5 hours ago
9
Jack Dee, creator, co-writer, played Rick Spleen
I was doing a lot of standup, working with other comedy writers. I was interested in the relationship between writer and performer. I wondered: “What if the writer is funnier than the performer?” I approached Pete Sinclair, who I’d written with for a long time, and said: “What do you reckon?” BBC4 commissioned a pilot.
We developed the world of Rick Spleen and his relationship with his writer and the public. Spleen is trumped by everyone in his life. His wife is more successful than him. Magda, his Polish cleaner, is more logically intelligent. His daughter and her boyfriend are cooler and his writer is funnier. Everywhere he looks, he’s bashed about by people better than him. He’s basically a “what-if” version of me. Had I not found success, that’s what I would’ve been doing: deluding myself into thinking it will happen, or believing it’s not my fault that it hasn’t.
Some of what goes on with Rick has happened to me, like when he hosts a corporate do. These things are always terrible: everyone is waiting to see if they’ve won an award, they’re all pissed, and nobody has come to see you. Rick finds that out the hard way.
We certainly weren’t the first show to centre on the private life of a comedian, but it had a very British feel: the audience could understand how this comedian, who wasn’t terribly funny, was still able to get work. If I slip on a banana skin and find it funny, I’ve got a sense of humour because I can see the joke. A lot of comedians like Rick don’t have a sense of humour and can’t laugh at themselves, which is really weird, but I think we pinpointed it quite accurately.
I’m sure I share Rick’s frustrations with the world, but he allows them to ruin his day and destroy his career. I make a conscious effort not to allow all that stuff to get in the way. It doesn’t get any easier – because the older you get, the more certain you are that your way is right. And that’s a recipe for disaster.
Raquel Cassidy, played Mel
I’m the kind of actor who likes to spend loads of time preparing, but it was literally: “There’s an audition this afternoon, can you go?” I knew it was a big deal and was suitably nervous. Clearly I should do more of that because I got the job, and we went into table-reads and filming almost straight away. Rick is a failing comedian, so my approach was: what are we like together? I clearly think of him as this hapless, compulsively lying man. Rick can’t help being outwitted by Magda or the children, but as his wife, I still love and stick by him. The only time I get angry is when he brings a pig home. I’m like: “No, that’s going too far.”
I’m not clever enough to be Mel. She’s completely together. If Raquel Cassidy was married to Rick Spleen, it would be a complete nightmare. We’d both sit on the sofa trying to be more rubbish than the other. But Mel manages to find Rick adorable, even if he repeatedly goes down the wrong road of getting himself into such unnecessary scrapes. There’s one scene at the theatre where Rick leaves his phone on, and eventually the actor gives him a dressing down from the stage, which is excruciating. We had to fill the theatre with friends and family, out on a jolly, while the actors on stage were doing deep and meaningful acting. My dad is sitting behind us, so I’m very fond of that scene.
It’s a show I genuinely miss. It still gets me stopped on the street. Some diehard fans quote scenes word for word at me. Most of my scenes are set at home, so we’d just get changed in the bathroom and film in the house. It felt like we were in a reality TV show. For it to go on for four series was a delight. Clearly, Jack is a genius. He was so good to work with. All I had to do was say my lines and keep a straight face. It really wasn’t hard work.
