Rabu, 02 September 2009

Denholm Reynholm - Chris Morris

DENHOLM REYNHOLM

Portrayed by Chris Morris:
Denholm was a director of Reynholm Industries, and a parody of modern earnest upper management, always ready with new and often ridiculous initiatives, such as mixed-gender lavatories in the office, stress-busting seminars and other equally ludicrous ideas, which are all intended to boost performance in a company he openly boasts as employing attractive people who do very little work and all engage in adulterous relationships. In his office, he has a picture of himself on the wall, and of the A-Team on the desk. Denholm was also very easily distracted, and often paid little attention to the people he happened to be having discussions with. When he gets a new member of staff, he likes to give them a long, hard stare. He committed suicide by walking out of a window after being informed the police wanted to interview him about a scandal involving the company's pension accounts, which shows more of his sinister-like interests. However, the character returns in the third series; when his son has a near-death experience, Denholm is shown to have gone to a place resembling heaven, if not for the presence of Adolf Hitler.

CHRIS MORRIS

Chris Morris is a 1965 born satirist.

Morris began his career in radio before moving into television. He found fame in the nineties fronting the spoof current affairs shows The Day Today and Brass Eye and became known for his intelligent yet often highly-controversial brand of comedy. Morris tends to stay out of the public eye and has become one of the more enigmatic figures in British comedy.

Morris grew up in Cambridgeshire; his parents were doctors. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit boys' boarding school in Lancashire,[3] and studied zoology at the University of Bristol.[4]

On graduating, Morris took up a traineeship with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, where he took advantage of access to editing and recording equipment to create elaborate spoofs and parodies. He also spent time in early 1987 hosting a 2–4pm afternoon show and finally ended up presenting Saturday morning show I.T.. In July 1987, he moved on to BBC Radio Bristol to present his own show "No Known Cure", and later joined, from its launch, Greater London Radio (GLR). Until 1990, he was presenting Friday night and Saturday morning shows on Radio Bristol and a Sunday morning show on GLR.

In 1991, Morris reduced his work as a mainstream disc jockey and devoted himself to comedy with his radio project On the Hour. Working with Armando Iannucci, Patrick Marber, Richard Herring, Stewart Lee, Steve Coogan and others, he created a spoof news show on BBC Radio 4. In 1994, Morris began a weekly evening show on BBC Radio 1 alongside Peter Baynham. In the shows, Morris perfected the spoof interview style that would become a central component of his Brass Eye programme. The show's pranks left BBC bosses nonplussed, and a profanity-laden mid-afternoon show on Boxing Day was his last.[citation needed]

In the same year, Morris teamed up with Peter Cook, as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, in a series of improvised conversations for BBC Radio 3, entitled Why Bother?. Morris followed this with Blue Jam, a late-night ambient music and sketch show on Radio 1, which was later reworked for television as Channel 4's Jam. He is also credited with studio/sound help for the Flight Of The Conchords 6-part Radio 2 series.

In 1994, a BBC 2 television series based on On the Hour was broadcast under the name The Day Today. The Day Today made a star of Morris, and helped to launch the careers of Patrick Marber and Steve Coogan.

The black humour which had featured in On the Hour and The Day Today became more prominent in Brass Eye, another spoof current affairs television documentary, shown on Channel 4. Brass Eye became known for tricking celebrities and politicians into throwing support behind public awareness campaigns for made-up issues that were often absurd or surreal (such as a drug called cake and an elephant with its trunk stuck up its anus). In 2001, a reprise of Brass Eye on the moral panic that surrounds paedophilia led to a record-breaking number of complaints – it still remains the third highest on UK television after Celebrity Big Brother 2007 and Jerry Springer: The Opera – as well as heated discussion in the press. Many complainants, some of whom later admitted to not having seen the programme (notably Beverley Hughes, a government minister)[5], felt the satire was directed at the victims of paedophilia, which Morris denies. Channel 4 defended the show, insisting the target was the media and its hysterical treatment of paedophilia, and not victims of crime.

