Ian Fletcher & 'W1A' - A Masterclass In Satire, With More Than Meets The Eye (Part 1)
Ian Fletcher & 'W1A' - A Masterclass In Satire, With More Than Meets The Eye (Part 1)
Think of the list of the UKs most renowned sitcoms and satirical comedies, and obviously behind that you’ve got some of the most brilliantly creative minds in the British media sector. Chris Morris and Armando Ianucci of ‘The Day Today’, Damon Beesley and Iain Morris behind ‘The Inbetweeners’, Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong who masterminded ‘Peep Show’ and ‘Fresh Meat’, or, for a relatively more recent example, the brilliant Robert Popper, creator of ‘Friday Night Dinner.’ A name that should also be added to that list is John Morton. Originally rising to prominence in a similar “radio-show-turned-TV-hit” success story to many of his contemporaries, the mockumentary show ‘People Like Us’ received high praise and more widespread recognition following its TV debut in 1999, even netting him a Writers' Guild Award. That may well be on my watchlist, but what I wanted to talk about was an iteration of his other main venture, the Ian Fletcher Trilogy.
Starting with ‘Twenty Twelve’, a mockumentary following Fletcher (played by Hugh Bonneville) as Head of Deliverance for the 2012 London Olympics, Morton, though the vibe in hindsight maybe wasn’t fully reached, still displayed a genius satirical flair. He greatly took aim at the general ridiculousness of “bigwig office culture” in every possible way, and made you realise maybe how many people in your own workplace were talking absolute bollocks. The most recent iteration ‘Twenty Twenty-Six’, following Fletcher as Director of Integrity for the 2026 World Cup, is also fantastically written, but with a slightly more dramatised, character driven approach, which works greatly in its favour for the most part. Where I believe Morton hit the sweet spot though, was with ‘W1A’, a mockumentary series, get this, satirising the working world of the BBC, made by… the BBC. A concept so simple, yet absolutely ingenious, allowing Morton to get away with a lot more than you might think, while also giving himself three series’ worth of room to properly develop some amazing characters. As my first proper exposure to any kind of satire at around age 13, I don’t think I’d ever seen anything as comedically intelligent at the time, or even since, in quite the same way. So, I thought I’d take the time to gush about the four main elements that make the show incredible, and also showcase why, particularly series 2 and 3, should go down as some of the greatest comedic television of the 21st century.
The Format
One bit of genius about the show that I think often gets overlooked, but that’s key to just how brilliant it is, is how the level of immersion, or, verisimilitude, to pull out an A-Level media term, is utterly unwavering. In both ‘Twenty Twelve’ and ‘Twenty Twenty Six’, the standard, talking to the camera, mockumentary type segments are used to obvious comedic effect, albeit more successfully in the latter than the former. What sets apart ‘W1A’ though, is that aside from a voiceover from Ian in the very first episode, there is ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THAT. As I said, those types of segments can be hilarious when done right, like with intern Will Humphries, played by Hugh Skinner, talking about tennis and horses and the like in ‘Twenty Twenty-Six’, but the commitment ‘W1A’ makes to absolute realism in lieu of that lends to a whole different type of humour. It’s a fact of life that people act at least a little bit differently, even if subconsciously, if they know they’re on camera. With how masterfully the show is written though, you get not even a glimmer of that. Nothing is played up, there’s no weird glances in the distance, and in a great many places, the snowballing of scenarios where anyone in their right mind, knowing cameras were on them, would be utterly delirious, mostly just seem like a totally normal occurrence. An exchange between Ian and Lucy, played by Nina Sosanya, after the absolute collapse of new TV pitch ‘Britain’s Top Village’, says as much. “It didn’t feel very ordinary to me.” “Don’t worry, it will soon.”
