHELL: Yes, I think so. That’s why I think a lot of people who’ve been involved in Footlights don’t mention it too much. But also I slightly resent the association of Cambridge with, say, Eton. Eton is a school that you get into with money. Cambridge is a university that, when I went there, was free. Not anymore, thanks to the supposedly left wing government. So anyone who got the right exams could go there. It’s not a selection based on wealth at all. It’s based on academic success. I think it’s unfair on the institution to label anyone who went there some sort of chinless wonder. And it also discourages people from backgrounds who don’t associate themselves with Eton from applying to universities like Cambridge. And that’s not helpful for either the institutions or the individual.
KP: Do you think Cambridge has done very little to disassociate itself from that?
MITCHELL: I think they’ve tried in some ways, but also the way they are has made them… the thing about it is, when you’re there, it feels like an incredibly posh place. That can be intimidating for some people, but essentially…
KP: That just because of the age and the architecture…
MITCHELL: Yeah, the sort of buildings, the traditions…
KP: It’s definitely not a cinder block college.
MITCHELL: No, exactly.
KP: So, really, people are just wary of anything with ornate masonry.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Architecture has long intimidated many people and will continue to do so. That’s how the medieval church kept all of western Europe under control.
KP: If Cambridge would just throw on some neon. Spice it up a little bit. Dumb it down. Maybe put a McDonald’s.
MITCHELL: There is a McDonald’s.
KP: See, one step in. Maybe take down some of that ivy.
MITCHELL: Yes.
KP: Some color. That’s what it needs. It needs color.
MITCHELL: Yes.
KP: Everything would be… maybe a Tesco’s…
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yeah…
KP: You know, just for that late night student shopping…
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Why don’t they consider that?
MITCHELL: I know. They just need to get those bulldozers in on a couple of medieval chapels, and the whole place will look sort of contemporary.
KP: That should be your big campaign – “Cambridge: Let’s Tart It Up”.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Schools today are much too posh looking. Let’s make it look homey and inviting by making it look like the academic equivalent of a slut.
MITCHELL: Yeah!
KP: That way, if people think it’s easy, they’ll want to go.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: Are you, overall, satisfied with where things are at right now in your career?
MITCHELL: Yes, I am. We had a great couple of years. I’m doing a sketch show and a sitcom alongside each other. Yeah, I’m very happy. Much as I can be doing this for the next few years, I’d be very, very happy. And if some other opportunities happen, then that’s great as well, but I certainly… I don’t feel… yeah, I feel very happy at the moment. And also, therefore, nervous that it’s all going to go away.
KP: Do you find that that nervousness has abated any as you’ve become successful, or it just increases?
MITCHELL: I think it’s… yeah, I don’t think it’s abated much. I think the constant feelings of nerves are just… well, it’s just how I am. I think if I stopped feeling them, I would in some deeper way become more nervous.
KP: So it’s a self-perpetuating thing.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Yeah.
KP: Do you have any aspirations outside where you’re operating right now? You talked about an interest in history. Do you see yourself going the Terry Jones route?
MITCHELL: Not for a while. But yeah, no, I’d love to do that kind of thing one day. But I sort of feel I’ve got a bit more special comedy to get out of my system. Terry Jones wasn’t doing that when he was my age, so I think it’d be a bit soon to go too deeply into other areas.
KP: Is there any one of the previous generation who’s career path looks appealing to you?
MITCHELL: Oh, lots of people. But by mentioning them it seems like I’m saying I’m as good as they are.
KP: Well, now that we’ve prefaced by you’re not saying that…
MITCHELL: I’m not saying that. Well, I must say, I think you can go a lot further wrong than Stephen Fry’s career path, can’t you?
KP: And even Stephen’s in America right now.
MITCHELL: Is he? There you go.
KP: He’s doing his tour of all 50 states.
MITCHELL: Is he?
KP: He’s driving from state to state.
MITCHELL: Blimey.
KP: In a left hand drive cab.
MITCHELL: Really?
KP: Yes.
MITCHELL: Oh, I look forward to watching that.
KP: And I guess his plan is to actively avoid places like Manhattan and Los Angeles and get sort of an off-the-beaten-track view of America.
MITCHELL: Oh, excellent.
KP: I think he probably misjudges how immense this country is and how difficult that drive will be.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Well, he can always do a follow up series, can’t he?
KP: Yes. Stephen Fry In America: Still Going. Maybe he’ll just film the next few series of QI from whatever state he’s in at the time.
MITCHELL: Yes. Just have a video linkup.
KP: “I’m still not done!” Well, if Alan could pull of his disappearing act… although eventually I think there’s gonna be some kind of robotic Stephen Fry that’s marketed…
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: That people can install in their own homes.
MITCHELL: Yes. There’s definitely people who would do that.
