Two's company

Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, the writing team behind such hits as Birds of a Feather and The New Statesman, are back. They let Louise Jury into the secrets of comedy: odd numbers, words with a 'k' sound and Melvyn Bragg

The writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran are chuckling with delight at Dr Awkward, the name of Rik Mayall's love interest in their new comedy, Believe Nothing. "It's a palindrome," Gran explains with glee. The character's first name, Hannah, is a palindrome, too, and they contemplated writing the entire first episode as a palindrome – reading the same backward as forward – just for the hell of it, though eventually thought better of it.

Playing around with words is the Marks-and-Gran idea of kicks. "It's more fun than almost all the alternatives at our age," Gran jokes.

More than two decades into a successful working relationship, both men are in their early fifties. They are wealthy – their Alomo production company was sold several years ago for £8m – and they have a CV to die for. Birds of a Feather, Love Hurts, Goodnight Sweetheart and Shine on Harvey Moon may not be at comedy's cutting edge but have all proved popular hits with audiences of millions and have won Baftas and International Emmys galore.

Now, they have returned to working with Rik Mayall, who played Alan B'Stard in their caustic political satire, The New Statesman. This time, Mayall stars as an outrageously clever Oxford professor, Adonis Cnut.

"Calling him Cnut, the Old English spelling of Canute, just tickles us," Gran says. "Do you really believe that The Guardian is capable of spelling Adonis Cnut right every single time?"

The six-part series is nothing if not packed with ideas. There are GM crops and metric martyrs, meteor strikes and the Burger King professor of microbiology. Rory Bremner plays George W Bush, and Melvyn Bragg, a friend of the writers and fellow Arsenal supporter, appears as himself, hosting a discussion on cloning.

"Everyone we ask agrees to be in it because it could be a cult show," confides Marks as he watches Bragg recording. "You can imagine kids at university going up to the bar on a Sunday night to watch it."

Perhaps. With only one preview tape to hand, it's hard to judge. But in its diversity of ideas, it certainly fulfils their aim of creating something people may want to talk about. "We try to write shows that are about more than keeping Coronation Street from bumping into the news," Gran says. "We try to make them a bit bigger than the slot."

The men have been working together for so long that interviewing them is like eavesdropping on a gentle marital squabble. Gran does most of the talking, with the smoothness of a professional PR, enlivened by endless ad-libbed quips. Marks, who has a slightly mournful air and a marked social conscience, occasionally interjects.

They have known each other since they were children in north London and have worked together since Marks discovered a writing-group when they were in their mid-twenties. They attended every Monday for five or six years, and it is still the forum where they have piloted all their work except Believe Nothing, which has proved an exception because of time.

In the early days, they wrote four scripts that were rejected. Marks bumped into Barry Took on a train, at the point when they had given up. Through Took, they began writing for Frankie Howerd. It was "the changing-point of our lives", Marks says.

The former Sunday Times man gave up journalism, and Gran resigned his job in the Civil Service; they have worked together virtually every day since. Gran drives the 30 miles from his home in Cheltenham to Marks's home in the Cotswolds, and they sit, argue and, eventually, write.

After more than two decades, they have their theories of what works. "It's not a science but it's like one," Marks says. "I don't think you can teach someone to be funny, but I think you can explain why things are. Comedy is like music. It's scansion. And certain words are funny and certain words aren't. Words with a 'k' sound are funny. Ilminster – no laugh; Ilfracombe will knock 'em dead. Odd numbers are funny. 'That's the 71st time you told me that,' will get a laugh. 'That's the 72nd time...' won't."

But comedy also needs nurturing and time to develop, and time and patience are in pretty short supply in the pressurised world of television these days. Perhaps that is why, in Marks's opinion, most British comedy is simply not funny these days. "It's well structured, beautifully cast, with costumes to die for, but it ain't funny."

Gran says a "tyranny of cool" has developed in the past 10 years, in which younger people are terrified to laugh. Marks adds political correctness to the list of problems comedy faces. "The introduction of political correctness has been the penultimate nail in the coffin," he says. "If you're frightened to offend, you have no place in comedy."

Marks and Gran have certainly not been afraid to offend on occasions – such as three years ago, when they accused the BBC, their employer at the time, of being "low-brow" and "restrictive". These days they are more circumspect. "We're friends with most of the people at the BBC," Gran says. "They are trying to get it together and succeeding to some extent. But it's a huge organisation, and huge organisations tend to be difficult." The new series is going out on ITV simply because David Liddiment, its departing director of channels, courted them enthusiastically.

They continue to believe that television is too cheap. "As long as the public get 30 per cent of their entertainment for 2 per cent of their entertainment money, they won't get as good television as they think they deserve, because there isn't the money to pay the best writers and the best directors," Gran says. "If you watch [the American series] Six Feet Under or The Sopranos, they spend the money. They're just stuffed with production values."

None the less, Marks says that of 18 Marks-and-Gran shows, only two or three have not been hits. Marks admits that they could easily retire and live happily ever after. "But we're not sheet-metalworkers looking for the day when they say, 'Here's your clock.'"

"You become a writer", Gran adds, "in order to never stop writing."

'Believe Nothing' begins this Sunday at 10pm on ITV1