Mutual Friends
Alexander Armstrong plays Patrick Turner
Writer Anil Gupta describes Patrick as "the anti-Martin, 40 going on 23.
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"Patrick is one of those men for whom everything just seems to work out. He effortlessly cruises through life, getting girls, money, success without really trying.
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"His natural charm, wit and insouciance have enabled him to avoid confronting adult responsibility almost entirely.
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"When the bubble bursts he has none of the emotional tools required to deal with it.鈥
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He continues: "Alexander Armstrong has a wonderful, effortless, natural charm and a Tigger-ish enthusiasm for everything, which immediately suggested Patrick to us.
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"He is also a fantastic comedian and knows how to work off another performer to maximum comic effect. He and Marc make a great double act."
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Alexander is probably best known as one half of the hit sketch show Armstrong And Miller along with Ben Miller, whom he met in 1992 at Cambridge University.
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The duo were reunited last autumn for the first time in seven years in their critically-acclaimed and Bafta-nominated new sketch show from Hat Trick for 麻豆约拍 One.
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A second series goes into production later this year.
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Xander also co-starred opposite Caroline Quentin as the put-upon husband in all three series of the ITV drama Life Begins and has made 11 appearances (more than anyone else) as guest host on the satirical panel show Have I Got News For You.
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Xander had a ball playing Patrick.
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He says: "He's one of those people who's kidding himself that he's still in his early twenties.
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"He hasn't embraced adulthood and is slightly baffled, I think, by those of his contemporaries who have.
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"He's still very happy to be sleeping with three different women a week 鈥 it doesn't bother him at all 鈥 while his friends have all settled down and had children.
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"But for all that, he is a cock-eyed optimist and has great charm.
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"He loves grand gestures and big audiences, the sort of person who people will like in the way they like Jeremy Clarkson 鈥 they know publicly that they shouldn't, but secretly they enjoy his irreverence."
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He continues: "He's a positive force and isn't embittered by his entrenchment into permanent late adolescence.
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"I think he's a figure of fun and envy amongst his friends.
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"Envy because he's managed to have conspicuous success with his catalogue business, with lots of material possessions and the freedom to do just what he wants.
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"He has a flash E-Type Jaguar convertible that he speeds around in and he always has some willowy girl on his arm.
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"But I think he is also an object of pity, someone they feel hasn't really faced up to real life.
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"So he brings a dash of colour into their lives, but they don't really take him very seriously.
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"He is brazen, has a fabulous turn of phrase and an appalling sense of occasion, childish and petulant but very appealing.
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"He appeals to the inner child in us all, making us slightly envious.
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"His male friends won't admit to their friends 鈥 and certainly to their wives 鈥 that they envy him, but they can also look virtuous beside him.
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"It is as if he is doubly, splendidly deluded."
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He adds: "He has an absurd relationship with his ex-fianc茅e Liz, played by Sarah Alexander.
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"He walked out on her in a childish commitment-phobe style, but he's so cool that she kind of forgives him and can't bear a grudge 鈥 she understands him better than anyone."
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Xander feels that the relationship between Patrick and Martin is the motor of the piece.
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He says: "Martin's about to be booted out of his law firm as he is not bringing in enough business, whilst Patrick is about to be booted out of the mail-order clothing company he works for, for being a dilettante.
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"Harry Seed, his original financial backer, is putting in all the effort, whilst Patrick swans aimlessly around being creative in his E-Type Jag.
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"He's soon desperate for a lawyer and although Martin would rather not do the job, they need each other on both a personal and professional level.
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"When Martin is also booted out of his home, Patrick 鈥 who is trying to hold onto his bachelor lifestyle 鈥 makes him play Wii games, pool and golf."
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Xander is interested in the comparisons with the feature film Sideways.
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He says: "Of course in that film the Jack the Lad is on the point of settling down, and I think there is actually a hint of that in Patrick, too.
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"For the first time he finds himself surprised to be regretful at breaking up with this lovely, feisty girl Liz, who he was with for some time and who his evil partner from the catalogue has since started to see.
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"Patrick and Liz had bought a flat together and she has somewhere buried in her knicker drawer an engagement ring that he brought for her.
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"So he has committed once in his life to being engaged, but it's a bit like one of those footballer engagements really, where there's never a date set 鈥 it's largely a contract with a jeweller rather than with a civil authority!
