British sitcom
A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.
British sitcoms have predominantly been recorded on studio sets, while some include an element of location filming. Live audiences and multi-camera ...
, set in a
tower block
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. ...
in south London. Created and co-written by Sean Lock, it originated as two radio series broadcast in 1998–2000, transferring to television in 2002–2004. The television series starred Sean Lock and Benedict Wong.
Premise
Vince is an anti-social eccentric who wants to live by his own peculiar set of rules and ensure that his henpecked lodger/flatmate Errol abides by them too. They live in a drab flat in a tower block with a collection of seemingly crazed residents. Working as a lifeguard at the local swimming pool and with an acute phobia for being touched, Vince does his best to avoid dealing with other people. Due to his lack of social skills, he manages to get himself into a succession of awkward situations: from teaching a swimming student with a psychotic husband; to helping a neighbour look after his new pet (a horse); to conducting a bitter feud with a gang of kids intent on destroying him.
recluse
A recluse is a person who lives in voluntary seclusion and solitude. The word is from the Latin , which means 'to open' or 'disclose'.
Examples of recluses are Symeon of Trier, who lived within the great Roman gate Porta Nigra with permissio ...
who shares his flat with Errol in a tower block. Lock described him as a particular type, "There's a lot of people in London who kind of get washed up in a place, and they don't really necessarily take part in normal life. They don't have families, they don't interact socially, they lose touch with their friends, people move on in life ... they kind of get left somewhere on a shelf. That's what Vince was like. He continually was finding new ways to isolate himself – protect himself from actually recognising what his life was like."
* Benedict Wong as Errol Spears: Vince's naive but optimistic flatmate/lodger. Errol's relationship with Vince is similar to classic
double act
A double act (also known as a comedy duo) is a form of comedy originating in the British music hall tradition, and American vaudeville, in which two comedians perform together as a single act, often highlighting differences in their characters' ...
s and described as "comic foils ... a little bit
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were a British-American double act, comedy duo during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957) ...
... the idiot who knows everything and the idiot who knows nothing". Peter Serafinowicz, who played Errol in the radio series, was actually doing an impression of Wong and suggested the role to him. The part was not specifically written for a Chinese actor but Lock was unable see anyone else in the flat with Vince saying, "when Benny ongcame in, he seemed to make sense of it".
Additional cast members included Aml Ameen, James Bachman,
Bill Bailey
Mark Robert Bailey (born 13 January 1965), known professionally as Bill Bailey, is an English musician, comedian, actor and television presenter. He is known for his role as Manny in the sitcom '' Black Books'' (2000–2004), and for his regula ...
,
Perry Benson
Perry Benson (born 9 April 1961) is a British character actor, having had regular roles in British television sitcoms '' You Rang, M'Lord?'' (1988–1993), '' Oh, Doctor Beeching!'' (1995–1997) and '' Operation Good Guys'' (1997–2000). Other ...
Michael Greene
Michael Harris Greene (November 4, 1933 – January 10, 2020) was an American actor who was active from the 1960s through the 1990s.
Career
Greene was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Gladys () and Harry Greene. Early in his caree ...
Toby Jones
Toby Edward Heslewood Jones''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 7 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for his extensive character actor roles on stage and screen. From 1989 ...
,
Mark Lamarr
Mark Lamarr (born Mark Jones; 7 January 1967) is an English comedian, radio disc jockey and television presenter. He was a team captain on ''Shooting Stars (1993 TV series), Shooting Stars'' from 1995 to 1997, and hosted ''Never Mind the Buzzcock ...
The show's original incarnation was a radio series entitled ''Sean Lock's 15 Minutes of Misery''. It was broadcast weekly on
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
in the "Late Night on 4" comedy slot at 11.00pm. It ran for six episodes between 30 December 1998 and 3 February 1999. The show was written by Sean Lock and produced by Dan Freedman, and starred Lock, Kevin Eldon and Hattie Hayridge.
''Sean Lock: 15 Storeys High'' (Radio 4)
Lock's second series was entitled ''Sean Lock: 15 Storeys High'', and it was also broadcast on Radio 4's "Late Night on 4" comedy slot and written by Sean Lock and Martin Trenaman and produced by
Chris Neill
Chris Neill (born 1968) is a British comedian, producer, and writer who features regularly on BBC Radio 4Jenny Eclair, Tim Mitchell, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Chris Pavlo and Peter Serafinowicz. Series two aired from 24 November 2000 to 22 December 2000, and included roles from Dan Freedman, Alex Lowe, Dan Mersh, Paul Putner, Rob Rouse and Chris Neill. The ''15 Storeys High'' radio series used a different method to present the events going on in other flats in the tower block. It dispensed with the idea of Sean listening in on others using "Bugger King", replacing it with a voiceover simply announcing the flat number of the subsequent scene. The show introduced Sean's flatmate Errol (played by Serafinowicz in series 1, episodes 2–5).
