Joking Apart
Joking Apart is a BBC television sitcom written by Steven Moffat about the rise and fall of a relationship. It juxtaposes a couple, Mark (Robert Bathurst) and Becky (Fiona Gillies), who fall in love and marry, before getting separated and finally divorced. The twelve episodes, broadcast between 1993 and 1995, were directed by Bob Spiers and produced by Andre Ptaszynski for independent production company Pola Jones.
This article is about the BBC sitcom. For the Alan Ayckbourn play, see Joking Apart (play).Joking Apart
"Fool (If You Think It's Over)" (also end theme)
United Kingdom
English
2
12 (+ pilot) (list of episodes)
30 minutes
12 July 1991 –
7 February 1995
The show is semi-autobiographical; it was inspired by the then-recent separation of Moffat and his first wife.[1][2] Some of the episodes in the first series followed a non-linear parallel structure, contrasting the rise of the relationship with the fall. Other episodes were ensemble farces, predominantly including the couple's friends Robert (Paul Raffield) and Tracy (Tracie Bennett). Paul Mark Elliott also appeared as Trevor, Becky's lover.
Scheduling problems meant that the show attracted low viewing figures. However, it scored highly on the Appreciation Index and accrued a loyal fanbase. One fan acquired the home video rights from the BBC and released both series on his own DVD label.[3]
Production[edit]
Inception[edit]
By 1990, Moffat had written two series of Press Gang, but the programme's high cost along with organisational changes at Central cast its future in doubt.[4] As Moffat wondered what to do next and worried about his future employment, Bob Spiers, Press Gang's primary director, suggested that he meet with producer Andre Ptaszynski to discuss writing a sitcom.[2] Moffat's father had been a headteacher and Moffat himself had taught English before writing Press Gang, so his initial proposal was a programme similar to what would become Chalk, a series that eventually aired in 1997.[5]
As he was separating from his wife, Moffat was going through a difficult period and aspects of it coloured his creative output.[4] He introduced a proxy of his wife's new partner into the Press Gang episode "The Big Finish?", the character Brian Magboy (Simon Schatzberger). Moffat scripted unfortunate situations for the Magboy character, such as having a typewriter drop on his foot. Moffat says that the character's name was inspired by his wife's: "Magboy: Maggie's boy".[4]
During the pitch meeting at the Groucho Club, Ptaszynski realised that Moffat was talking passionately about his impending divorce and suggested that he write about that instead of his initial proposal, a school sitcom.[5] Taking Ptaszynski's advice, Moffat's new idea was about "a sitcom writer whose wife leaves him".[6] Speaking about the autobiographical elements of the show, the writer jokes that he has to remember that his wife didn't leave him for an estate agent; his wife was an estate agent.[7] In 2003, Moffat told The New York Times that his "ex-wife wasn't terribly pleased about her failed marriage being presented as a sitcom on BBC2 on Monday nights".[8] In an interview with Richard Herring, Moffat says that "the sit-com actually lasted slightly longer than my marriage".[9] Conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based on his relationship with his second wife, TV producer Sue Vertue.[10] Moffat reused the surname 'Taylor', which is Mark's surname in Joking Apart, for Jack Davenport's character Steve in Coupling.
