How Not To Live Your Life
| How Not to Live Your Life | |
|---|---|
Title card from Series 3
|
|
| Genre | Situation comedy |
| Created by | Dan Clark |
| Written by | Dan Clark |
| Directed by | Dan Clark (Series One) |
| Starring | Dan Clark David Armand Leila Hoffman Laura Haddock |
| Opening theme | "How Not To Live Your Life" by Ben Parker |
| Ending theme | "Ending Theme" by Dan Clark |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 20 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) |
Dan Clark Gary Reich |
| Running time | 35 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network |
BBC Three and BBC HD BBC Two (repeats) |
| Original release | 27 September 2007 – 22 December 2011 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
How Not to Live Your Life (styled in the opening credits as "how NOT to live your life") was a British sitcom, written by and starring Dan Clark that aired between 27 September 2007 and 22 December 2011 on BBC Three, about a neurotic twenty-nine-year-old man who is trying to navigate his way through life but is not helped by his bad instincts. After a pilot, the show debuted in 2008 with moderate ratings but grew over the course of the three series, doubling its ratings each series because of its cult following. The third series got viewing figures of 1.5 million across the week and was the second most watched show on BBC iPlayer. When BBC Three controller Danny Cohen left the channel, new controller Zai Bennett cancelled several comedies, including How Not to Live Your Life.
In 2006, Clark was commissioned to write two short comedies for Paramount Comedy 1 – Dan Clark's Guide to Dating and Dan Clark's Guide to Working, both of which he co-wrote with Gary Reich. Clark was the main character in both shows, and Isabel Fay appeared in Dan Clark's Guide to Dating, which was shown as ten one-minute clips on the channel, with lists of ten things people shouldn't do on a date, such as "Ten things you shouldn't wear on a date". The clips began to appear on the Internet and the BBC approached him about doing a 30-minute show in the same format. The result was the pilot for How Not to Live Your Life, using the same style of short clips within a traditional sitcom. The pilot was filmed in a real house in London and first aired on BBC Three on 27 September 2007.
The pilot featured a number of actors who did not appear as regular characters in the series – Sally Bretton, Rich Fulcher, Claire Keelan and Bruce Mackinnon. Although, Isabel Fay who also appeared in the pilot was in the final episode of the first series, "The Break Up", as Fiona. The BBC then commissioned a full series, which was filmed in a studio in Glasgow. Clark wrote each episode and directed four episodes. The first series started broadcasting on BBC Three on 12 August 2008 with the first episode, "Home Sweet Home", which introduces the four main characters of Don, Abby, Karl and Eddie. BBC Three showed the first series on Tuesday evenings at 10:30pm.
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