How drinking with Delaney and Matt Lawrence inspired The Inbetweeners’ creator

When Iain Morris stepped onto a plane bound for Los Angeles, he wasn’t expecting to meet a professional footballer, and he certainly wasn’t expecting inspiration for a BBC sitcom 10 years down the line.

“There was a seat next to me, so I thought: ‘Great, I’m going to get two spare,’” Morris says, talking after the release of The First Team, BBC Two’s latest comedy - the first co-created by writers Morris and Damon Beesley since E4’s generation-defining hit, The Inbetweeners.

“Then suddenly, last minute, this very tall, tattooed guy came and sat next to me with his knees right in the back of the seat in front. I could see he was quite uncomfortable and he turned to me and went: ‘How long is…