Jack back with Lead Balloon

Comedian Jack Dee is back on TV for a third series of his sitcom, Lead Balloon. Kate Whiting finds out how similar he is to the character, Rick Spleen, and asks what his children think of his comedy projects

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Jack with the rest of the Lead Balloon cast

IT’S a common misconception that comedian Jack Dee is the grumpiest man on the planet. He doesn’t smile very much – and when he does, it looks more like a grimace.

But at the launch of the third series of his sitcom, Lead Balloon, the 46-year-old is in a buoyant mood and playfully pokes fun at his grouchy TV persona.

“I was in Norfolk filming in an episode of Kingdom a couple of weeks ago and I rang home and Charlie, one of my 10-year-old twins, said ‘What are you doing?’, and I said ‘I’m in a TV show called Kingdom’, and he said ‘Oh, yeah, are you playing a grumpy guy again?’.”

Jack has a lot of reasons to smile. Rather than going down like the proverbial lead balloon, his self-penned sitcom has won positive reviews as well as a British Comedy Award nomination last year.

The third series has been given the prime BBC2 10pm slot occupied by the likes of Graham Norton – and there’s a 40-minute Christmas episode on the way.

Lead Balloon is also crossing the pond to be shown on BBC America this winter and a US production company is buying the format to make an American version.

“That’s not an unusual thing to happen with formats, so we’ll see what happens, but that’s a nice compliment that they like it so much,” he says, rather modestly.

“It’s being accepted in the industry over there – a lot of people have really loved it and been in touch.

“I’ve got no intention of going over there to try my luck, though. I’m far too old. The thing about America, it’s bloody miles away. I have a family and I don’t want to travel that much.”

For those new to the show, father-of-four Jack plays Rick Spleen, a hapless stand-up comedian who struggles to find work in London and manages to land himself in an embarrassing situation in every episode.

His life revolves around his relationships with his wife, Mel (Raquel Cassidy), daughter Sam (Antonia Campbell Hughes), co-writer Marty (Sean Power), cafe owner Michael (Tony Gardner) and Eastern housekeeper Magda (Anna Crilly).

Jack came up with the idea in 2005 and started writing the show with frequent collaborator Pete Sinclair.

“Originally, I was very interested in the process in a writing room backstage where you have a presenter or a comedian with writers,” he explains.

“The dynamic always interested me and how the presenters could take the jokes and tell them and then take credit for them.

“And the atmosphere is quite amazing; people are vehemently rude to each other but don’t take offence. So we thrashed the idea into something with a domestic background.”

This series sees Rick land the lead role of Eddie in a BBC series called All About Eddie, uncover some unwanted truths about his family in a show called Where Are You From? (a clone of Who Do You Think You Are?) and appear in panto.

The inevitable question is: how much of Jack Dee is there in Rick Spleen?

“That’s the big question, isn’t it? I like to think it’s not me. I like to think it’s actually a character I’ve created, but then other people say ‘Nah, we think it’s you’. But Rick’s not a very good comedian.

“My wife, Jane, says it’s like me, but the relationship between Rick and Mel is quite different from mine and Jane. I don’t think I’d get away with half the stuff that Rick does.”

Rick’s bread and butter consists of doing stand-up at two-bit corporate events such as the Furniture Manufacturers’ Conference, but Jack says such things are an essential part of being a comic.

“I think it’s good if you have to sing for your supper on a regular basis, otherwise you sort of lose touch with why you’re doing it.

“But the corporate work I do is rather better than what Rick is involved in, I like to think,” he adds, with a smile.

Will we ever see Rick become as successful as Jack, though?

“He nearly becomes successful in every episode; it keeps him going, and that’s one of the things I like about him – he gets so excited at the slightest morsel of hope that comes his way.

“There’s an episode where his daughter, Sam, and her boyfriend form a band with some success, and it’s quite poignant because he’s so proud of her in one way but, at the same time, he’s trumped at everything he does; his wife and kids are more successful than him, Marty is funnier than him and Magda is grumpier than him.”

The key to Lead Balloon, Jack says, is keeping the script as flexible as possible and giving the other actors some ownership over their characters.

“We like the words to stay alive right to the last minute because that’s a way of making it funny for us still. If you still find it funny when you’re doing it, you’ve got a good chance of still finding it funny when you see it in edit.”

With the likes of Lead Balloon, The Office and Extras leading the way for embarrassing situation comedies filmed without a studio audience, does Jack think we are seeing a sitcom renaissance in Britain?

“It’s very hard to judge those things until later, but I don’t think any of us were conscious of doing a show that was in the mode of the other ones. I just love comedy that doesn’t tell you when to laugh.”

Jack was brought up in Winchester and, at 21, found himself working as a manager of a pizza restaurant in London. Then, on the eve of his 25th birthday, he did a five-minute spot at an open mic night at the Comedy Store and has never looked back.

“It’s a funny thing because I think if I hadn’t given it a try in the first place, if I’d bottled it and thought ‘What am I thinking? I’m not going to get on stage. That’s stupid’, then maybe nothing would have happened.

“But in any career that’s vocational or involves something you have a talent for, whether it’s writing or acting, I think it finds you in the end; it hunts you down if you’re not going to do it yourself.”

Since the early-1990s, Jack has become well known for his sardonic brand of humour, and for winning Celebrity Big Brother in 2001, which was then linked to fundraising for Comic Relief.

So it’s no surprise he gets spotted in the street.

“For me, it’s just like being a schizophrenic and hearing my name whispered around my ears. But it’s worse for my wife because, if she’s walking behind me in the supermarket, she gets all the comments.

“It’s happened a couple of times where someone will nudge her and say ‘Do you know who that is?’ – and she says ‘No’,” he says, in that deadpan delivery.

Although he still enjoys doing stand-up, Jack says he finds making a TV series a refreshing change.

“There are a lot of things I treasure about a TV show, and doing things again and again until you get it just how you like it is a great way of storytelling.

“But when I’m not doing stand-up I watch it, and I think, ‘My God, how do they do that? That’s extraordinary’. I completely detach from it when I’m not doing it all the time.”

As he waits to see how Lead Balloon 3 will go down with viewers, the comedian has turned his hand to writing a book.

“It’s not really an autobiography; it’s more the world as I see it and how I came to talk about the things I talk about on stage, and if I made a routine about not liking football it’s not just something I’ve made up to be contrary; there are actually reasons, and there’s a back story.

“I’m sick of people laughing at this stuff. I want them to know the pain behind it,” he says, giggling.

Lead Balloon starts on BBC2 on Thursday.