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Frank of Ireland trailer promises little and the show delivers it
Even though it comes from the Merman stable the trailers for Frank of Ireland didn’t hold out the promise of much laughter. It lived up to expectations.
Frank Marron (Brian Gleeson) is the eponymous central character: an unemployed singer-songwriter dreaming of producing a double-album about the counties of Ireland. Dreaming because he hasn’t actually written a single song since breaking up with girlfriend Aine (Sarah Greene) six years earlier. He is a fantasist. In those six years he has managed to come up with three or four pun-driven song titles but no lyrics or music.
Frank, a sociopath, is hirsute, uncultured and antagonistic by nature. He lives with his mother Mary (Pom Boyd), a sexually promiscuous Tinder scrolling, heavy-drinking woman. Frank’s best friend Doofus (Domhnall Gleeson), is a doofus by name and nature, he’s immature to the point of stupidity, is easily manipulated and led astray by Frank. Theirs is a co-dependent friendship.
In the first episode, at Aine’s grandmother’s wake, Frank offers his condolences to her son (Aine’s dad) “She isn’t your mam anymore,” he tells the grieving man “She’s just a dead old lady.” before plonking his belongings on top of the body in the open casket. Doofus meanwhile is trying to interest the mourners in some outdated CDs.
Against Aine’s advice, her dad asks Frank to sing the 23rd Psalm at the funeral the following day. Frank has other ideas. He then confronts Aine’s new boyfriend, Peter-Brian (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor ) a doctor who is also an exponent of MMA, prompting a laborious confusion about taking MDMA (ecstasy) and practising mixed martial arts). In the few hours before the event Frank manages to hire a female MMA trainer, then go on a bender with her before a drug induced and wine soaked night of sex.
The following morning Frank arrives late at the church outside of which Doofus has set up a merch stall. Attempting to impress Aine in front of her new boyfriend Frank screws up his performance whilst Doofus acts, well, like a doofus.
There’s a running thread of Robert De Niro quotes from Taxi Driver which are frankly irksome in the end.
The blurb issued for this series describes it as “the hilarious story of a man’s hapless search for respect”. Sorry, but, hilarious it isn’t. There are some smiles but few outright laughs. The second and third episodes fare no better. If you can manage the other three then good luck to you.
I Can See Your Voice (deep sigh!)
I Can See Your Voice, is a music gameshow that originated in South Korea, was imported into the US before being foisted upon the British public by the BBC
Basic format (very basic): two members of the public have to choose, by a process of elimination, which of the six singers, all supposedly random members of the public, can actually sing. The contestants are guided, or in some cases badly misguided, by a celebrity panel.
The singers are there to convince all concerned that they can sing without actually singing, hence the show’s title (gedit). In the first stage, for example, they just stand motionless with their hand held microphones and the celebrity judges expound on whether they are holding the mike in a professional way (so exciting); in the second stage they are lip syncing along to a recording whilst the panel and the two contestants try to guess from the visual clues which of the six singers can or cannot sing by their performance technique.
If after the tortuous process of elimination, the final singer has a good voice, the guessing contestants win £10,000. If the singer is bad then the singer gets the £10,000 and the contestants go home empty handed. So either the contestants or the singer wins £10,000 every show.
On last night’s show three of the six singers could actually sing, the other three were unashamedly tone deaf.
The panel of Amanda Holden, filling in time until BGT returns: Alison Hammond, The Liar Finder Pursuivant (she revealed that she once attended a course on liar spotting but then failed to spot which singer was lying) and Jimmy Carr, who has finally (hopefully) finished his metamorphosis are joined by Danny Jones of McFly who sings a duet with the final singer. We can only hope that Jimmy Carr has exhausted his fount of McBusted jokes by the next episode.
The two contestant ‘guessers’ were there to win the prize so that they could take their two young adopted children to Disneyland and tug at the heartstrings of the audience – not that there was a studio audience of course – and those of the viewers.
The show is hosted by a somewhat over exuberant Paddy McGuiness, of whom it must be said, does a pretty good job of generating what few laughs there are to be had.
