Slant Magazine

Slant: How familiar were you with the ins and outs of geek culture before The IT Crowd?

KP: I would say I've been introduced to it and I welcome it. We've been rehearsing around the corner from the cartoon museum and they've got cartoon shops and stuff. Graham goes on his lunch breaks there. I've gone in with him and come out with all sorts of interesting comics in a black bag, you know? So, it's been interesting—some of the geek bands he's introduced me to just by talking about them, like Hot Chip and Sweet Billy Pilgrim. I've sort of welcomed those introductions into my otherwise pretty naff life.

MB: I think so. I mean, I'm all quite still kind of fairly new to it. I've only had an iPhone for a couple of weeks. And I have to get someone else to do those podcast things 'cause I wouldn't have a clue what I'm doing, to be honest. It's all good fun.

CO: I know little bits and pieces. I still have problems with computers, but it's more spillages really than RAM issues. It's more of a hand-to-mouth problem I have with computers on a daily basis.

Slant: Spillages? As in?

CO: Coffee, tea, saliva. Fluids. Mostly bodily.

Slant: Do you find any of Roy's qualities seeping into your personality?

CO: Yeah. I find that generally while I'm making it, I'm a little grumpier than I normally am. And I'm less techphobic.

Slant: Has Jen become more of a geek?

KP: Yes, I think so. I think she began with all the posturing of trying to be like the people upstairs and thinking she was very distinct from Moss and Roy. And I think as the series has gone on, she's become happier to—well, maybe not happier, but certainly able to appreciate more that she's as flawed and as much of the basement as they are.

Slant: What else can you tell us about season four?

CO: What did we do? What did I do? There's a parody of a courtroom drama, which is a touch of A Few Good Men thrown in there.

Slant: Internet spoilers claim that someone gets married and divorced.

CO: Is there going to be a marriage and a divorce? There is a divorce and there may be...there may...I'm not saying whether there is or is not, but there may be a baby. And there is a death. There is a death and a baby and a divorce. And there is—I don't want to give too much away, but somebody may become president. Jen joins a band. She turns into a Yoko Ono kind of character in one of the episodes.

Slant: What's ahead for Douglas?

MB: Well, he's as badly behaved as he always is. He's still as sexual. There's not as much bad language in this [season] as in the last. There was a lot of effs and jeffs I remember in the last one that aren't really in this, which I guess is a good thing for the U.S. audience. You want to put this out around sort of teatime, you know.

Slant: You sing on your podcast and you've cut an album. Will you ever croon on the show?

MB: Well, [Graham's] not done any kind of musical on the show, but I know Katherine, for one, is very keen that he does and possibly the Christmas one should actually be sung through. By that, I mean, no spoken dialogue.

Slant: Wait, are you guys having a Christmas special?

MB: Maybe, yeah. There's some talk of it.

Slant: Will Noel Fielding's Richmond be back this year?

CO: Richmond is back this year. I'm not gonna tell you, but he will be making an appearance—with his blond hair.

Slant: So, he'll be in his pre-Goth persona?

CO: Yeah. It's very, very funny. I think you'll really enjoy it.

Slant: Noel Fielding is a fantastic comedian.

CO: Oh, we've got a different actor playing him. I'm kidding.

Slant: Will there be other guest stars?

CO: I'd like to think that everybody that comes in is a guest star. We potentially are guest stars. Graham does a cameo this year—as he does every year. There are loads of great support performances this year, but we realize that the strength of the show really is just us [laughs]. So, we try to keep other people out of the picture. I know they were always happy doing that on Friends when they had, whatever, Tom Selleck or someone in. But we have no time for any of that nonsense. I mean, we have got Johnny Rotten. Johnny Rotten's in this year.

Slant: What's up next for you?

MB: Well, we shoot the last episode tomorrow and then I've got something in North Carolina. A film. Katherine's got—she's going to do some musicals and Chris is doing a western.

Slant: And Chris has Gulliver's Travels with Jack Black, right?

MB: Chris was doing Gulliver's Travels, yes.

CO: It's out at Christmas.

Slant: Do you prefer acting in movies or TV?

CO: I prefer a mixture of both. Film is great, but it's very slow and then TV is too fast. So somewhere in between would be great: a TV movie. That's what I want to do for the rest of my life: really low-quality TV movies. I think that's where I'm set for. I want to do a lot of Afterschool Specials. That's what I'd like to do. There's a lot of genital diseases that haven't really been looked at on an Afterschool Special that I really feel like I can lend my hand to.

Slant: What about a Marple or a Poirot?

CO: I'm more Poirot than Marple. I think people would find me weird as Miss Marple now after what they've seen for so long, but yeah, sure, Poirot. Bring it on.