Katherine Parkinson Interview

The IT Crowd star, currently tackling Ayckbourn at the National, on why good comedy needs an element of darkness.

I've never found Alan Davies as hilarious as he finds himself on QI, but I did laugh at his new sitcom Whites, in which he played Roland, the bored genius head chef of a country-house restaurant, lazing about dictating a memoir about his love for offal instead of getting on with some work. Admittedly, it wasn't great that he started with a joke from the back of the fridge ("If God didn't want us to eat animals he wouldn't have made them out of meat"), but he made up for it with sharper asides as he sparred likably with demanding colleagues, notably front of house manager Caroline (the great Katherine Parkinson from The IT Crowd) who thought Roland ought to do more vegetarian, and frazzled sous chef Bib (Darren Boyd), who thought Roland ought to do more of anything.

The plot - turning on the arrival of a top publisher who might take an interest in his book - kept hope and disappointment simmering nicely, while the arrival of an intense young apprentice (please don't let him turn out to be a vampire) offered slower intrigue. With Marco Pierre White's unruly hair and Jay Rayner's beard, Roland seems a composite of the sort of modern foodie we associate with frantic TV kitchens full of effing and blinding, so it was refreshing the way he suffered his fools - dim waitress Kiki, butterfingered Axel ("Careful with the plates - you're not at a Greek wedding") - like children with learning difficulties. Even the food looked real.

The very idea of a new sitcom on BBC2 makes my heart sink a little - all that British comic talent ploughing through a script in search of a gag - but it's probably best to start with low expectations. That way, when a programme like Whites comes along, one may be pleasantly surprised.

Given that it's set in the chaotic, high-pressure world of the restaurant kitchen, Whites is a surprisingly even-tempered thing. It stars Alan Davies as a self-absorbed executive chef at a country house hotel (he looks the part; in fact he looks exactly like Marco Pierre White), Darren Boyd as his demoralised sous chef and The IT Crowd's Katherine Parkinson as the catty front-of-house. There's a clumsy kitchen worker who spills things all the time, but there's also a creepy, ambitious agency cook named Skoose who adds some genuine menace. Whites occupies territory somewhere between dinnerladies and Peep Show (which I accept isn't much help to anyone trying to find it on a comedy map). Peep Show's Isy Suttie and Matt King (who co-wrote this) even turn up, as a hapless waitress and a dodgy meat supplier (he's dodgy, not the meat; not so far, anyway).

If it sounds surreal, inventive, original and hilarious then I'm over- selling it. It's gentle, subtly played, often funny and quite promising. At times it got a bit predictable, but I blame the leisurely pace, which sometimes allowed the viewer to catch up with the joke, and occasionally overtake it. In last night's episode the best laughs belonged to the minor characters, especially Isy Suttie's Kiki, who is kind, thoughtful and at least a half a bubble off plumb. "I remember my first day," she tells evil new boy Skoose. "I needed the loo but I was too scared to asked where it was, so I ended up going behind a gravestone in the chapel out back, and I thought I saw a ghost but it was just wee steam."

My main criticism of Whites is that it doesn't actually offer much new insight into the workings of a restaurant kitchen. Perhaps I've sat through too many episodes of Masterchef: the Professionals to be surprised, or even curious. Even the menu struck me as being a little tame. Comedy's one thing, but this show needs to take the cooking to the next level.

Grandma's House, Rev, Roger and Val Have Just Got In and now this. It's the latest artful, up-market sitcom from BBC2, written like a comedy but filmed like a drama. It will leave some viewers disappointed if they're expecting big gags or hearty laughs, but it will draw others in because (a) it's got the lovable Alan Davies in the lead, and (b) there's something engaging about its setting and characters - the staff of a swanky rural restaurant. The establishment is called The White House after its chef Roland White, played by Davies with a straggly hair-do and a patchy beard that may or may not be modelled on Marco Pierre of the same name. Unusually for a chef, Roland is laid-back and apparently lacking in passion - he's more interested in recording notes for his meat-based memoirs ("Chapter Two: Black Pudding," he announces into his dictaphone) than helping out in the chaotic kitchens. Katherine Parkinson plays his long-suffering maître d', who struggles to keep him in line, and Darren Boyd his uptight sous-chef. As ever with the first episode of a new sitcom, there's more appetiser than entrée, but it bodes well for flavourful fare to come.

Alan Davies is a love him or hate him kind of actor, but Whites shows just how likable and nuanced he can be. More surprisingly here, perhaps, since he stars as Roland White, an "executive chef" in a high-end restaurant. White is, needless to say, an offal-crazed gastronome with mad hair, but he's not a monster, and that speaks well of the subtleties of this very funny show co-written by Matt "Super Hans" King. Able support comes from Katherine Parkinson and Stephen Wight as weird, ambitious new chef Skoose.

