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Stephen Mangan has endeared himself to audiences for more than a decade and a half now, through such roles as Adrian Mole, pompous kitchen supplier Dan Moody in Alan Partridge, anaesthetist Guy Secretan in two series of Green Wing and hapless divorcee Alex Taylor in Free Agents.

He thoroughly enjoyed being reunited with Tamsin: "We really are a double act in this and it is great to work with someone I know so well. It's very easy to pick up from where we left off, although the characters themselves are very different."

Tamsin agrees: "Sean and Beverly are a real development. It can be a tall order to come across as a couple who have history, but Stephen and I worked together for two years, so we really do."

Sean is described in the script as "bright, both in his intelligence and his sunny outlook. He genuinely believes that everything will turn out well."

Stephen takes up the story: "Tamsin and I play British sitcom writers whisked to Los Angeles to remake their comedy, only to discover that studio execs have totally mangled their original.

"We're actually playing versions of the writers, which made for an interesting time on set! I'm the happy, optimistic, peace-making one, and Tamsin's the spikier one, concerned about artistic integrity. I'm like a wet puppy in front of a warm fire – delighted to be there. She's just damp. They make the perfect team."

He adds: "Episodes is pretty realistic actually. I shot a pilot out in LA about three years ago. The whole process is bewildering, unsettling and exciting. But Episodes is a real fusion of American and British comedy cultures. Our director James is British as are most of the production staff, David and Jeffrey were on set all the time and a lot of the cast are American. So it's a hybrid. It's not as if Matt has come over to do an English show, or Tamsin and I have gone to America."

He continues: "Episodes really captures that mixture of 'I can't believe we're in LA driving a convertible on the freeway, it's so cool,' and 'I'm not sure how this is all working.' When you go over there, you have a real sense of these larger corporations behind the industry and you have no idea how it all works or who is calling the shots. It's bewildering; exciting, terrifying, confusing and this show captures all that really well. It will be fascinating to see how it all plays out. We're hoping that people will laugh from Tallahassee to Tewksbury!

"Sean and Beverly have very different reactions to the Hollywood culture and to the celebrity in their midst, leading to further tensions as they wrangle over how to keep their jobs whilst clinging on to the last shreds of their artistic vision.

"We're a very happy couple in England. We have a hit show we really enjoy making. This show however is about the process of coming to America, what that does to our marriage and our lives being thrown into turmoil by meeting Matt. He epitomises the glamour, the fame and the money – that's why you go to America, right? Beverly can't stand it, but for Sean it's a total bro-mance. He falls in love with Matt. He can't get enough of LA, of Matt, of the whole thing."

He adds: "It's a Wizard Of Oz phenomenon, isn't it? You want to see behind the curtain. You feel as if you're looking behind the scenes of what 'really' happens, but this is a show that's so completely artificial: it's not the 'real' world. That's why people buy magazines like Grazia, to find out the 'real' story. But it's just another piece of fiction. Yet people can't get enough of it. We're celebrity obsessed."