There are very few writers of television comedy from the last two decades who can command more respect and admiration than Graham Linehan. He is best known for writing and directing Father Ted (with Arthur Matthews), the first series of Black Books (with Dylan Moran) and every episode of The IT Crowd, three sitcoms that have certainly boosted the ever descending quality of the Channel 4 schedules.
He was born in 1968 in Castlenock, Dublin. Early in his career Linehan was a music journalist for Ireland’s Hot Press magazine, where he met future collaborator Arthur Matthews.
He and Matthews moved out of the journalism game in the '90s and went about writing sketches as a means of breaking into television. Eventually they were given to opportunity to contribute material to Alas Smith and Jones, Harry Enfield and Chums, and later on the likes of Chris Morris’s Brasseye and Jam and the The Fast Show (creating the much loved Ted and Ralph characters).
The Writing of Graham Linehan
His sitcom work goes almost against the grain of modern comedy by taking a traditional open set, in front of a live audience approach that seems so old it’s new. A running theme throughout his work is the use of bizarre circumstances, larger than life characters and knowing pop culture references, especially movies and video games.
Linehan’s writing has been well received by critics and comedy fans due to his commitment to telling a story and not just a series of random scenes strung together for the sake of a few cheap laughs. Father Ted in particular is still acknowledged as one of the best comedies from the '90s era. It’s no surprise to learn that Seinfeld is one of his favourite TV shows and continues to be a huge influence on his work.
In 1998 he co-created surreal but acclaimed sketch show Big Train, once again with Matthews, going back to their roots in television.
Graham Linehan’s Cameo Roles
To add to his extensive script work Linehan has also made a handful of on-screen appearances for several well known TV shows including playing a priest on Father Ted, turning up in The Day Today, two episodes of the massively underrated Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and several incidental characters in Black Books. His most famous acting job was in a memorable episode of I’m Alan Partridge, where he and Matthews played two Irish television executives.
In a non-acting capacity Linehan has been a guest contributor on two of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe specials, one about TV writing and the other Gameswipe – where he rightly criticised the limitations of video game storytelling.
The IT Crowd
Since 2006 Linehan’s main TV output has been The IT Crowd, where he has so far written and directed every episode so far. Despite a weak first series (apart from an eccentric turn by Chris Morris) it soon found its way through tight scripts and constant references to geek culture. More series have been announced and on Robert Llewellyn’s Car Pool Linehan mentioned the possibility of adding guest writers to help lighten the load.
As part of a bigger creative team, a partnership or on his own, Linehan has won numerous awards and was honoured at the 2009 British Comedy Awards with the Ronnie Barker Award for television writing and received a standing ovation from his peers. This was far more than what Peter Kay got on the same night for his Outstanding Contribution thing, but that’s because Linehan is actually liked within the comedy community.
Graham Linehan Trivia
- Graham Linehan is an avid user of Twitter (going under the username glinner) and gained press attention from starting the welovetheNHS campaign.
- Ireland’s RTÉ One once aired a documentary about Linehan.
- He was in an Identity Parade on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
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