Richard Ayoade’s dry delivery makes him worth seeking out, particularly as the socially awkward Moss in The IT Crowd. The reservation is with writing that keeps a weak joke going after the performance has made its point.
Fi1m perspective
Richard Ayoade turns up as Sergio in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme (2025), and the dryness is immediately recognisable. We laughed at that delivery, one of the pleasures in a film too often occupied with the next meeting. It is a small pleasure in a film we like with reservations, rather than a reason to pretend the whole thing works. Ayoade can make an individual sketch funny without making a succession of sketches feel like a story.
His early television work put him among performers willing to give peculiar ideas plenty of time. He co-created Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004), writing, directing and performing, and appeared as Saboo in The Mighty Boosh (2004). We recommend The Mighty Boosh for Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding’s partnership and the warmth of its fantasy. But its writing, credited to Barratt, Fielding and Ayoade, sometimes gives a weak idea the same patient attention as a good one. Ayoade shares responsibility for those overextended passages; affection for funny performers should not prevent a scene from ending.
Graham Linehan’s The IT Crowd (2006–2013) gave him his breakthrough as Maurice Moss, a socially awkward IT technician whose intelligence offers little help with other people. The part was written specifically for him, which makes sense of how closely the character fits his comic manner. Writing and directing Submarine (2010) and The Double (2013) took him into features behind the camera. Presenting and voice work have since accompanied occasional acting, so this is not a career built around a steady succession of leading parts.
Anderson makes good use of that dryness in The Phoenician Scheme, even if Ayoade’s appearance cannot repair the film’s stop-start construction. We would happily see him given more to do, with writing that does not rely entirely on our pleasure at recognising him. His contribution is welcome, but the material still needs to earn its running time. Start with Moss; come to The Mighty Boosh prepared to forgive a few minutes that its writers should have cut.
Biography
Richard Ayoade is a British actor, comedian, writer and director. He was born on 23 May 1977 in Hammersmith, London, to a Norwegian mother and a Nigerian father, and grew up in Suffolk. He studied law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he served as president of the Footlights.
Ayoade is best known for playing Maurice Moss in the Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (2006–2013), for which he received a BAFTA Television Award. He has directed the feature films Submarine (2010) and The Double (2013), and appeared in films including The Watch (2012), Paddington 2 (2017) and The Phoenician Scheme (2025), in which he plays Sergio. He has also provided voice work in animated films such as Soul (2020) and The Bad Guys (2022), and has presented television series including Travel Man and The Crystal Maze.
