Hoot Press: A cab-driver talks...

Those who had feared we had seen the last of Alan Partridge can breathe a sigh of relief. Although Partridge doesn’t appear in BBC 2’s The Keith Barret Show, his spirit certainly informs the comedic sensibility of the show’s nerdy host, played with typical prankster-ish flair by Welsh actor Rob Brydon. In a further link with the hapless Norwich FM anchor, The Keith Barret Show is co-produced by Baby Cow, the Brighton-based production company owned by sometime performance poet Henry Normal and Partridge creator Steve Coogan.

But the undoubted star of the show is Brydon, who over the past five years has quietly amassed a CV to compare with any of his contemporaries. A drama school graduate and ex radio DJ, Brydon has an exceptional talent for creating characters simultaneously hilarious and pathos-ridden.
To his credit, he has also thus far opted to refine his skills in the low-key environs of late night BBC2 and UTV, smartly resisting the temptation to play to the gallery with any of his creations, a fault which has tended to mar the output of even exceptionally gifted comics like Sacha Baron Cohen. (Coogan, with his weakness for back-slapping love-ins with the likes of Melvin Bragg and Des O’Connor, is hardly entirely free from sin in this department either).
But then Brydon has had such a long and treacherous climb to the top, he is more aware than most of the pitfalls that come with a career in show-business. Now nearly 40, he first became interested in a comedy career in adolescence, when he would impress fellow students at his private day school in Wales with impressions of Tom Jones and Anthony Hopkins (one of the students he performed for was the young Catherine Zeta-Jones, who watched Brydon play Luke Skywalker in a school production of Star Wars).
In his second year at the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Brydon was offered an early morning slot with Radio Wales, where he spun a mix of soft-rock and power-ballads for housewives on a daily basis. In 1992, after a brief period hosting a movie show for BSkyB, he began working on a cable-shopping channel. By 1995, having hit 30 and added stints as the voice of Toilet Duck and Sudafed to a CV notable only for its (admittedly lucrative) under-achievement, the comedian felt a dramatic reassessment was in order.
He consoled himself by reading the memoirs of legendary Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman, and took particular solace in the writer’s famous summation of the formula for artistic success: “Nobody knows anything.” As Brydon himself says: “If you want to be in a teen-soap like Hollyoaks, looks and age are going to matter. But if you want to do bittersweet, pathos-laden comedy, then you’re alright.”
Brydon’s sunken eyes and weathered face certainly stood him in good stead for his first bona-fide masterwork, Human Remains. Running for six episodes in 2000, Human Remains, along with The League Of Gentlemen and Chris Morris’ Jam (both of which had premiered in the previous 18 months) set the tone for the next five years of British TV comedy, which have been notable for the preponderance of pitch-black opuses like Monkey Dust, Little Britain, Nighty Night, 15 Storeys High, Catterick and many more.
Still, Human Remains (written and performed by Brydon and Julia Davis, who featured in Jam and also went on to author Nighty Night) has to remain some kind of landmark in the bleak wasteland of suburban angst.
Each week, Brydon and Davis essayed a couple from a different walk of British life, all of whom were experiencing terminal relationship problems of one kind or another.
In one episode, ‘Hairless’, Brydon played an emotionally crippled New Age folk singer with a compulsive masturbation problem. In an hilarious finale, he finally tracked down the house which his dearly departed mother lived in as a child, and meekly climbed into her old bed, pulling the sheets over his head. When his wife (an absolutely obnoxious, domineering earth mother, played by Davis with obvious relish) removed the sheets, Brydon’s character, much to the horror of the couple’s host, was curled up underneath, wanking furiously.
A comedy-drama series of outstanding quality, Human Remains won almost universal critical acclaim and left Brydon perfectly poised for his next project, Marion & Geoff.
Marking the first appearance of Keith Barret, Marion & Geoff followed the taxi driver as he cruised morosely around the streets of Cardiff, ruminating upon the break-up of his marriage and pining for his kids. Originally granted a ten-minute slot in 2001 (each show takes the form of a soliloquy by Barret), the series, thanks to Brydon’s knack for sharp one-liners and telling moments of character insight, became an instant cult classic and was rewarded with a full series of six half-hour episodes by the BBC in 2003.
Brydon next surfaced on late-night UTV earlier this year for Director’s Commentary, which took to aping that much-utilised extra feature on DVDs. Intentionally or not, Brydon’s exceptionally vain director Peter DeLane was hugely reminiscent of Peter Cook’s towering aristocratic creation, Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling. The show revolved around DeLane’s experiences directing an array of unbelievably naff TV shows (from stuffy period dramas to corny westerns), to cumulatively hysterical effect. Whether discussing his many collaborations with quintessential English thesp Peter Bowles, or admiring an actor’s handling of a shotgun (“nice cock!”), DeLane was a hoot from start to finish.
Which brings us to The Keith Barret Show. The programme sees the erstwhile cab driver and cuckolded husband seek relationship advice from a variety of celebrity couples (including Richard & Judy and Anne and Ronnie Corbett), and while the show retains the mischievous streak that permeated Brydon’s previous output – be it soliciting courting tips from Peter Stringfellow or observing the mating habits of horse-fish in London zoo – it also has a light-hearted, whimsical touch and desire to ingratiate noticeably absent from the likes of Human Remains and Director’s Commentary. In other words, it’s Brydon tipping his toes in mainstream waters for the first time.
Still, after a string of demanding, innovative projects, the Welshman can perhaps be forgiven for loosening his tie and having a frolic among the gliterati. With his relationship with the ever restless Coogan and Normal still in tact, the odds are that Rob Brydon will continue to be one of the most daring and adventurous performers operating in British comedy.

The Keith Barret Show is currently showing Monday evenings at 10pm on BBC2. Human Remains, Marion & Geoff and Director’s Commentary are all available on DVD