They are, as the posters put it, “the makers of Peep Show” – the funniest, most merciless British sitcom around. But Robert Mitchell and David Webb and the writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain are under no illusions about the challenge they face with their first film together, Magicians. The track record for British film comedies is not good. Take Richard Curtis and Simon Pegg out of the picture and it’s atrocious. Sitcoms, sometimes, we can do. But take the script to 90 minutes and, somehow, we almost always flunk it.

“There’s a little hump of expectations after Hot Fuzz this year,” says Armstrong, “but on the whole people don’t expect much from British comedies.”

Well, first the bad news: Magicians doesn’t have the brio (or great gags), let alone the marketability, of a Bridget Jones. Two magicians, Harry (Mitchell) and Karl (Webb), fall out, fall on hard times and then compete against each other for 20 grand in a magic competition in Jersey.

In plot terms it’s a bit like Christopher Nolan’s recent Victorian magic epic The Prestige, and even more like gloriously silly Ben Stiller/Will Ferrell mock-epics such as Zo- olanderor Anchorman. In execution, though, it’s drier, more English, and actually more restrained than the cheerily vicious Peep Show.

BACKGROUND

• Magicians

• Magicians - Timesonline review

• How the tide turned for Mitchell and Webb

• Peep Show Series 2

Losing their magic?

Mitchell and Webb graduate to the big screen as a pair of magicians - but are their tricks enough?

Related Internet Links

• 2007 London Film Festival coverage

• Times Online Film Trailers

But the film still has fun with protagonists that, yes, aren’t all that different from Peep Show’s angsty Mark and cocky Jeremy. Mitchell (the posher, podgier one) is unapologetic about that: “There’s a lot of comedy in angsty, posh, worried people,” he says, “and I’m happy to mine that seam while I’ve got the chance.”

But he admits that British films are caught in a vicious circle of low expectations and low confidence. “The advantage Hollywood has,” he says, “is that it can put Ben Stiller in something and that means the worst that it will go is that quite a lot of people see it. It would be great if there were an automatic audience for British comedy films in the way that there’s an automatic audience for television comedy. Because that gives confidence, and the British film industry could do with confidence.”

Webb was convinced that it would never get made anyway – or if it did, the parts would end up with Ant and Dec. “We thought, ‘it’s a British film, it’s never going to get made but it’s nice to talk about’.” But straight after finishing their BBC Two sketch show last summer they found themselves in two weeks of rehearsals with the director Andrew O’Connor followed by a no-frills five weeks of filming in London, Nottingham and Skegness (deputising for Jersey).

Since then, they’ve played a national tour, made the current Peep Show series, written and recorded new shows for radio, got married (Webb), become a panel-show star (Mitchell), and – oh yes – advertised some computers. Does being Britain’s most visible poster boys make them an easier sell as film stars?

Hmm. They greet mention of their Apple Mac campaign with a forward defensive. “It’s part of the business,” says Mitchell, switching into lawyerly mode. “Comedians do ads. It’s a very uncertain business we’re in; ads pay very well. It’s a good product we’re advertising, they’re not an immoral company.”

Mitchell is miffed by criticism of the campaign “by people who don’t have to make their living as freelance comedians”. But isn’t any negative reaction because people are attached to them – or to their characters, anyway – and bristle at the thought that they are just commodities?

“It’s not a completely black and white area,” Webb concedes. “If there are people who feel a bit let down, I’d want to pat them on the shoulder but also tell them to think a bit harder about what it is they’re feeling let down about.” “Yes,” Mitchell agrees, “maybe they should invest a bit less in fictional characters!”

“We’re glad you like the show,” says Webb, “but they are not your friends really!”

Armstrong and Bain admit that they found writing a feature-length script far harder than their usual 23 minutes. It’s a funny film, I suggest, but it does sink a bit in the middle. “I suppose, to be honest, most films sink a bit in the middle,” says Mitchell. “It’s when you’re first aware you need a wee, but before the exciting bit,” Webb adds.

“The films that don’t do that are probably my favouite films of all time,” says Mitchell. “So we’ll take ‘funny film that sinks a bit in the middle’.”

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