People Like Us: The Complete Series

Watch with a broad smile as a fly-on-the-wall journalist becomes a fly in the ointment. A brilliant spoof, this mockumentary follows BBC interviewer Roy Mallard (Chris Langham) as he shadows Britain's unsung professionals, including a high-tech manager, a police officer, a vicar, a photographer (Bill Nighy), and a struggling actor (David Tennant). Roy's presence has unintended and hilarious consequences as he carries on with complete incompetence, delivering overwrought voice-overs in his inept, self-important tone.

Chris Langham stars as fly-on-the-wall documentary-maker Roy Mallard in the television debut of a popular BBC Radio 4 series. People Like Us has already won some impressive radio awards:the Sony Gold,The Writer's Guild and the British Comedy Award.Having received the Royal Television Society Award in its first season,the television series looks set for similar success. In an attempt to get under the skin of what it’s really like to be one of Britain’s unsung professionals, Roy Mallard travels across the nation to interview a variety of subjects:ordinary folk,"people like us". Although viewers never see him,they are very much aware of him. He is always in the thick of the action, up to his eyes in problems and forever trying to keep chaos at bay. Roy is earnest and well-meaning. He is also hopelessly inept, staggeringly gauche and linguistically challenged. Utterly insensitive to nuance or atmosphere, he is constantly wrong-footed by his interviewees who take his questions too literally. Slowly but relentlessly, he gets caught up in some distracting human mini-drama that skews the entire programme, whether because of a dysfunctional slide projector, an unintelligible Japanese translator or an estate agent with an unconsummated passion for a colleague. And everyone keeps getting his name wrong. Those unfamiliar with the show might at first mistake it for a genuine documentary. It is this authenticity, combined with Mallard’s idiotic narration and interview technique, that makes the show so funny. Details creep in that have nothing to do with serious reporting. “Roy Mallard wasn’t a spoof of anyone in particular,” says writer John Morton.“He’s the incarnation of a BBC-ness that still exists in Radio 4 and on BBC2. I’m sure he sees himself as educating,informing and entertaining, and being a hero when things are falling about around him.”

Series 1
1.The Managing Director - Roy Mallard travels to Nottingham to spend a day with Peter Wilson, Managing Director of Zenotech, a company  fighting to keep afloat in the stimulating environment of Surface Mount Technology. In other words, it manufactures Thick Film Hybrids for the computer industry. Zenotec is a typical example of the high tech infrastructure that has sprung up in the last 30 years all overNottingham. Managing director, Peter Wilson (Neil McCaul) gives Roy an insight into his inept management skills when he is forced to fire delivery driver Dean Trussler (Peter Gunn) in the face of a new corporate strategy to
 adically simplify the transport system - by not having one. Roy reports: "Being cruel in order to be kind is never easy.
As Peter is not doing this to be kind, his task of being cruel is even more of a challenge." But not everything goes to
plan and Roy ends up with less of a fly-on-the-wall presence than he'd like. The rest of the staff seem just as incapable as Peter. Sales director (Lisa Bell), who has a background in oil rigs, is more interested in her car than her work and does a good job of embarrassing herself in front of visiting Japanese businessmen. Peter's personal assistant, secretary and general back woman, Sue Rudkin (Soo Drouet) is especially keen on organising the office .

2.The Estate Agent - Roy Mallard spends a day with Levick's Estate Agent, a small family firm in Lewes, Sussex. Founded in-between the wars, Levick's is an  established family business, although most people didn't realised that it existed until after World War II. Roy talks to Nick Levick (Stuart Wright), who has run the office for the last three years, and says: "Many people think it's a really easy job, money for old rope. In actual fact it's bloody hard work, the trick is to make it look easy - it's a bit like bullfighting."
He also meets sales negotiator Madeline Goddard (Sarah Alexander),who has developed a reputation as an agile and subtle negotiator and wins Roy over with a few tricks of the trade. Roy also gets an insight into viewings and valuations. He discovers that it is no surprise that estate agents are so often compared to synchronised swimmers. No matter how much pressure they are under, no matter how complex the manoeuvre, their skill is to make their clients think that nothing could be easier and that the chances of anyone drowning are slight.Roy's glimpse under the water reveals a different story... This episode also features Jessica Stephenson as a prospective buyer.

3.The Police Officer - Roy follows PC David Knight as he prepares for a 12-hour day on duty. Roy also meets Inspector Mike, who believes technology is no substitute for having a good nose on the job, and Chief Inspector Carpenter, who explains the importance of earning respect in the force, but his dodgy hairdo prevents him from gaining Roy's respect. But Roy gets more than he bargained for when he accompanies PC Knight out on the beat in Northampton. A routine day is transformed into a tense roof top drama when an insurance company employee threatens to jump unless his demands for a fuller and more meaningful life are met.Will PC Knight encourage him to come down or will the presence of Roy push them all over the edge? This episode also star s Tom Goodman Hill,Emma Kennedy, David Cann and Geoffrey Whitehead.

