Help (UK TV series)

Help is a BBC television comedy series first screened on BBC Two in 2005. Written by and starring Paul Whitehouse and Chris Langham, it concerns a psychotherapist (Langham) and his therapy sessions with a variety of patients almost all played by Whitehouse.

Peter Strong, the diffident psychologist, has an obsession with his receptionist Rebecca (played by Alison King) and also has regular appointments with his own therapist (who is also played by Whitehouse), which is the only time when the scene leaves Peter's office. The other performers in the series were Mark Williams and Olivia Colman in cameos as patients, Alison Senior as a patient's wife, and Langham's real-life daughter Emily as a patient's prodigious daughter. The two most frequent patients were Gary (the only role Whitehouse plays with no make-up), who initially uses his therapy sessions to escape from his wife; and Monty, an elderly Jewish taxi driver whose wife is suffering from Alzeimer's disease. The show was released on Region 4 DVD, but has so far remained unreleased in the UK.

In 2007 the development of Pedro, a character in the proposed second series - which was never made - became a focal point of Langham's trial.

A Swedish version of Help has been produced. Two seasons of the series has been aired and a third season is planned to air during 2009. The psychologist Jeanette Plaszczyk is played by Stina Ekblad, the receptionists Papa Papadopolous and Filippa Bark has been played by Robert Gustafsson and Sissela Benn respectively and Jeanette's patients has been played by various actors, including Johan Rheborg as the very aggressive Örjan, Sissela Kyle as the paranoiac hairdresser Mona and Johan Glans as the suicidal control-freak Reine.

External links

• Help at the Internet Movie Database