If you love a bit of good ol’ fashioned comedy then BBC Three’s Badults just might be the one for you. It returns for its second series June 2nd, and we spoke to Matthew Crosby and talked about love interests, World Cup, and BBC Three’s possible channel closure.
Going into series two, where do we find Tom, Matthew and Ben? Still trying to be adults?
Yeah they’re still three idiots, not trying to really cope with life, and they’re still living together. It’s quite funny they are sort of…you know you can be this way with your friends, especially when you’re a bit younger, you can be very close to your pals but you’re also antagonistic, they annoy you more than people you don’t know. Does that make sense?
Yes, Definitely!
That’s the kind of set up we’ve got between the three of them. They are best friends but they’re also…kind of…is frienemies the word?
The opening episode of this series is going to be the most relatable bits of television for any football fan out there. You looking forward to the world cup?
Yes I am! I’m a bit of a tournament supporter, I don’t really support football outside of it. I always love a good excuse to get lots of people into the pub, so I’m looking forward to the World Cup in that respect! We wrote a World Cup episode because we knew that the series was going to be out summer this year so we thought it would be really good fun. The thing with the World Cup is that even if you’re not a big football fan it’s so easy to get swept along with it, so hopefully people will enjoy it.
We also have some great guest stars in episode one, will we see more as the series progresses?
Yeah we’ve got lots of cameos throughout the series, no one quite as exciting as Robbie Savage unfortunately but still there’s some pretty good people! In the next episode our neighbours move in and they’re played by David Reed, who you would have seen in a bunch of different TV shows, he was in Father Figure recently. We’ve got Mike Wozniak from Channel 4’s Man Down and we also have Gemma Whelan from Game Of Thrones. It was really nice to invite our pals down, because we film in Glasgow, to spend some time with us, spend the week with us and film some stuff. It’s been really nice!
Matthew also finds himself with a new love interest this series. How was it having Katherine Ryan join the cast?
It’s been very exciting! Katherine has been a friend of ours, we’ve performed on the live circuit a lot, so we’ve seen her around doing stand up. She’s just great. What’s wonderful about working with Katherine is because she is a comedian herself she’s always coming up with new lines and better ways of doing things, she’s really good. Also, she’s just really really funny.
BBC Three has a history of a wide range of comedy, Badults has really found its own being on the channel. How has the reaction been for you?
Well it’s been really good actually. We’ve had loads of really positive messages and people coming to our gigs and coming up to us afterwards with the DVDs for us to sign, which has been really lovely. What we wanted to do was make a show that would obviously attract new fans but would also be appealing to people who had seen our live stuff and would have the same energy as our live stuff, and I really feel we’ve done that. Especially with the second series we’re really proud of the second series I think if people enjoyed the first series they’re really going to enjoy the second one.
Did you feel a bit of pressure returning for a second series or was it easier to get done this time around?
I think it’s somewhere between the two. You never just want to be “oh yeah, that’s fine!” we had to work really hard. But as soon as we finished the first series and filmed them all we were like “There’s so many different ideas and what we want to see these characters do” so we were really pleased when BBC Three asked us to do a second series because we had loads of ideas. We weren’t finished with the characters. It was a little bit more relaxed because we knew who the characters were. When we first wrote the series, we were finding out who they were episode to episode but with this now we know who they are and how they behave. It’s been really fun revisiting them.
Was also very glad to see that the good ol’ Badults gags are still in there. Could you get a little braver with the gags or was there some that didn’t make the cut?
There’s always some that don’t make the cut. We have quite a rigorous scripting process so we write the scripts, then it goes to our producers, then we actually perform them live before we film them, we do it as a test to see what works. But I think people really like a cheesy gag. Obviously, you don’t want all your gags to be cheesy but once in a while I think a bit of a dodgy pun or a dad like joke…I think people like that. I hope so anyway! (laughs) because we do.
As you are a member of the BBC Three family I have to ask you the token question about BBC Three’s channel possibly coming off the air. What do you think about it?
Well here’s the thing – I wish I knew more about it but I’ll tell you what I know. As far as I know if it all goes through with the BBC trust it’s gonna come off air in October of next year…late autumn next year. So you know, we’re very proud that we got the chance to make two series on BBC Three and that our two series got to go out on television but I think there is an element of it being a wise choice because people are, especially young people which is BBC Three’s demographic, watching TV in a very different way. I very rarely watch something as it goes out on tele, I’ve either Tivo’d it or watching it on Iplayer or other catch up services I’m using. So I think it’s obviously very nice being on the tele but I think as long as BBC Three keep supporting new programming and they make the shows it doesn’t matter where they go out. It’s appropriate they move with the times.
Now series two is done, what’s next for you and the guys?
We’ll just be sitting in our flat and seeing what happens with series three…(laughs) We’d love to do more! If the BBC want to do more we’d be very happy to do them. But at the moment we’re also still performing live. We perform a sketch show called Pappys, we’re touring around the country with that. We also do a podcast called Flatshare Slamdown which is a live podcast so we’re performing that live and we’re trying to develop a few more ideas for the tele. But at the moment Badults is our main preoccuption so we’re just looking forward to that coming out on tele and enjoying the World Cup…it’s gonna be a good summer!
Badults series two premieres on BBC Three June 2nd at 10pm. If you would like more information on Pappys you can visit their website here
