Nathan Barley is a British Channel 4 television sitcom written by Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris, starring Nicholas Burns, Julian Barratt, Claire Keelan, Richard Ayoade, Ben Whishaw, Rhys Thomas and Charlie Condou. The series of six weekly episodes began broadcasting on 11 February 2005 on Channel 4.
"I'm a self-facilitating media node"
Nathan Barley
According to Digital Spy, Nathan Barley was “a flop when it originally aired, but a cult hit on DVD”. It pulled in 700,000 viewers and a 3% share.[4]
The series features a (nowadays) famous cast such as:
- Nicholas Burns – Nathan Barley
- Julian Barratt – Dan Ashcroft
- Claire Keelan – Claire Ashcroft
- Richard Ayoade – Ned Smanks
- Ben Whishaw – Pingu
- Rhys Thomas – Toby
- Noel Fielding – Jones
- Spencer Brown – Rufus Onslatt
- Charlie Condou – Jonatton Yeah?
- David Hoyle – Doug Rocket
- Nina Sosanya – Sasha
- Kevin Eldon – Nikolai the Barber
- Julia Davis – Honda Poppet
- Benedict Cumberbatch – Robin
Nathan Barley, played by Nicholas Burns, is a webmaster, guerrilla filmmaker, screenwriter, DJ and in his own words, a “self-facilitating media node”. Whilst desperate to convince himself and others that he is the epitome of urban cool, Nathan is secretly terrified he might not be, which is why he reads Sugar Ape magazine, his bible of cool.
The website (trashbat.co.ck) consists of stupid pranks caught on camera, photos of him with attractive women and famous figures (some of them digitally edited to insert himself), and photos of him standing on street corners in major cities around the world.
The humour derives from the rapid rise of both the Internet and digital media, and the assumption by publishers and broadcasters that almost any such work is worthy of attention. Barley and his peers are often hired ahead of actual journalists and talented writers trying to make intelligent points, such as the earnest documentary film maker Claire Ashcroft, and her brother Dan Ashcroft, a jaded, opinionated and apathetic hack who, having written an article for Sugar Ape entitled “The Rise of the Idiots”, is appalled to find that “the idiots” in question – Nathan and his contemporaries – have adopted him as their spiritual leader, failing to see that they are the very people he was criticising.
