Black Books
- TV sitcom
- Channel 4
- 2000 - 2004
- 18 episodes (3 series)
Sitcom focusing on a foul tempered bookshop owner, his trusty assistant and the girl next door. Stars Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Greig.
Episode menu
Series 1, Episode 1 - Cooking The Books
Further details
In the opening episode, festering bookshop owner Bernard struggles to make sense of his accounts. When his dodgy accountant does an afternoon flit, a frustrated and clueless Bernard creates all manner of diversions from doing his tax returns.
Meanwhile Fran is distracted from her role as drunken birth partner by the arrival of mysterious spherical-shaped objects she must sell in her gift shop.
And stressed-out accountant Manny becomes submerged in chill-out zone - and unemployed - after he accidentally swallows the Little Book of Calm.
Broadcast details
- Date
- Friday 29th September 2000
- Time
- 9:30pm
- Channel
- Channel 4
- Length
- 30 minutes
Cast & crew
| Dylan Moran | Bernard Black |
| Bill Bailey | Manny Bianco |
| Tamsin Greig | Fran Katzenjammer |
| Martin Freeman | Doctor |
| Rupert Vansittart | Rich Guy |
| Tony Bluto | Nick Voleur (Accountant) |
| Daisy Campbell | Julie Williams |
| Michael Parkhouse | Mr. Blackbelly |
| Stephen Boswell | Actor |
| Dominic Carter | Actor |
| Jeillo Edwards | Actor |
| John Macneill | Actor |
| Eamonn O'Neill | Actor |
| James O'Neill | Actor |
| Muriel Pavlow | Actor |
| Jack Pierce | Actor |
| Dylan Moran | Writer |
| Graham Linehan | Writer |
| Nick Wood | Director |
| Graham Linehan | Director |
| Julian Meers | Producer |
| Nira Park | Producer |
| William Burdett-Coutts | Executive Producer |
| Karen Beever | Line Producer |
| Nick Ames | Editor |
| Dennis De Groot | Production Designer |
| Jane Davies | Casting Director |
| John Connor | Casting Director |
| Annie Hardinge | Costume Designer |
| Claire Wilson | Costume Designer |
| John Rosenberg | Director of Photography |
| Jane Walker | Make-up Designer |
| Jayne Buxton (as Jane Buxton) | Make-up Designer |
| Rob Kitzmann | Lighting Designer |
| Jonathan Whitehead | Composer |
Press
I wonder if, by any chance, they have got the casting the wrong way round. Bill Bailey, who is very good indeed, is potentially the more terrifying of the two, while Dylan Moran can do endearing lying down. God knows where the girl-next-door is supposed to fit in. Good sitcoms are usually about lifers, shackled together by celibacy, poverty, family, necessity, history, somethingy. What chain gang are these three in?
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 30th September 2000Finally, an order: watch Black Books, because it's funny. Sitting alone in a room, watching a blurry nth-generation copy of this week's opening episode on tape, I was shocked to hear myself laughing out loud twice within the first five minutes.
Charlie Brooker, The Guardian, 23rd September 2000