(Spoiler Alert) The final two singers on the first show could both actually sing so the guessing couple were going home with the ten grand whichever they chose.
No doubt this show will generate mixed feelings and reviews. It is of the Masked Singer genre and will appeal to a similar audience (by the way be warned, the Masked Dancer is on its way).
Comic Relief: as much music as comedy
As much Music Relief as Comic Relief
With the wealth of currently underused comic talent in the UK there seemed to be an imbalance of music to comedy in last night’s BBC Comic Relief evening.
Steering us through the three-hour first part of the BBC One show was Sir Lenny Henry who was the original creator of Comic Relief along with Richard Curtis (an incredible 36 years ago), Davina McCall, Alesha Dixon, David Tennant and Paddy McGuinness.
The evening opened with Dawn French appearing alongside real-life vicar Kate Bottley for a
musical sketch in which the two women donned glittering vestments to enthusiastically lip-sync to Juice by Lizzo.
The talented, internet lockdown sensation The Marsh Family gave their comic pandemic version of Mike Batt’s, Bright Eyes and later they appeared on the BBC Two continuation singing their version of Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Canadian pop star Justin Bieber treated his “Beliebers” to an exclusive performance of his new single Hold On. Other musical performances came from Gabrielle and the cast of Back to the Future: The Musical (please may theatres open soon). We had The Proclaimers doing a rendition of Sunshine on Leith, against a montage film sequence of key workers, the late Captain Sir Tom Moore and a sea of waving lights with an emotional message of hope for the future.
Caroline Quentin and Jayde Adams shone brightly
The musical highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the performance of Jayde Adams, Alex Brooker, Andi Oshu, Caroline Quentin and Jennifer Saunders performing the classic Turandot aria Nessun Dorma live in the studio, having had a mere 24 hours mentoring and rehearsal with the ENO and Chorus. Charlotte Church, looking very glamorous, introduced them to the stage. All five performed extremely well but Caroline Quentin and Jayde Adams were outstanding.
The comedy was good spirited but patchy in content
One of the more amusing sketches was a spoof trailer for “2020 – the biggest blockbuster never made” – a disaster film about last year, populated by our lockdown superheroes. “Let’s hope there won’t be a sequel,” went the tagline. The all-star cast included Russell Brand as body coach Joe Wicks; Ainsley Harriott as free-child meals campaigner and Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford; Anna Friel as the first woman to cut her own hair; Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley as mothers who’d been pushed to the limit with home-schooling, Sanjeev Bhaskar as the man Professor Chris Whitty irritatingly asks for the “next slide please”; Shaun Williamson as “Barry from EastEnders” appeared as the man who invented Zoom and the legendary Joan Collins uttered “I’m ready for my vaccine now, Mr DeMille.”
Jack Whitehall hosted a VIP videocall to thank everyone who’d made a donation. The A-List cast included Hugh Grant, Olivia Colman, Anya Taylor-Joy, James Corden, Idris Elba, Emma Thompson and Chris martin all logging on.
Mel Giedroyc, attired in lockdown jimjams, did a piece emulating Bridget Jones, featuring a string of celebrity cameos lip syncing to Celine Dion’s All By Myself.
During lockdown some comedians and actors created some excellent podcasts to entertain the nation and keep the home fires burning. One of the most successful has been the pairing of Michael Sheen and David Tennant along with their real life partners. Their Luvvies-in-Lockdown comedy podcasts were brilliant. The two actors, and great friends, reunited (virtually) for a special historical skit, set during the London Plague of 1592-3 in which 20,000 died. Tennant played William Shakespeare, Sheen was Christopher Marlowe. The two playwrights discussed whether the people preferred social realism or “escapism, maybe something with a donkey”. Lenny Henry zoomed into the call to remind them they were actors, not writers.