Morris also wrote and directed Jam, a television reworking of his radio show Blue Jam. Darker and more unsettling than his previous work, the show explored such taboos as infant mortality, incest, anal sex, rape, suicide and sadomasochism through a series of unsettling, dreamlike sketches with a soundtrack of ambient music. This was followed by a 'remix' version, Jaaaaam.

In 2002, Morris ventured into film, directing the short My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117, adapted from a Blue Jam monologue about a man led astray by a sinister talking dog. It was the first film project of Warp Films, a branch of Warp Records. In 2002 this won the BAFTA for best short film.[1] In 2005 Morris worked on a sitcom entitled Nathan Barley, based on the character created by Charlie Brooker for his website TVGoHome. Co-written by Brooker and Morris, the series was broadcast on Channel 4 in early 2005.

Morris is currently directing his feature film debut, Four Lions, a satire based on a group of Islamist terrorists in the North of England which he also wrote.[6]


Morris was a cast member in The IT Crowd, a Channel 4 sitcom focusing on the office and home lives of two ‘geeks’ who work in the information technology department of the fictional company Reynholm Industries. The series is written and directed by Graham Linehan (writer of Father Ted and Black Books, with whom Morris collaborated on The Day Today, Brass Eye and Jam) and produced by Ash Atalla (The Office). Morris played Denholm Reynholm, the eccentric managing director of the company. This marked the first time Morris has acted in a substantial role in a project which he hasn't developed himself and is more mainstream than his earlier work. Morris's character appeared to leave the series during episode two of the second series. His character made a brief return in the first episode of the third series. He also invented the character Peter File (which sounded like pedofile)

The Guardian reported that Morris is working on a film satirising terrorism and suicide bombers for Channel 4. The project, titled Boilerhouse (working title Four Lions) was turned down by both the BBC and Channel 4 for its controversial subject matter, but has been picked up by Film Four.[7] Morris told The Sunday Times that the film will seek to do for Islamic terrorism what Dad's Army, the classic BBC comedy, did for the Nazis by showing them as "scary but also ridiculous".[8] In November 2007, Morris wrote an article for The Observer in response to Ronan Bennett's article published six days earlier in The Guardian. Bennett's article, "Shame on us'", accused the novelist Martin Amis of racism. Morris's response, "The absurd world of Martin Amis", was also highly critical of Amis; although he didn't accede to Bennett's accusation of racism, Morris likened Amis to the Muslim cleric Abu Hamza (who was jailed for inciting racial hatred in 2006), suggesting that both men employ "mock erudition, vitriol and decontextualised quotes from the Koran" to incite hatred.[9]

Morris served as script editor for the 2009 series Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, working with former colleagues Stewart Lee, the actor Kevin Eldon and Armando Iannucci.

Jen Barber - Katherine Parkinson


JEN BARBER

Portrayed by Katherine Parkinson:
en enters the department in episode one as a new starter, placed there seemingly at random by boss Denholm, despite her lack of technical or technology management experience. Although originally intended to be the Head of Department, her role was changed to that of "Relationship Manager" due to her ability to converse with other employees within the company. She has admitted to a propensity for telling lies in order to further her own goals, as evidenced by her current occupation as a member of the IT support team despite little to no knowledge of computers. She is easily excited by stereotypical female pursuits such as shoes and men. During the second series we learn that she had been quite a heavy smoker several years previously; she took this habit up again, but quit when she realised that due to anti-smoking laws, she was facing social isolation. She drives a Ford Ka in Pepper Red, first shown in The Haunting of Bill Crouse. Unlike Maurice, her mother has only been mentioned, in 'Moss and the German'. In the third season she declares "ich bin ein Nerd," referencing the Ich bin ein Berliner speech by John F. Kennedy. She maintains a surprisingly good relationship with Roy and Moss despite their apparent differences in personalities. They even went on a "big girls night out" in the "Aunt Irma" episode. She later goes on to decline a better job offer as she feels that Roy and Moss need her. This suggests that she has an actual attachment to them and they are seen by her as more than just work colleagues.

KATHERINE PARKINSON

(Born 9 March 1976) is an English actress, known for playing the part of Jen Barber in the Channel 4 comedy series The IT Crowd.

