Richard Ayoade

Richard Ayoade began directing with Submarine. Isabel Stevens's archive text sets that start against a whole class of others: unlike the many British television comedians who have moved into cinema, Ayoade shows a distinctive film-making talent in a first feature. Stevens also links the film's protagonist to his own acting, since he passes on through Oliver most of the qualities he showed as Moss, the computer nerd he played in The IT Crowd. By her account Oliver became the first British entry in cinema's register of maladjusted adolescents, despite coming from Swansea rather than Hollywood.