tue 10/12/2024

sitcom

The Problem With People review - local zero

A quarter of an hour into The Problem With People, there’s a 15-second clip of Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero – and it’s the best thing about this spectacularly unfunny comedy co-written by its American star, Paul Reiser (Mad About You, The Kominsky...

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The Magic Flute, Welsh National Opera review - Mozart remodelled and remuddled

So why not rewrite The Magic Flute with a new text and a heavily reconstructed plot? After all, the original was just a pantomime, albeit one that embodied one or two big issues of the day (1791), but essentially popular theatre with a text by a...

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Clutch, Bush Theatre review - new comedy-drama passes its test

Max is big and black and Tyler is slight and (very) white, an odd couple trapped in a dual-control car as Max barks out his instructions and Tyler prepares for his driving test. If their relationship is to get started, like the clutch of the...

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The Good Life, Richmond Theatre review - popular sitcom gets its own origin story

"Off-grid" wasn't a thing in the mid-'70s. Sure, people planted a few potatoes in the garden and pottered about a bit in an allotment, but nobody went the whole hog. The rat race was certainly a thing though, a fertile seam for comedies like The...

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Comedy podcasts round-up 4: plus a vodcast and some retro audio

Fawlty Towers: For the RecordA special, limited-edition vinyl release of the entire comedy series written by John Cleese and Connie Booth to celebrate the BBC sitcom's 40th anniversary. The 12 episodes offer a masterclass in comedy writing and...

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The Other One, BBC One review - entertaining odd-couple sitcom

This engaging sitcom created by comedian Holly Walsh has had a long gestation: this, the pilot episode, was first broadcast back in 2017 but Walsh's pregnancy meant that the six-part series commissioned at the time was filmed last year.The show was...

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Space Force, Netflix review - fails to launch

Since Donald Trump's election as US President in 2016, I imagine satirists have slowly lost the will to live – as nothing they can write can outdo his buffoonery. But when Greg Daniels (creator of the American version of The Office) and Steve...

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Code 404, Sky One review - surreal cop comedy presses the right buttons

DI John Major (Daniel Mays) has been dead a year, shot in the line of duty, though we’re far from that series in terms of tone. Now he’s back at the London Met, artificially augmented, but not very intelligently. If anything he’s a bit more shit...

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Run, Sky Comedy review - vicarious thrills for the self-isolation era

Watching Run, HBO’s newest seven-part series, feels like off-the-rails escapism: it’s a fast-paced thriller about dropping everything, chasing intimacy and courting danger. It’s a vicarious adventure centred on a woman who has spent too long stuck...

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Mister Winner, BBC2 review - gentle comedy about one of life's losers

Spencer Jones, a clownish stand-up, has been responsible for some the cheeriest, daftest and most heart-warming shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, where he has twice been nominated in Dave's Edinburgh Comedy Awards (ECA). Others may know him from his...

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Feel Good, Channel 4 and Netflix review - a fresh, bingeable comedy that digs deep but feels mild

“I am not intense.” That declaration arrives early in Feel Good, the new Channel 4 and Netflix romantic comedy fronted by comedian Mae Martin, who plays a fictionalised version of herself. Over Mae’s shoulder, we see a literal trash fire. She’s lit...

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Sunnyside, Sky Comedy review - the immigrant experience and the American dream

The multi-talented Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar, Designated Survivor, House) took a two-year acting sabbatical in 2009 to work for the Obama administration. So he is, in theory, ideally placed to co-create, with Matt Murray, a semi-political TV sitcom...

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