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 16 October 2008 02:25 BST

Mitchell and Webb's latest magic trick

Friday, 18 May 2007 10:30
Peep Show has had a fifth series commissioned
David Mitchell and Robert Webb have come a long way since making their television debut in BBC2's short-lived comedy Bruiser seven years ago.

Since then the comedy duo have achieved something approaching nationwide recognition for their radio and television sketch-shows (That Mitchell and Webb Situation, That Mitchell and Webb Sound and That Mitchell and Webb Look – notice a pattern?), although they are best known for their roles in award-winning Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show.

Cinema viewers can also now get their Mitchell and Webb slice of action – and not just via the pair's Apple adverts – after their debut feature film Magicians opened nationwide.

The film's release date coincides with the airing of the final episode of Peep Show's fourth series on Channel 4 at 22:30 BST, with a fifth series of the innovative comedy already in the works.

In Magicians, starring Spaced actress Jessica Stevenson, Peter Capaldi and penned by Peep Show writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, director Andrew O'Connor (founder of Objective Productions that counts Peep Show and Derren Brown programmes among its hits) is hoping his film follows in the footsteps of fellow-British comedy Hot Fuzz in making a splash at the box office.

InTheNews.co.uk caught up with Mitchell and Webb, as well as Magicians director O'Connor, to talk about the film itself, Peep Show and where they think their comedy careers will take them.

What made you want to make a film about magic?

David Mitchell: Well that was Andrew's idea.

Andrew O'Connor: I've been involved in the magic world since I was a little boy and I entered magic competitions as a teenager and I felt that the whole world of the amateur magician was a weird, dark, funny, eccentric place that had not been explored on television or in film. I spoke to Sam and Jesse about it and they agreed – male dysfunction is one of the things they do brilliantly.

And so right from the start, from the very beginning, we thought the two main characters were obvious, it was obvious that David and Robert – so brilliant in Peep Show – could take the project forward.

Why do you think reclusive men dominate the magic industry?

AC: I know exactly why it is, when you are 14 and you can't talk to girls and you're all geeky and you learn a magic trick, you get obsessed with that. But then as you grow up and develop as a person, get some social skills and meet people you stop doing magic tricks.

And if you don't ever learn to talk to women and get a life you keep doing magic tricks. The only way you can meet women is by auditioning them and getting them to be in your show. That's the reason.

And is that a good way to meet girls?

AC: For certain magicians it works very successfully, one of whom I thinking of particularly but I can't tell you who it is, but most magicians generally tend to not be that interested. Not that they're gay; they're just asexual.

Last year we had The Prestige, and more recently The Illusionist, do you think this is magic coming back into fashion?

Robert Webb: I suppose its one of those entertainment forms that will go in and out of fashion.

DM: I don't know how much our film has contributed to that, I don't think we present it as a fashionable area, hopefully an endearing one. But I don't know, I haven't seen The Prestige or The Illusionist but I get the impression that they take a very big and grand, mysterious take on magic.

AC: In both those films the magician has a position of power and is an enigmatic, charismatic powerful person.

RW: That doesn't sound very much like our film.

DM: In our movie they're aspirant Ali Bongos.

AC: They're the least charismatic, powerful people in the movie. Not the actors may I stress.

Some magician word association:

RW: OK… I'm just going to say Hitler.

Paul Daniels

RW: Northern

David Blaine

RW: T**t

Is this going to spell a sentence in the end?

DM: Let's hope so!

AC: And I predicted that sentence and I've written it down on a piece of paper what that is going to be.

Derren Brown

(pause)

DM: Objective Productions.

AC: Derren Brown – extremely successful, lucrative.

RW: Yacht!

AC: Second home in the south of France.

David Copperfield

RW: Same name as that comedian.

Drawing to the end of my list of magicians now…

DM: I'm relieved you haven't said anyone I haven't heard of.

That guy off Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed

AC: The masked magician.

DM: Exposer!

RW: The phantom flan flinger.

Jessica Stevenson stars in Magicians and earlier this year we saw Olivia Colman in Simon Pegg's Hot Fuzz, is there a clause in their contracts that they have to swap comedic teams?

AC: That's funny.

DM: No is the boring answer to that question.

AC: The truth is that we obviously think Olivia is brilliant, and Olivia was part of the development and did some read-throughs with us. I guess our feeling was that because of the relationship between them and Olivia in Peep Show, to have taken that same relationship, it would have been a really weird thing for the audience. I must say I think she'd have been great in the part, she was great in the read-throughs, I just thought we couldn't have done that.

If we were to make another movie I would love for her to be in it, she is a brilliant, brilliant comedy actress; as is Jessica.

Are there any immediate plans to make a new movie?

AC: I've got three or four things in development.

RW: I'm always glad when you do that.

AC: Sam and Jesse will write one of those things, and I'll get other writers for the others, so I'd definitely like to do it again. It takes much longer, I mean in TV you can have an idea and it can be on television in three weeks, at least in a year, but in a movie it can go on forever.

The incident with the guillotine in Magicians initially drives the two main characters apart, but then ultimately brings them back together. Has anything comparable happened in your own lives? Hopefully not as violently.

(at the same time)

RW: I'm constantly sleeping with his wife.

DM: He once accidentally gutted my cat.

RW: He was good about it though.

DM: No, we avoid drama in our own working relationship; we're pretty polite to each other. We are very close in that we spend a lot of time together and you do get a bit tired of that and you have to not show it because you realise the other person is equally fed up of you.