KP: Push a button and occasionally it’ll give you a reading of something… some kind of Oscar Wilde short story. Then just tell you a random fact.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: I’m surprised he hasn’t popped up on people’s iPhone’s yet. “A Little Stephen Moment”. Well I hope the conversation hasn’t been too painful.
MITCHELL: No, I’ve really enjoyed it, actually. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. And you’ve said many wise things that I should do in my life, like not be frightened of America or the internet.
KP: Yes, either, in that order. By the way, have you thought up your Dickensian name?
MITCHELL: No. Now, I should be able to say it to you. If I was Stephen Fry, I’d say a really funny Dickensian name now.
KP: Yes, like Mr. Chiselfig.
MITCHELL: Yes. And you’ve done that for me.
KP: I guess it would be Master Chiselfig.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
KP: That sounds ludicrously Dickensian enough, right?
MITCHELL: Yeah, absolutely.
KP: Well hopefully at some point you will at least do an exploratory venture into the US. Hopefully this conversation has at least prompted the desire to have a conversation with Robert about it.
MITCHELL: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
KP: Or get a stun gun and just drag him over.
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: That would work too, right?
MITCHELL: I’m sure.
KP: Just have him wake up and you’re on some theater on Broadway.
MITCHELL: (laughs) I don’t like it when he talks too much anyway.
KP: See, now is when the truth comes out!
MITCHELL: (laughs)
KP: But I hope you guys have the confidence to know that you have a prospective audience in the US.
MITCHELL: Well that’s certainly good to hear. Yeah.
KP: Really, you guys just need to have like a massive meeting of all the comedians in the UK. You can crack this. It’ll be like an Ocean’s 11 thing.
MITCHELL: (laughs) You’re right, we should do.
KP: There’s strength in numbers. Or at least many places to point the blame.
MITCHELL: (laughs) Yeah.
##
Even though this marks the brothers’ return to the directorial lens, some would take contention with that and point out V FOR VENDETTA as a possible return to form, it is SPEED RACER which is wholly theirs. One of those who are in the thick with the brothers Wachowski, Christian Oliver, stars as Snake Oiler, a rival racer who has his own eye on winning the Casa Cristo Classic cross-country road rally.
CS: What kind of part are you playing in the movie?
Like you said, they are very private. They are very much all about the work. And I love that. I respect that. I think they don’t need to be in the limelight ““ they don’t want to be in the limelight. They are like kids. They want to play. They want to have fun. They want to push the envelope. It’s fun when you get to be a part of that ““ it’s very exciting. And then you want to do whatever you can to bring something to the game. So, it was fun.
CS: And certainly it shouldn’t pass without notice that you are a theater buff and I’m very impressed with the kind of credentials and one of my favorite stories, Candide, a brilliant story. I’m utterly fascinated and I want to know how the playwright was able to translate such a big story into a theater length show.
CS: You have been around ““ it’s obscene how many cities and countries you have been in doing acting. I know a lot of actors just go to LA and just hope to God they can spend their life in LA but you have obviously spread yourself around all over the world and one of my questions is I don’t know if it has played but the BBC mini-series coming up ““
OLIVER: For me, personally, I always need to be challenged. In the sense, that if I get to play like ““ I don’t even want to go there ““ but if you put me in a typecast clean machine ““ I can dial it in anytime but make sure you pay me. Other than that I’m looking for something to be challenged.
It’s easy to by cynical about films nowadays.
CS: I have to agree with you. I remember making movies of my own with my own video camera and this movie made me reflect on that and I still don’t have any solid reasons why I did it but I’m finding out that a lot of other people did that as well.
JENNINGS: We had the French exchange. And I’m sure if I were to go back in time it wasn’t the way I remember it but I remember these kids getting off their coach and the seemed so exhausted compared to us and so much cooler and so European. And then they had mustaches and we thought that was really cool because I was the latest developer in the history of time. We tried to make it so that anyone watching this film would understand that feeling. Obviously in order to get that we played around with it and he becomes a peacock ““ a Pied Piper and everyone can relate to the kid that people follow or are awestruck by even though you look back and say that guy was kind of a jerk ““ what was I thinking? It sorta came out and tried also to capture that when you look back you often realized that things weren’t so straight forward, like I said about RAMBOW. I remember the kids we thought were cool were invariably, they were but also more to it than that. There was always more to it. We were trying to get that across in the film. There was another side to it.
CS: Right. And on the subject of the script, at least in previous interviews I’ve read about you talking about fundamental influences coming in where Bill and Will are, do you think things are different today with the speed and access in which kids now are able to be exposed to so many different messages?
CS: I do. It’s what a lot of people who have seen it have reflected on saying, I remember having friendship like these and all of a sudden you’re in 8th grade, 9th grade and you just turn around and they are not there anymore and you don’t ““ no one is angry at one another ““ it just happens.
CUMMINGS: It’s interesting, isn’t it?