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"One suspects that Liz probably hurried it along a bit and felt that he was dragging his feet, and he suddenly felt terribly claustrophobic and a bit too grown-up and so he's backed off.
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"There are some telling moments in the story where you can tell he's extremely attracted to Liz so maybe there is a dawning encroachment of adulthood possible!"
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Xander recognises Patrick's behaviour in some of his own friends.
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He says: "I don't know any who are still unmarried but I know a lot who are in their late thirties and fit that sort of bill.
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"They are usually slightly wayward entrepreneurial types, the flash sorts who made their early money in nightclubs. Those awful people who had flashy cars when the rest of us were in our Fiestas!"
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Bearing that in mind, does it worry Xander that he was considered suitable for the role?
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"No, I was delighted, and immensely flattered.
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"Interestingly enough, when I gave my wife an early version of this script to read, she automatically assumed that I wasn't playing the womanising Patrick but the slightly downtrodden Martin, which I'm quite glad about!"
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He adds: "It's great fun playing Patrick because he does have this wonderful, blithe manner 鈥 he's so convinced that a good word here or there will sort out all ills and because he's so convinced of this, it actually works.
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"He has this fantastic way of talking to people who have just been bitching about him and saying 'God you look fabulous, wow and I would love you to be involved in this modelling thing for my catalogue' and women are left primping their hair and touching their cheekbones.
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"He actually manages to diffuse situations with a certain amount of bluff and charm but there is the overriding sense that Patrick will always be going home to an empty bachelor flat 鈥 albeit possibly with someone's au pair.鈥
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Whilst Patrick has a long-standing friendship with Martin, his relationship with his wife, Jen, is altogether more fraught.
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Xander says: "There's a real antipathy between them. She's the only person who really, really can't stand Patrick.
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"Of course, everyone can see through him, but they tend to think he's quite charming and relatively harmless 鈥 and at least he's colourful and makes their lives more interesting, but she seems to think that he's a bit of a cad.
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"Whether there's something in the offing or in the distant past, we'll find out.
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"Either way, we are an unlikely group of people thrown together by the shared experience of having been at university together.
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"I think it's a lovely idea that it's a study of principally male bonding; men who had that time together in the past and have kept in touch despite going off in very different directions.
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"That doesn't seem to be an area that's been tapped into much on British television drama."
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Last year, Xander became a father to his first child, Rex, an experience which has changed his outlook on life.
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He says: "It's extraordinary, really. When we were filming the scene with all the children playing at the party, I found myself tuned into a certain child frequency.
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"And that made it all the more fun to play Patrick because he hasn't got a clue where children are concerned.
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"There's a lovely moment when he's talking to Martin and Jen's eight-year-old son, Dan, and he's asking him what he likes and says: 'Tractors? Trains? Probably a bit early for girls?'
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"There is one scene which became a bit of a family affair; Martin has an awful paranoid fantasy when he and Jen are finding it hard to conceive.
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"He's had a sperm test and been told it's sub-optimum, so he imagines Jen and Carl surrounded by happy, gurgling babies, such is Carl's fertility.
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"My son, Rex, Sarah's son, Sam, and producer Rob Bullock's newest arrival, daughter Cecily, are all in the scene, which was really good fun to watch!"
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With a second series of his hit sketch show with Ben Miller going into production this autumn, Xander is thoroughly enjoying taking on the challenge of both comic and dramatic roles.
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He says: "They're very different projects and pretty good complements actually.
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"With Mutual Friends I have enjoyed getting into and developing my character.
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"With the sketch show, you end up playing lots of different parts and dabbling in all sorts of things, but the downside of that of course is that you suddenly find that you really enjoyed that one part specifically and that's it, just one page, whereas with this part there's the chance to bed in and perhaps have a bit more of a story arc.
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"And long may the variety of the parts I'm offered continue!"
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He concludes: "Patrick and Martin are the odd couple and there are lots of lovely open-ended questions about the pair of them.
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"It's a big bran tub from a story point of view. You just want to keep on digging in deeper.
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"The story is full of little hooks, so many strands that you're going to want to see the outcome right up to the very last scene and the very last line!
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"It is an edgy series with shades of Mike Bullen, creator of Cold Feet, drawing gentle dramas out of life.
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"It is very compelling, moving and funny.
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"There's everything 鈥 birth, marriages and death, suicide, the whole lot.
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"It's riven with potential tragedy but upbeat and relentlessly funny."
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