Film review (Comedy) - The IT Crowd Episode 1 (Graham Linehan, 2006)

Fig 1. The IT Crowd Series 1 Cover.

The IT Crowd is a comedy series created by Graham Linehan. It follows the lives of 3 employees who run the IT department for a large business from its basement. As would be expected, the comedy in the series mostly relates to the general public's knowledge of technology. The majority of the comedy in the series comes from purposefully obscure I.T. jokes and bizarre situations that arise due to the strange personalities of the trio themselves.

In one particular scene at the very beginning of the first episode involves just one character 'Roy'. He is at his desk procrastinating when the phone on his desk rings. At first he ignores it and carries on eating his food. This goes on for a short time as the phone continues ringing while Roy continuously ignores it and finds other small things to occupy his time. The humor builds on this tension of him not answering the phone. Eventually he sighs and appears to reach directly for the phone when it becomes clear that he is instead reaching for his coffee directly behind his phone. Just when it appears the tension will dissipate it continues to build. This escalates the humor already evident in the scene. After that however, he finally sighs a final time and reaches for the phone itself. Then as if to read the punchline of this joke that has built up, he answers with 'Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?'


Fig 2. Series 1 Episode 1 Phone Scene.

The second character of the trio 'Moss' enters the office and sits at his desk near Roy. The phone conversation continues and makes the person on the other side of the phone appear to be terrible with computers. The conversation escalates as Roy gets more and more frustrated with the caller until they have a blown out argument and he slams the phone down. He then turns to his co-worker Moss and says 'That showed her'. The comedy hear comes from the fact that it has only just been revealed that the person Roy was so frustrated with was a woman. The rest of the scene continues from there as the two co-workers start talking.

Illustration List

Linehan, G (2006) Figure 1. The IT Crowd Series 1 Cover. http://nerdcityonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/theitcrowd.jpg (Accessed on 02/12/15)

Linehan, G (2006) Figure 2. Series 1 Episode 1 Phone Scene. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YhPejfTQfEA/maxresdefault.jpg (Accessed on 08/01/16)