Knit to This
W1A
Dear Ann,
A couple of weeks ago, cruising Netflix, I stumbled on a British comedy series I hadn’t heard of, and I watched three seasons in a matter of days, laughing and laughing.
It’s called W1A, and it’s a BBC series about the BBC. A sendup of contemporary office culture, the way people speak, how work gets done (and doesn’t), corporate reorganizational nonsense, and even furniture fads.
The central character, Ian Fletcher, is played by Lord Grantham I mean Hugh Bonneville. Tons of familiar faces from other British programs, plus many actors that are new to me, plus cameos by movie stars, musicians, etc. It’s sometimes hard for my ear to catch everything that’s said (the use of language is a big part of the humor), so I turn the captions on. It’s a hoot.
Oh and also, you’ll recognize the narrator, I think.
In writing this post, I learned that W1A is a sequel to another series about the Ian Fletcher character, Twenty Twelve. So that’s something to chase down and look forward to.
Love,
Kay
P.S. Thanks to reader Victoria from London for this piece on 12 times the BBC was more ridiculous than W1A.
So glad you found this. Yes Twenty Twelve is about the Olympic preparations but just as excellent at exposing organisational madness! How lucky you are to be seeing it from new
Loved W1A. And Twenty Twelve is just as wonderful.
Love this show! 🙂
Couldn’t agree with you more Kay, these are both wonderfully written and performed shows.
For their Australian equivalents, see if you can track down these mockumentaries:
The Games – about the preparations for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, especially the episode about the 100 metre track.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Games_(Australian_TV_series)
and
Utopia – set in the offices of the Nation Building Authority
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(Australian_TV_series)
Noting that for this one ABC is referring to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Love W1a. Right , brilliant . ! Now have to find 2012. Thanks for the tip.
I just heard this mentioned on one of my fave podcasts (Slate’s Double X)! UK-born recommender June Thomas noted that it offers a smorgasbord of British accents. Will tune in!
Oh, yay! I need new bingeworthy tv since I’m about done with Vera and we’re trying to take it slow through Longmire’s last season (not Brit but so good).
We LOVE this show and can’t stop speaking their way for at least a day after … yea, right, sure, yea, brilliant, of course, yea sure!
I’m not being funny here, but the Welsh gal is a trip!
I’ve caught episodes of this show, here and there … and said “Yes! Another new Britcom!” It has also been on our local (NY) PBS on occasion.
Question — have you ever seen “Coupling?” That is laugh out loud silliness … and to see the actor who played Jeff in “The Collection” was a surprise, though he is also in “Wives and Daughters.”
I remember Coupling so well. It was like Friends, but funnier and naughtier. Started to watch The Collection recently, and it took me a lot of thinking to place where I’d seen the Jeff actor before; the roles are so different! The uptight blonde character from Coupling, very pretty and funny, is in a show called Marley and Me that is on my PBS station and despite being British and having great actors in it, is almost unwatchable to me.
I found Marley and Me to be unwatchable also.
Twenty twelve is well worth hunting up. My measure of a show’s quality is whether any of its phrases become part of our family language – this yielded several excellent ones. Thrilled to hear there’s a sequel-ish!
I’m not being funny or nothin’ but you are spot on. The bad news? By the end of the third season, I believe they’ve milked the situation that they created as far as they can. Personally, I don’t think there is anyplace to go so I won’t be disappointed if there is no series four.
Wacky that I just started watching (I mean showverdosing) this yesterday! Reminds me of a less sweary The Thick of It which if you haven’t seen, you must! thanks for the tip about TwnetyTwelve!
I LOVE W1A, I worked for the AP in London for five years and HONESTLY, my boss and I used to crack up in meetings because of the W1A speak. Being a Brit, I have plenty of friends who work at the BBC and the fiction is only a whisker away from fact