Stand-up comic and ‘punny-man’ Tim Vine dished out a string of quick-fire puns and visual gags from a Punch and Judy style kiosk to a small gathering of giggling RAF personnel at RAF Northolt
A piece involving Fleabag and Normal People was good. Filmed under strict Covid protocols in a London church, the seven-minute skit saw Andrew Scott’s priest from Fleabag receive two unexpected visitors in his confessional booth: Normal People’s young lovers Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones).
The script, written by, Connor McPherson, was first aired on Ireland’s ‘RTE Does Comic Relief’ last year and has been seen by 423k people on YouTube since it was aired.
The three hours more or less ended with the much vaunted sketch featuring Catherine Tate’s hilariously shocking Nan character and Daniel Craig as James Bond. Disappointingly the sketch was not as hilarious as anticipated nor as shocking. Instead of Nan’s normal acerbic comments culminating in uttering her inimitable punchline “what a f…ing liberty” it was given to Bond and even then it was bleeped. Shame, it was well after the watershed after all.
By 10pm, the donations had reached almost £46m
The show then switched to BBC Two for a Comic Relief-themed edition of live music stalwart Later With Jools Holland. Lenny Henry appeared again – to pick his favourite musical moments from Comic Relief including Tom Jones, Dizzee Rascal, Supergrass, the Spice Girls, George Clinton and Kate Bush.
There was also the first ever Prizeathon hosted by Amanda Holden and Jason Manford.
We live in strange times and, although the day was not quite up to the memory of previous years, the fact that technology allowed the event to take place at all is something for which to be grateful but the most important thing is the incredible response of the public in raising over £52,000,000 for good causes.
Viva Comic Relief.
The much anticipated and vaunted 11th series of Taskmaster aired last night.
The format is beginning to look a little tired. Even, Greg Davies, the Taskmaster himself, looked less enthusiastic than usual. Despite the calibre of the contestants the first episode lacked the vitality of previous shows. Perhaps lockdown blues have taken their toll or perhaps the brilliance and hilarity of series 10 has set a bar that’s just too high. (Review here)
Series 11 stars, Charlotte Ritchie, Jamali Maddix, Lee Mack, Mike Wozniak and Sarah Kendall struggled to make the tasks, devised by the show’s creator Alex Horne, as entertaining as in previous series. Even the improvisational brilliance of Lee Mack was stretched to the limit in capturing a motorised rat. The saving grace of the first episode was Charlotte Richie as she went about her tasks with sheer joy and almost childlike exuberance.
If this was your first experience of Taskmaster you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. Well go to All4 and catch-up with the previous 10 series and you’ll find out.
Taskmaster is totally dependent on the enthusiasm, commitment and comic inventiveness of the celebrity contestants which allows them to laugh at themselves and for the viewers to laugh along with them.
With another 9 episodes to follow, the pace of the tasks and the sarcasm of the Taskmaster will surely pick up and justify this show being the highlight of the week.
Funny Festival Live gets off to a flying start.
It’s been a tough year for stand-up comedians. Most, like much of the population, have struggled to pay the bills, so the BBC’s initiative Funny Festival Live is a much welcomed light in what has been a long and very dark tunnel.
It got off to a flying start on BBC 2 last night
hosted by the excellent Jason Manford in top form. Although it was of course performed live it was actually filmed over 5 days at the Bedford in Balham, London, a regular comedy club venue. The BBC explained “The ‘audience’ was not really an audience. They were members of our crew who were not needed in their jobs at the time of recording. They were there simply to react to the comedians’ jokes, to allow the comedian to understand if their delivery was working. In most cases the people in vision were trainees.” Manford also set the scene in his opening routine
Between 600 and 800 people watched each show from home, and with special technology, the BBC audio team selected the clearest audience internet feeds. It was these people’s laughter that was then played onto the studio floor live as the comedians performed. It worked. It worked well.
There are 5 shows in the series and inevitably, or purposely, much of the material revolved around lockdown and the pandemic but it was no less funny for that. However if the remaining sets linger too long on lockdown(s) the material could become repetitive. There’s only so many times you can laugh or cheer ‘it’s good to be out’.
