Mitchell and Webb
The two put together their first project, a show titled Innocent Millions Dead or Dying – A Wry Look at the Post-Apocalyptic Age (With Songs), in January 1995.[13][14] Webb later described it as being "fucking terrible".[13] From this the duo were given the chance to write for Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller, and for series two of Big Train. After minor work on The Jack Docherty Show and Comedy Nation, their first break into television acting was in 2000, on the short-lived BBC sketch show Bruiser, which they primarily wrote, and starred in.[15]
In 2001, the duo were commissioned for a sketch show of their own, entitled The Mitchell and Webb Situation, which ran for six episodes on the now defunct channel Play UK. Mitchell and Webb's next project came in 2003, with starring roles in the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show, as flatmates Mark Corrigan and Jeremy "Jez" Usbourne respectively.[16] The pair shared the 2007 Royal Television Society Award for "Comedy Performance",[17] and were jointly nominated for Best Television Comedy Actor at the 2006 British Comedy Awards.[18] Webb was nominated for the Best Television Comedy Actor award again, this time without Mitchell, in 2009.[19] Peep Show ran for nine series, making it the longest-running sitcom in Channel 4 history.[20]
After the success of Peep Show, Mitchell and Webb returned to sketch comedy with their BBC Radio 4 sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Sound, which ran for five series. The show was adapted for television and became That Mitchell and Webb Look; producer Gareth Edwards described it as "the shortest pitch (he had) ever written".[13] Towards the end of 2006 the pair made their first tour, with a show called The Two Faces of Mitchell and Webb. The tour was criticised as just "a succession of largely unrelated scenes" by The Guardian's Brian Logan, who gave it a rating of two stars.[21]
That Mitchell and Webb Look won them the BAFTA for "Best Comedy Programme or Series" at the 2007 awards,[22] and they earned a further nomination for it in 2009.[23] It was nominated for two British Comedy awards in 2006: "Britain's Best New TV Comedy" and the "Highland Spring People's Choice".[18] Their stage tour The Two Faces of Mitchell and Webb was nominated for the British Comedy Award for "Best Stage Comedy",[18] and That Mitchell and Webb Sound won a Sony Silver Award.[24] Their first film, Magicians, was released on 18 May 2007. It was directed by Andrew O'Connor and written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain.[25] Webb played the role of modern magician Karl.[26]
They filmed Playing Shop, a comedy television pilot for BBC2 about two men who operate a business out of their shed, which they also wrote.[27] Although the BBC were happy with it, Mitchell and Webb scrapped it themselves, as they felt it was too similar to Peep Show. A new pilot had been commissioned,[28] but the plan was later shelved.[29]
The duo fronted the campaign of the UK version of Apple Inc.'s Get a Mac adverts, with Mitchell playing a PC.[30] The adverts proved controversial. Writing in The Guardian, Charlie Brooker claimed that the use of Mitchell and Webb in the adverts was a curious choice. He compared the characters of PC and Mac in the adverts to those of Mark and Jeremy in Peep Show, stating that "when you see the ads, you think, 'PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers.'"[31] The British Sitcom Guide criticised the pair for "selling their souls".[32] One journalist called the adverts "worse than not funny", and accused Mitchell and Webb of "an act of grave betrayal" for taking corporate work.[33] In an interview with The Telegraph, Webb responded to the critics of the Apple adverts, stating that "when someone asks, 'Do you want to do some funny ads for not many days in the year and be paid more than you would be for an entire series of Peep Show?' the answer, obviously, is, 'Yeah, that's fine'".[33]
Solo work
Webb has appeared in two series of the BBC Three sitcom The Smoking Room (2004) and the Radio 4 sketch show Concrete Cow. In 2005 he appeared in the Ben Elton-scripted BBC One sitcom Blessed as Ardal O'Hanlon's 'perfect' counterpart.[34]
He and Olivia Colman also featured as a naturist couple in Confetti, a 2006 film about a competition for the most original wedding. Webb has since said that he believed that his genitals would be pixellated out but only discovered at the screening of the film that they were not.[35] Also in 2008, Webb made his West End stage debut in the UK premiere of Neil LaBute's Fat Pig.[36]
Webb won the 2009 series Let's Dance for the charity Comic Relief, parodying the audition sequence from the film Flashdance.[37]
Writing
Together with Mitchell, Webb published his first comedy book This Mitchell and Webb Book, which was released in the UK and the US in 2009 by HarperCollins imprint Fourth Estate.[49][50] An abridged edition of highlights from This Mitchell and Webb Book, entitled How to Cope with Mitchell and Webb, was released only in the UK on 1 October 2009.[51] The pair signed a two-book deal with Fourth Estate but, as of November 2013, a second book remained unpublished.[52]
Webb wrote articles for the comments pages of the Telegraph newspaper between 2009 and 2011.[53] He criticised those who commented on the online versions of his articles in a New Statesman piece.[54]