Additionally, while this has long been a staple of mockumentaries, the commitment to multi-minute long scenes that do absolutely nothing, go absolutely nowhere, and result in face shrinking levels of cringe, seem to hit even harder with John Morton’s totally British, deadpan sense of humour. Take for instance many of the interactions between Will and Izzy, played by Ophelia Lovibond. At least twice an episode, Will stands by her desk for a concerning length of time, only to have crucial exchanges like this: “Hi Will.” “Hello.” “You busy?” Not really, no.” “OK.” I know that the idea of that lasting a whole 90 seconds with ambient office noise does seem insufferable on its face. In actual fact, by some mad alchemy, it’s comedy gold. I think my overriding point is, for a mockumentary, it might seem almost counterintuitive how hard they commit to the -ockumentary part rather than the mock- part, being a comedy program, but it’s clear that John absolutely knows what he’s doing, and is very aware that that’s where its strength is. Fittingly enough for a series based on the BBC, the team behind the show seem to take Attenborough’s code very seriously. The immersion is almost never broken. You don’t get any obvious cues to laugh, you just have to sit there and immerse yourself in it. So, when the laughs come thick and fast, it proves just how brilliantly put together it is. In fact, if it wasn’t for David Tennant’s incredible voiceover, you might forget it was even a “proper" documentary altogether, rather than just a rando walking around New Broadcasting House with a camera.
All that being said though, it’s not as though John is
beneath leaning in to the mock part at least a little bit. A much loved tenet
in British comedy, there’s also a lot of fun to be had when, for as seriously
as the show takes itself, it doesn’t mind, for lack of a better phrase, being
crap. From verbatim quoted voiceover lines clumsily pasted on top of footage to
the point they end up repeating each other, or the lacklustre censoring of
apparently top secret internal issues, the ability to laugh at pure
incompetence of all stripes is something the British public love. This is particularly
so when something presented as serious fucks up royally. Rather than lambasting
the stupidity of the characters, it becomes more schadenfreude aimed at the
programme makers. It’s the same reason why the clip of a taxi driver
accidentally being interviewed about iTunes is the best thing ever. It reminds
me of something a friend said once: that it’s always funnier something totally
sincere being done terribly, than it is something ironically done terribly.
There’s a kind of purity that has its own charm in the first instance that
irony could never have. The paradox is, then, that obviously, being a written
show, you’d think ‘W1A’ would immediately fall into the second ironic category,
but, perhaps because it’s presented so plainly and seriously, it’s almost able
to do both at once, which surely is a sign of any great satire.
The Writing
When rewatching the show again for about the fourth time to write
this, I was reminded of quite a useful quote. Broadcaster Krishnan Guru-Murphy
said in the ‘Friday Night Dinner’ 10-Year retrospective that, “it was the same
people doing the same jokes, every week, and that’s why you love it.” In a way,
‘W1A’ is much the same. But rather than it becoming tired or boring, it almost
serves to re-enforce the whole point of the show. While the hard-line
documentary angle I discussed earlier is certainly true in terms of its
presentation, it is a comedy series after all, and one that is very strong in
terms of its writing. At the crux of it, pretty much the entire cast speaks in
catchphrases. Simon Harwood (Jason Watkins)’s insistence that everything is “brilliant”
or “very strong”, Jessica Hynes’ Siobhan explaining what “the thing is”, or
Monica Dolan portraying Tracy, who constantly insists she’s “not being funny or
negative”, before, naturally, doing the exact opposite. The only word for it is
farce. Certainly not in the derisory way, but more so that the comedy, many a
time, comes from you sat there wondering how none of the characters realise,
for lack of a better term, how fucking stupid they all are. It reads a bit like
having a conversation with a dysfunctional NPC from ‘Skyrim’. It’s that same genius
workplace satire I mentioned at the beginning: giving us a glimpse into a world
that is completely alien, while, in quite a bleak way, virtually no one at the
centre seems to register how alien it is. For this same reason, the way guest
spots are written into the show is fantastic, often because they may as well
not be written at all. Obviously, the BBC plays host to some pretty iconic
figures in British media, and so their inclusion makes total sense, but rather
than treat them like “celebrity appearances”, it actually does the opposite in
many cases. Whether it’s Claire Balding declining a coffee for the twentieth
time, Carol Vorderman being told to “enjoy her water”, or Lenny Henry’s
befuddlement at interacting with Will the intern, they seem to represent the
audience, their often contemptuous and brilliantly sarcastic dialogue brimming
with an air of “what are you on about, and what the hell is happening?” Our
thoughts exactly. Indeed, there are a few main characters that do the same, but
we’ll get to those later.