Both radio series (''Sean Lock's 15 Minutes of Misery'' and ''Sean Lock: 15 Storeys High'') were recorded in front of a studio audience. The theme tune used for both series is the 1960s song " England Swings" by
Roger Miller
Roger Dean Miller Sr. (January 2, 1936 – October 25, 1992) was an American singer-songwriter, widely known for his honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs and his chart-topping country hits " King of the Road", "Dang Me", and " England Swing ...
.
Television series
In 2002, ''15 Storeys High'' was made into a
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...
show which ran for two series; each series had six half-hour episodes. The show was filmed on location and therefore without a live audience.
Writing
The ''15 Storeys High'' TV series was written by Lock with Trenaman and Mark Lamarr credited with his real name Mark Jones.
Each series took six to seven months to write. Lock's view was, "The hardest thing to write is sitcom. ''15 Storeys High'' is the hardest thing I've worked on. 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. To do a decent sitcom. To do a shit sitcom, you can do that without much effort, and there are plenty of those around". The writing process did not follow a particular structure or pursuit of a
story arc
A story arc (also narrative arc) is the chronological construction of a plot in a novel or story. It can also mean an extended or continuing narrative, storyline in episode, episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strip ...
. Trenaman recalled that Lock would come in the office one day and say, "I want to do something about an airport, something about travelling ... We'd just set off. There was no plan of action."
During filming Lock allowed some improvisation that made scenes funnier. At other times, Lock's attention to detail would be more restrictive when some actors felt they could improve a line. Lock was adamant about retaining certain dialogue, explaining the effort taken to write something would be wasted, but also that the pay-off on a later joke related to the plot would be compromised.
Lock and Lamarr found they could avoid unnecessary
exposition
Exposition (also the French for exhibition) may refer to:
*Universal exposition or World's Fair
*Expository writing
*Exposition (narrative), background information in a story
* Exposition (music)
*Trade fair
* ''Exposition'' (album), the debut alb ...
dialogue between scenes when director Mark Nunneley showed they could simply use wipe transitions during the film edit.
Trenaman's other recollection about writing the show, "... is laughing a lot in that office – I mean really rip-roaring laughs. The other memory I have is both of us staring at the wall in silence for hours and going, 'I can't think of anything'".
Filming
''15 Storeys High'' is noted for its drab, grainy, washed-out style to reflect the mundanity of the characters' lives. Directed by Mark Nunneley, the series was filmed unlike any show at the time, including the in-vogue
mockumentary
A mockumentary (a portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a Documentary film, documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current event ...
style. Lock was influenced by arthouse films and considered
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (, ; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Russian origin. He is widely considered one of the greatest directors in cinema history. Works by Andrei Tarkovsky, His films e ...
's science-fiction Stalker (1979) as a film that affected him profoundly. Trenaman said, " ockwanted it shot like a Swedish art film. At the time I thought it was a brilliant idea. But people at meetings were going, 'Really...? What, a sitcom on the BBC shot like that?!' It was really Sean's vision".
Filmed mainly on location, the interior rooms of the tower block were filmed in a studio. The exterior view from the 15th floor was a huge photograph and the
lighting
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight. ...
was done in such a way that it could appear to be day or night.
A joke on set was, "Can we not afford any lights? Mark, are there any lights in the budget?!"
Locations
Exteriors for the tower block are located in the Brandon Estate,
Kennington
Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between th ...
, London.
The swimming pool for the first series, where Vince works as a
lifeguard
A lifeguard is a rescuer who supervises the safety and rescue of swimmers, surfers, and other water sports participants such as in a swimming pool, water park, beach, spa, river and lake. Lifeguards are trained in swimming and Cardiopulmonary ...
Lewisham
Lewisham ( ) is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in ...
, London. In the second series, the swimming pool is situated in the basement of the Shell Centre next to Waterloo station. The former
Elephant and Castle
Elephant and Castle is an area of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. The name also informally refers to much of Walworth and Newington, due to the proximity of the London Underground station of the same name. The n ...
shopping centre was also a location in several episodes, including the Sundial restaurant and the bowling alley.