Last night’s first episode featured the ebullient Judi Love whose excellent set referenced her Jamaican upbringing as much as lockdown: Michael Stranney, a promising new Irish comedian who could benefit from making a little more eye contact with his audience, just saying: 
Toussaint Douglass, a likable rising star who really knows how to work his audience. Finally, and by no means least, the effervescent Jayde Adams who, by the sound of her
experience with her partner’s gastric habits during lockdown, would have been better off exchanging her surgical mask for a gas mask.
The show was bright, breezy and a brilliant start to the series. Stand-up legends including Jo Brand, Sara Pascoe, Kiri Pritchard-McLean will introduce the best comedy talent, including Darren Harriott, Dane Baptiste, Joanne McNally, Chris McCausland, Rachel Fairburn, Zoey Lyons, Nabil Abdulrashid, Rosie Jones, Thanyia Moore and Catherine Bohart in the remaining 4 shows with episode two on Monday night at 10 pm.
BBC III’s Stand Up For Live Comedy showcased some excellent emerging comedians
BBC 3’s Stand Up for Live Comedy presented some excellent new comedians, some who are already pretty well established and one or two who will need a lot better material to succeed in this difficult and competitive field.
Helen BauerThe series filmed in advance in front of a socially distanced audience in outside locations was a mini Live at the Apollo and it proved that there is no substitute for live stand-up. Shows were filmed in Bristol, Belfast, Birmingham Glasgow, Margate (which was supposed to be in Wales but was switched due to their blanket lockdown) and London. Reviews of latest TV comedy
Each show was compared by an establish comedian, I was however not enamoured with Jamali Maddix’s, London knife crime routine and neither, I think, were the audience. However the acts that followed were excellent and I will give a particular shout-out to Helen Bauer, who is destined for great things, probably as Britain’s answer to Rebel Wilson (as was).
I’ve only seen Rachel Fairburn once before when she supported Stewart Francis on h
is ‘Last Ever Tour’ Tour in Nottingham. She was excellent then and was excellent on the Belfast show even though she is a Mancunian living in London. She is also one half of All Killa No Filla with the host of the Margate show Kiri Pritchard-McClean.
Toussaint DouglassAll of the 18 acts had their own unique style and personality and all grasped their opportunity well. As part of his set, Andy Field used some material from 2017 Edinburgh Fringe show about a line from the Exorcist which went on far too long. Toussaint Douglass had fun embarrassing a young lady in the audience about race – she, her friends and the rest of the audience enjoyed it as well.
Eighteen acts is too many to mention all of them individually so if you missed the series catch up on the BBC iplayer do some talent spotting for yourself.
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Truth Seekers – a beautifully baked pie with no filling Reviews of latest TV comedy
Truth Seekers, the new Amazon Prime series falls between two stools with a loud bump. It is not strong enough to be a horror and too weak to be a comedy. Nick Frost stars as Gus Roberts, a full-time broadband engineer for 6G provider Smyle and part-time amateur paranormal investigator. His boss, Dave (Simon Pegg) asks him to take on a totally inexperienced apprentice named Elton John (must be joke in there somewhere but it is well hidden). Reviews of latest TV comedy
Whilst doing his day job and training Elton, Gus is more intent on ghost hunting and making hand held films for his YouTube channel. For over 20 years he’s been listening to an apparent radio channel that continuously transmitted the one word, the number one. Why would he do that? It does have some significance to the storyline unlike the role of Malcolm McDowell, as Gus’s dad, which is apropos of nothing.
It has high production values and with the Pegg/Frost pedigree you’d be forgiven for being excited by the prospect of this series but any excitement is quickly extinguished. This has none of the brilliance of Shaun of the Dead nor lesser collaborations like Paul and World’s End. It frankly limps along like the ghost of Jacob Marley dragging his chains. You keep hoping the chains will break and it will gather speed but sadly it doesn’t. There are of course one or two semi-shock moments and the occasional, very occasional, funny line but overall it is nothing more than lockdown time filler fodder. Maybe as a 100 minute movie it might have been sharper but halfway through the eight 30 minute episodes you lose the will to watch more, if not the will to live.