Another fantastic facet of the writing, as I mentioned earlier, is the narration provided by David Tennant. In the same way that everything else in the show is played with a mostly straight bat, so too is the narration, but there are certainly aspects to it that make it unique. For one, while much of the dialogue in the show is delivered straight, the actual content, upon closer inspection, verges into the surreal, with repeated catchphrases and so on. This allows John to attack the narration writing from a slightly different perspective. The main one being that because David is the conduit for a lot of the context to the craziness going on, delivering it from an “objective perspective”, with a totally straight face, is clearly a mode John very much enjoys writing in. A highlight would have to be when he tells us, amidst a crisis, that Sting called Alan Yentob “an actual prick”, but there are many more besides. What’s also great, and distinct about the narration, is, weirdly, how funny it is. I know what you’re thinking. Duh, it’s a comedy programme, and you just spent ages telling us how funny it was anyway. Yeah, but this is different. Where the dialogue in the show is funny because it’s deadpan and surreal, the narration is funny because of its wit.
There is obviously the surface level humour in it being a parody of bad documentary narration, often restating the dialogue verbatim as it’s being said, or the kind of Chris Morris esque blunt obviousness that’s hilarious in itself (think “the problem with the decision they made is it’s the wrong one”, or, “as often happens on days when nothing can go wrong, it does”). What clearly makes that work so well is that it sounds authoritative enough to where you might not register what’s been said at first, but when the silliness and pointlessness of it hits you a few seconds later, the humour being unlocked as it were, it’s a glorious feeling, making every instance of it after even funnier. All that said, John is very clever about it in other ways too. The humour is still as understated as ever, but it also seems the one place where John seems comfortable, weirdly enough, to write jokes with punchlines. Take for instance when David is breaking down various acronyms: “BAME, which stands for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic, and LGBT, which stands for something else.” That’s just simple, brilliant joke craft. The build up, followed by the punch, the subversion, the sting in the tail, as Arnold Brown called it. It might be because there aren’t loads of instances of it, but each time it happens it feels like absolute gold dust, often being the funniest part of a given episode. The show just wouldn’t be the same without it. If the character writing wasn’t already ingenious enough, the brilliance of the narration is the icing on the cake, and Tennant’s casting the cherry atop that.
Where the writing is at its most ingenious in my book though, is when Morton chooses to lift the curtain, albeit only slightly. It seems for a lot of the show, the layers of stupidity, or just complete lack of common sense, are almost impenetrable. That said, there are moments where, perhaps someone within the team says something so stupid, even the others snap out of it momentarily. It might be simple, but it’s damn effective. Say Siobhan is going on some spiel about hunting ducks with hoisin sauce or whatever. Perhaps I’m a simple man, but all it takes is Ian or Tracy’s raised eyebrow along with a bemused or indignant “what?”, or a clearly skeptical “right ok…” and I have to pause it just to laugh. The show is already brilliant at being absurd, but perhaps it’s because it’s so good with immersion, that you almost, like some of the characters on reflection, forget about just how stupid everyone is. In that way, it’s very subtle, but even just having the stupidity called out every once in a while makes it hit twice as hard. Maybe the best and bluntest instance of this is when BBC security head tells Ian “the world is full of rucksacks with Sue Barker’s face on”, to which he seems outright dumbfounded, a high bar on this show. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say!” The pure indignance is absolute gold. It’s also worth highlighting Izzy Gould and Jack Patterson in this vein as well. Being characters who aren’t quite fully absorbed into the “stupidity orbit”, this gives them the opportunity to have some brilliant, sharp exchanges. They don’t only function as the everymen, befuddled by incompetence just as much as the audience, but their three-way interactions with Will are particularly great. Jack often deploys a kind of sly cheekiness as if to say, “I wonder how much I can talk shit before he realises”, in turn prompting some very funny looks from Izzy. She herself is a great character, her sarcasm often coming in a more muted, almost nihilistic way, as if she’s realised there’s no escape from the stupidity. Take for example her interaction with Ian, upon Will’s offer to survey ‘Top Gear’ for offensive language. She’s initially happy to have work off her back, but upon a reminder from Ian that, “it’s important the work be done well”, you almost see her snapping back to reality in real time. “Ah, yes, right,” she says tiredly. Another great one would be part way through series 3, where, in a meeting, it comes to her attention that Will’s genuinely great idea for a chat show has become a sort of short-form Frankenstein monster, leaving both her and Jack hopelessly irritated. “I don’t believe this,” she says. “I do” replies Jack. Absolute gold.
