The world was a different place when Graham Linehan’s IT Crowd, which turned to IT support for comedy inspiration, was first broadcast by Channel 4. But last week, Channel 4 told Linehan they would be turning off one of his episodes and not turning it back on again. The Speech, originally shown in December 2008, which features the well-known ‘internet in a box’ plot, also includes a transwoman and – worse – makes light of the situation.
In brief, sex-crazed Douglas Reynholm falls for April Shepherd, a journalist who is writing a feature about him. When she tells him ‘she used to be a man’, Reynholm thinks she ‘used to be from Iran’. This isn’t a problem for Reynholm – ‘I don’t care where you‘re from; I’m very modern,’ he later boasts – and their passion for each other overflows. When he finally does learn the truth, his insecurities take over and the episode ends in comic violence as April gives as good as she gets.
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