Lead Balloon

Lead Balloon
Lead Balloon Series 1 title card. The misspelling of "balloon" was a genuine mistake by director Alex Hardcastle.
Genre	Situation comedy
Created by	Jack Dee Pete Sinclair
Directed by	Alex Hardcastle
Starring	Jack Dee Raquel Cassidy Sean Power Anna Crilly Antonia Campbell-Hughes Tony Gardner Rasmus Hardiker
Ending theme	"One Way Road" by Paul Weller/Written by Noel Gallagher
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	27 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Addison Cresswell Andrew Beint Lucy Lumsden
Producer(s)	Alex Hardcastle
Editor(s)	Russell Beeden
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	approx. 29 mins. per episode
Release
Original network	BBC Four (2006) BBC Two (2007 - 2011)
Picture format	1080i HDTV
Original release	4 October 2006 – 5 July 2011
External links
Website

Lead Balloon is a British television series produced by Open Mike Productions for BBC Four. The series was created and is co-written by comedian Jack Dee and Pete Sinclair. It stars Dee as Rick Spleen (Formally Rick Shaw), a cynical and misanthropic comedian whose life is plagued by petty annoyances, disappointments and embarrassments. Raquel Cassidy, Sean Power and Tony Gardner also star. The first series of six episodes was broadcast on BBC Four in 2006, with the first episode achieving the highest ratings for a comedy on the channel. Repeats of the series were run on BBC Two and BBC HD, bringing it to a larger audience. The second series of eight episodes aired on BBC Two from November 2007; the third series aired from November 2008; and the final series aired from 31 May 2011 until 5 July.

Comparisons were made by critics to the successful American comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm, and positive comments were made about Lead Balloon's characters, particularly Magda, the Eastern European housekeeper. The first series was released on DVD in November 2007. The show's theme tune is a cover version of "One Way Road", written by Noel Gallagher and performed by Paul Weller.

The genesis of the series came towards the end of recording the 2005 series of Jack Dee Live at the Apollo, when Dee speculated as to whether his experiences of "witless" interviews could be turned into a television programme. Following a meeting with his agent, in which he turned down the lead role in a series, Dee began writing the character that would become Rick Spleen. He focused the writing on Spleen's domestic life, rather than his professional, but did highlight the clash between the two. A pilot, commissioned by BBC Four and recorded in December 2005, received positive feedback and led to a full series of six 30-minute episodes being ordered in January 2006 for broadcast later in the year.