Hands down, the best character for these kinds of exchanges in general though is Neil Reid. The grumpy, foul-mouthed head of news, it seems that, aside from Ian, Lucy and Izzy, he does the best job of trying to swim through the tidal wave of silliness in a quintessentially fed up, British fashion. Not only are his whispered grumbles of “fucking Christ” or “I don’t believe this” at Tracy’s overly complicated briefings incredible, but he also shows himself to be wonderfully sarcastic or, to put it one way, endearingly lacking in diplomacy, in a way that no other character is. Ian’s suggestion that Siobhan’s idea, although stupid, is even remotely interesting, is countered with a withering and befuddled “really?” Then there’s the absolute zinger when someone asks whether an issue should be brought up in an upcoming damage limitation meeting, and Neil’s response is “well, we’re at the BBC, it’s always fucking damage limitation.” To have his straight talking is a breath of fresh air in so many places. Even his being stupid is endearing, such as when he gets confused about levelling out overlapping inclusivity targets and declares, “at this rate there’ll be nobody bloody left.” As the cherry on the cake, there’s a particularly brilliant moment where he seems to almost be fully aware of the absurdity, and playing into it. He’s just about to lay into Siobhan, relaying the absolute scale of her fuck up, in full headteacher monologue mode, before Tracy tries to stop him, only for him then to reply “Just let me finish! I’ve always wanted to say this stuff.” As another team member quips afterwards, “go Neil.”
For my money though, the best written character in the show has to be producer Lucy Freeman who I mentioned earlier, played by Nina Sosanya. You’d think, given it’s a comedy show, with a lot of the drama feeling pretty low stakes, which I’ll get onto, that my favourite character would be, you know, funny. As it happens, no. Lucy as a character is very understated. Very agreeable, very quiet, yet ever so slightly wry and sarcastic. It’s not like she’s not funny, but she’s one of maybe only three or four characters that don’t feel like total caricature. In essence, she’s “one of the normals.” Certainly, Ian being the main character is himself fairly normal, and that’s one of the reasons I like him, but his normality, resilience and frustrated appeals to common sense, almost seem like a kind of hub for all the other higher-ups’ stupidity to revolve around. Lucy, however, well and truly feels like a fish out of water, and she’s brilliant for that. In many ways, she seems almost like Izzy Gould’s “top floor equivalent”, many of Lucy’s characteristics seeming to make them kindred spirits. For sure, she does seem to have absorbed some corporate quirks speech-wise, seemingly by accident, but her quiet exasperation and general “head in hands” mentality makes for some genius exchanges. “Do you work here every day then?”, her writer friend Dan asks her. “Yes, every day” she replies drearily. “...every day.” Other great examples would be her interactions with commissioner David Wilkes, who’s constant cheery, yet utterly hapless demeanour, seems to rightly earn Lucy’s ire much of the time. The interactions, even down to her eyebrow twitches, have an air of “please just say whatever stupid shit you’re going to say so I can leave.” Her desperate attempts to try to be helpful and intelligent, and to help the rest of them not to be so thick, are often praised by her blissfully ignorant colleagues, but if anything, the fact they’ll just go on with their lives anyway seems to frustrate her more. Even just her general confusion at everyone else’s stupidity often offers up rightly bemused asides, while desperately clinging on to politeness. “Uh… right, uh… I don’t understand.” Hell, even the normally impartial narration seems to be on her side, in the characteristically understated, yet biting and hilarious line, “it’s becoming increasingly clear to Lucy that she’s having breakfast with David.” I know that’s loads of words to just say, “I like her because she’s normal”, but in a show like this, until you watch it, you have no idea how endearing that quality comes across. It reminds me of something someone said in a criticism of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ about the character of Penny. While I don’t think it’s accidental in ‘W1A’s case the general gist still applies: “by making everyone else so profoundly dysfunctional, they made basic human competence look like a superpower by comparison.” Therein lies Lucy Freeman, the superhero.
