The IT Crowd

Graham Linehan's The IT Crowd launched on Channel 4 in February 2006 and ran for four series totalling twenty-four episodes through 2010, with a one-off concluding special in 2013. The series won the BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy in 2009 and the International Emmy for Best Comedy Series in 2014 — won by the show in its post-broadcast life through international syndication, an unusually delayed recognition for a British sitcom.

The cast is led by Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade and Katherine Parkinson, with Matt Berry as the company chairman; Berry's appearance from series two onwards became one of the central comic anchors of the show and effectively launched his career. O'Dowd would go on to Bridesmaids and Hollywood; Ayoade has built a parallel career as a feature director (Submarine, The Double) and television presenter. Parkinson has continued her stage and screen career across multiple major British productions including The Honourable Woman and The Kennedys.

Linehan — Irish-born, previously co-writer of Father Ted and Black Books — wrote every episode of the run himself, an unusual single-author commitment for a contemporary British sitcom. The show was filmed in front of a live studio audience at Teddington Studios in west London. The IT Crowd's phrase 'Have you tried turning it off and on again?' — voiced by O'Dowd as Roy in series one — has entered general usage in English-language IT culture; the show is regularly cited as one of the most enduring British sitcoms of the 2000s alongside Peep Show and The Office.