If you are a truth seeker, watching this is four hours of your life you’ll never get back.
Out of Her Mind may be too early to judge after just one episode
To fully appreciate Sara Pascoe’s new series Out Of Her Mind, described as a sitcom, you have to revisit the most frequent dictionary definition of ‘situation comedy’.
A situation comedy is an amusing television drama series about a set of characters. The abbreviation sitcom is also used.
Collins Dictionary Reviews of latest TV comedy
It’s important to remember that definition because episode one, like so many of the current crop, is amusing but not funny (see article Are Laugh Out Loud Sitcoms Extinct)
The show is a clever idea, very well written by Pascoe and has excellent production values. However if your expectation is that it will make you laugh out loud, other than at the toilet humour, you need to lower your expectations.
The main character is Sara Pascoe herself: a singleton of some 15 years since being dumped by her then fiancé. She resents that her peers, friends and her family are enjoying relationships and somewhat selflishly attempts to disrupt their lives and turn the spotlight onto herself. She is desperately, and sadly, in need of love and affection. Reviews of latest TV comedy
Her sister Lucy (Fiona Button), has a child and is planning her wedding. Sara’s best friend, Scoopy (Cariad Lloyd), is in the late stages of pregnancy with her first child, causing Sara to complain that “the bump is pushing her further away”. Sara’s mother Carol (Juliet Stevenson) has belatedly decided to regain her ‘lost’ past after her husband left her 30 years previously with a young Sara and Lucy.
Fleabag, Miranda and Mrs Brown’s Boys, for example, break the fourth wall (speak directly to the viewer) in this show Pascoe absolutely demolishes the fourth wall to explain scenarios and to display scientific biological graphs of the chemical reactions in the human condition. The show is a kind of illustrated stand-up routine.
One episode may be too little upon which to judge the programme. I have been wrong with slow burners before. I hope I’m wrong again.
Out of Her Mind Tuesdays 10pm BBC Two
Follow-up to Review
Out of Her Mind – yes she probably is close to the edge. Having now watched the first three episodes, enough is enough: my first impression of the show has been confirmed. Having said that, I am clearly not the target audience for this show which was written to appeal to women, in much the same way as The Duchess was. No adult woman needs menstruation explained to them so I’m guessing that Pascoe thinks that men do, hence the biology lecture and the technicolour uteri dancing Fantasia style while she sings.
I believe that the surreal scenes are meant to depict the inner workings of her crazed mind projected onto our consciousness. If that is so, then it would appear that she is on the edge of a nervous breakdown: a breakdown that has supposedly been brewing for the previous 15 years. Her mind is unravelling before our eyes, erupting into a display of manic boorish behaviour. This Sara is the kind of person you hope would not sit next to you on the bus and if she did you would studiously peer out of the window to avoid interaction.
Pascoe’s unhinged behaviour doesn’t make her funny. It makes her a rather tiresome, self-obsessed, sad individual for whom it is difficult to have any empathy. The storyline in which her manic behaviour is packaged is not in itself strong enough to bring balance to the proceedings.
A danger for the real Pascoe is that she frequently asserts that the character is actually her, which begs the question, will we now perceive Sara Pascoe, the excellent stand-up performer, as this neurotic person for whom we can at best only show sympathy.
Comedy programmes can make a point but they must be funny. Laughter should be a spontaneous reaction to a situation or a group of words: it should release the endorphins that make us feel happy. If I want to think deeply, I’ll turn to Bertolt Brecht or Sartre.
