The IT Crowd - Series 2
Friday the 4th of May was a big day for many - it was my last day at my current employer; it was Star Wars day (May the 4th be with you); Anneka finished her 3rd year at Uni; Emily finished her 2nd; and Simon, Rachel, Anneka and myself headed down to Pinewood Studios to see series 2 of The IT Crowd being filmed.
The movie-buffs out there will instantly recognise the name Pinewood from the James Bond and Carry On series, but also from films such as Mission Impossible and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As it was a bank holiday weekend, we expected some traffic but were quite surprised at how quickly we drove from Lincoln to the M25. However, Simon’s conversation about Pizza Hut meant that we missed a crucial turning, putting us back another 20 minutes or so. The traffic from the M25 to the studios itself was pretty bad - though we made it on time, only to be greeted by a man of the opposite team who called me a beautiful man. I’ll treasure that moment forever.
Once inside, there wasn’t much to see; all the buildings looked like huge warehouses, with a uniform look of a prison camp. The only building that did stand out, however, was the 007 stage - which was pretty much 3 times the size of the others, with a huge 007 sign towards the peak of the roof.
We were ushered, by, well, ushers - who all seemed to be of the camp variety. They took us on a crazy paving route towards the canteen, before then taking us back the way we’d come and a little further, to the relevant studio. All the important people appeared to be driving golf carts around, leaving us to shuffle to and from the ushers, who directed us in all sorts of directions other than the most direct.
A few moments later and we were walking into the building where the second series of The IT Crowd was being filmed. It looked like any other building until we walked through a break in the dark back-drops to be confronted with the new set. It’s at this point that I’ll point out all the obvious set changes from Series 1 to 2:
- The budget for the basement seems to have increased tenfold
- There’s acrylic tables and speakers; flat screens on every desk; weird and wonderful gadgets
- They’ve now got an XBOX 360 and HD LCD TV in the basement, along with Guitar Hero 2
- All of the older hardware appears to still be on set, albeit in the back store room
- Jen’s office is a bit more lived in, with ambient lighting and weird things
I could go on and on - but I’ll summarise the set itself in saying that it’s not much like the original. They’ve pretty much kept the desks where they were, but altered everything else. It’s a welcome change, which appeared to bring Series 2 up to date.
Oh, one prop I shall focus on is the new computer sitting in the boss’ office (I’ll keep it to boss for now) - an Antec P180. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t connected up to the screen on the desk itself, but I wont dwell on it for fear of being branded a geek.
Once we were seated, we awaited the start of the show which seemed to take forever. Luckily they had some weirdo who entertained us for a few minutes, but we wanted to see the show itself, not some unknown prancing about, ripping the piss out of hoodies. Though admittedly, he was funny at times.
Fast forward a bit and we were introduced to the writer, Graham Linehan (Father Ted, Black Books) along with the series producer - Ash Atilla (The Office). We were also introduced to a surprise actor, Matt Berry (the 2nd on this invitation) who I remembered from Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (Dr. Lucien Sanchez), but Simon and Rachel saw in The Mighty Boosh (Dixon Bainbridge). Either way it was fecking hilarious to hear him talk normally, as his voice is really the deep and weird one that adorns the aforementioned shows - complete with his long locks and a beard of sorts.
I wont spoil too much of the new series, but Matt Berry replaces Denim Denholm, who apparently dies earlier on in the series. He’s his son, whose first name eludes me.
We then sat for about 4 hours, watching VTs (which I since learned stand for Video Tapes) and the live recording of various scenes. There were many bloopers that will no doubt be on the out-takes of the DVD.
The only disappointments were the distinct lack of anything IT. I’m not complaining though, but they appear to have focussed more on the character development this time around, rather than the hilarities of the IT call-outs in the 1st series - as in the whole episode they only appear to make the one. They do, however, start the episode with a bash at Guitar Hero, which looks like a lot of fun.
Overall, it was a great experience - one that highlighted a lot of elements that go into making each episode. It also showed us some of the most extreme fans - those that can recall all 20 numbers of the emergency services from series 1! To brand us a geek is insane when there were people there that lived and breathed this show. I’m very much looking forward to seeing Series 2 of The IT Crowd, even more so than before - and I think we’ll be expecting at least a 3rd and possibly 4th out of them in the near future.
If you’ve never encountered The IT Crowd before, then have a look at the channel 4 mini-site; what appears to be a fan-site and wikipedia. IMDB has a bit on the show too, but not nearly as much as you would expect.
Any questions about Series 2? Then feel free to comment, as you’ll have 4 of us to answer.
May 7th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Matt Berry is my Hero.
Ok, Questions:
1) Why didn’t you ask to play Guitar Hero when you had to sit around for 4 hours?