CS: But you have to say, “If I HAD to ““ If someone put a gun to my head…”
CS: And how was that transitioning from a television atmosphere to a film? Does the scale change? 
CS: Overachieving while being funny. I have to believe it’s one of the hardest things in the world to try to do but do you ever get to the point where you are doing sets every night, obviously some nights go better than others, is being funny a draining thing? Are there times you don’t want to laugh or do anything associated with comedy?
CUMMINGS: My first ever was Paul Reiser. I found a book he wrote called “Couplehood” that he wrote in 89 or 90 and it’s kind of like what Mad About You was based on. It’s all about couples living together and the mundane goofy things that happen. Just like you said, it was about buttering bread in the morning, making coffee all of these little things and made these hysterical, brilliant commentary about the most mundane things and open it up to a hysterical world. The things we take for granted every day ““ you get up, take a shower, get in the car ““ all these things he had such interesting, funny observations. I was so fascinated ““ his sense of humor was so insane. Followed by George Carlin and big for me too was Bill Cosby. I used to watch his show religiously because so much of that was based on his stand up and then later ““ Dave Attell ““ he’s a legend now but he’s very edgy and then I got introduced to Lenny Bruce and then Bill Hicks and it was kind of over.
PANNELL: I think pretty much everything he intended pretty much worked out. If it seemed like something wasn’t going to work, he was always in discussion with us. He was always asking us how do you feel and how we feel about our characters and welcomed opinions but we weren’t running around trying to run the set but very open and we felt very comfortable ““ at least I did, speaking for myself. If I didn’t quite understand something I would try to understand it with questions. It’s really like a novel ““ a great narrative piece of work ““ and you want to show that justice especially when the director is the writer.
CS: During the shoot how long were you on set making this film?
CS: It says you are currently in Los Angeles and I would imagine it’s nice to be able and go back to LA if you were to compare being on jobs, the difference between working on something like this and working on something with tons more money behind it”¦
PANNELL: On my shoulders? This is the biggest part I’ve had to date. I told someone earlier that you don’t have to have a million dollar set to bring professionalism to the set, and handle yourself in a professional manner and I think everyone did that. It worked like clockwork. Jeff was the perfect captain for the film. I hope that I did it justice in Jeff’s eyes. At the end of the day, you say, Oh I should have done it this way, or I should have done it differently. Hopefully I’ve learned from it.
A lot of superlatives could be used to describe the fierce yet melodic sounds of 
BARRETT: That’s the genius of Joe Gittleman, producer of the Bosstones sound. He knows the Bosstones sound like I know the Bosstones look.
BARRETT: I really wouldn’t have minded that but to be the Bosstones is not the Rolling Stones. It’s just not for everyone or easily understood. It’s hard to explain. At the peak of our popularity I really didn’t enjoy that as much as I probably should have. I took it too seriously. It felt to me like, “Oh shit, all these fans that we’ve created throughout the years ““ punk and ska clubs are going to hate this.” It wasn’t like we were trying for those things…things came to us. When Kurt Cobain died and people were feeling pretty miserable we thought it was time for people to feel a little bit better and we happened to be there with bands like Green Day, Rancid”¦it was time for uplifting music, which is what we’ve always been doing. It wasn’t like we flipped our flannel shirts off and put on the suits ““ here we are we’ve been being the Bosstones for 10 years before that. My mask could be off.
CS: And then going back for the Hometown Throwdown certainly helped to gel a lot of things, but how was it going back this year?
CS: If it’s anyone that deserves some kind of mainstream recognition, it’s them. They played 5 nights in a row ““ all of the shows surfaced nightly on the Internet ““ but it was amazing to hear the guys, over the course of 5 nights, getting tighter and tighter. It was sold out and they mentioned they wanted to do it again next year. What’s it like to go out there and do something 5 nights in a row in one place ““ what’s it like by that fifth night?
BARRETT: I don’t know. None of it is solved. Busy schedules but I’d like to tell you it’s really difficult and I don’t know where it comes from and I’m really gifted and I can spin several plates at the same time but it doesn’t seem like hard work to me. It feels like I’m doing things I like and glad to have the opportunity to do it.
CS: That launches me into asking you why these students are so special. Why were they so successful? Anyone with a math kind of brain could have figured it out. What made them so different?
CS: Did you think that when you started to explore these characters, was it based on greed or was it based on something else underneath it?
CS: Did they get their fill at the end? These kids didn’t grow up and continue to be this way so how did everyone cycle out?
CS: This opportunity didn’t start it, they already had it in them.
CS: Is it moot now to try and count cards, then?
YOO: And if you go to these other places, they may not have face recognition software and may not be quite as savvy but if they catch you there are still places where they will backroom you. People go to Native American casinos and do this sort of thing because in general the casinos are not as high tech or savvy as the ones in Vegas. I know there are triad owned underground casinos in different cities around the world. And if you have the balls to go to one of those places and card count, you should get a prize.
