The 'Still Up' Producers On Romcoms & the Value of a Good Slow Burn

The first season of Still Up – a London-set romantic comedy with an unexpected, ultra-contemporary twist – completed its eight-episode run on AppleTV+ at the end of October 2023. The friends-to-lovers slow burn about insomniac besties Lisa (Antonia Thomas) and Danny (Craig Roberts) pulls off a remarkable trick, putting at its center two protagonists with chemistry to burn but who spend so much time video chatting through FaceTime™ that they don’t even appear in the same physical space until the season finale. Many complications lie between the central couple and their eventual realization that they should be a couple, including living at opposite ends of a megacity, significant others of varying degrees of significance, Danny’s agoraphobia, and Lisa’s near-wilful ignorance of her own feelings for Danny.

Comedy veterans Steve Burge (writer for Seekers) and Natalie Walter (co-star of series as varied as I May Destroy You, The Thin Blue Line, and Horrible Histories) drew on their own experiences as insomniacs for the series premise. I spoke with Executive Producers Paul Schlesinger (Twenty Twelve, The Windsors, Funny Woman), Phil Clarke (Peep Show, Toast of London, I May Destroy You), and Producer Arabella McGuigan (Hounslow Diaries, Twisted Tales) about how they found their way from working on edgier comedies to embracing Still Up’s unabashedly sweet, emotionally messy heart.