What I think I find most endearing about Lucy though, is how John cultivates her serious side in a way that he does for no other character. Ian has serious moments of course, but they’re often either to serve the comedy, like with talks of his salary in series one, or just to counterbalance the weirdness of everything else. We never see behind that though. You never see Ian back at his flat for instance, lamenting the incompetence of his colleagues. It says a lot that when something goes completely wrong for him, he treats most of it with a shrug of the shoulders, and a demeanour that says “eh, you move on.” Even at his most irritated, say with Siobhan, it’s almost freaky how pragmatic he seems. Still though, those glimpses of irritation are at least a good way to give Ian a bit of character. Lucy seems much more vulnerable, which in a strange way, is maybe her most endearing characteristic. While someone like Ian, still able to relate to her frustrations, is able to sail through the bullshit somehow, Lucy, absolutely understandably, seems to collapse under the weight of it. With every setback, every bit of stupid advice or general needless ridiculousness, you see her patience being tested, and her goodwill being broken down. ‘Home Truth’ with her friend Dan being butchered almost unrecognisably, having to cover for Prince Charles’ greeting party after being drafted in last minute, or being forced to work on, as she calls it, ‘Family Fuck Up’ with David, after the ideas she was actually passionate about have been run into the ground. You can’t blame her for wanting an out, and that’s just a few examples.
This is where I think the relationship between Ian and Lucy
is shown to be vital, and honestly, make the show. As Ian comes back from a meeting,
he spots Lucy smoking outside and instantly twigs something’s wrong. Throughout
the conversation, Lucy seems at her most dejected. She’s working on a show she
hates the idea of, with a bunch of idiots, fantasising about working in a
garden centre where you can “just drink tea and eat cake all day.” Of course,
Ian, being a good friend, humours this idea, but doesn’t realise how seriously
she’s taking it, and it suddenly dawns on him. “No, no” he says “you can’t do
that, the BBC depends on you.” “I know”, she replies, “that’s why I want to
leave.” While obviously an amusing exchange it’s also a very revealing one. Not
only does it show that Lucy sees Ian as the one person who actually has her
best interest at heart, but, perhaps more subtly, that Ian sees Lucy as one of the
only bastions of common sense left. It’s as if she reminds him that there is a
world outside of the circus. In a sort of beautiful way, maybe for different
reasons, they rely on each other to keep their heads above water, which they
expand on beautifully in series 3. Even then, at a point where Lucy remains
there, seemingly out of apathy, she always has Ian, and he always has her.
Whenever they’re going into a meeting, and Lucy tells him, “she wants to cry”, Ian
is always there to offer a bit of levity or genuinely good advice. It really is
a beautiful bit of character building between them that, in the midst of the comic
tornado, you might not even recognise. You could say I’m going way too deep
about a very surface level friendship, and maybe I am, but in a way, just like
them, you find one genuine thing and latch on to it. Truthfully, I think
without moments like this I would’ve lost interest in watching. I think I
would’ve got tired just watching a carousel of idiots tripping over themselves,
as sharp as the comic writing clearly was anyway. Thanks to how brilliantly
John Morton writes Lucy in particular, not only do you get fantastic laughs,
but also a genuine reason for investment.
So that's one half of the show's greatness dealt with, but there's still plenty more to discuss, from plots to other key characters, and circling back to the shows careful balance of comedy and drama. So join me in part two for all of that and more!
You can watch 'W1A' now on BBC iPlayer, with DVD box sets purchasable at HMV and other retailers
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