Martin Dennis is a sitcom director who gives physical jokes room alongside the dialogue. Black Books makes the case for his careful handling of an ensemble, though its appetite for exaggeration sometimes needs curbing.
Fi1m perspective
A physical joke in Black Books (2000) gets enough time to be seen, even when the behaviour has become absurd. That is a useful way into Martin Dennis’s work: actors need space, but the audience also needs to know where to look. We rate him as an assured ensemble director, with a reservation about how far he lets the silliness go. We laughed at the sight gags in particular because Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Greig’s physical business is so easy to follow.
His sustained work with Hartswood Films includes Men Behaving Badly (1992) and all four series of Coupling (2000). Dennis joined Black Books for series two and three; Linehan and Nick Wood also hold directing credits on the programme. We should not give one director sole credit for a series whose pleasures are so plainly shared.
In Black Books, cinematographers John Rosenberg and Andy Hollis make the physical business readable. Dennis De Groot’s production design gives even the least plausible behaviour somewhere convincing to happen. Editors Nick Ames and Paul Machliss allow a visual gag the time it needs, while recognising that a spoken line asks for a different rhythm. Jonathan Whitehead’s music joins in the silliness without drawing attention away from the actors. This is careful work, and it helps explain why the programme offers more than a succession of insults.
The trouble comes when exaggeration is expected to sustain a scene by itself. Black Books sometimes pushes a situation further when it would be better to let the characters have a fresh conversation. Moran’s delivery can become the thing we wait for, at the expense of the exchange already happening. Dennis shares responsibility for that broadness, though it would be unfair to pretend every excess belongs to him.
Later assignments include Friday Night Dinner, which he directed from 2012 to 2020, and two series of The Goes Wrong Show (2019–2021). Those later credits keep him close to the ensemble comedy that suits him. Start with Black Books, but there is no need to watch the whole lot in one sitting.
Biography
Martin Dennis is a Canadian-born British television director specialising in situation comedy.
He directed series two and three of Black Books (2002–2004), for which he won the BAFTA award for situation comedy in 2005. He has also directed Coupling (2000–2004), Men Behaving Badly (1992–1998), 'Allo 'Allo! (1987–1989), Friday Night Dinner (2012–2020) and The Goes Wrong Show (2019–2021).
Dennis graduated from the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham. He joined the BBC in 1980 as a runner and later worked as a production manager before directing.