Parkinson studied at Tiffin Girls' School[1] in Kingston upon Thames, London, and then read Classics at St Hilda's College, Oxford[2] before moving to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art where she met Chris O'Dowd, fellow The IT Crowd lead, for the first time. Both she and O'Dowd left LAMDA without completing their studies after becoming disillusioned with the prevailing ethos there.[3]

During her studies she left the course to star in the play The Age of Consent. Her subsequent career has seen her star alongside well known British actors such as Martin Clunes and Julie Walters. In 2007 she appeared in a new translation of Chekhov's The Seagull at the Royal Court in London, alongside Kristin Scott Thomas and Mackenzie Crook.

She is also seen in Doc Martin.

She recently contributed sketch characters to Katy Brand's ITV2 show, having been friends with Brand since Oxford. She has also appeared several times on BBC Radio 4, including on Talking and Not Talking, Mouth Trap,[4] again with Brand, and in The Odd Half Hour.[5]

She also stars in a television advertisement for Maltesers alongside fellow actress and comedienne Amanda Abbington. Her mother teaches English at James Allen's Girls' School[citation needed]. On New Year's Day 2009 she appeared in a feature-length episode of Jonathan Creek, called The Grinning Man, which was broadcast in the UK.

In 2007, Parkinson announced her engagement to fellow comedian Harry Peacock.[6][7]





Maurice Moss - Richard Ayoade


MAURICE MOSS

Portrayed by Richard Ayoade:
Maurice Moss ("Moss") (Age 32, although his online dating profile seems to assert it is 22) is a stereotypical computer Nerd, and displays characteristics typical of nerd behaviour. The humour in his character is derived from his socially ignorant comments and his intricate and detailed knowledge of specialised technical subjects, including Chemistry and electronic engineering. He lives with his mother (in one episode, Moss enters her room while she is asleep, but her body is under the bedclothes, hence, she is not seen or heard). Both Moss and Roy feel they never get the credit they deserve in the company. They also show little interest in anything related to sport; in "Fifty-Fifty" when asked about the previous night's match, neither of them knew what had happened, while in "Smoke and Mirrors" Moss's interest wanders when Jen brings up football in conversation. This lack of sporting awareness drives the plot of "Are we not men?", as Moss and Roy use the website bluffball.co.uk [2] to appear knowledgeable about football with unfortunate consequences. In "Smoke and Mirrors", it is revealed that he wears his glasses in bed. In "Yesterday's Jam", it is revealed that he keeps several pairs of glasses in his desk, and he keeps a spray bottle on his belt to prevent getting a "hot ear". In "Calamity Jen", it is revealed that he keeps a heap of inhalers in his desk.

RICHARD AYOADE

Ayoade, born 1977 in Whipps Cross, London, is an English comedian, actor, writer and director best known for his role as Maurice Moss in The IT Crowd.

Ayoade was born an only child to a Norwegian mother and a Nigerian father. Ayoade studied at St. Joseph's College in Ipswich, Suffolk and later studied law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge (1995-1998) where he won the Martin Steele Prize for play production[2] and became president of the prestigious Footlights during 1997 -1998.[3]

While in Footlights, Ayoade acted in and wrote many shows. He and Footlights vice-president John Oliver wrote two pantomimes together: Sleeping Beauty, and Grimm Fairy Tales. Ayoade acted in both Footlights' 1997 and 1998 touring shows: Emotional Baggage and Between a Rock and a Hard Place (directed by Cal McCrystal).[4]

On 8 September 2007 he married the actress Lydia Fox, who is the daughter of James Fox, and the sister of Laurence Fox.

yoade co-wrote the stage show Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight with Matthew Holness, appearing in the show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000 where it was nominated for a Perrier Award. In 2001 he won the Perrier Comedy Award for co-writing and performing in the sequel to Fright Knight, Garth Marenghi's Netherhead.

In 2004 Ayoade and Holness took the Marenghi character to Channel 4, creating the spoof horror comedy series Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. He directed and also appeared as Dean Learner, Garth's publisher, who plays Thornton Reed, a camp hospital administrator who bears a trademark shotgun and answers to Hospital boss "Won Ton".

