Steven Moffat - Joking Apart

Joking Apart

By 1990, Moffat had written two series of Press Gang, but the programme's high cost along with organisational changes at backers Central Independent Television cast its future in doubt. As Moffat wondered what to do next and worried about his future employment, Bob Spiers, Press Gang's primary director, suggested that he meet with producer Andre Ptaszynski to discuss writing a sitcom. Inspired by his experience working in education, Moffat's initial proposal was a programme similar to what would become Chalk, a sitcom set in a school that eventually aired in 1997. During the pitch meeting at the Groucho Club, Ptaszynski realised that Moffat was talking passionately about his impending divorce and suggested that he write about that instead of a school sitcom. Taking Ptaszynski's advice, Moffat's new idea was about "a sitcom writer whose wife leaves him". Moffat wrote two series of Joking Apart, which was directed by Bob Spiers, and starred Robert Bathurst and Fiona Gillies. The show won the Bronze Rose of Montreux and was entered for the Emmys. In an interview with Richard Herring, Moffat says that "The sit-com actually lasted slightly longer than my marriage." Fiona Gillies, who played the adulteress Becky, says that she was aware that some of her dialogue was based on what had been said to Moffat during his own separation. Moffat recycled his own dialogue: when he had learned that his wife's lover was a fan of Press Gang, he replied, "Well, did he have to fuck my wife? Most people just write in!". The line, with the expletive replaced by "shagged", was used in the first episode of Joking Apart.

Speaking about the autobiographical elements of the show, the writer jokes that he has to remember that his wife didn't leave him for an estate agent; his wife was an estate agent. Conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based on his relationship with his second wife, TV producer Sue Vertue. Moffat reused the surname "Taylor", which is Mark's surname in Joking Apart, for Jack Davenport's character Steve in Coupling.

He wrote three episodes of Murder Most Horrid, an anthology series of comedic tales starring Dawn French. The first ("Overkill", directed by Bob Spiers) was identified by the BBC as a "highlight" of the series. His other two episodes were "Dying Live" (dir. Dewi Humphreys) and "Elvis, Jesus and Zack" (dir. Tony Dow).