At The BFI - Spaced 21st Anniversary Marathon & Q&A

There are some comedy shows that have such an impact on you at a certain time of life that that permeate through. Phrases and mannerisms percolate their way through into the everyday mlch to the extent that you begin to forget where you got them from. They’re a touchstone to certain times in your life and a link between a group of you that shared that sensibility. Spaced is one of those shows for me…

The other hot ticket for the month (and apparently one of the hottest tickets that the BFI has ever had), Sunday 12th January saw a reunion panel for (almost) the entire cast and key crew flanked either side by a marathon screening of both series of the show. All in honour of the fact that it turns 21 years old this year.

If you don’t know Spaced, it’s the sort of show easy to describe in a nutshell but that won't really do justice to what sort of show it was. It follows the adventures of aspiring graphic artist Tim (Simon Pegg) and wannabe writer Daisy (Jessica Hynes)  as they pretend to be a couple in order to rent a flat. Accompanying them are alcoholic landlady Marsha (Julia Deakin), tortured artist neighbour Brian (Mark Heap), Tim’s child-like army-obsessed friend Mike (Nick Frost) and Daisy’s snooty fashion-obsessed friend Twist (Katy Carmichael) on adventures framed through a lens of pop culture film and TV references.

It’s a show that lends itself very well to being shown on the big screen given the cinematic nature of the show itself - the programme being a proving ground for director Edgar Wright who would go on to work with Pegg and Frost on Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End as well as his own films Scott Pilgrim Vs The World and Baby Driver. That said, seven hours in the one venue is quite the marathon and I’d definitely think twice before doing it on a Sunday again!

The Q&A was lively and fun - Hynes talked about the energy of youth which shines though in this; a comment Wright echoed by saying that they all new to TV and, by not knowing what they were supposed to do, got away with doing things that experience might have prevented them from doing. When asked where the characters would be now, Pegg jokingly commented that they all died in car crash before back-tracking and giving some predictions long with the cast (leading to a heated debate with hynes about whether Tim and Daisy being together for about 5 years, having a kid and then getting divorced was in keeping with the show’s “no fairytale endings” espoused at the end of series 1!). There was also a brief appearance from Reece Shearsmith who just happened to be passing and stopped in to deliver his famously odd line from the Robot Wars episode.

It’s in these kind of events that the BFI really does excel - an event for and attended by fans with a fun and lively atmosphere on all sides. Enough time to recover for the next anniversary screening...