Out of Her Mind will undoubtedly receive a lot of critical acclaim for pushing the envelope, I do not however go along with Emperor’s new clothes syndrome: so although it will no doubt be widely acclaimed, no doubt win a BAFTA and no doubt be commissioned for a second series, it is sadly not for me. Reviews of latest TV comedy Reviews of latest TV comedy Reviews of latest TV comedy Reviews of latest TV comedy
Taskmaster – the medicine the whole nation needs
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Taskmaster contestants for series 10. Daisy May Cooper, Johnny Vegas, Richard Herring, Katherine Parkinson and Mawaan Rizwan with Greg Davies and Alex HorneThe new, socially distanced, series of Taskmaster got off to a flying start. For those of you who have not seen the show before, the difference between Taskmaster, now transferred from Dave to C4, and the other ‘comedian’ game shows such as Comedy Game Night and Guessable is that Taskmaster contestants are not playing party games. They are undertaking ludicrous tasks devised by the show’s creator, Alex Horne at which most of them fail miserably with hilariously results.
Spoiler alert: for those viewers who are nervously awaiting Daisy May Cooper to laugh herself into childbirth, as she was seven months pregnant during filming, have no fear, the baby, Jack Michael Weston, was safely born in September. Now you can relax and enjoy the rest of the series and if the first episode is the shape of things to come then we are in for a treat.
An estimated 1.7 million viewers watched the five contestants attempt to complete the tasks with Greg Davies commenting with mock sarcastic vitriol on, and awarding points for, their efforts. The first round was simple enough but after that their attempts to complete the tasks went down-hill rapidly with hilarious, laugh out loud results. No one laughed louder or longer at the judging than Daisy May Cooper whose volcanic eruptions were so infectious (probably not a good adjective to use in the current climate).
More details would spoil the opportunity for you to see the inventive tasks first hand. However it must be said that watching the problem solving attributes (or rather non attributes) of Katherine Parkinson, Richard Herring, Mawaan Rizwan, Johnny Vegas (who was attired as if he’d come straight from Lark Rise via Candleford) together with those of ‘Achievement Woman’ Cooper will give you the most laughs you’ll have over the next 10 weeks.
Taskmaster C4 Thursdays 9pm
Motherland is a funny not to be missed sitcom
I once held a children’s birthday party the day after having had a vasectomy. It was going smoothly and without incident until one over energetic attendee decided I’d make a good buffer in a game of chase. As the pain seared through my groin I wished, probably aloud, that his father had had a vasectomy seven years prior. Such is the joy of organising children’s party activities. So if you’ve been fortunate enough to have done so, you’ll sympathise with the burdens of parenthood experienced by the characters in BBC 2’s Motherland. Reviews of latest TV comedy
If you didn’t see Series 1 or missed Series 2 first time round you are missing a brilliant comedy with many laugh-out loud moments.
Cast of Motherland: Phillipa Dunne, Diane Morgan, Anna Maxwell Martin, Paul Ready and Lucy PunchMotherland is all about navigating the trials and traumas of middle-class motherhood, looking at the competitive and unromantic sides of parenting – not the cute and acceptable public face of motherhood. It is a primarily a school-gate comedy with just the right level of profanity and none of the crudity of The Duchess.
The scripts are superbly crafted by the prolific Sharon Horgan alongside Holly Walsh, Graham Linehan and Helen Linehan with Barunka O’Shaughnessy taking over from Graham Linehan for the second series. Both series are performed by a brilliant cast including:
Amanda (Lucy Punch – A Series of Unfortunate Events) is very much the Queen Bee: everything in her life is organised, clean and sparkly – designer clothes adorn her slender coiffured frame as she lords it over the less successful school mums whilst being lauded by a posse of admiring yummy mummies and an obedient lapdog acquaintance called Anne (Phillipa Dunne). Reviews of latest TV comedy
At the other end of the spectrum there’s the anarchic Liz (Diane Morgan – Mandy) now a single mum who leads a chaotic lifestyle, doesn’t give a flying fig for Amanda and her cronies. She feels her kids should enjoy free expression because that’s the easier route through motherhood.
Cast of Motherland is joined by Tanya Moodie for second seriesSomewhere in the middle is the hapless Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin – The Frankenstein Chronicles), an events organiser who, when she forgets it’s the school holidays, realises her organisational skills are nowhere near the level of the ‘Alpha Mums’. Julia is a user of friendships and family members as she struggles with career and family commitments. Her hedonistic husband is an absent father. Also in the mix is Kevin (Paul Ready – Bodyguard), he’s a weak willed stay-at-home dad, distanced by his wife and desperate to ingratiate himself with the mums who both tolerate and dismiss him in equal measures. Amanda treats him like something she stepped in.