4.The Solicitor -Roy Mallard goes on an emotional rollercoaster when he visits Broadbent and Broadbent, a small firm of solicitors specialising in matrimonial cases where it's not only coffee that gets spilt in the office...
Broadbent and Broadbent is located in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, and run by husband-and-wife partnership, Graham and Nicola (Owen Brenman and Rebecca Front). While Graham explains the intricacies of matrimony and personal injury, Nicola demonstrates how not to run a solicitors office. Roy follows Nicola as she attempts to sympathise with client Amanda Carter (Kay Stonham) on her divorce and attends Matrimony Day at County Court, where he gets an interesting insight into relationships. But Roy finds the biggest emotional upheaval is back in the offices of Broadbent and Broadbent.

5.The Photographer - Roy Mallard is in Winchester to discover the ar tistic genius behind the wo rk of photographer Will Rushmore (Bill Nighy - The Men's Room). Unfortunately, Will's talent behind the camera is equal to that of Roy's. According to Will, he gave up a safe job in town-planning to follow his lifelong ambition to be a top photographer. According to his lodger Emma (Jessica Oyelowo),a young art student with whom he appears to have a more than the usual landlord/tenant relationship, Will was not content to settle for the predictable job/family/mortgage that is normal for a man of his age. In fact, 41 is not old at all and his Pierre Cardin underpants are not those of a middleaged guy. According to his ex-wife Ros,he is a sad loser who was fired from the council. Roy learns some of the tricks of Will's trade as he follows him around on a day that is anything but routine, whether it's paying over the odds for a camera lens, doing a portrait of a warring family, or visiting a smart London gallery in the vain hope that his work will be exhibited. Even in the dark room, Roy is in awe of the artist at work, or he puts it,"The dark room is the confessional in the church of the photographer's science." This makes as much sense as anything Will has to say about his work.

6.The Headteacher - Roy Mallard goes back to school to find out about life along the corridors and in the classrooms of King Edward VII Comprehensive School in Ashford, Kent. Part of headteacher Stuart Simmons' duties today include staff meetings and giving the schoolchildren the week's buzzword: intercourse. Roy also becomes embroiled in the race to recruit a new head of humanities, in which a knowledge of volleyball seems to be a key asset.Needless to say, Roy's advice and support results in his having more than egg on his face. This episode also features Philip Fox,Beth Goddard,Ewan Bailey, Joanne Brookes and Mark Heap.

Series 2
1.The Vicar - "No one knows how many churches there are in England or exactly where they are. St John the Baptist's in Oxfordshire is an example of at least one." Roy Mallard is in Thame to interview country vicar, Andrew Treverton Michael Fenton-Stevens - KYTV), who plays A Whiter Shade Of Pale "by the Moody Blues" on the church organ. Mallard manages to undermine the clergyman's faith with his gauche questions and his bird's-eye view of traditional middle England uncovers an unexpected tale of a "cynical and ungrateful" vicar's wife, Sarah (Phoebe Nicols), and the middle-aged church secretary, Margaret (Selina Cadell), who is Andrew's greatest fan.

2.The Mother - This week Roy Mallard focuses on a young mother, dispensing his words of wisdom in the style that is uniquely his. "Today women are increasingly encouraged to have it all - career, children, clothes." Roy is spends a day with Jenn  Gardner (Tamsin Greig - Black Books), who is a mother, and a woman.Toddler Harry is causing her to suffer from severe sleep deprivation and in her permanently dazed state she puts the toast in the dishwasher. But she must prepare for her first day back at work, and Mallard soon becomes a makeshift nanny. With Richard Lumsden (Wonderful You) and Susan Jameson (Coronation Street)

3. The Journalist - Roy Mallard visits the town of Long Ashton ("perched interestingly between Nottingham and Leicester") in order to gain an insight into the workings of its local newspaper, the Gazette. He soon becomes mired in its humdrum world of golden wedding anniversaries and missing hamsters, observing how a collection of disparate fragments becomes, through some strange alchemy known only to journalists, a newspaper that is greater than the sum of its ... total. With Tim Preece (Reginald Perrin), Nicola Walker (Touching Evil, Chalk), Susan Earl, Philip Pickard, Cedric Beaumont, June Broughton and Steve Oram

4. The Actor - Roy Mallard, the Godfather of quality programme-making, follows luvvie jobbing actor Rob Harker (David Tennant - LA Without a Map) through the world of auditions and voiceovers as he waits for his big break. "If all the world is a stage, then actors are the actors we hire to play the parts we're never going to play ourselves because we're too busy playing people who can't act," says Roy. "In which case, it's not so much that they are people like us, but that we - if we only knew it - are people like them. Which, in the end, may turn out to be the same thing." With Steve Oram, Hannah Green, Ewan Bailey and Kate Maravan

