Crisis On The Couch

Stephen Mangan plays a tormented therapist with huge debts and a range of colourful clients…

NEW COMEDY

Hang Ups

wednesday, c4 Hd, 10pm

People’s deep-rooted anxieties and phobias may not sound like the most obvious subject for a comedy, but Stephen Mangan is uncovering the lighter side of psychotherapy as he plays an online therapist in C4’s star-studded new sitcom, Hang Ups.

The semi-improvised series, co-written by Mangan with his brother-in-law Robert Delamere and produced by his actress wife Louise Delamere, is loosely based on Friends star Lisa Kudrow’s Emmy-nominated online American comedy Web Therapy.

It sees Mangan play therapist Richard Pitt, who has racked up big debts following the collapse of his group therapy practice after his business partner defrauded him.

He’s now set up online sessions for his clients, played by a host of well-known faces, from David Tennant to Sarah Hadland.

But while he tries his best to solve his patients’ wide-ranging issues, Richard’s own complex personal problems have led him to require the services of a rather unconventional therapist (Richard E Grant) himself.

Here, Mangan, 50, tells us more about the new series…

How did the show come about?

I was asked if I was interested in remaking Web Therapy and I immediately thought, ‘No!’, because with a few notable exceptions, remakes don’t work. I’d just done five series of Episodes, which was about the disaster of moving a successful show to another country. But Lisa [Kudrow] was helpful and I realised that you could take the central premise of giving therapy online and make it

more relevant because therapy has become more accepted in Britain and technology has moved on since Web Therapy. Plus, we have more ways to communicate today, but we’re not communicating any better.