2) Now you’ve worked on set as a laughter extra are you ready to write & direct a live show?
3) Did you get free food and beer?
4) What’s wrong with hoodies?
5) Did they have a clap & applaud sign that lights up?
6) Do they have any jobs as a tea boy going?
7) Out of the main cast who would win in a fight?
8) Was anyone giving favours for sailors?
9) What props did you steal?
10) Are you going to buy Guitar Hero?
11) Do you wanna play Xbox sometime? I’ve got 2 weeks at home and unlimited Internet access + my steering wheel.
12) Is the studio in a Pine wood Forest? Do pine needles smell as good as I remember?
May 7th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
That’s silly 8 ) is a smiley
May 7th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
13) What about Pizza Hut anyway?
May 7th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Wow, what a lot of questions - which I aim to answer as best as I possibly can:
1) Good point, though we had to remain seated the whole time
2) Not quite, but I reckon you will hear some of my laughter on the final edit
3) Nope. The canteen charged for food, not that we had any anyway
4) Erm, he did a little sketch with 2 members of the audience, one of whom was a hoody that was to mug the other
5) Nope, there was nothing to tell us when to laugh, we just laughed (even after the 4th take)
6) Doubt it, as they didn’t serve us tea :(
7) Probably Matt Berry, as Richard and Chris are tall and lanky
8 ) Possibly the ushers
9) None - though Rachel was given a gay comic book signed by them all and I’m not kidding either
10) Erm, I don’t know, I can see it being rather limited - though someone has modded it for left-handers
11) Sure, I’ll be on sometime this week and will let you know - though tonight I’m installing ubuntu 7.04 on my new build
12) It is surrounded by trees, well a lot of woodland - part of which may be pine
Yes 8 ) is a smiley, though we should be using ordered lists, saving us the hassle of manually entering numbers
13) I don’t quite remember, just that I was craving Pizza Hut at the time - we ended up having McDonalds at the end of the night, served by a ghetto-gangster white woman who seemed high on crack as she was falling out of the drive-thru window
May 7th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Hmm I was going to install Ubuntu as well, let me know how it goes.
May 7th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I’ve done it many times before, though this is the first time at dabbling with 7.04 - everything is piss easy, simply pop in the live cd, boot from it and you’re presented with an install icon on the desktop, once it loads up. It’s running nice and fast on an old 950MHz Duron, 1GB PC133, 40GB Seagate.
I tried getting 6.06 LTS running on Red19 a while back, but I had problems booting - it needs the alternate CD to install, which you may find on some machines.
May 8th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I installed Linux before and could even get the ATI driver going.
I saw a video of Ubuntu compared to vista, its looked great with the cube desktop, is this a special version or something? Any clue? I’d hazard a guess it wouldnt run on the 950duron lol.
I wanted to try the cube version!
May 8th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
how’d work go
May 8th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Beryl I believe is what you’re referring to - which should be simple enough to install once you’ve got ubuntu up and running - you simply add/remove programs as you would in Windows, except the adding is very easy and downloads everything for you.
Work went very well, I’m glad I made the career change - so I’m now officially a Web Designer!
May 8th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
tis true, i won a signed copy of a magazine used as a prop.
looked on ebay no signed stuff on there so its either worth nothing or loads.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Put it up with a reserve? Surely the 3 who knew all 20 numbers would bid on it at least…
May 10th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Forza 2 demo out, Graphics alright, too jaggy tho. With steering wheel tho its alot of fun, the feedback is alot different then with PGR3, way more realistic.
May 10th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
On XBOX Live? Bo! I downloaded C&C3 the other night, but never got around to playing it. I’ll have a go at Forza tonight then - is it just a single player demo?
Oh and my XBOX Live 1 month runs out next Tuesday!
Oh and oh again - George Lucas announced that he’s making a further 2 Star Wars films as well as the live action TV show.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Single player demo yup, I think the demo is relatively old so hopefully less jiggy jags in the final build. Im also hearing that the xbox live update has messed up VGA connections and made games way more jaggy. Im not sure if its right, forza 2 certainly is jaggo and isnt on AV cable, but other games seemed about the same so i think its just some idiot forum boys.
Driving the wrong way for head on’s is fun, the physics are certainly really nice. Its a short dullish track too so not too much excitement from the demo. The Sound is great.
Dont they make them starter kits anymore then? Shit!
George Lucas making more? I guess the money got the better of him, i thought he wasn’t going to do more.
May 10th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
wow, just played again with driving assists off, and it felt sooo much more realistic then before, its really great my wheel deffo aint broke btw. also the replays look 2x as good as when u drive, with more blur effect or something. hopefully the final one got some of this blur.
May 11th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
i think you need a forum for ‘em. comments end up not being about subject adam turns them into geek chats
May 12th, 2007 at 11:35 am
everything here is a geek chat, so go away if u dont like it. n00b. ;)
May 12th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
mmm, ive got a thing for the nerdburger ring http://www.xboxyde.com/stream_3814_en.html
May 13th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
This is an insane price! Looks like a cheap arse company but all the boards are reference from the nvidia factories anyhows, just rebranded. Only snag is 4-6 weeks postage hmm, still as it is through Amazon and their warehouse in jersey your money should be safe.
Really long link that Matt had to shorten!
http://www.zotac.com/gf8800.htm
May 13th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
wtf…..
oh man…..
what 2 do?
May 13th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
…….as i was saying
May 13th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
“adam turns them into geek chats”.
For starters that wasn’t me this time. Your boyfriend is just as guilty, your going to have to accept the fact that we are what we are.
& no not gays.
I missed that them cards were GTS tho. Still good price. Buy em and sell em on ebay innuh.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I agree totally Queenofthecarebears - I tried to get people to post in a spam thread, but it was ignored after 18 replies. I tried a beta version of bbpress a while back, which is basically a forum based on Wordpress. I’ll look into putting it on here, but in the meantime, let the geek chat commence/resume…
May 13th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Oh and Byron, where did you find out about those Zontac cards? For the price they’re extremely tempting!
May 14th, 2007 at 10:45 am
“adam turns them into geek chats”
May 14th, 2007 at 10:50 am
hey where’d the rest go? ^ ^ oh man i used that shortcut again.
Well i went onto say, isnt just me with the geek stuff for starters.
Myself and Si are lazy blog posters, what usually happens with me is i comment on the post, then add an extra line of conversation. nothing wrong with that?!
Take a look how this entire comment list was started. Started with questions then continued on from them.
Bah, Humbug! i say.
May 14th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Mental the price for that 8800gts shot up to £500 something dodgy going on.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Hmmm, it might be the same situation that occurred when I went to purchase Vista - a shop had it at half the price, so I placed an order - but the next day it went up to the normal price and they sent out emails stating that it was a mistake.
I don’t mind that comments go off-track, in fact it’s good, as it encourages others to chip in. But maybe there is still a need for a little forum on here - it would make some things more regular, such as a thread on XBOX 360 games and a thread on Simon’s new PC (whenever it is purchased).
May 14th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
i agree
May 14th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
i agree
May 14th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
sorry i spammed
May 14th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Had no credit sry, went on LIVE in case u cum on anyway but no. Oh well, i play online against some dudes I win some, much success!
Hopefully I got a free trial hanging about at home or something u can use.
May 15th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Weird…your blog gets more geeky every day…dull for us none geeks!
May 15th, 2007 at 11:55 am
k, lets talk about something non-geeky then.
Did u hear J.T is in the next shrek movie?! Apparently he plays a geek prince, which is funny because Justin is anything BUT a geek. In fact he is da BOMB! I love his dancing, his style and his vocals, yeah im cool. He isnt a geek but plays a geek! the irony!
I found out when watching MTV because im cool and watch MTV all day including My super sweet 16 where the girls have fab parties because they deserve to be diva’s even tho they have achieved nothing in life. They treat their parents like crap which is totally awesome! I love MTV. In fact the best show is called MADE where they get some nerd, fat kid or ugly betty and turn them onto something really cool like a prom king/queen, Jock or cheerleader. So its like turning geek into sheek!
Now im off to the pub to talk to all my cool friends about mtv, booze, football, cars, girls, fashion, pissups, vacations, blahblahblahblah hahaha ok enough, so ive entertained myself anyway ;)
May 15th, 2007 at 11:56 am
im going mental. Ive had MTV on for about a week now.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
What are you up to this weekender mattinghew?
May 15th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
didnt really go pub.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
All I can suggest Adamskii, is that you slowly stop watching MTV - go cold turkey.
I just spoke on the phones to you Byron, so you know what I’m doing now - sorry I didn’t reply to your email today (asking the same thing) I was too engrossed in web developing, bo!
This post has had 35+ replies - that’s mental!
So, to bring it back on track - has anyone seen the new Volvic adverts? It’s Matt Berry doing the voice over of the volcano thingy…
May 15th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Yes! I was going to post up the same thing, graphics cards threw me off. Full of VOLCANICITYYYY
May 16th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
yeah i noticed this too and told byrondo,
COME ON WORLD I’LL HAVE YOU FOR BREAKFAST
May 16th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
‘Hello Tyranasarus Alan!’
Oh and Adamskii I understand where you are coming from with the MTV thing - I had a week off at home a while back and devoted quite a good portion of my time to watching the joys of shows like Laguna Beach (and spin off series The Hills) - it sent me quite funny!