Stephen Mangan: 'We need books about the grief of losing your parents'

“I must have a funny face, I suppose,” says Stephen Mangan. Despite a career that has shot in all sorts of directions – thesp, author, presenter, “serious” star of Abi Morgan’s glossy divorce-lawyer drama The Split – he is still thought of as a comic. “People could call me worse things.”

Mangan, now 55, has brought to life some of the greatest British comic characters ever written – from the pretentious diary writer Adrian Mole, who was his breakout TV role in 2001, to Bertie Wooster, whom he played on stage in 2013. But for many, he’s still best known as the arrogant Guy Secretan in the cult comedy Green Wing. 

A particularly British take on the hospital sitcom, Green Wing blended a surreal filming style and black humour to provide an unsentimental portrayal of the NHS. It only ran for two series and ended in 2006, but people still love it – so much so it recently made a surprise return as a 20th-anniversary podcast on Audible. Doctors, especially, still love it, Mangan says. “They’ll tell me that it’s the most accurate description of hospital life. Which is a bit worrying for everybody.”

As a cheerily obnoxious, womanising anaesthetist who never wanted to take no for an answer, Guy is the sort of character who probably wouldn’t get written today. “Which would be a shame,” Mangan says. “Of course he’s an absolute grade-A arsehole – but that was what was so funny about him. And that’s why he was so much fun to play. Oh god, I loved it.”

Mangan’s right about his funny face. A big grin and wide eyes help animate whatever he’s talking about. And on screen and stage, he blends a slightly hapless physical goofiness with a quick wit.

This inherent affability brings us to his latest venture, The Fortune Hotel, the ITV strategy game show that sees pairs of contestants compete to be the last guests holding a suitcase of £250,000 at a swanky hotel in Grenada. After competing in challenges, contestants swap cases – trying to find the money, or hide that they have the money… or at least not get sent home by ending up holding the “early check-out” card. Think The Traitors meets Deal or No Deal, with a Love Island-worthy backdrop.

So, I ask, channelling my inner Mrs Merton, what first attracted you to hosting a game show in the Caribbean? Mangan smiles. “Yeah, it is a bit ‘what attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels isn’t it?’ A month in Grenada… you don’t need to be asked twice.”

But Mangan really does loves a game show – and The Fortune Hotel is part of a particularly compelling new breed, blending the interpersonal dramas of reality TV with the tension and tactics of a strategy game. “Some people are brilliant liars, which is fascinating to watch,” says Mangan, “and other people are terrible at it.”

I can confirm the format is addictive. It’s fun to watch the contestants crack under the pressure of trying to win a quarter of a million quid with their spouse/parent/best mate. “You see them in their hotel room afterwards going, ‘What were you thinking?!’” says Mangan, with some glee.

We seem to be in a boom moment for game shows – once seen as rather naff staples of the schedule, they’ve become water-cooler chat-worthy again thanks to Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel, The Traitors, Squid Game: The Challenge and the Gladiators revival. 

“It’s interesting how TV goes through phases like that,” says Mangan. But he also points out that The Fortune Hotel is part of a move by reality TV towards a happier, healthier place. “I don’t think we want to see someone having a full-on breakdown on television,” he says. “That leaves a bad taste now. I don’t want to be involved in a show like that.” 

Mangan himself proves a tender-hearted presenter. “I was probably supposed to be a cruel ringmaster, but I was heartbroken when anyone went out.”

Aside from that month of Caribbean sun, Mangan took the job because he likes to always be doing something new. “I have a restless brain, an itchy brain,” he says, which explains the CV that straddles Shakespeare, sitcoms, and presenting for Classic FM. Then there are his “funny adventure stories” for kids. Escape the Rooms was published in 2021, and four more have rapidly followed, all illustrated by his sister Anita.

Escape the Rooms sees two lost children trying to find their way home through a series of puzzles and traps. But it is also about grief: with the young adventurers (one named after Mangan’s son, Jack) having lost their parents, their quest has a metaphorical quality, too.

It is a subject close to the Mangan siblings’ hearts, as they lost both their parents far too young. Their mother died of bowel cancer when she was just 45, and Mangan only 21. Fourteen years later, their father died at the age of 63 from a brain tumour. No wonder Mangan and his sister ended up creating a story about the subject.

“You don’t really get books about the grief of losing your parents,” Mangan says. “So I wanted to tackle that in a positive, funny book – I would’ve loved to have read something like that.” 

Mangan can’t help but yearn for lost time with them – especially his mum. He went to boarding school from age 13, and then to Cambridge to study law, which meant he was away a lot in the years before she died. “Who was to know at the time,” he says philosophically. “[But] I just think, ‘God, I missed a lot of the last few years that she was around.’”

It cast further shadow over what was a pretty negative experience anyway. “Being at boarding school is a bit like being in a reality show,” Mangan says. “There aren’t cameras everywhere, but there are other kids everywhere. You never get away from it. It’s a weird one.”

His mother’s death profoundly altered the course of his life: not least in his decision to become an actor. Her illness was a “life’s-too-short” wake-up call, and Mangan quit studying law, and applied to drama school instead, determined to at least take a shot at his dream career.

It was a gamble that paid off – although Mangan recognises that it’s more difficult than ever to forge a career in the creative industries. “You don’t want it to be the preserve of people from privileged backgrounds,” he says.

And it’s a tough time for the arts across the board, he observes. “This country leads the world – we really punch above our weight,” but there’s no money in theatre, and in TV “a lot of the British channels are struggling, advertising is falling, the streamers are cutting back…”

The fracturing of attention hasn’t helped – “everything’s got so niche: you can just watch YouTube videos of people pulling wax out of ears” – but nor has starving the arts of funding for a decade.

He hopes a change in government will help. “Things will change this year, hopefully, and then [the arts] will be valued as a sector that brings in huge amounts of money.” It’s a rare moment of full seriousness to end on, from one of our most seriously funny actors.

‘The Fortune Hotel’ continues Monday-Thursday at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX