‘I'm optimistic that viewers really will fight for the BBC’

Writer and actor Tom Basden has quietly become a staple of UK comedy. He tells Ellie Harrison about Ricky Gervais, mining absurdity for laughs and his friendship with Tim Key

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He may not be a household name, but Tom Basden has had a hand in some of the best British comedies of the past two decades. There’s his dark, brilliant Noughties sketch show Cowards, his side-splittingly funny stage adaptation of the Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and his Bafta-nominated historical comedy Plebs. He's got writing credits on Peep Show and Fresh Meat, acting credits in satires W1A and The Windsors, and Ricky Gervais won't stop casting him - in Derek, After Life and David Brent: Life on the Road. Earlier this year, Richard Curtis called his romcom The Ballad of Wallis Island, co-written with Tim Key, “one of the greatest British films of all time”. And tonight marks the return, on BBC One, of Here We Go, his family sitcom that some say has revived the genre singlehanded.

All of the shows Basden has written share at least one quality: a fascination with the absurdities and idiosyncrasies of British life. His are middle-England milieus teeming with puns, interesting knitwear and references to Mick Hucknall. Characters have pet dogs called Alan Sugar (and end up in the park, desperately calling after “Sir Alan”). There's mini-golf, Monster Munch, archery. It's hard to explain quite why these things are so funny and so British; they just sort of are.

A lot of Basden's best writing has been informed by those close to him. “The characters in Here We Go are a mishmash of my family and friends,” admits the 44-year-old, affable and chatty as he speaks from a book-stuffed study in his north London home. On paper, Here We Go may sound a little prosaic, its generic title not exactly the most inspiring. But give it a chance and you'll be rewarded with a modern classic. With shades of The Royle Family and