ENCINO – They call him the Weasel! And he finally called the Party Favors.
While Natural Born Komics spoofs reality shows, Pauly is a veteran of the genre. Minding the Store dealt with him running The Comedy Store. How real was the reality on the show?
I saw SPIRAL months ago.
CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Hey, Joel, Jeremy.
MOORE: We wanted to do something interesting with those two characters and have them mirror each other in a way.
CS: Could you talk about the writing process itself, i.e. co-writing? Where did the process begin?
BOREING: I’ve written things and Joel hadn’t done as much as that but he made films and I hadn’t been a part of that process. I probably had more moments of being not so much surprised but interested in the distinctions between the way I thought things would be on the page and the way they wound up being.
So, there is this interesting phenomenon that the people who are in the arts can sort of relate to this loneliness. Mason can’t do a 9 to 5 job out in the world and with the fluorescent lights and the headset and timecard he can’t be himself, he can’t relate in that environment. And a lot of us who come out here are that way ““ exaggerated to the degree of a Mason but when he’s at home he is immersed in the music that he loves and the art that he loves and thinks that he’s knowledgeable about things that he can relate to and open up to be the artistic, insightful guy and again, that is Joel, or that is Zac and that is Adam Green, even Amber Tamblyn. They are not at this extreme as Mason ““ we are telling a story here that is fiction – but then we can all relate.
But the visuals in this movie are what drives the movie because a lot of this movie are just two people talking and the cameraman is playing a character, a part in this movie ““ voyeuristically speaking. He is watching Mason as he’s going through his struggles. All of that was accessible to us. Because all of that is creating, between Adam and I, how the shot is going to look. We had these long shots of steadicam just moving around the world and one of my favorite shots in the whole movie is when Mason comes in from talking to Amber on the street and not inviting her up because he obviously has paintings of this other woman on his wall and he’s not ready for that transition. Mason looks out, looks at the paintings, and then storms into the bathroom. That shot right there is just one shot. It just moves all the way around and introduces you to the block where Mason spends 90% of his time.
CS: Dane, if I could close with the final question ““ I’m paraphrasing but Chris Rock said there’s the Stand Up Comedian’s Success Kit. Included in the kit is a movie, a book, a television show, now while you’ve said you’ve done pilots of a television show do you think that you will write a book? Do you think you will find success in a television show or do you think you’ve honed your craft well enough where you don’t have to spread your brand of comedy over different forms of media?
Far from being a stuffy intellectual, a loathsome toff, or a smug git, Stephen Fry has managed to walk the fine line of being not only a wonderfully intelligent man who unashamedly exhibits said intelligence, but also a very funny performer and an all-around humble and likeable guy.
FRY: Well, through John (Lloyd). Through his remarkable persuasive powers. I’ve known him for years and years. Really, he was a great hero. When I was at university – he had been, like me, at Cambridge in the Footlights club, which is a famous club at Cambridge. It produces comedians, and has done so for over 100 years. John Cleese and Peter Cook and Ali G – and myself, Emma Thompson, and Hugh Laurie were all in the same year at Cambridge, and we were all in the Footlights as well. And as I say, it’s that sort of Python tradition. And John Lloyd had been in about five years before me. Same time as Douglas Adams who wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide. They were very good friends. John had become well known to those of us aspiring toward the comedic world because of a TV series called Not The Nine O’Clock News, that he produced. When we left university, I sort of got to know him a bit.
KP: So, you know how to play the game as well…
KP: Who knew you would develop into an amazing comedy duo?
FRY: (Laughing) That’s nonsense! A, he can keep up with me, plus – I mean, he’s so brilliant, Hugh. And also, of course, he has so much charm that he’s always absolutely brilliant anyway.
KP: Does it feel different to you? For years you’ve done panel shows, but being the host, was it a completely different feeling to then be put on the panel?
When I was asked whether I’d want to interview David Paetkau for ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM (Opening today, Christmas Day) there wasn’t a moment of hesitation. Apart from thinking I was going to interview a Hawaiian (I mean, come on, look at the name. I should have tossed in a question about Poi…now I’m depressed I didn’t.) I believe that this is exactly the kind of person I really enjoy talking to for a variety of reasons; one of the biggest ones, though, is that for those of you who have ever had the kind of career where you’ve had some success and are making your way up the ladder it is that drive, that hunger to go farther from where you are today, to be better than the other guy, is what’s most interesting. Once you make it, it’s all about reflection and experience and who here hasn’t read an interview with some A-lister that seems less to be about the work and more about how great it is to work with X or how funny X is off the set?
I don’t usually do e-mail interviews but as I read his answers I have to believe that this could be my favorite means of getting to know someone. David was a champ for handling my questions with aplomb and I have to be honest by saying when and if I see ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM I’ll be seeing it just to find out if he’s one of those who gets eviscerated.
