Steve Delaney revives his Radio 4 creation for television, relocating the pompous, toupee-topped Count from Doncaster to a north-London greasy spoon where he holds court over cappuccino foam and his own imaginary spotlight. Opposite him, Rory Kinnear’s Michael Baker, timid son of the Count’s late double-act partner, mines Arthur’s mangled memories for a biography that will never be finished. The café staff and pensionable regulars—Chris Ryman’s permanently furious Turkish owner Bulent, Zahra Ahmadi’s sly sister Sinem, Andy Linden’s cryptic John the Watch, Dave Plimmer’s egg-obsessed placard man—serve as captive audience to Arthur’s daily campaigns for free meals, foot-spa sales and show-business resurrection, all achieved through weaponised misquotation and selective amnesia.
Graham Linehan directs the studio-audience sitcom with the same clockwork-farce timing he brought to Father Ted, letting every malaprop detonate twice: once when Arthur spouts it, again when the room realises what he’s said. The plots are feather-light—lost laundry, a clapped-out hypnotism show, a disastrous stint as a film extra—but the pleasure is linguistic, as Arthur turns “biography” into “boil-in-the-bag” and “memoir” into “memory foam”, always blaming someone else for the confusion.
Three series aired between 2013 and 2017 on BBC Two then BBC One, earning Delaney and Linehan a BAFTA craft nomination for writing and the show a cult status anchored in pub-quotes rather than ratings. The DVD of series one was recalled for a mastering fault; the box set remains the easiest way to watch Arthur mistake “streaming” for a plumbing emergency and declare himself “the Cecil B. DeMille of coffee”. The Count’s phone never rings with that comeback offer, but his delusion stays dialled to eleven.
Production Details
BBC One / 3 Seasons / 20 Episodes / 2013
Created by: Graham Linehan, Steve Delaney
Writer(s): Steve Delaney Graham Linehan
Producer(s): Richard Boden
Main Cast
Steve Delaney as Count Arthur Strong
Rory Kinnear as Michael Baker
Chris Ryman as Bulent
Zahra Ahmadi as Sinem
Andy Linden as John the Watch
Oliver Dimsdale as Simon
Theo Barklem-Biggs as Antony
Lindsay Duncan as Dame Agnes
Ralph Ineson as Roger the Policeman
Jeremy Swift as Colin
Sarah Finigan as Woman 1
Guy Henry as Psychiatrist