In series 2 the cast is joined by Tanya Moodie (Rise of Skywalker) a flamboyant entrepreneur with 5 children and a put upon mother.
Series 1 is available on Netflix and series 2 on BBC iplayer or buy the DVD and enjoy at your leisure.
A third series has been commissioned
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Comedy Review
Jonathan Ross’s Comedy Club was a pot pourri of emerging comedy talents. Inevitably there were some good acts, some okay acts and some acts that, like Thursday’s child, have far to go .
No names, no pack drill. Reviews of latest TV comedy
The headline act of the evening gets around 4 minutes however, because we are familiar with them, their style and their personality, their sets generally work from the start. Not so for the newer acts. Whilst it’s great that the show allows experienced comedy circuit acts to gain some limited exposure to a wider TV audience, 3 minutes allocated to them leaves no time to establish a personality nor that all important rapport with the audience but just 90 seconds for the two novice acts is totally insufficient for them to establish a routine before being hooked.
The biggest problem for new comedians is finding a unique voice or a route that is different from the plethora of emerging wannabees. Much of the material was not up to the mark. Some acts succeeded, most didn’t but they all have my total admiration for trying. To paraphrase: those that can, do; those that can’t, review.
The 5 part series ran for about 25 minutes per episode of which the 3 main acts have 9 minutes between them and the 2 green shoots, 3 mins so that’s 12 minutes of pretty mundane comedy with few laughs (despite the all too frequent cut-aways to Jonathan Ross laughing inanely, at what, I have no idea). Add to this the headliners 4 mins and we end up with 16 minutes of comedic content. Mawaan Rizwan’s musical interludes, whilst demonstrating his obvious talent, add little to the proceedings neither do the pointless interviews with the headline acts.
For me this show falls far below expectations and, I suspect risks terminating more careers than it launches.
BBC2’s Stand Up For Live Comedy series (a sort of mini-Apollo) on the other hand allows sufficient time for the four acts to perform fuller sets. Naturally not all the acts will set the world of comedy alight: some won’t become headliners but it’s a far better showcase of talent than JR’s Comedy Club. The first two episodes set a reasonably high bar. Only when the 6 part series ends will it be pertinent to review the whole show. Reviews of latest TV comedy
Comedy Game Night and Guessable cut from the same cloth comedy review
Hosts and captain of Guessable , Sara Pascoe, John Kearns, Alan Davies and Darren HarriottGuessable and Comedy Game Night are two new game/panel shows pretty much cut from the same cloth. Both shows are on Comedy Central and, although produced by two different production houses, the format of both is almost identical: two teams of socially distanced celebrities complete a series of party games, versions of charades, Pictionary, name that tune, who/what am I?, many of which you may have played during festive periods. Each team is awarded points based on ability or in some cases, lack of it. Basically the viewer is like a maiden aunt sitting on the sofa after Christmas lunch whilst the rest of the family join in the fun and games.
Guessable, hosted by Sara Pascoe with team captains Alan Davies and Darren Harriott, has a bit of a twist in as much as the answers given during the course of each hour long episode supposedly give clues to the name of a person whose identity is concealed in cheap looking cardboard box. I say supposedly because not even Sherlock Holmes at the height of his powers would have deduced the answer. I won’t divulge the answer but neither team was remotely close. The clues, such as they are, are recapped by John Kearns who, whilst pleasant enough, is about as necessary to the show as Sean Walsh was to Play to the Whistle.
Liza Tarbuck host of Comedy Game Night with team captains Sue Perkins and Guz KhanBoth Pascoe and Liza Tarbuck, who hosts CGN, handle their jobs well, Tarbuck, supported by team captains Sue Perkins and Guz Khan, is probably the more relaxed and comfortable with the presenter role but they both add to, rather than detract from, the enjoyment of show.
