Rob Brydon is back on BBC One with his new six-part comedy Bill's Included, a series he describes as an accidental celebration of his entire career. In the show, his character Bill is left by his wife, who has run off with the gardener, yet he never fires the man. Instead, his mix of civic mindedness and loneliness leads him to take in four lodgers, all local university students.
Brydon, now 61, has built a career on being nice, both as himself and in character. He acknowledges this openly: "I am a people-pleaser. That's who I am." The new series, he says, has a strong resemblance to his 2000 breakthrough sitcom Marion and Geoff, which he wrote with Hugo Blick. That show followed Geoff, a taxi driver speaking to a dashboard camera about a failing marriage. Brydon admits he only noticed the similarities recently: "It's only when watching Bill's Included that I went: 'Oh, it's got a bit of a Marion and Geoff vibe.' Honestly, I swear to you, that hadn't occurred to me."
Working with Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan, an executive on Marion and Geoff, has long pushed Brydon to return to character comedy. A taster of the landlord-and-students idea was made years ago, but Brydon felt it wasn't right. "I was too creepy," he says, recalling a middle-aged man inviting students in with the line: "Come in, have a sit down."
Their creative partnership has produced 24 Hour Party People, Cock and Bull Story, and The Trip, whose fifth series, Northern Lights, is coming soon. The pair first met around 1997 at a Holiday Inn in Reading, when Coogan was already at his first peak. Brydon remembers: "He'd started out in voiceovers, he was the same age as me, so I could see all these parallels between us." He dismisses any rivalry: "Envy, brute rage, competitiveness? I'm none of those things. I just look at him and think: 'Great. Isn't he good?'"
A career in character comedy
Brydon's path included improv, voiceovers, and radio panel shows before Human Remains in 2000, when he was 35. That show, with Julia Davis, and Marion and Geoff cemented his reputation for playing uncool, self-deluding characters. His role as Uncle Bryn in Gavin & Stacey remains a favourite: "More or less every day, someone will come up to me and tell me how much they love Gavin & Stacey."
In Bill's Included, his character's relationship with the four students—Christian, Hettie, James, and Zahra—starts as a generational clash but quickly becomes affectionate. "He starts off calling them the students, and by episode three, he's saying: 'I've got to go and do a thing for the kids.' They're not my kids! But I like to be needed," Brydon explains.
On The Trip and Would I Lie to You?
Reflecting on The Trip, which began in 2010, Brydon recalls his initial scepticism: "Michael [Winterbottom] said: 'Six half-hours, no script really, and different restaurants.' I said to him: 'You'd be lucky if you get one good half-hour.' I was very wrong." He credits Winterbottom's storytelling rhythms for the show's depth.
On hosting Would I Lie to You?, now in its 19th series, Brydon says: "A lot of people say they watch it before going to bed. It puts them in a nice frame of mind." He admits he once worried about being taken seriously as an actor, but concluded: "Look, I'm never going to be bloody Robert De Niro anyway."
Brydon's priorities remain clear: "My life is my home, my family, my friends. I've got five children!" He adds: "I don't think your career is your greatest source of happiness. Maybe it's from being divorced—this is my second marriage—and I've worked out where I'm happiest. And it's being in the garden, with friends and in nature." Bill's Included starts on 20 November on BBC One at 9.30pm.