Ayoade's Darkplace character, Dean Learner, was resurrected in 2006 to host a comedy chat show, Man to Man with Dean Learner, on Channel 4. The different guests were played each week by Holness.

In The Boosh radio series Richard played the part of Tommy Nookah in the second episode, Jungle, originally aired on 23 October 2001. Ayoade was part of the original cast of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding's The Mighty Boosh: he was selected to play the role of dangerous villain Dixon Bainbridge. However, by the time the radio series transferred to television he was under contract by Channel 4 and was only able to act in the pilot before leaving the Boosh. The part was taken by fellow Darkplace actor Matt Berry. He later returned in the second series, to play the part of the belligerent shaman Saboo, where he improvised the line 'an erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind' when describing Noel Fielding's nephew, who was also in the scene. Ayoade continued his association with The Mighty Boosh in the third series, acting as script editor and also reprising his role of Saboo in the episodes "Eels", "The Strange Tale of the Crack Fox" and "Party".
Ayoade is now a recognisable face in Britain due to his role as the technically brilliant but socially awkward Maurice Moss in Channel 4's The IT Crowd. In 2008 he won the award for an outstanding actor in a television comedy series at Monte-Carlo Television Festival for his performance. Ayoade was also going to reprise his character on the American version of The IT Crowd and shot a pilot episode but the series wasn't picked up.

In 2005, he played the role of Ned Smanks in Chris Morris' and Charlie Brooker's Nathan Barley.

Ayoade also directed, co-wrote and co-starred (with fellow Darkplace cast member Matt Berry) in AD/BC: A Rock Opera, and has appeared on T4.

He was a stand-up comedian for a short time performing on The Stand Up Show on BBC1 amongst others. His stand-up segment from BBC Radio 4 programme 4 At The Store in London's Comedy Store is now available on CD along with other comedians performing. He was quite successful in stand-up before moving onto comedy acting.

He helped write The Mighty Book of Boosh, along with Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt, Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown and Michael Fielding.

Ayoade is currently working on a film adaptation of Joe Dunthorne's book Submarine, for which he wrote the screenplay. Ayoade will also direct this film and start filming in October 2009. The cast currently includes Michael Sheen and Paddy Considine[6].

He also features in Paul King's upcoming film, Bunny and the Bull, where he plays the role of an extremely boring museum tour guide.




Roy - Chris O'Dowd


ROY

Portrayed by Chris O' Dowd:
Roy is a laid back, very lazy, but notoriously unlucky Irish IT engineer who goes to great lengths to avoid performing his role within the organisation such as (in episode 3) a machine to say his first troubleshooting step "Hello IT? Have you tried turning it off and on again?" usually followed by "are you sure its plugged in". He constantly eats junk food and has a low regard for his career in technology, despite signs that he is more than capable. He is a big fan of comics and often reads them when he is supposed to be working. His work attire is very casual compared to his colleagues; he wears a new geek-related t-shirt in every episode. Before becoming an IT consultant, he held a job as a waiter, during which time he would carry the food of rude customers in his trousers until he served it to them. He often attempts to attract women by various methods, such as pretending to be a "bastard" because he believes that that is what women want. In one episode he won a £20 bet with Jen by proving this theory correct. He is rarely successful, but still has better social skills than Moss. When angry, upset or worried, his voice adopts a notably higher pitch and trembles significantly. His last name is never mentioned in the series, although O'Dowd and Linehan discussed the possibilities of it being either 'Shepherd' or 'McGonagall.' After the episode "Speech", Graham Linehan's blog suggested that Roy's last name is Tenneman, but Linehan clarified that this was not canonical. The only member of Roy's immediate family mentioned is his mother - who he insults on the phone before realising he isn't speaking to a Reynholm Industries employee. In the final episode in the first series, we discover Moss' psychiatrist resembles his mother.

Chris O' Dowd

This 1980 born actor from Ireland is from Boyle, County Roscommon. He graduated from University College Dublin and subsequently attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He contributed to The University Observer and was active in UCD Dramsoc and the Literary and Historical Society.

He is famous for his role as Roy in the Channel 4 TV Series The IT Crowd, BBC 2's Roman's Empire, Red Cap and the award-winning docu-drama The Year London Blew Up. He has also appeared on Irish television, having starred in the RTÉ One drama The Clinic and the drama Showbands alongside Kerry Katona. O'Dowd has recently appeared in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People in a minor role.

