It juxtaposes a couple, Mark (Robert Bathurst) and Becky (Fiona Gillies), who fall in love and marry, before getting separated and finally divorced.

The twelve episodes, broadcast between 1993 and 1995, were directed by Bob Spiers and produced by Andre Ptaszynski for independent production company Pola Jones.

[3] By 1990, Moffat had written two series of Press Gang, but the programme's high cost along with organisational changes at Central cast its future in doubt.

[4] As Moffat wondered what to do next and worried about his future employment, Bob Spiers, Press Gang's primary director, suggested that he meet with producer Andre Ptaszynski to discuss writing a sitcom.

[4] During the pitch meeting at the Groucho Club, Ptaszynski realised that Moffat was talking passionately about his impending divorce and suggested that he write about that instead of his initial proposal, a school sitcom.

[7] In 2003, Moffat told The New York Times that his "ex-wife wasn't terribly pleased about her failed marriage being presented as a sitcom on BBC2 on Monday nights".

[15] Recording for the first series of six episodes began on location in the first half of April 1992[11] and were mainly filmed in Chelsea within a short distance from the director's home.

[16] The stand-up sequences were filmed in the Café Des Artistes on London's Fulham Road, now known as the Valmont Club,[11] and were shot for the benefit of the studio audience, with the intention of reshooting them later for the broadcast version.

At the end of the recording on Sunday evenings Spiers would review the show before retiring to the bar, with the bulk of the work complete.

[18] All of the episodes open with Bathurst portraying Mark Taylor, a sitcom writer, apparently performing stand-up in a small comedy club.

In the fantasy sequences for the pilot, Bathurst was filmed against a completely black backdrop, which Moffat describes as "hell to look at".

[6] Moffat observes that, like Seinfeld, an American sitcom that used a similar device, Joking Apart used less of the stand-up as the series progressed.

The original Rea version was used for the pilot's closing credits, but for the series it was performed by Kenny Craddock, who arranged the incidental music with Colin Gibson.

In one episode, Mark jokes about worrying if his virginity will heal back; Becky articulates her frustration by responding "What page is that on?"

[26] In interviews, Bathurst has compared Steven Moffat to his character: Mark is "a man whose wife leaves him because he talks in one-liners.

This was Fiona Gillies' first major television role, having appeared in "The Hound of the Baskervilles", a 1988 episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the mini-series Mother Love.

Tracy, for example, attempts to telephone Robert to inform him that he's lost his mobile phone,[34] and believes that she is a lesbian when she discovers her husband in women's clothing.

Trevor's debut appearance is in the third episode where he and Becky go to Robert and Tracy's house for dinner, but he generally features less regularly than the main ensemble.

The last section of the episode features a confrontation between Becky and Mark, in which the former admits that she is an adulteress before realising that all of her friends are hiding around her living room in preparation for a surprise party for her.

[30] Episode five makes extensive use of what Moffat labels "techno-farce", which uses technology, predominantly telephones, to facilitate the farcical situations.

The fourth episode features a scene where Mark jams his dressing gown in the door and is forced to hide naked in his new neighbour's flat.

This sequence was Moffat's revenge for Bathurst's late arrival at the series one press launch at the Café Royal in Regent Street, London.

[42] Moffat feels that the delay damaged the series because such bad scheduling hinders returning audiences and that the two-year gap meant that it seemed as if Mark "had been banging on about this sodding divorce for an awfully long time!

At a Christmas party, a BBC executive expressed a wish for the ratings of a third series "to go like Everest", indicating a steep slope with his hands.

The cast claim that the programme has a timeless, universal appeal as there are no time-specific references apart from the typewriter and the size of the mobile telephones.

[51] The Daily Express said that it was "flavoured with a delicious bitterness about the perfidy of women and the conscious-less nature of the male orgasm, it was plotted with the intricacy of a French farce".

[53] Similarly DVD Review comments that "Moffat's distillation of his marriage melting down is as precise a piece of comic writing as you're likely to find.

Criticising Bathurst for being too handsome to convey the frustrations of a writer, The Daily Telegraph said that the show had "its problems but possesses a dark, mordant wit".

"[55] While the transmission of series two was being delayed by BBC 2 controller Michael Jackson, the show won the Bronze Rose of Montreux[2] and was entered for the Emmys.

[56] As a professional videotape editor, Robins was able to restore the video, and author the disc himself, using a piece of freeware to transcribe the dialogue for the subtitles.