Characters[edit]
Mark Taylor (Robert Bathurst) is a television sitcom writer. Other than episode one, where he is shown working on a script and references to a show of his that had aired during a dinner with Robert and Tracy the night before, his work is hardly mentioned. Mark is quick-witted, and the stand-up sequences indicate that he thinks in one-liners.[6] However, this proves to be the downfall of his marriage with Becky, who says that she didn't sign on to become his "lawfully wedded straight man". In one episode, Mark jokes about worrying if his virginity will heal back; Becky articulates her frustration by responding "What page is that on?" Identifying his insecurities, she points out that the "thing about someone who uses humour as a weapon, is not the sense of humour, but the fact that they need a weapon".[26] In interviews, Bathurst has compared Steven Moffat to his character: Mark is "a man whose wife leaves him because he talks in one-liners. And Steven Moffat's wife had just left him, because he talks in one-liners."[20]
Robert Bathurst, a former Footlights president, was cast as Mark Taylor. He was performing on a live topical programme on BSB called Up Yer News. A fellow performer on that show also auditioned for the part at what is now the Soho Theatre, then the old Soho Synagogue in Dean Street, and claimed that he would break Bathurst's legs if the latter got the job. In a 2005 interview, Bathurst recalls that the threat seemed not to be entirely jocular.[6] Bathurst speaks very highly of Joking Apart, identifying it as a "career highlight" and the most enjoyable job he has ever done.[27][28] Retrospectively, he wishes that he had "roughened up" Mark, as he was "too designery".[29]
Becky Johnson/Taylor (Fiona Gillies) meets Mark at a funeral and they eventually marry. Although irritated at being his comic foil, she is capable of her own quick-witted put-downs. In episode 3, for example, she wins an impromptu one-liner contest over Mark, whose put-downs fall flat.[30] Becky is shown as an independent woman, meeting Mark on her terms.[31] The first series revolves around her leaving Mark for estate agent Trevor, whom she subsequently cheats on in series two. This was Fiona Gillies' first major television role, having appeared in "The Hound of the Baskervilles", a 1988 episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the mini-series Mother Love. She was aware that some of her dialogue was based on what had been said to Moffat during his own separation.[6]
Robert and Tracy Glazebrook (Paul Raffield and Tracie Bennett) are their "increasingly bizarre and totally dim friends".[32] They are initially Becky's friends, but soon befriend Mark, comforting him on the night Becky leaves him.[33] Tracy, as Tracie Bennett identifies, is a stereotypical Tracy—normally a dysphemism for an intellectually inadequate, usually blonde, female. However, "she's not a bimbo: she's quite clever in her own logic".[6] Bennett jokes that she was quite offended that such a character was named Tracy.[15] Tracy's catchphrase of "you're a silly" was originally Moffat's typographical error, which Bennett faithfully reproduced in her performance. They decided that the amended version worked well for the character.[15]
They are both naive about sex and technology. Tracy, for example, attempts to telephone Robert to inform him that he's lost his mobile phone,[34] and believes that she is a lesbian when she discovers her husband in women's clothing.[35] They have a baby, who is seen or referred to occasionally. This reflects, as the writer observes, Moffat's inexperience of looking after children at the time.[36][37]
Trevor (Paul Mark Elliott) is Becky's lover. His job as an estate agent regularly provokes derision from Mark. (Moffat's ex-wife was an estate agent.)[5] He is himself cheated on in the second series, as Becky dates her solicitor Michael (Tony Gardner). Trevor's debut appearance is in the third episode where he and Becky go to Robert and Tracy's house for dinner, but he generally features less regularly than the main ensemble.
Reception[edit]
The scheduling problems meant that the show did not get the momentum to achieve high viewing figures.[3] Moffat jokes that "the eight people who saw it were very happy indeed".[50] However, as Bathurst observes, "there's an underground of people who like it".[28] The show rated highly on the Appreciation Index, meaning that viewers thought very highly of the programme.[3] Bathurst says that drunks on the London Underground tell him in detail the plot of their favourite episode. The cast claim that the programme has a timeless, universal appeal as there are no time-specific references apart from the typewriter and the size of the mobile telephones.[6] Gillies says that her accountant watches it to cheer himself up, while Bathurst recalls that a friend cheered so loudly when Mark pushes avocado into Trevor's face in the third episode[30] that he woke his son.[6]
Critical reception was generally positive. In his overview of Moffat's celebrated Press Gang, Paul Cornell said that the writer "continues to impress" with Joking Apart.[51] The Daily Express said that it was "flavoured with a delicious bitterness about the perfidy of women and the conscious-less nature of the male orgasm, it was plotted with the intricacy of a French farce".[52] Another reviewer for the Express commented that "it's quite funny and an acute analysis" of the modern divorce, and that the first episode was "distinctly promising".[53] Similarly DVD Review comments that "Moffat's distillation of his marriage melting down is as precise a piece of comic writing as you're likely to find."[54]
Not all reviews were completely positive. Criticising Bathurst for being too handsome to convey the frustrations of a writer, The Daily Telegraph said that the show had "its problems but possesses a dark, mordant wit".[19] William Gallagher comments that "Press Gang was pretty flawless, but Joking Apart would veer from brilliance to schoolboy humour from week to week."[55]
While the transmission of series two was being delayed by BBC 2 controller Michael Jackson, the show won the Bronze Rose of Montreux[2] and was entered for the Emmys.[3] The show was remade in Portugal but used a linear structure rather than the flashbacks.[14] Moffat reflects that although the remake is "not as dark or ground-breaking" as the original, it is "probably more fun" because it ends happily.[9]