5.The Bank Manager - Roy Mallard is in Swindon, a town which has "risen from the ashes of its own Phoenix." Spending a day at the local branch of the FirstNat Bank, Roy Mallard uses his extraordinary insight to unearth the complexities of the appraisal system and explore the on-going technological changes in the stimulating world of high-street banking. "The daily business meeting," he explains, "today being held on a Thursday and chaired by branch manager Alan Fletcher, is designed to allow important information to pass vertically upwards and downwards and horizontally sideways in both directions, between and amongst management and other staff, as well as laterally." With David Roper (The Cuckoo Waltz), Emma Kennedy (Flatmates, Lee and Herring), Robert Webb, Norman Roberts and Tilly Gaunt

6.The Airline Pilot - 'Heathrow - effectively a self-contained city with all the facilities and infrastructure a city requires, including its own airport.' Documentary film-maker Roy Mallard, who in American broadcasting circles is regarded as practically some kind of God, prepares to fly with a major British airline, which he is not allowed to name due to a combination of legal reasons. But is it wise for a nervous passenger to travel in the cockpit and distract the pilots? With William Gaminara (Casualty,Attachments), Hywel Simons,Amy Robbins, Di Botcher and Carli Norris

Starring Chris Langham
Written and Directed by John Morton
Produced and Co-Direct by Paul Schlesigner
Executive Producer: John Plowman>br>

Series 1
"Anybody who did not enjoy People Like Us should be reported to the authorities and locked away for the
protection of themselves and society... it was the funniest thing I have seen on television for years." The Stage

"...an absolute gem of a series... Sly, subtle and sharp as a staple." Express

"The show is a brilliant amalgamation of spoof styles from Airplane to The Day Today." The Financial Times

"The best comedy series currently on TV." Daily Mail

"So awful,it's irresistible... a subtle subversion of the whole genre of programme-making." London Evening Standard

"Mr Langham, packaged as the totally inept television reporter Roy Mallard, has raised the old comedic art of the
pratfall to new heights." Daily Mail

"Funnier than the real thing... Television that sets out to rip the piss out of television is walking on eggshells.Too subtle, and people might not get the joke; too broad and people will accuse the makers of biting the hand that feeds it.The spoof documentary People Like Us, written by John Morton, gets the balance just right." Time Out

"...brilliantly funny..." Guardian Guide

"...subtly clever... funny." Mail on Sunday

"The docusoap format... has been spoofed brilliantly in People Like Us." Observer

Series 2
"... wildly funny ... I can't think of a wittier show on TV." Daily Mail

"The show which has done for fly-on-the-wall what Knowing Me, Knowing You did for the chat show." Express

"You should cancel all arrangements and set at least three VCRs to make sure you catch it." Independent

"... just gets funnier and funnier." Mirror

"... the wonderful, clever and often laugh-out-loud People Like Us ... a brilliant pastiche of fly-on-the-wall
documentary as well as a gentle portrait of filmmaker Roy Mallard and his subjects. It expertly brings out the fauxsolemnity and the pseudo-intelligence of the genre, while deftly treading the line between detailed observational comedy and deadpan parody ... exactly the kind of thing that crops up in genuine fly-on-the-wall documentaries - stupid cliché and TV shorthand delivered with gravitas but actually making absolutely no sense. Right down to the shots and camera angles People Like Us uses (a close-up of someone stirring tea, an interview in a car with a subject driving, the camera gazing up at him), it is Exocet-precise in its satire - and actually more scathing in its attack than it first appears. There is also a real melancholic streak to the show and the subjects' lives, making it as truthful a study of contemporary Britain in all its idiosyncratic weirdness as any real documentary. And that is the hallmark of great
comedy." Guardian

"Roy Mallard, the evil genius at the heart of People Like Us ... has taken his rightful place in this pantheon of awfulness." Evening Standard

"Langham sails deliciously close to the wind, capturing perfectly the tone of hushed, caring earnestness which characterised, for example, the late Desmond Wilcox. His capacity to tie himself in verbal knots is mind-boggling ... Priceless, though sadly this blather is a little too real for comfort." The Times

"... so well-observed that you'd be forgiven for not immediately realising that it's a pastiche ... very clever, and very funny." Mirror

"The inept Mallard ... played with bone-headed stupidity and crashing insensitivity by Chris Langham - makes Alan Partridge seem like Alan Whicker." Express

"... the beauty of People Like Us lies in subtleties rather than big laughs. But it's very entertaining nonetheless." Time Out

"Brilliantly real ... the parody is delicious, and ... fun." The Times