The Great Outdoors rambles onto BBC2

Kevin Cecil, co-creator of The Great Outdoors, writes...

This week our sitcom about a rambling group, The Great Outdoors, gets broadcast on BBC2. Thursday 13th January, 10pm, (thanks for asking).

It has previously been shown on BBC4 but this transfer seems like a big step, like going to big school or being signed on loan by Tottenham. The big boys used to be referred to as the terrestrial channels rather than the digital ones but aren’t all channels digital these days?

We might need a new term to describe One and Two. Perhaps ‘those channels that still don’t have channel idents in the corner.’ Anyway, we loved our BBC4 home but have put some butter on the paws of the show and hope it will settle in at BBC2 and hopefully make some new friends there.

When TGO first went out in July, everyone was unanimous in thinking it the breakout hit of the summer and all agreed it was one of the most spectacular reboots of a nineteenth century detective drama for many years. No, sorry, no, that was Sherlock. We got slightly less coverage (the term ‘hidden gem’ has been used more than once) but the people who saw it liked it and some of them even said they liked it a lot.

My writing partner, Andy Riley, and I did fear that, on airing, the walking community would use OS Pathfinders to track us down and then beat us to death with Swiss Poles but, in fact, they really took to it. Country Walking Magazine called it ‘a thing of beauty’ and we’ve heard from all sorts of people who’ve been on organised walks since and said to each other ‘hey, this is a bit like the Great Outdoors’ during their scheduled Kendal mint cake stops.

The nice thing is that I’ve heard of lots of people identifying with different characters. Our leads, Mark Heap and Ruth Jones, got a lot of praise and deservedly so but there was no character that somebody hasn’t told me was their favourite.

This is wonderful as a writer. Some sitcoms work fine with one or two really funny people and others supporting them but we like to try and make everyone quirky and interesting. In a lot of my favourite shows (Larry Sanders, say, or Father Ted), you can’t move for funny characters.

Creating this sitcom has been a bit like giving birth to seven fully grown children and if you have given birth to seven fully grown children you will know that it can be quite a painful, not to say messy process, but at the end of it you want all your new offspring to do well equally. You need the right cast for this, and with Katherine Parkinson, Stephen Wight, Steve Edge, Joe Tracini and Gwyneth Keyworth, we got that.

 

In the interest of balance I should say that there is one person I know who has told me, several times, and by several times I mean every single time he has seen me, that his friend, a keen rambler, didn’t like the show because we are ‘mocking walkers’. Well, there is a bit of that going on, yes, but we like to think we are doing it from the inside. If we’re having a go at anyone it would be ourselves and our own faults. I feel okay about it because I know our piss taking is done with affection.

Also I know that if Bob saw a show about rambling on the BBC he’d be writing to Points Of View about it immediately.  All sitcoms that deal with particular groups get a bit of criticism. I bet Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are always going up to themselves in restaurants and complaining that they didn’t portray themselves fairly in The Trip.

You’ll also notice that the weather was quite a lot better when we went for our walks. I don’t know if the walkers in the picture have seen the show but next year I hope to see David with a map in a plastic bag around his neck and Helena with a flare gun.

So we are very proud of how our three part sitcom turned out. If you haven’t seen The Great Outdoors – well, I was hoping that writing this was an implied request to watch it, but perhaps you need it spelt out – please watch.

There’s one question I get asked loads more than any other which is will there be any more?

Well, I can exclusively reveal here that I have absolutely no idea. But then this time last year we had no idea that we were going to get these ones made. What I can say is that we’ve got plenty of ideas of what we would do given the chance, so if the cast become available and the BBC would like some then, maybe. Until then, please enjoy the ones that we made earlier.

The sun does shine in Britain sometimes. Here’s the proof.

The Great Outdoors starts Thursday 13th January at 10pm on BBC Two. Read more from Kevin on the BBC TV Blog as he answers the question: can rambling ever be cool?

Kevin loves his cast. Rightly so. Wanna meet them?

Need more Kevin Cecil? Read his Come Fly With Me Blog.

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