Standing out from the crowd

Clapham-based comedian and The IT Crowd actor, Chris O’Dowd, discusses stand up, sitcoms and Wandsworth prison with Julian Hall

Above: Chris in The IT Crowd. Photo: Channel 4

Far from the dishevelled characters Chris O’Dowd plays in the hit sitcom The I.T. Crowd and in his ‘breakthrough’ film Festival, the Irish comedy actor was bright-eyed and bushy tailed when I met him at the actor’s local – The Falcon pub in Clapham North. In fact, O’Dowd has just had the self-confessed joy of shaving his beard and cutting his hair after finishing shooting Hippie Hippie Shake, a film due out later this year, about the subversive 1960s magazine Oz.

Nursing on the same cider that his Irish countrymen do in those cosy ads O’Dowd tells me how filming took him to that ‘off-piste’ local attraction Wandsworth Prison: “We shot some if of it in the ‘VIP wing’ for people who wouldn’t be safe in general prison, like ex-coppers, ex-screws, sex offenders. The guy whose cell we used there was really creepy, I mean, it’s not like he’s burgled a house, y’know!”

As well as scaring himself at her majesty’s pleasure, O’Dowd has recently been putting the finishing touches to Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, a comedy that briefly stars Ana Faris of Scary Movie fame – both films are out next year. Though it is his comic roles he’s best known for since leaving the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, (where he studied with I.T. Crowd co-star Katherine Parkinson), O’Dowd has notched up as many dramatic excursions as humourous ones.

His career was, he says, lent “gravitas” by a short appearance in Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake and things really started to move with Festival, the tragic-comic British film celebrating Edinburgh’s annual arts jamboree that also starred Stephen Mangan, Raquel Cassidy, Daniella Nardini, Amelia Bullimore and his future I.T. Crowd co-star Richard Ayoade.

Festival’s writer/director, Annie Griffin, saw O’Dowd’s work a few times before she thought he was right for the part of stand up comedian Tommy O’Dwyer: “He was meant to be 35 and I was only 23 at the time,” explains O’Dowd, “the next time she came over I was doing a play and I had a huge beard, long hair and I’d put on about a stone and looked terrible.”

The deal was done and O’Dowd had the part but there was another hurdle to overcome – writing and performing stand up. “I know Dara O’Briain and Sean Hughes and they said to me ‘you have to go and do some gigs, we won’t have any respect for you if you don’t’. So I did three ten minute gigs in London, Dublin and Edinburgh during the Festival. I didn’t mind the performance part, but what I found really depressing was making every mundanity you go through into something humorous.”

Despite an innate resistance to observational comedy, O’Dowd’s performance won plaudits and no doubt impressed Richard Ayoade with whom O’Dowd hung out while filming. Ayoade had already been cast in The I.T. Crowd, and he suggested that creator Graham Linehan and producer Ash Attala should meet O’Dowd.

“Graham [Linehan] didn’t want the character to be Irish – he wanted to get away from that [Linehan also created Father Ted]. So I did an audition in a British accent and it was all right but it just wasn’t really as funny,” says O’Dowd.

The I.T. Crowd has now been commissioned for a third series, quite an achievement for a sitcom these days and O’Dowd is understandably pleased as this has silenced all sorts of critics: “I remember getting really annoyed at Victoria Wood and Julie Walters coming on to the British Comedy Awards a couple of years ago and pronouncing the sitcom dead while we were doing one! Ok the first series didn’t go down that well but I think we have disproved them in the long-term – although it didn’t need to be disproved it was just a stupid thing to say!”

When a man about Clapham town, you can find the 27-year-old at his local, The Royal Oak, and for the quiz night at the Frog and Forget-me-Not in the Old Town. “Before the drinking hours changed you could find me, late night, at the Two Brewers doing gay karaoke!” he adds.

As for eating, the actor singles out Gastro on Venn Street (opposite The Clapham Picturehouse where he also frequents) and La Terazza, the tapas restaurant a few doors down. According to O’Dowd you also can’t beat the Meatball Marinara from a well-known sandwich chain: “don’t deprive yourself, it’s unbelievable” he enthuses.

In order to work off these meaty treats O’Dowd plays tennis on the Common, and works out at the Clapham Leisure Centre though he is unconvinced about its charms: “there’s lots of homies working out there, it’s pretty full on.”

Generally though the actor thinks that the Clapham vibe suits him well enough: “there’s generally less tension, it’s pretty relaxed down here. I’d say people in Clapham seem to hate each other less than in other places!”