DAVID PAETKAU: Yeah, there were some definite reservations because they wouldn’t let us read the script. it was ‘locked’ and ‘secret’ … so i had no idea what i was getting into! I still decided to jump onboard, because I figured it’s better to regret something you did do then something you didn’t do. It also helped that Aliens is one of my favorite movies.
5. On your IMDB page there are a few people who make mention of your “hawtness” or that you’re “gorgeous.” Does seeing this kind of superficial attention validate your decision to make a living by being in front of the camera and, if so, how great is it to be you on Saturday night at a club?
DAVID PAETKAU: No tennis balls, but I did have to pretend that cold slimy goop was alien blood melting my face off. The toughest thing was the man in suit aspect. A guy dressed in an alien costume with rubber claws isn’t intimidating up close. The cool thing about the Stause brothers was that they edited each scene as we filmed it. They’d have the sequence cut together on the spot, send it to the second unit with notes on exactly what other shots they needed. It was amazingly efficient. It was way beyond just playback.
CHRISTOPHER STIPP: So, how are you doing?
And I think it’s a relevant movie today because it really about a man who gets involved in other’s peoples struggle in a foreign country where he doesn’t know any thing about the world of fanaticism. And we are in a place right now that is very similar although it’s in the public eye and not a secret. I don’t want to give away the ending but it’s very relevant to what’s going on today. So, that’s what the movie is about and I play a showgirl/stripper who’s in Vegas with Charlie Wilson.
ANGELO: It’s quite interesting and Aaron Sorkin did a great job making that book into a movie.
And the other thing he said to me, and I think about it everyday, is that “I am so lucky to have this job. I feel so blessed. Aren’t we blessed? Sitting in a hot tub, saying lines, pretending we are drinking martinis. Isn’t this the best job ever?” He just loves what he does. He knows he is lucky. Even though he is extremely talented, I think he deserves what he has. I think he feels like it’s undeserving. He said he’d be doing community theatre in Podunk, Iowa if he could. He’d still be acting, no matter what.
I have to find the truth of why and how they react, what’s going on in the scene, what about the other people in the scene ““ just always, always is the truth. I don’t like to fake it ““ I don’t want to fake it. I want to really find the experience of the scene. It’s not perfect. It’s a craft. You call on the techniques that you’ve learned and hopefully it works.
Film-wise, things have to start production March 1st or it looks like the screen actors guild could walk. So, I have a good five months. I would love to get another job next year. I don’t know if we’re going to walk but if it doesn’t get resolved, then we probably will because my contract is up May 31st. It’s just not a good time and this town is really going to suffer. Yes, I guess I am directly affected, through my husband. Not good timing since my movie is coming out so soon.
ANGELO: Yes, it’s true. It’s not like I’m thinking I’ll just pack my bags and move to a different country. This is just a bump in the road. We had a commercial strike a few years ago and the actors survived however, the business did change for commercials after that. We are artists and we have to stick up for ourselves.
Navigating the treacherous waters of launching an independent comic book series into the already crowded marketplace of the early 1990’s – one still dominated by the “Big Two” companies, Marvel & DC – could be seen as a foolhardy endeavor. That said comic would be a success in those circumstances – particularly when it was kid-friendly black & white book in the age of bloody antiheroes – seems even more insane.
KEN PLUME: First off, I wanted to mention that I just saw the hard cover collection of Shazam: The Monster Society Of Evil, which is a beautiful presentation of a wonderful series..
KP: Well, there was the sense that – almost from a story perspective – that the ending arc was almost like pulling teeth for you.
KP: Are there any thoughts of doing a second edition of the hard cover?
KP: So there was definitely concern that any time away might find people moving on?
KP: And Bone.
KP: One thing I do miss in the one volume edition, which was always a fun part of picking up each new issue of Bone, was the letter section.
KP: You talk about how tightly written this already was before you went in. Were there any happy surprises – like a Bartleby – that came in just within your own development of the story?
KP: And speaking of that something else, where did the initial conceptualization of RASL originate? How far back does that go?
KP: Or does it feel like what you’re used to?
KP: And the complete Pogo collections you’re designing are coming up…
KP: Oh, and when are we gonna see more Bone?
It’s a juggernaut of a show and when approached to interview one of the show’s dancers, Tony Dovolani, I took it as an opportunity to try and get a true insider’s take about why this show works as well as it does. Tony actually got his limelight start on the big screen with his turn in 2004’s SHALL WE DANCE and has since performed in over 50 episodes of Dancing With The Stars.
