Books: Will Smith is a Swiss army knife

Will Smith returned to the island he grew up on for his first serious novel.

Known as an actor in TV satire The Thick Of It and as a comedy writer for Veep, Will Smith has written a mystery thriller set in the Channel Islands. It’s John le Carre meets Middlemarch, he tells Alice Jones.

Will Smith is probably better known as Phil Smith, the special adviser to and bag-carrier for Tory MP Peter Mannion in The Thick Of It. Posh, geeky, floppy-haired - you might remember him as the one Malcolm Tucker renamed "Shitehead Revisited" in the peerless BBC satire.

Today Smith, an affable 43-year-old with comically buoyant hair, is launching his own literary rebrand. Originally a stand-up who supported Ricky Gervais on his Fame tour, he has worked with Armando Iannucci since 2003 when he was hired to contribute to Gash, a week of satirical shows. Since then he has been part of Iannucci's core writing team on Time Trumpet, The Thick Of It and, more recently, Veep. Now he is embarking on the next phase of his career - as a novelist.

His debut, Mainlander, is a terrific yarn about a schoolboy who goes missing on Jersey. The mainlander of the title is Colin, a hopelessly nice teacher who has never fitted in and is, mysteriously, the only person bothered by the missing child. Other chapters are voiced by Colin's shrewish wife Emma, their flashy hotelier friend Rob de la Haye, Rob's confidant Christophe and a rum copper called Barney. It's a close community, though not so close that it isn't also stuffed full of secrets and lies, and sex and drugs.

It is an assured debut, but then Smith knows how to write. It's not such a big leap from television to novels, he says. "A lot of HBO-style series are comparable to books. Something like The Wire is plotted like a novel." The most pertinent comparison might be to Broadchurch. It grips like Velcro, but a cobweb of subplots - some serious, some silly - and the Jersey location set it apart. John le Carre and Middlemarch were his touchstones, he says. "Le Carre for the hidden lives and duplicity, and Middlemarch for the interlocking point-of-view chapters of provincial life."

Having published two books - How To Be Cool and The Joy Of No Sex - Smith wrote three failed comic novels before Mainlander. It was only when he ditched the jokes that he found his voice. "It was a conscious decision to not do it as a comic novel, to break away from what I'd been trying to do," he says. "Because I can write jokes and comic dialogue, it's easy to rely on that to paper over cracks or weaknesses you might have in other areas. By saying, 'I'm not going to try to be funny in any way', it really made me focus on characters and structure."

Although Mainlander is not funny, it is unusually vivid - windy cliffs, extravagant homes and cheesy hotel bars, set against an 80s soundtrack of Paul Simon and Dire Straits. "Write what you know, isn't it?" says Smith, who grew up on Jersey. "There's so much ingrained, I didn't have to research it. It just came out."

Smith was born in Winchester and moved to the island when he was 6 years old and his father got a job as a music teacher. "We moved to Jersey not because we're millionaires but because there was not one local who could teach the oboe and bassoon." His father was classed as "Essentially Employed", which meant they could buy a house, "without being millionaires. If not, you have to rent for 20 years before you get your qualifications."

Though Smith loves Jersey, "a wonderful place to grow up", he is aware of its idiosyncrasies and of his own outsider status. He now lives in Stoke Newington, London, and went back several times to check every road name and car park location. He is only half joking when he says he is worried about how locals might take his exploration of the tax haven's seamier side. "Someone told me recently that Jersey is the biggest exporter of bananas in the world. On paper," he says, raising an eyebrow.

Smith was 5 when he saw Laurel and Hardy in Perfect Day and set his sights on a life in comedy. He started writing Monty Python-style sketches with his friends. His idol was, still is, John Cleese. Two years ago, he was in a business training video with him. After filming, he went home and wrote down every detail of the day. "Pathetic, but I thought, 'I don't want to forget this because it's the absolute apex of my comedy ambition'."

He did his first stand-up gig as a student in Southampton in 1990. After graduating he moved to London, got a part-time job and started gigging and writing radio sketches. His early stand-up played on his posh demeanour, leading one critic to call him "the Hugh Grant of comedy".

"When I started there were hardly any middle-class comedians ... I developed my persona partly because it helped me stand out, but initially because I thought, if I don't address this, the audience is going to yell something or wonder why I'm here."

He gave up stand-up a few years ago, partly because he had no desire to play arenas and do panel shows. "I did 6000 people in Manchester and it was incredible," he recalls. "[But] it felt a bit like I was losing a race I didn't really want to win. I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be a personality." He also started a family. He and his television producer wife have a son, 5, and a daughter, 2.

In the meantime, his relationship with Iannucci, "the best boss", continues to develop. "When I was growing up, I remember thinking I'd love to be in something like Blackadder, be part of a troupe, having fun on a brilliant show. And with The Thick Of It, I got to be part of a gang. If that's all that I ever do, then that's way more than I could possibly have expected. That's my teenage self delighted." He would love an election return later this year for The Thick Of It, but "Armando's definitely moved on from that".

Chris Addison, Smith's colleague on The Thick Of It and Veep, who has known him for 20 years since they were both starting out on the circuit and sleeping on each other's sofas after gigs, describes him as "one of the most talented and accomplished writers I've ever met".

"Seemingly, he can do anything," he says. "But what I learnt about him on Veep was that he's a proper all-rounder. Some people are good on structure, some on plot, some on character, some on dialogue, some on jokes. Will can do all of it. He's a Swiss Army knife."

They have just finished writing the fourth series of Veep and Smith has several sitcoms and dramas in development. More pressingly, he has four further Mainlander novels mapped out, which will take his characters up to the present day. "I know how they're all going to end up. I know their fates. And when they're done," he smiles, "I think they would make a very good TV series."

Mainlander (4th Estate $32.99) is out on Monday.

- The Independent