BAFTA award winning Irish director Declan Lowney talks to IFTN about his latest project ‘Help’, starring Paul Whitehouse (The Fast Show) and Chris Langham (Kiss Me Kate) that has just begun its run on BBC 2 with rave reviews.

Wexford man Lowney has had an astoundingly successful career to date working on various feature, television and commercial projects. Now permanently based in the UK, Declan specialises in comedy and music with credits that include ‘Father Ted’, ‘Cold Feet’, ‘Live at Glastonbury’, ‘Eddie Izzard – Sexie’ and the feature length films ‘Wild About Harry’ and ‘Cruise of The Gods.’

‘Help’ is a brand new 6 part comedy series about psychotherapy which sees Paul Whitehouse play 35 different characters receiving therapy from psychologist Peter, played by Chris Langham. Lowney is thrilled with the reception ‘Help’ has garnered since the first episode aired on BBC2 last Sunday night. “It’s been going down very well over here in the UK, the reviews are fantastic,” he says.

Having previously worked with Whitehouse in 2003 on the Best Comedy BAFTA nominated series ‘Happiness’, Lowney was pleased to reunite with the successful team. “I worked with Paul before on ‘Happiness’ and we had a great working relationship on that so from there he asked me to come in and direct Help, Paul Whitehouse is a national treasure over here so they really love him.”

With the show based upon just two actors on screen and shot entirely in one studio location, we asked Declan if this was an especially easy shoot for the experienced director. “Well it was basically two people talking in a room which made my life very easy” he laughs, “but also there was a challenge there because I had to figure out how do you make that interesting and I think it worked.”

The series is an in-house production for the BBC produced by Jane Berthoud, executive produced by Sophie Clarke-Jervoise with Whitehouse and Langham on board as associate producers. Shot in studio for six weeks, working four days a week, Lowney contends it was one of the best times he has had on a production.

“Paul is fantastic to work with. He’s so creative and organic. He takes up new ideas, directions and suggestions and runs with them. Like the carpenter on set was from Northern Ireland, Paul started taking off his accent and mimicking him a bit and then that character ended up in the show.”

Lowney was especially impressed with Whitehouse’s ability to convincingly play 35 different characters over such a small period of time: “Imagine the amount of make-up time for 35 characters?” says Lowney. “His range of accents and voices are enormous. He really is a fantastic guy to work with and to remember all that script, amazing.”

The series is written by Whitehouse and Langham but Lowney says making the series was very much a collaborative process for the production team. Before cameras started rolling, there was a two week rehearsal period where Lowney shot and roughly edited scenes on HI 8 to see what worked on screen.

With another successful series under his belt Declan has no plans to put his feet up. He is already prepping his next shoot for an ongoing gig with the popular Daz Soap Opera television advertisements and looks forward to the opportunity to work on a second series of ‘Help’. Also, he is currently in talks to direct the next series of cult comedy hit ‘Little Britain’ with Matt Lucas and David Walliams. “Comedy seems to be where I have found my niche, ever since Father Ted. It does follow me around a bit but it has also opened a lot of doors for me. That show has been great for all involved in it and I’m really looking forward to the year ahead.”

‘Help’ is screening from the 27th of February to the 3rd of April 2005. BBC2 Sunday at 9.30pm.

By Tanya Warren.