DOVOLANI: Dancing is a sport. This is the part that people don’t realize. Dancing is a sport. It takes physical ability, it takes adrenaline, it takes so much. I remember one year Emmit Smith and Jerry Rice, they said that some of these things were harder to do that playing football. Because this is something that you use muscles you’ve never used before in your life. And all of a sudden”¦.that’s why the body changes so much because you use parts you don’t normally use in everyday life. And it works in such a way that you really don’t feel it until you look in the mirror and 4 weeks later you say, “What’s happened to my body?” Because it changed so quickly. It’s not because they are dieting because they aren’t. They are actually eating more than before because they are putting so many hours in and dancing stretches the muscles and elongates and so on. All of a sudden they feel completely different. And it’s funny, Jane said to me the other day, since her operation on her back, and even before, she was never really able to just get off the bed. And now, she bounces off the bed. “I get up and all my muscles just feel youthful again. ” It’s really amazing.
CS: One thing you can help shed some like on is one of the connections I’ve drawn is that my teacher was from an Eastern Bloc country ““ what is it about the international appeal of dance? It seems to appeal to people overseas and they come here and it’s something that is prevalent in many studios I’ve been in.
CS: When I watch the show and see the cut scenes and watch the celebrities doing their routines and watching them failing and getting back up and doing it again ““ weekly ““ how many hours are celebrities (other than last night I heard someone only put 6 hours into it) whereas others worked all week on it.
And it was too bad for the gay student when they weren’t so cool because you just had a bunch of guys staring at him calling him names. It must have been a really rotten way to go through school. The Larry Craig thing. No one seems to talk about the bigger problem: that we have a problem with homophobia in this country. But that was interesting.
“What do you think about the news? What do you think about what Seymour Hersh said in the Times…” and he says, “Pal, I look at the USA Today in the lunchroom and read the Sports section. ” If they get the news maybe on the radio while they are going through traffic if they listen to it…so they don’t have the time.
You see how amazing the cutting edge of technology is as far as what a surgeon can do re-constructively. These guys get the most amazing care and they deserve it, of course. But it’s hard to take. Do that for 5 to 6 hours and get back to me. And I’ve been to those hospitals many times and hopefully I’ll be there in early October. Whenever I’m in DC, where I come from, I’ll let the USO know a week in advance. “I can give you half the day here or here.” But if you need me, put me in coach, I’m ready to play. And sometimes they can arrange it sometimes they don’t need me. So it’s like a wait and see and they let me know a week before. So it’s made the military, all those voices, a very personal thing to me because now I get their letters. I meet them at shows. Like some guy will write me, “Hey, I met you in Iraq a few years ago and you are coming to my town” ““ hey, give me your name and I’ll put you on the guest list. I always put them on the guest list. But that military ““ of the fifty shows coming up I have military coming to at least 15 so far. And more will write as the tour goes on I’m sure. “Hey you hooked up my buddy man, can you hook me up? ” Yeah, sure. And I’ve been doing that for years now.
CS: Do you think that kind of openness that kind of laissez faire ““ come as you go – still exists in America or is this a culture that is now based on fear?
ROLLINS: OK, well where I get my information is I love to read printed journalism I like to read stuff on the Internet. I like to listen to the radio and hear other people talk, different politicians. I try to find non agenda journalists. I have to read and read between the lines. I cross reference and think “What’s the motivation? Why does America go into this country and do that? What’s the motivation?” Just follow the money and you can save yourself a lot of aggravation and a lot of time. So, with that in mind, that’s how I read the news. I put it all through a business filter.
Occasionally, an interview will – for various timing and scheduling issues – sit on the shelf for far too long a time. Over the next few months here at FRED, we’ll be dusting off those “too good to let sit any longer” pieces and letting them finally see the light of day. First up is an interview from last year featuring Monty Python alumnus, director, writer, and historian Terry Jones – conducted a few weeks into his documentary series on the Barbarians on BBC2. Barbarians is due to be released on DVD in the US this January, from Koch Lorber.
KP: It’s quite interesting to get a glimpse into UK life via television, and it goes to show that people are becoming more worldly – if they actually take a chance to look at what’s out there. Barbarians, I think in some ways even tops Crusades as my favorite piece you’ve done so far.
KP: It’s odd… It’s almost a celebration of philanthropy.
