COUNSEL TAXED
STEPHEN MANGAN STARS IN A NEW COMEDY ABOUT A THERAPIST TRYING TO STAY CONNECTED…
We’re spending more and more of our lives online – and following the collapse of his group therapy practice, Richard Pitt is hoping he can capitalise on that by offering his counselling services over video conferencing in this new six-part comedy. It’s a fine idea – but there are a few teething problems like flat batteries, clients who can’t quite grasp the technology, and Richard’s own extremely chaotic home life.
“We wanted him not to be a terrible therapist,” explains Stephen Mangan, who co-wrote the series and plays Richard. “But therapy should be all about the client, so if we just had that you wouldn’t get to know anything about the main character. We gave him this whole other world, and all these problems. We liked the idea of someone who is really good at therapy and listening and being there for his clients really not being that good with his family and friends.”
The show is based on a US comedy called Web Therapy, created by and starring
Friends’ Lisa Kudrow. But
Hang Ups is very different...
“I find that, with a few notable exceptions, remakes of shows don’t always work, because the person who had the idea and created the show is the person who should be making it!” Stephen points out. “I’ve just been in Episodes for five series, which is entirely about moving a show that is a success in one country to another country, and it’s a massive disaster! I thought about it and realised you could take the central premise – a therapist giving therapy online – to make an original show.”
There’s an all-star cast in the roles of Richard’s various loved ones and clients, with the likes of David Tennant, Sarah Hadland, Monica Dolan and Jessica Hynes all making appearances. Although Stephen and co-writer Robert Delamere planned the outlines for all of the scenes, the vast majority of the dialogue was
DAVID TENNANT SAID IT WAS THE SCARIEST THING HE’D EVER DONE”
improvised on the day – which was quite nerve-wracking.
“David Tennant said it was the scariest thing he’d ever done,” recalls Stephen. “Paul Ritter, he didn’t sleep the night before, because you’re turning up on a comedy and there are no jokes. Normally you learn the jokes, and think, ‘I’m going to deliver it like that’, but they all turned up going ‘What’s going to happen?’”
The results more than speak for themselves, and one huge advantage of so many of the scenes being short one-to-one video calls meant that it was much easier for the team to get a big-name cast…
“We only needed people for a couple of hours,” explains Stephen. “Charles Dance and Richard E Grant are in the entire series – we shot each of them in a morning. If you only want somebody for a morning, you can get anyone – as long as they want to do it!”