List of The IT Crowd characters

The following is a list of fictional characters from the Graham Linehan British Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd.

Roy is an easy-going, work-shy Irish IT technician who spends most of his time playing video games, reading comics or just slacking off in the office. His work attire is very casual compared to his colleagues; choosing to wear jeans and geek chic T-shirts. Prior to his IT job, he worked as a waiter, where he said he would carry the food of rude customers in his trousers before serving it to them. Whenever he answers phone calls, he often uses the phrase "Have you tried turning it off and on again?", that he has even placed it on an automated recording in "Fifty-Fifty", and made a wager with Jen that he would not say it in the episode "Bad Boys". The series 4 episodes reveal Roy to have globophobia (fear of balloons) and being extremely uncomfortable when a masseur planted a kiss on his bottom. In the episode special "The Internet Is Coming", Roy's new girlfriend remarks he is "emotionally artistic" although it is later revealed she might have meant emotionally autistic.

Roy's last name was not given in the first three series. Following the broadcast of the episode "The Speech" in 2008, Linehan blogged a graphic showing Roy's last name as Tenneman, and later changed the spelling to Trenneman for the broadcast of the series 4 episode "Something Happened" in 2010. Roy's immediate family members do not appear in the series, but in the episode "Aunt Irma Visits", he finds the resemblance of Moss's psychiatrist to his own mother disturbing.

In the documentary "The IT Crowd Manual", Roy is described as a worker who is doing something so beneath his capabilities. O'Dowd said that Roy is slightly more capable of talking to people than Moss, but is still a man-child, slightly socially inept. Critic Boyd Hilton said that Roy thinks he's on the cool edge of nerdiness. Author Cory Doctorow said that Roy's snark and misanthropy is bang-on for a certain tribe of nerds. Regarding his friendship with Moss, O'Dowd said that it's like they met in college; Linehan likened the two to 14-year-olds who like spending time with each other. Linehan said he originally thought the role should not be played by an Irish person, but that O'Dowd was amazing and the best man for the job. Ayoade said that O'Dowd was a good actor, and liked that he could choose what level of nasal to do in some of his expressions. Linehan also liked how O'Dowd would exceed in his physical performance as demonstrated in the episode where he pretended to be disabled.

...
Wikipedia