Ash Atalla: my career journey

The Roughcut founder Ash Atalla gave an insight into how he broke into TV and revealed The Office may never have been made if his maths ability was better.

Cuckoo producer becomes comedy chief at Roughcut

Ash Atalla's Roughcut TV has appointed Cuckoo producer Dan Hine as head of comedy to oversee development of the indie's comedy sitcom slate. [Subscription required to view story]

Interview with producer Ash Atalla

He made his name as the producer of The Office - but he's not here to push boundaries, just to make people laugh.

Ash Atalla has executive-produced this gem of a mockumentary, which has been on iPlayer for a few weeks now, but deserves the bigger audience this slot should bring. MC Sniper is the "general" of pirate radio station Kurupt FM, freshly released from prison after a "two-stretch" (that's two weeks) for selling knock-off designer gear: "The feds came and ruined everything, as per." It's sharp, silly and surprisingly touching, and on the basis of this excellent pilot, merits a full series.

Ash Atalla: The whole iPad thing has been a revelation

TV producer Ash Atalla doesn't make a move without his trusty iPad on his lap.

This new sitcom pilot about a small-town health and safety team comes from the people behind The IT Crowd and Ash Atalla, who produced The Office. It has elements of both shows: it's loud, bright, brash and has an almost hysterical laughter track, plus there's a David Brent-like figure played by Flight Of The Conchords' Rhys Darby, looking like something out of the 1970s. Fun, in a bulldozing kind of way.

You would not want to put it to her this way, but there is clearly something about Jane Horrocks that says "supermarket". A former star of a long-running Tesco ad, Horrocks stars here in a new sitcom about the employees of Valco supermarket. It's neither surreal nor pathos-filled, instead it forms another addition to producer Ash Atalla's stable of shows that take a slightly edgy look at the utterly commonplace. Mark Addy and cool newcomer Joel Fry are among the other quality comedy talents lurking in the aisles.

David Walliams narrates a history of disability on TV. It's a slightly directionless tour around the archives from the Spastics Society appeal of the 1960s via Joey Deacon's appearance on Blue Peter to Roy's hysterical abuse of a disabled toilet in The IT Crowd. There are even segments on Heather Mills and Big Brother, although the one about Mills mercifully shows no actual footage of her. Interviewees trying not to say the wrong thing include Mat Fraser, Stephen Merchant, Dom Joly, Ash Atalla and Francesca Martinez.

Thank God, then, for Trinity. Ash Atalla puts Footballers' Wives, Inspector Morse and Buffy into a pot, stirs, and out comes this - and what a romp it is. His first non-comedy, and yet I laughed out loud. The casting of Charles Dance is genius; I love the fact the royal tart really is a royal. It is ridiculous, but knowingly so, and I am sure it will be a great hit. The creepy thriller undertones left me wanting more, and although I know it's not meant for me, I will be tuning in.

Ash Atalla - An unholy Trinity

The producer of The Office has moved on from comedy with a new soap described as Gossip Girl meets Buffy via Hogwarts.