Both programmes are light hearted, cheerful and generate laugh out loud moments, particularly from the participants. Hardly adult entertainment but would make passable family viewing were it not for the inevitable, but unnecessary, expletives.
Ghosts is great family fun
Ghost hunters claim that they feel a chill in the air when in the presence of a ghost. Not so with the diverse band of spooks who haunt the somewhat dilapidated Button Hall. They exude warmth. And therein lays the charm of Ghosts.
Those who watched the first series in 2019 will know that the concept, which borrows a little 
from the1976 series, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, is simple : Alison (Charlotte Richie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) inherit rundown Button Hall. Their arrival disturbs the array of ghosts who, unlike those in the 70 series have gathered in the house over thousands of years not just the past 500 or so, some died way before the house was even built. A slight accidental head injury gifts Alison the ability to see the ghosts, although they remain invisible to Mike.
And so the fun begins. Yes it is fun: prime time family fun. That is the joy of Ghosts: well-crafted scripts with gentle humour devoid of expletives to generate shock laughter. The cast, 
many of whom appeared in, and wrote, episodes of Horrible Histories are perfectly suited to their characters. From Lady Fanny Button (the double entendre speaks for itself) played by Martha Howe-Douglas to caveman, Robin (yes a cavemen called Robin) played by Laurence Rickard they somehow all manage to get along with each other despite her Ladyships feeling of entitlement. Others include poet Thomas (Mathew Baynton) Mary, a witch (Katy Wix) and The Captain a punctilious Army Officer (Ben Willbond).
Alison and Mike have to find a way to save Button Hall from complete ruin and their house mates do their best to help them succeed or not as you will see when you watch this gently humourous, thoroughly charming series.
Katherine Ryan’s Duchess character is obnoxious
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The current trend in sitcoms/comedy dramas is akin to the radio ‘shock jocks’ of the 80s. Those radio presenters had the deliberate intention to literally shock their listeners, cause outrage and gain notoriety.
Today’s sitcom scripts that rely on sexually explicit terms or ‘c’ bombs to generate laughs are lazy. It’s unnecessary for After Life’s Tony Johnson to call 10 year old boys c**ts to prove that he’s embittered. The award winning Fleabag would be every bit as funny without the explicit references to anal sex. If anal sex makes you laugh, you’re not doing it right.
So the fact that Katherine Ryan’s character sank to that level in her Netflix sitcom, The Duchess, did not help the somewhat lacklustre script.
Let me be quite clear – I am a fan of Katherine Ryan’s stand-up so I was really rooting for her first foray into sitcom. Unfortunately whilst Ryan’s acerbic wit can be quite cutting and very funny in her sets, her character in the Duchess has no charm or redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Bluntness is one thing but being abusive and rude to everyone, with the exception of her best friend (yes, surprisingly, she has one) leaves no room for empathy with the character. It is supposed to be semi-autobiographical but allowing for comic exaggeration this Katherine character clearly has a personality disorder. In an interview with Gemma Dunn for the Belfast Telegraph back in 2018 Ryan said “I might be a very nasty woman, but I’ve got manners.” It’s a pity she didn’t write, even a hint of those manners into her character who shows no respect for anyone. When you know that the tone of every conversation will be blatant rudeness it loses its impact and becomes wearisome.
The Duchess is a self-obsessed, self-centred egotist. She claims to want another child for the sake of her daughter Olive, who, at 9 years old is way past the age where it will make any difference to her childhood. The need for a child is Katherine’s need. And the process by which she goes about it demonstrates her misandry.
So the Duchess is an obnoxiously rude, crude misandrist with a way off the wall dress sense, setting a poor example to her daughter who, despite her mother’s offensive behaviour, is trying her best to be normal.
By episode 6 Katherine is beginning to show a hint of benevolence but we’ll have to wait for a second series (if Netflix commission one) to see if Katherine’s wish fulfilment makes her a chameleon or a leopard. Reviews of latest TV comedy
