91Èȱ¬

Alfred Molina and Dawn French talk to Programme Information's Tony Matthews about their new marital comedy, Roger And Val Have Just Got In.

"What did you think of it?" Dawn French asks, keen to sound out opinion on her new comedy Roger And Val Have Just Got In. It's tricky to answer, it's certainly very different and a real departure from what many people might expect of her.

Dawn agrees: "It really isn't like anything else, is it?"

On the face of it, it's quite a simple set-up – in the half-hour immediately after arriving home from work, middle-aged couple Roger and Val Stevenson slip into a comfortable routine, sharing the trials and tribulations of their day. But, beyond that, defining the finely detailed world into which Dawn and co-star Alfred Molina are sealed is actually rather difficult.

"It came from my desire to do something small and quite controlled," she says. "I wanted to set it in real time with just two actors and to explore a functional, good marriage rather than a flawed and desperately bad one. And, rather than characters that were on the brink, I wanted a comfortable couple, who were functioning well. That's quite difficult to pull off, it's not like anything Fred or I have ever done before."

Although the idea for Roger And Val Have Just Got In was Dawn's, she decided against writing the series herself, instead inviting twin sisters Emma and Beth Kilcoyne, creators of 91Èȱ¬ Three's Live! Girls! Present Dogtown, to do the honours. "I have a lot of respect for their work," says Dawn. "They're better writers than me and I felt this had a kind of drama tone with which I'm not familiar. We got together a few years ago, had lots of meetings and it grew organically from there."

While Dawn was in on the development from the start, Alfred's casting came later in the process. Tempted by the quality and depth of the writing, Roger And Val Have Just Got In marks his return to British television after a 20-year absence, in which he has carved out a successful film career in the USA. But claiming that he needed a job makes Dawn laugh out loud: "Yes, because that's all he had – apart from Hollywood!"

Alfred says he knew instinctively that there was something unique about Roger And Val. "It felt like a lovely idea," he says. "The tone and pace of the writing didn't feel like a traditional sitcom. It isn't set-up, set-up, gag ... it didn't have that kind of rhythm, but it's very funny. Reading each episode, I felt they were more like little half-hour plays and I realised that each script was almost perfectly structured and could exist on its own. It was one of those moments where you just think: 'I've got to do this'."

Although Dawn and Alfred scarcely knew each other before beginning work on the series, they spoke at length on the phone to discuss the possibilities. "Dawn told me how she saw it and what she wanted to achieve, and her ideas were the same as mine," says Alfred. "It became one of those rare jobs where everything falls into place. It's funny, but it has poignancy at the same time. The characters are often contradictory and that's when you know you're in the presence of good material – it feels much more real."

"Val is a food technology teacher," Dawn says of her character. "She's a ferocious advocate of it and gets furious when it's sidelined in the school curriculum. She's a bit of a control freak, a bit pedantic and wants to win every moment. Roger understands that about her and allows it – one of the things I love about it is there's lots of dovetailing."

Asked to describe Roger, Alfred ponders on "what he is" rather than "who he is". "Roger is a bit pedantic," he says. "He knows his subject and is passionate about his world, which is botany. It's a very small world – he's not a top-notch scientist, he works in a winter garden – and his world has shrunk perhaps from his dream, but within that world he knows what he's doing."

Everyone knows a Roger, a well-meaning, somewhat over-earnest chap, politically upright and a bit of a pain, but not in that extreme way that comic characters are often portrayed. "He's the kind of guy who, when reading about some disaster anywhere in the world, will go: 'Yeah, I know how those people feel'," says Alfred. "And then he'll compare their experience to some little thing that's happened to him – he could compare a tsunami to his geranium dying, but in his mind that's crucial. I think Roger's emotions are genuine, but he fails to see his experience in the context of anything wider."

Both actors agree that it's a comedy of observation and viewers will doubtless spot little traits in their own families, friends and even in themselves. Alfred sees aspects of himself in Roger: "I came from the school of acting where the further away you were from a character the more interesting the journey. But, with Roger, to an uncomfortable level, I found myself saying: 'Well, I do that'. It's kind of reassuring because if you recognise traits or tendencies in a character then you understand the process of creating him and your sense of ownership is stronger."

Dawn, likewise, finds her empathy with Val somewhat unsettling: "From the beginning I wanted to be able to bring these characters really close. The only time I've done it before was a little bit in the Vicar Of Dibley, which is very different in tone. There are moments here when I wonder if it's okay to make it feel as close as it is – I wonder if I'm working hard enough. But the whole point is to make it very natural and to make it flow. Val Stevenson is not me at all, but her creation emerged over such a long time that she's never going to say something that I don't believe or understand.

"She's a sulker, which I don't think I am at all, and I love playing that. She's also a bit of a know-all. Val has a thin knowledge of quite a lot of things and, however misguided, she is quite prepared to share it – I like that about her."

The secret of Roger and Val's happiness, Dawn says, is that they amuse each other and are comfortable together: "They play a lot and it's quite good fun to be in their marriage. The comedy comes from the minutiae of their everyday lives and is very recognisable. The first episode is about finding a guarantee, and how many of us have looked for those in a messy drawer you dread having to go into? But their lives have really become a distraction and the normality conceals a defining moment that happened to them years ago. Since then they've been trying to survive it."

Was it difficult to do a six-part series in which there are no supporting characters? "I'm always a bit nervous about talking about acting as being hard work because it's really not," says Alfred. "That there was just one other person made it easier and you could build a connection. I really enjoyed working with Dawn on my own. There was a kind of alchemy and we got into a routine. We had a great time."

Most intriguing about Roger And Val Have Just Got In are what Alfred describes as "delicious little comic moments", in which they share quite loaded scenes together. "There's one scene where they talk about what they had for lunch. Val asks Roger if he had crisps and I say: 'No,' and she says: 'I had crisps'. It's such a terribly important moment between them that it just made me laugh."

Filmed on a purpose-built set at Ealing Studios, the attention to detail in the script is matched by the perfection of the setting, which gives the whole thing a very lived-in feel. "We made a conscious decision never to go outside the set," says Dawn. "You never see the street – they don't go out at all. They are in a hermetically-sealed world – their lives matter most when they're together."

After a while it begins to take on a slightly strange feel, almost of imprisonment. Alfred agrees: "At the risk of sounding a little bit Roger-ish, there are touches of Samuel Beckett in it – not so much in the writing, but certainly in the atmosphere that's created, there's this wonderful sense of tension. It all gets a little claustrophobic; we refer to the outside world in small ways – Val mentions the neighbour, I talk about the tree out there – but you never see it. In one episode, Roger says: 'It's so much better in here than out there'. I have a feeling that they are rather scared of the outside world and, whenever they're out there, they can't wait to get back home."

Another thought comes to mind that this is a comedy about human failings. "There's a lot of that with Val," says Dawn, "because Roger spends a lot of time with his head in his hands going: 'What have I said?'.

"There's another moment I love where Roger has made a mistake with Esther [an unseen work colleague], and he's wondering whether he should send her a text because he doesn't want her thinking that he's a nightmare. But he is a nightmare and, when you are a bit of a nightmare, what can you do to get out of it other than to accept that you are?"

Within the characters there is much to explore, which Dawn finds exciting: "We haven't even started. I'm very proud of this series, I think it's unlike anything else, it's got proper depth and a rich seam."