"I'm just glad that people who watch it, watch it
carefully," says Mitchell. "I'd rather be doing Peep Show than My Family. Although,
in an ideal world, we'd get the number of people who watch My
Family liking what we do with the intensity of the people who watch
Peep Show." | | David Mitchell and Robert Webb are everywhere |
That wish looks set to be granted. After a textbook comedy
apprenticeship - from the Cambridge Footlights via the Edinburgh
Fringe to a Radio 4 sketch show that then transferred to BBC2, the
Mitchell and Webb brand seems about to "tip". Webb has already starred in the BBC sitcom The Smoking Room and,
more recently, on the big screen in British wedding comedy Confetti.
Mitchell pops up, engagingly, on approximately one in every three
panel shows. Last year the pair completed a successful nationwide live tour
(the reviews were mixed, the audiences enthusiastic). This summer
they start work on a second series of their sketch show, That
Mitchell and Webb Look, for BBC2, and on May 18, Magicians, their
first full-blown feature film together, will be in cinemas nationwide. But despite this lengthy CV, you are still most likely to
recognise Mitchell and Webb as the faces of an unavoidable new
advertising campaign for Apple computers. In the ads, the pair show
the supposedly contrasting characteristics of PCs and Macs.
Mitchell, playing his customary role as the fusty square with blazer
and side-parting, represents a PC. Webb, as the nonchalant, casually
dressed know-it-all, represents a Mac. The adverts go on to reveal various humdrum differences between
the two. But they also reveal intriguing things about Mitchell and Webb. Why, for instance, have these seemingly innocuous ads provoked
such animosity in the press? One journalist described the Apple
campaign as "worse than not funny", concluding that by
using their comedy "for corporate ends" Mitchell and Webb
have committed "an act of grave betrayal". How do the duo, always so pleasant and eager to please, feel about that? "It's just a gig, isn't it?" shrugs Webb, "I'm an actor. So 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.' " Mitchell, who, like Webb, is almost disconcertingly difficult to
separate from the characters he plays, bristles with self-righteous
exasperation. "I don't see what is morally inconsistent with a
comedian doing an advert. It's all right to sell computers,
isn't it? Unless you think that capitalism is evil - which I
don't. It's not like we're helping to flog a
baby-killing machine." But the more interesting questions is: why has a huge, hip
multinational decided that the best way to sell computers is via
Mitchell and Webb? Previously, Apple ads were cool and aspirational. The new
campaign, however, is part of the rise of the hapless, bumbling
everyman. British people are responding with increasing cynicism to
distant, demanding "stars" and with increasing warmth to
"normal" celebrities who cheerfully admit their flaws. |