What happens when you ask a bunch of people you've never met before

FOR most of us, the idea of inviting a group of complete strangers into our home for an hour or two of intensive chat would be up there with having our teeth pulled - without anaesthetic. But writer/ director Annie Griffin can only see its comic potential. "I just thought the idea of people coming into your home and exposing themselves intellectually was a good starting point," she says when we meet. "Especially in Glasgow."

What Griffin means by "intellectual exposure" is the rapidly growing phenomenon known as 'The Book Group'. A movement that originated in the States - aided and abetted by the larger-than-life Oprah Winfrey, whose Book Club choices can turn fledgling authors in multi-millionaires - has been gaining ground over here too. One academic has already published a survey of more than 300 book groups in the UK, and stars like Dawn French have recently been praising the concept to the skies.

Now, Channel Four has invested (pounds) 1million and handed over its Friday night prime-time slot to a Glasgow-set comedy about that very subject. Worried that both its format - "a modern-day satire" - and its topic might be a little too "highbrow" for a late-night slot, they are actively talking the series up as a British answer to Friends and Frasier, which quite suits American-born Griffin. With one comedy drama series, Coming Soon, about a group of wannabe actors, already under her belt, The Book Group is a huge opportunity for Griffin to write about her own experiences as "an American abroad". It also allows for a few digs at Glasgow's more traditional, but of course, no less sweet attitudes.

"My mother's a scientist and has always worked," Griffin says, beginning to laugh. "So it's strange to me to be in a place where men can call women "birds". And the kind of "get dressed up for your man" thing among people I know very well is a little odd. There's a kind of old-fashionedness in it - although the most amazing, strong, articulate women I know are Scottish. Scots women are not shy and retiring by any means, but sometimes it does feel like the Fifties."

Having one's cultural and national tics dragged into the limelight for a spot of critical analysis is never a comfortable experience. But involuntary exposure - whether intellectual or not - and comedy have always been good, Freudian bedfellows. Whether it's plundering that common nightmare of standing in the street naked, or unmasking a fake and a phoney, comedy has always loved a good expose.

But to be revealed at our most vulnerable also has a good whack of dramatic potential too, and that aspect of The Book Group was never far from Griffin's mind. "My feeling has always been that there's a huge amount at stake when you say what you think about a book. For some people that can be scarier than bungee-jumping or taking your clothes off. It's much more revealing for people. I thought it was a very dramatic situation, especially for people who weren't comfortable with, or didn't usually talk about, books."

To that end, Griffin has assembled a motley crew of characters for her new comedy series. Five people respond to an advert for a book group placed by a feisty, but lonely, young American woman living in Glasgow. Her aim is to meet people, but offering your home up as a book-group space means you don't get to choose exactly whom you meet.

Soon, her flat is filled with one ned in a tracksuit who's possibly never read in his life; three bored footballers' wives two of whom don't have English as their first language and prefer making tea to talking about books; Barney, an obnoxious but good-looking PhD student; and Kenny, wheelchair-bound and the first visitor to the flat, delivered by his two brothers. The three men silently look around them when they arrive. "I'm sorry," announces our heroine at the men gathered in her hallway. "But as a single woman it's uncomfortable for me to have three strange men in my apartment, so I'll have to ask two of you to leave."

That fear of strange men might be a natural concern for a woman to voice in New York State, but here in Glasgow we just don't do things like that. Such transatlantic misconceptions are fodder for Griffin, eager as she is to make the most of our common language but not-so- common understanding.

"When my family comes over from the States, there's that thing about not being able to understand people, and it's your fault, of course that we can't understand you," she laughs. "I'll hear Americans at the airport speaking in front of Scottish people saying, 'I can't understand a word he's saying, what is he talking about?' as if the world exists to be comprehensible to them, not the other way round."

Making yourself comprehensible to the world - and by extension, your comedy too - has been part of Griffin's life for some time.

She first came to Scotland at the end of 1997 from London, where she had lived as a student from the age of 18. With her came her production company, Pirate Productions, and she has been here ever since.

"I was just going to give it a go and see how the first winter went," she says, "but I knew pretty much that it was good to be here." Not unlike her home town of Buffalo in New York State, bordering Canada at Niagara Falls, which was also a once-grand base for heavy industry and in much need of a new identity.

The similarities between Buffalo and Glasgow have meant that she finds Glaswegian humour and Glaswegians themselves not unlike the folks back home. "Buffalo is quite proud. It has a chip on its shoulder, but the people are very friendly, very funny. I felt quite at home here." Shooting film in Scotland was a plus too, she says "the expertise here is very high and they make it very easy for you to shoot scenes in city spaces".

After making documentaries for television companies, Griffin intended to move on to drama and possibly a scripted drama series. "Instead, I ended up doing a fictional documentary like Spinal Tap, and some people at Channel Four saw it. At that time, their entertainment department was looking for new talent, so I sent them a script and that was the beginning of Coming Soon."

Winding up doing comedy may not have been Griffin's intention - "I'm not really that focused on whether something's funny or not - lots of people in comedy are obsessed with the 'gag' and not the bigger picture. I'm much more interested in character," - but she displays a natural understanding of it.

"I think you laugh because of recognition," she says. "And the pleasure of characters who dare to say things you wouldn't dream of saying. There are all sorts of reasons that you laugh and sometimes it's just getting the juxtaposition of something right. But what you enjoy is what is happening to the characters, the extreme things that happen to them within quite simple situations like a book group."

Having been to a few book groups herself in the States, Griffin felt knowledgeable enough about them to construct a comedy scenario based around them. "I think I did have it in my mind to start one once," she says. "You do get into that frame of mind where you think, wouldn't it be good to talk about that book with other people. Or if I was going to a book group, then I would read that book that looks so boring but everyone's talking about it."

It might not be everyone's idea of a naturally comic situation, but they reckon without Griffin's light touch and instinctive understanding of human interaction, it's fair to say that not all book groups will ever be quite as funny as this oneu The Book Group will be shown on Channel 4 at 9.30pm on Friday

Copyright 2002
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