O'Dowd has also had roles in a number of films including the 2005 film Festival where he played stand-up comedian Tommy O'Dwyer, a role for which he won a Scottish BAFTA award, and a small role in Vera Drake.

Currently, O'Dowd appears in Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, a comedy sci-fi film with Marc Wootton, Dean Lennox Kelly and Anna Faris. He played one of the main characters ("Liam") in the 2007 German film Hotel Very Welcome.

He stars in the 2009 film The Boat That Rocked. The film is inspired by the story of offshore pirate broadcasters Radio Caroline. O'Dowd plays Simon, the station's breakfast DJ."The breakfast jock on Radio Caroline at the time was Tony Blackburn, so there's definitely an element of him in it [2]," says O'Dowd of his character. "And then I called in different Irish DJs that would have been contemporaries of Tony Blackburn at the time, a guy called Larry Gogan and a couple of other people [2]."

O'Dowd also starred opposite Sienna Miller in the film Hippie Hippie Shake, which is about the groundbreaking '60s magazine, Oz. The publication was the precursor to a whole generation of lad mags. O'Dowd plays Felix Dennis, who would later become the publisher of Maxim. The story centers on the landmark indecency trial. In real-life, O'Dowd's character was defended by John Mortimer who went on to write Rumpole of the Bailey. In preparation for the role, O'Dowd met up with Dennis. "He was an incredibly charismatic man," O'Dowd stated [2]."

In April 2009 it was announced that O'Dowd was cast in a remake of Gulliver's Travels. The film stars Jack Black as Gulliver, Emily Blunt, as the Princess, and Jason Segal as Horatio. "It's shooting in Pinewood from the end of April [2]," said O'Dowd, shorty after his participation was announced. "I'm just going back to England to learn how to ride a horse...I'm a general in the army, so there's going to be a little bit of horse riding. I think it's going to be really fun though, we're all kind of learning together -- Jason and Jack have to learn as well [2]."

O'Dowd appeared on panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Season 21, episode 11).

He starred in a new ITV2 comedy series entitled FM, alongside Kevin Bishop and Nina Sosanya.

Chris O' Dowd's filmography also include How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, with Meagan Fox and Brian Austin Green.

What is IT Crowd?

The IT Crowd is set in the offices of Reynholm Industries, a fictitious British corporation in central London. It focuses on the shenanigans of the three-strong IT support team located in a dingy, untidy and unkempt basement – a stark contrast to the shining modern architecture and stunning London views enjoyed by the rest of the organisation. The obscurity surrounding what the company does serves as a running gag throughout the series – all that is known is that the company bought and sold ITV (a fact which Denholm Reynholm forgot completely), and once made part-year profits of "eighteen hundred billion billion". The team consists of what Douglas Reynholm describes as "a dynamic go-getter (Jen), a genius (Moss) and a man from Ireland (Roy)".

Moss and Roy, the two technicians, are portrayed as socially inept geeks or, in Denholm Reynholm's words, "standard nerds". Despite the company's dependence on their services, they are despised, ignored, and considered losers by the rest of the staff. Roy's exasperation is reflected in his support techniques of ignoring the phone in the hope it will stop ringing, and using reel-to-reel tape recordings of stock IT suggestions ("Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and "Are you sure it's plugged in?"). He expresses his "personality" by wearing a different geek T-shirt in each episode[5]. Moss's wide and intricate knowledge of all things technical is reflected in his extremely accurate yet utterly indecipherable suggestions, while demonstrating a complete inability to deal with practical problems like extinguishing fires and removing spiders.

Jen, the newest member of the team, is hopelessly non-technical, despite claiming on her CV that she has "a lot of experience with computers". As Denholm, the company boss, is equally tech-illiterate, he is convinced by Jen's interview bluffing and appoints her head of the IT department. Her official title is "relationship manager", yet her attempts at bridging the gulf between the technicians and the business generally have the opposite effect, landing Jen in situations just as ludicrous as those of her team-mates.


Source: Wikipedia