Not sure if anyone caught Kevin Bishop’s new show last Friday Night.
I watched on the strength of the pilot that was shown last year on Comedy Showcase, which I liked, and thought I’d give it a chance. There were some poor impressions that let it down a bit even though the material was generally quite good.
I can see myself persevering with it; if only for the adverts featuring imaginary celebrity fragrances and the games featured on the ‘Fony Playbox’.
Not bad for some kid who used to be in Grange Hill (after my time though).
I meant to give it a go (but forgot) purely on the strength of the Take That! edition of Star Stories I once saw on a plane and which literally reduced me to tears of laughter.
Oh, Mother! This is a stinker. It's slightly below the level of jokes you think of in the pub but are too embarrassed to say because your mates would take the piss. Or, it's a collection of jokes that were met with awkward silences when writers suggested them in production meetings for other, bad sketch shows. Or, it's a conceptual PhD thesis on What's Gone Wrong With Sketch Comedy In The 00s.
Let's see. Lots and lots (and lots) of sketches based on very simple puns: Dangerously High School Musical, Bridget Jones's Diarrhoea etc. Occasionally these are combined with impressions that are nothing like the celebrity in question and make no point about them, eg Walken's Crisps, in which a man who sounds nothing like Christopher Walken plays a scene with a man who sounds nothing like Gary Lineker. Walken is a mob boss who wants to know where Lineker is hiding some crisps.
What else? Incredibly old jokes: something about the three bears being investigated for abducting Goldilocks; a news report about an outbreak of continuity errors in which the newsreaders' costumes keep changing. Several sketches based on rank homophobia (eg The Bourne Realisation, in which Jason Bourne realises he's gay - it's "bumming soon" and is distributed by Gay Line Cinema, "in association with Cock Jockey Productions and Anal Love Films").
Cold Sore Mountain, a spoof of Cold Mountain in which Nicole Kidman's character has a cold sore. An American quiz show based on the idea that Americans are all thick cowboys. If there was a sketch that was funnier than its own basic idea, I can't remember it (Sophie's Choice - The Musical was a big culprit here.)
The only one I liked was a running gag that was just Jonathan Ross introducing his next guest, who is always Ricky Gervais.
The clips used in the trailer were bad enough. The Walken/Lineker sketch was used (they didn't even have the hairstyles remotely close), as was Bishop doing a skydiving skecth which consisted of him pulling a funny face. If that's a sample of what's on offer (in fact they usually try and put some of the funnier bits in the ads, don't they?), I'll pass.