Music
The opening title theme music varied with each episode and included
Tito Puente
Ernest Anthony Puente Jr. (April 20, 1923 – May 31, 2000), commonly known as Tito Puente, was an American musician, songwriter, bandleader, timbalero, and record producer. He composed dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz music. He was also k ...
's version of " On the Street Where You Live", alluding to the lyric in the first verse "All at once am I, several stories high, knowing I'm on the street where you live"; and a backwards remix of Madness's " House of Fun".
Broadcast
The series was the victim of poor scheduling and did not get the attention given to other successful turn-of-the-millennium era British comedies, such as ''
The Office
''The Office'' is the title of several mockumentary sitcoms based on a British series originally created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant as '' The Office'' in 2001. The original series also starred Gervais as manager and primary charac ...
'', ''
Phoenix Nights
'' Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights'', sometimes shortened to ''Phoenix Nights'', is a British sitcom about The Phoenix Club, a working men's club in the northern English town of Bolton, Greater Manchester. The show is a spin-off from the "In th ...
'' and '' The Royle Family''. These sitcoms similarly moved away from the traditional live studio audience and
laugh track
A laugh track (or laughter track) is an audio recording consisting of laughter (and other audience reactions) usually used as a separate soundtrack for comedy productions. The laugh track may contain live audience reactions or artificial laught ...
single-camera setup
In filmmaking, television production and video production, the single-camera setup or single-camera mode of production (also known as portable single crew, portable single camera or single-cam) is a method in which all of the various shots and c ...
visual style.
The show was originally broadcast on the digital channel
BBC Choice
BBC Choice was a British digital television channel which was owned by the BBC and was launched on 23 September 1998. It was the first United Kingdom, British TV channel to broadcast exclusively in Digital television, digital format, as well as t ...
, which was later rebranded to
BBC Three
BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes for a 16 to 34-year-old target aud ...
, from 7 November 2002 to 12 December 2002. It was not promoted to a mainstream terrestrial channel with a larger prime time audience the same way '' Little Britain'' transferred from BBC Three to
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
.
The second series, broadcast from 12 February 2004 to 18 March 2004 on
BBC Three
BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes for a 16 to 34-year-old target aud ...
, ended up being repeated on
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...
in May and June in a late Sunday night slot. One episode was delayed even further due to the overrun of the preceding live "badger watch" show hosted by
Bill Oddie
William Edgar Oddie (born 7 July 1941) is an English actor, artist, birder, comedian, conservationist, musician, songwriter, television presenter and writer. He was a member of comedy trio The Goodies.
A birder since his childhood in Quinton ...
who exclaimed, "There are some sitcom fans who are going to be disappointed ... but we're going to see some badgers in a minute!"
Legacy
The show was not recommissioned for a third series and has never been repeated for broadcast on the BBC since 2005. It was subsequently repeated on digital channel
Gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
in the "After Dark"
graveyard slot
A graveyard slot (or death slot) is a time period in which a television audience is very small compared to other times of the day, and therefore broadcast programming is considered far less important. Graveyard slots are usually situated in the ea ...
from 2014 until 2016.
The hard work making the series, followed by the inept management in programming, left Lock disillusioned by the experience. He then steered his TV career to appearances on panel shows. In contrast, Wong recalled his experience with fondness and has progressed to a Hollywood career starring in big budget
streaming
Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...
shows such as ''
Marco Polo
Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...
'' playing
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the ...
and appearing in
Marvel
Marvel may refer to:
Business
* Marvel Entertainment, an American entertainment company
** Marvel Comics, the primary imprint of Marvel Entertainment
** Marvel Universe, a fictional shared universe
** Marvel Music, an imprint of Marvel Comics ...
movies. As to why the show was badly handled by the BBC, Lock opined, "I think I must have spilt a drink somewhere once at a BBC party. Or called someone a cunt. That's more likely. I was drunk and called someone a cunt".
''15 Storeys High'' has since been reappraised after Lock's death in 2021. The show gained a new cult audience on DVD. In memory of Lock, a campaign for its return resulted in the series becoming available again on
BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available Over-the-top media service, over-the-top on a wide range of devices, including Mobile phone, mobile phones and Tablet computer ...
.
Episodes
Series 1 (2002)
Series 2 (2004)
Award nomination
In 2003, ''15 Storeys High'' was nominated for a
BAFTA
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...
in the "Television Craft: New Director - Fiction" category for Mark Nunneley.