RW: I talk to David with considerably more respect than I do with my wife… and spend more time with him.

DM: I'm sure there are double acts who have a huge bust-up every three weeks and then make up, but we do neither.

AC: I knew a double-act when I was doing a magic act round the holiday camps called Daley and Wayne and the only time they spoke was on stage and Wayne served Daley with a writ in the middle of the act.

RW: No!

DM: In the middle of the act?

AC: In the middle of the act; how about that.

RW: With a writ to do what?

AC: I don't know, it's great though isn't it?

RW: Marvellous. Here have this:

DM: Did he say it was a writ?

AC: Yeah.

RW: What did the audience do? 'I'm sorry do you want us to go?'

DM: Don't go because I can't talk to him if you're not here.

On that subject, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said they would not make a sequel to Team America: World Police due to the stress involved. Did anything similar happen with you on Magicians?

DM: No, in a way a lot of the film we are separate so we actually got a bit of a break from each other. We'd just finished doing our sketch show so it was a period of…

RW: Relative separation.

DM: That's very sad about the South Park guys; it's a very funny film.

AC: I think it shows you how the stress level in making a film is just extraordinary. And they didn't have actors to deal with.

DM: They hate actors those two!

RW: It does slightly come across in Team America – they just end up mutilated.

DM: But are they joking or do they have a good satirical attitude towards Hollywood? No, no, no: They actually hate actors.

AC: They mean it.

RW: 'That was some of the best acting I've ever seen.'

Last year Ricky Gervais fulfilled his ambition by writing an entire episode of The Simpsons. What is your comedy ambition?

RW: I think we'd much rather watch The Simpsons, having anything to do with it would ruin it.

DM: In terms of comedy ambitions I don't know. I'd love to do a voice in The Simpsons, I suppose, I mean I think The Simpsons is amazing. But you know, a lot of my comedy ambitions I've sort of done some of now and I'd like to…

RW: Sit here for a while. Sit here with a big ten-gallon hat on; grinning.

DM: I think we'd just like to do more of what we do and keep the standard up.

RW: We'd like to write a sitcom at some point.

What type of sitcom?

RW: Don't know. One that's got us in.

DM: I think one day, and this doesn't sound like a dream because it could happen, but I think it would be good to do a sitcom that's more like an audience sitcom than Peep Show, slightly more….

RW: Madder, broader, less grown-up.

DM: In the Father Ted mould I guess.

This summer sees release of The Simpsons film, would you ever like to see Peep Show on the big screen?

DM: Well we'd definitely consider it.

RW: I don't want to speak out of turn but only when we know there isn't going to be anymore Peep Show on TV, because I think doing a film is tantamount to shooting Peep Show in the head. If you suddenly have a film where you see Mark and Jeremy evolving or learning anything then it's difficult to go back to them behaving like idiots again.

AC: I would like to think that Peep Show could go on forever. We've had a fifth series commissioned, I don't see why we can't see these two men growing up, or growing older, over the next five or ten years I really don't.

RW: I'm all for it.

AC: Sam and Jesse love it and I think a lot of successful sitcoms stop because the performers or the writers don't want to do it anymore and we're as proud, and we love it as much as the real fans do, and that's not always the truth with others. So I think it could go on forever. There are some technical issues you'd have to think about to turn it into a movie, but also, I think the storyline of this series was perfect for a movie, and we've done that, it really lent itself to a movie this series. I think there's some really great plot stuff in the current series. I don't know. But never say never though.

If Peep Show were to go on forever, would that mean Jez living in Mark and Sophie's garage?

RW: Well – are Mark and Sophie going to have a garage?

AC: You'll have to find out.

DM: I don't know…

RW: They could keep him as their dog.

DM: You'd certainly have to address that point about men in their mid-40s who cohabit.

Any hints on Peep Show's future direction?

DM: Absolutely – no, none.

RW: We know what happens in series four but we're not telling you and we don't know what happens in series five because it's not written.

DM: There are no clues to give!

AC: There will be pain and dysfunction.

RW: Pain and dysfunction yes, and there will be characters chased up some trees and have some rocks thrown at them.

AC: Not literally of course.

RW: Maybe literally, maybe its time.

What's next up for you in the immediate future?

RW: We're writing the second series of our BBC2 sketch show and we're also recording our radio sketch show as well – and that comes out in the autumn.

DM: And next year we do Peep Show again.

You've done radio, TV, stage and now film: Do you ever feel like there's nothing left?

DM: Holograms.

RW: Puppetry, silhouettes…

AC: Space travel.

RW: Space travel? Oh space travel…

AC: Yeah because puppetry is normal but space travel is silly!

RW: Is space travel a form of entertainment? I suppose as a medium…

DM: I think it's more a case of doing the media we've already touched upon…

RW: More of this stuff.

Any more Apple adverts lined up?

DM: Oh yeah.

RW: We've got… a… few more of those to make.

DM: They keep feeding us.

After looking at amateur magicians, are there any other niche professions you would like to visit in movie form?

RW: Um… independent comedy producers – write what you know.

AC: That's clearly it.

RW: We'll get Sam and Jesse to write it.

How often to people approach you with a bad idea for a show?

DM: I don't get it anymore.

AC: I get a lot of formal pitches.

DM: I occasionally get sent a script, which is silly because I have no power to commission a script, I've written scripts that haven't been on television, and I'm not going to push some stranger's script ahead of one of my own!

Matthew ChampionEnd of story



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