Few people would dream of casting mild-mannered QI dunce Alan Davies in the role of a fiery gastronomic hellhound à la Gordon Ramsay or Marco Pierre White. But it is one of the many delights and revelations of this enjoyable new comedy that Davies so excellently fleshes out the role of Roland White, a fictional, once-pyrotechnic chef now fizzling out his days at a country house hotel. He's accompanied by his loyal and long-suffering sous chef, Bib (nicely played by Darren Boyd), flame-haired (and tongued) restaurant manager Caroline (Katherine Parkinson of The IT Crowd), sinister wannabe genius Skoose (Stephen Wightp) and clueless hotel owner Celia (Maggie Steed). It's co-written by Peep Show's Matt King, and much of the comedy is based on his pre-fame experiences of working in restaurant kitchens. Enhancing the ring of truth, the cast spent days training at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen restaurant in London. Despite the infernal kitchen setting, this is mostly gentle character-based comedy, but with an edge of sharpened steel that keeps the laughs coming all the time. Roland gets a lot of the best lines, though in the great British comic tradition he also manages to be the butt of most of them - as in tonight's opener, in which he records his never-to-be-commissioned memoirs. A very welcome addition to Tuesday nights.

Talk about a sitcom whose time has come. Thanks to series like Hell's Kitchen, The Restaurant, Kitchen Nightmares and MasterChef, restaurant kitchens are now as familiar to us as the inside of our own fridges.

We know they're all run by shouting egomaniacs who hate vegetarians and love the sound of their own voices, so we need no further introduction to the world of Whites. Whites (as in chefs' whites, as opposed to Marco Pierre) is written by Oliver Lansley and Matt King - best known as the sublimely surreal Super Hans from Peep Show. It's based on King's own experiences working in a Michelin-starred restaurant and he also appears briefly in this episode as a delivery man. It's just a pity that he's not in it more.

It's hilariously well-observed but, because it isn't straining for belly laughs every single second, characters also have room to breathe and just be themselves.

Alan Davies is perfectly cast as head chef Roland White, (again, no relation to Marco) who is too busy to help out during service because he's dictating his memoirs. Sample, genius quote: "If God didn't want us to eat animals he wouldn't have made them out of meat."

White's put-upon sous chef Bib (Darren Boyd), who is left to soldier on alone, is initially delighted when Roland takes on an apprentice to help out. But his happiness quickly dissolves into panic when the newcomer, Skoose, turns out to be a borderline sociopath.

Also in the mix are The IT Crowd's Katherine Parkinson as front of house manager Caroline, the excellent Maggie Steed as eccentric hotel owner Claudia, and Peep Show's Isy Suttie as terminally thick waitress Kiki.

Watching this, you're reminded of why good chefs bang on about only using topquality ingredients. This recipe brings out the best in all of them.

As previously recorded, tvBite is not a big fan of Alan Davies. Cluttering up QI, biting vagrants and abusing people on Twitter is no way to run a career. Still, we always enjoyed Jonathan Creek, and Whites was written by Super Hans from Peep Show, who we love dearly so we're proud to say that we haven't let Davies dislike colour our view. Davies plays Roland White, a chef who in look and name at least, is clearly based on Marco Pierre... He's lost his passion for cooking and is coasting in a country house hotel, where he has settled in to write his memoirs.

Hardly biting, but there is strong support from The IT Crowd's lovely Katherine Parkinson as his long-suffering Maître d' and Darren Boyd as his appallingly treated assistant. Its tone is similar to Rev and even though Davies is nowhere near the talent Tom Hollander is, there are enough set-ups to make you think the rest of the series could be a little bit tastier.

Alan Davies - he's the curly-haired Arsenal fan who used to be a stand-up - stars in this new comedy drama about once-famous chef Roland White, who long-ago lost his pizzazz and with it his Michelin stars. Now's he's struggling to keep a country-house hotel afloat in the company of his long-suffering sous chef, Bib (Darren Boyd).

Their task isn't made easier by dozy waitress Kiki (Isy Suttie), ambitious apprentice chef Skoose (Stephen Wight) and sarcastic restaurant manager Caroline (Katherine Parkinson). There's a great moment in tonight's opening episode which involves Kiki telling Skoose what happened when she was caught short and had to go to the toilet behind a gravestone in the churchyard. "I thought I saw a ghost, but it was just wee steam." She also asks Bib for an eggless omlette, and is handed an empty plate sprinkled with parsley.

The cast trained in Jamie Oliver's Fifteen restaurant, so at least the chopping and plating-up look fairly authentic. So does the way the programme is filmed, using fast editing and handheld cameras to give a real idea of what life in a busy kitchen is actually like.

Writers Matt King and Oliver Lansley are said to have modelled the whole thing on the US hit Entourage, which isn't a bad template for a comedy drama. Looking down the cast list, it might be safer to say Peep Show is the inspiration: Suttie also plays the wonderful Dobby in the long-running Channel 4 comedy, while writer King (who also appears in Whites as wheeler-dealer Melvin) is better known as Super Hans.

He's a versatile man, is Alan Davies. He plays the fool in QI, a magician/detective in Jonathan Creek and has just relived his revolutionary teen years for documentary purposes. For this new sitcom he's in actorly mode again, playing a hotel head chef called Roland White - any relation to Marco Pierre? - who goes against the grain of the highly stressed Gordon Ramsays of this world by being a bit of a slacker. Also stars Katherine Parkinson (The IT Crowd) and Isy Suttie (Dobby from Peep Show).