KP: It goes back to the first book that I ever seriously contemplated stealing from a library, I hate to admit… because it was impossible to find, and I found it in my first year in college… which was your Chaucer’s Knight…
JONES: I think it’s all about attitude. For example, I’ve been looking at the Ellesmere illustrations, in the Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, which is in the Huntington Museum. And I wrote to Mary Robinson, who’s the curator of the Huntington Library there, and asked her if she could have a look at the illumination of the monk under a microscope. And she very, very kindly agreed to look at it, and she said, “Well, we backlit it and we could see around the head, but it might just be what the artist was drawing to place the hat on.” And she really didn’t look any more. But then eventually, very kindly, she came and heard me talk about the illumination in Los Angeles, and invited me to come look at the illumination again, in the manuscript. And we went to look at it, and then we looked at its backlit version, and then we put some lights on the front, and as soon as we put lights on the front, you saw this gold under the monk’s chin, and elsewhere. And it’s quite clear that it had been blotted out. The point about the illumination is it doesn’t look anything like the description in the text, because in the text he’s large and mighty, he’s got a bald head, a red nose, he’s very jolly, and wears this gold pin, and all that sort of thing. He has hounds and he loves hunting. And in the illumination, there are the hounds there, but the illumination is of a man covered in black. He’s just covered in black. He’s got, like, a veil over his head. But when you looked at it through the microscope, you could see that he wasn’t jolly. You could see he’s got a gray wash over his face to calm it down – but with a microscope, you could see he’s got rosy cheeks and a red nose, but he’s also got this gold. I thought clearly that the illumination had been blotted out. And the reason why I tell you that, is that Mary Robinson didn’t see those things herself, because she wasn’t looking for that. And she didn’t see it. And it’s just that I was looking for that, and I thought there must be something there. So it was easy for me to see.
JONES: Oh, Who Murdered Chaucer?… I think that’s one of my favorites, actually.
KP: Which is a long time coming.
JONES: No, it was a feature film. It was released over here. But very badly. I’m really pleased with Wind in the Willows. I think that’s the best film I’ve made, in many ways. It’s a really lovely film. It’s won various awards in America, the Chicago Children’s Film Festival, and something else… I can’t remember what it was. It wasn’t distributed. It was just sort of… Disney never really wanted to do it, and they kind of had their arms twisted by Jake Eberts, who’d put the money up for it. And they didn’t really like it, and kind of deliberately lost it.
I often times notice that artists with the most depth to them hardly get the recognition they deserve. The media would rather inundate us with stories on who is the most flashy, rather than people who have been able advance others lives because of the current place they are in. When I first got turned onto the show Degrassi some two years ago, the character “Liberty” played by actress Sarah Barrable-Tishauer really caught my attention. I sensed there was a certain depth the actress possessed I don’t see too much with young people in the entertainment business. I felt she had a true knowledge of self that she portrayed in her character that stood out. When interviewing Miss Sarah Barrable-Tishauer I smiled in knowing my intuition about her was right. She’s a young woman with a true sense of depth and vision, which will take her far.
Positive change is something Sarah always moves towards in all aspects of her life. “I love what I do for a living because it gives me the chance to meet and learn from people I otherwise would not get the chance to encounter.” She owes her open-mindedness to parents who, she says, always encouraged her to consider new ideas and accept others. Not only is she bi-racial, but her parents have different spiritual backgrounds as well. “My mom and dad named me Sarah because it is a name represented by both the Jewish and Christian faiths.” Being raised in a home where differences were looked at as a way to understand others and bring people together has made Sarah eager to see more acceptance and understanding in her profession as well. “One of the more frustrating things about being in the entertainment business is seeing there are still a lot of cultural and racial stereotypes that need to be broken. The media creates stereotypes that reflect only a small portion of a racial group, and yet we are lead to believe that this is a representation of the entire culture. I’d like to see the industry become more color blind and start looking clearly at the world around them to see the diversity and individuality that exists.”
I was able to talk to Chris prior to his appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con and it was a conversation that certainly spans many of the titles that IDW has been publishing lately but this was a conversation that I hope illuminates a little about the day-to-day operations an EIC has to go through in making sure the product that is released is good and how it’s fun to be king when you’re able to visit the set of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT on the underside of the world and witness the comic book finally coming to life.
RYALL: They were in place before. Like when you buy a book at bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Noble ““ those books are returnable. So if the movie didn’t do that well then those books would have come back to us. I think because the movie did do so well, made people want to actually pick them up. We did a special one for Target and that one actually sold out in a couple weeks…We gave away a million and a half copies of the comic of the video game and gave away millions at movie theaters. So, yeah, all those things have just been stuff that we never really had an opportunity to do before on that scale. It’s kinda nice.
CS: I liked the GI Joe and Transformers story arc circa 1980 something…
CS: So, you are basing it on the screenplay then?
CS: Was it just as a spectator or did you get to offer any input into anything?
CS: And certainly one of the things that I will publicly say that I admire about you is that you were constantly producing on a deadline whether it was One Hand Clapping or the TV listings that you set the example for everyone else on MoviePoopShoot.com that deadlines can be hit no matter how busy you think you are. Do you think that’s translated to what you are doing over at IDW?
One of the reasons, though, that I genuinely looked forward to Comic-Con this year, and how it was honestly one of the most satisfying trips I’ve taken to San Diego, was that Missy is always an entertaining interview; she’s completely honest about what she’s doing, she’s never at a loss to tell it like it is and I can’t help but be amazed by the joie de vivre she possesses.
