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What's so funny about it?...An analysis of Coupling
The Times掲載のSteven Moffat on Coupling（引用長いのでたたみます）
The Times July 03, 2004
That's lifeSteven Moffat adds a personal touch to his new series of Coupling
It’s simple to define Coupling: basically it’s my life as told by a drunk. I started writing it shortly after meeting my now-wife, Sue Vertue, at the Edinburgh Television Festival in 1996. I used to go there to pull women, and one evening I thought I had struck lucky by getting Sue’s number after having already met someone else. Little did I realise that this was going to be more than just another meaningless liaison. Suddenly, I was dealing with being in a couple again after a long spell being single.
That’s where I drew my inspiration for Coupling from. Out of the blue there is a women in your life and cushions and small vases start appearing everywhere around your home. Similarly, the woman has to put up with having a man around who smells of feet all the time rather than being that glamorous bloke that she met on the first date. It was fascinating having to re-learn these huge differences between the sexes, and I wanted to show the farcical elements of relationships.
I called (rather tongue-in-cheek) the main characters in Coupling Susan and Steve because I based several storylines on arguments or conversations that we had had. Sue, who produces the series, once found a porn tape I had left in the video recorder and we had a row about it. That became an episode in the first series where the character of Steve, who’s played by Jack Davenport, spends a whole dinner party attempting to justify the plot of Lesbian Spank Inferno as an art house movie to Susan (Sarah Alexander) and their friends.
Everyone can recognise a part of themselves or their partner in the characters, and there’s a certain security in that. Unless you’re a serial killer with bizarre fetishes, the things that you secretly want and worry about are the same as the person next to you. Let’s face it, everyone is reliably banal: there’s only one relationship in the world and we’re all having it.
When the American network NBC approached me two years ago about writing a version for them I jumped at the chance. The show had been a huge hit on BBC America, and TV executives were looking for “a new Friends”. I knew that there were some pretty big problems in making it work but, to put it bluntly, I agreed to do it because it could have earned me loads of money. I begged them to drop any Friends comparison from the start, but they refused, so immediately people weren’t getting what they expected. Then the critics claimed that Coupling was too crude. The series was pulled by NBC after four episodes, a hasty move because it hadn’t been given a chance to grow in its own right. The only effective advertising is word-of-mouth, and that’s slow. What I did learn was that a lot of American TV is blindingly terrible. We have a myth about how great it is but, frankly, we should get off our knees about America. People here don’t notice just how good our comedy is ― shows such as Little Britain, Nighty Night and Rob Brydon’s stuff.
My latest Coupling series, the fourth, is almost a new show. Richard Coyle left suddenly and refused to come back to do an exit show, so we have had to dance around the fact that Jeff isn’t there. To fill the void there’s a new character called Oliver, played by Richard Mylan, and there are huge changes elsewhere, such as Susan and Steve expecting their first baby. Again, I’ve drawn on my experiences of having children for these new storylines.
To be honest, before our two sons were born I found the whole prospect of fatherhood horrific: my wife was going to get steadily fatter; there would be a disgusting moment when a baby climbed out of her; and then I wouldn’t sleep properly for several years. In reality I kept my fears largely to myself, but in the show Steve airs them very vocally. The baby arrives in the last episode and the conversation between Susan and Steve during the birth is verbatim what we discussed during our first birth five years ago, when Sue had to have an emergency Caesarean section and I was delighted because I thought it would be less gory.
I write the show for Hartswood Films, which is run by Sue’s mother, Beryl Vertue. Because it is semi-autobiographical, I occasionally sit at the computer writing and think: “Not only am I letting my mother-in-law in on this, I’m asking her to pay me for it.” It’s an extraordinary thought.
Coupling, Monday, BBC Two, 9pm. Steven Moffat was speaking to Fiona Whitty.
