Back

Back against the odds with Robert Webb, David Mitchell and Simon Blackwell

(credit: Channel 4)

Viewers have been kept waiting for a second outing of Back, David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s bitingly funny Channel 4 sitcom, which returned to our screens at the end of last month.  

The delay had nothing to do with a lack of commissioning courage – how could anyone find fault with the filth and comic fury of Simon Blackwell’s scripts, the ever-watchable Mitchell and Webb or the fantastic ensemble cast?  

David Mitchell, Robert Webb and writer Simon Blackwell discuss series two of Back

Robert Webb and David Mitchell

Mitchell is Stephen, a man who has failed as a husband, a lawyer and at running his late father’s pub. Worse, he’s been usurped in his family’s affections by the charismatic Andrew (Webb), supposedly a former foster child of Stephen’s parents.

“I like to pay the comic mattress on which people jump up and down – there’s a lot of comedy and fun acting to be had from the character that things are happening to,” said Mitchell.

He described Stephen as “disappointed and self-loathing and endlessly self-doubting, also intelligent and little bit angry.”