CS: I was utterly fascinated from the point of view that your world must have changed dramatically. You have a preconceived notion of what life will be like when you say “I am going to be a father and having to balance”…Obviously, at the end of the day, acting is work. 
FEHR: Ha ha, no. I do love it. I’m naturally drawn more to heat than cold. I have a much better time being in 125 degrees than being in zero degrees. I really enjoy it. Personally I think it just looks so fantastic. It looks amazing, that kind of natural beauty you get with dunes, the rolling sand hills, it just the earth colors is extremely beautiful. Very sexy, very adventure like. I think Milla looks better than she ever looked in anything I’ve seen her in. It’s just very exciting and a lot more adventure like.
CS: It’s funny you bring that up. Some people don’t like to ““ it’s an odd thing ““ I encounter some people like to watch what they do, some people say I’ve filmed it and move on and feel very uncomfortable looking at it. But it doesn’t seem like you have a problem with that.
CS: And what did you bring away from that experience? Because it seemed that it was you, just you, just your acting – it wasn’t this bombastic ““ it wasn’t this large character we’ve come to know. What did it teach you about what you can do with a tiny role?
KP: You’re a New York City native, right?
CONNIFF: No, I’ll come up with lyrical ideas. Like for Cartoon Dump, I wrote a bunch of songs for it and then I hooked up with this guy, Brad Kay, who wrote the music. On Mystery Science Theater, we’d come up with sketch ideas and say, “Hey, this should be a song.” Like the song “If Chauffeurs Ruled the World”, I specifically remember the idea for that song was Joel (Hodgson)’s idea. He actually came up with the title “If Chauffeurs Ruled the World”. and I think he came up with the line, “Everyone would take a back seat to me.” But then I actually wrote the words to the song. And then Mike wrote the music to it, you know? From my memory, Mike (Nelson) would always do the music, and sometimes he’d do the words, sometimes Kevin (Murphy) would do the words. Sometimes Joel would and sometimes I would. So we all kinda contributed in that way.
CONNIFF: Yeah, it was an incredible scene back then, and that’s where I met Joel and I met Mike and I met Bridget (Nelson) and I met Trace and I met Josh (Weinstein) and we all used to hang out. We all knew each other in the clubs back then, and that whole period in my life, in the late 80s – even before I got on Mystery Science Theater – just that time in Minneapolis doing comedy… and I wasn’t really making any money, I was like practically broke most of the time. But, in my mind, that’s like a golden era to me. That’s one of the great periods in my life.
CONNIFF: It was I guess probably… I think I met Bridget. And I may be wrong about this, but I think I met Bridget before I met anyone, and I became friends with her. And I remember – and this was a long time ago so I don’t know if I have all this right – but I met her and then Mike came along. And I think Mike and Bridget met at one of my open mics. I think I might have been there, like, the first time they ever actually met. And so I knew them and I knew Josh. It was all around the same time. I knew Josh. And I knew Joel… I met him a couple times but, you know, I knew him mainly more from reputation, because he was already kind of on another level back then in terms of… he didn’t come down to the open mic because he was writing a TV special with Jerry Seinfeld. He was in our circle, in a way, because he was a great guy and he was very humble and he hung out with everybody, but he wasn’t in our little group at that point. And at one point I was kind of the open mic tsar of Minneapolis. I ran two or three open mics, and so when Mike and Bridget came along, I thought they were really funny, so I always encouraged them and I always gave them really good spots on the open mics. And I did favor them along with the other comedians who I liked. I remember there was resentment from other open mic acts about that.
CONNIFF: That came up pretty quickly. I knew that I was officially replacing Josh as a writer, and I think the general idea is that I was gonna replace him as a performer as well, but it wasn’t a forgone conclusion when I started. I knew that when I was hired, I was being hired as a writer, and I didn’t just take it for granted that I was gonna be on the show. But pretty quickly, once we got around to that – I don’t remember there being any discussion or anything about it – I think it just kind of happened.
CONNIFF: I don’t know if anything specifically prompted it, but I had been at the show for five years and I was just restless, as I tend to get sometimes in my life, and I was just kind of wanted to try something different. As great as it was there. So I just kind of knew that I was gonna make that move at some point, so I just chose a moment to make it and I told everybody in advance. So I felt like it was all handled very professionally and I left on very amicable terms. So I feel like I did it at the right time, because it just all kinda happened. There were no bad feelings, at least on my part, about it. And it seemed like it worked out pretty well.
CONNIFF: It was a surprise to me, but that was just… it was another thing where, just in the writing room, we were developing this idea, and I think Nell just turned to me one day and said, “You know you’re playing the baby, right?”
CONNIFF: I guess so. Dark Star… when you say, “The time I did Dark Star,” you mean the last ten years?
Normally, I cover the goings-on of a little town called Las Vegas. Every so often, however, I come across a subject that deserves special attention.
