About 'Benidorm'

Background

Benidorm was created by Derren Litten. He says: "After staring blankly at a computer screen for a couple of months I decided to write a sketch about a couple of middle aged swingers. The sketch was set around the swimming pool of an all inclusive Spanish holiday resort and after writing it I decided to imagine who else would be sitting around the pool, where they were from, and how they ended up there. The result was episode one of Benidorm."

Litten went on to say: "I decided not to write a part for myself - I'm not very good at writing parts for myself, not a great admission considering I've been an actor for well over 10 years. The six week shoots took place entirely on location in Benidorm. I worked with people I now consider my family. We developed an incredibly close unit and I think that shows in the end result." (Side note: Derren does make a couple of cameo appearances - for example, watch out for him in the airport in the first episode of Series 2)

"To have actors involved such as Siobhan Finneran, Steve Pemberton, Janine Duvitski and Johnny Vegas, to name but a few, has absolutely blown me away. I never dreamt we would get a cast like this - I still don't believe it!"

"The tone of the show is exactly that of Benidorm the holiday resort, enormous fun if you go with the flow. It's easy to turn your nose up at somewhere as cheap and potentially tacky as Benidorm but vulgarity is something which can be great fun if you don't fight against it. On nights out in the town many of us would look at a bar from the outside and be horrified but after a few drinks we were fighting to get on the karaoke!"

The show was Paul Jackson's first commission since returning to ITV as Director of Entertainment and Comedy, and it was a series that re-united him with Geoffrey Perkins (former Head of BBC Comedy). At the time Jackson said: "Benidorm is the holiday experience we have all had where you spend 14 days avoiding the lairy couple who sat behind you on the coach. Derren has created a fantastic range of characters and the sure quality of his writing has attracted a really exciting cast who will bring to life the joys and the horrors of the all inclusive package holiday."

The late Geoffrey Perkins revealed more about how the series came to life: "When I first talked to Catherine Tate about developing a series for her we both agreed that we should aim to only use a very small writing team and Catherine suggested her friend Derren Litten (who she had known since they went to Central School of Speech and Drama). He wasn't a writer as such but she thought, as he was funny in real life, he could do it on the page. Derren went on to write much of her subsequent series and proved to be an absolutely superb writer - creating many of Catherine's most memorable characters and writing dialogue with a comic observation and precision worthy of, for instance, John Sullivan" (indeed Sullivan, impressed by Litten's writing, later asked him to write for The Green, Green Grass).

Perkins continued: "At the end of 2005 I offered Derren a commission to write a longer narrative piece. It turned out to be one of the most exciting scripts I have read. Derren had managed to introduce over a dozen vivid characters in a great setting. It features a universal experience - the holiday where you are suddenly thrown together with the people with whom you have nothing apparently in common but often end up bonding with and inviting to come and see you back home, only to have them turn up and stay up all night drinking everything plus a bottle of toilet duck, and insisting on playing a CD of a Canadian thrash metal band at Volume 11 while you cower upstairs trying to quietly phone the police. Or maybe that's just me!"

"We felt that Benidorm would sit very well on ITV - and fortunately it coincided with the arrival of Paul Jackson as ITV's Director Entertainment and Comedy - someone with a real knowledge of comedy, a desire to do new things and the clout to get them on."

And, finally, in response to Derren talking about the crew spending the night at the karaoke, Geoffrey said: "Yes I have a hazy recollection of launching into Pulp's Common People realising that it has a lengthy instrumental break and deciding to fill it with a particularly poor piece of break dancing!"