sitcom
The Problem With People review - local zeroFriday, 08 November 2024A 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... Read more... |
The Magic Flute, Welsh National Opera review - Mozart remodelled and remuddledMonday, 06 March 2023So 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... Read more... |
Clutch, Bush Theatre review - new comedy-drama passes its testThursday, 22 September 2022Max 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... Read more... |
The Good Life, Richmond Theatre review - popular sitcom gets its own origin storyMonday, 29 November 2021"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... Read more... |
Comedy podcasts round-up 4: plus a vodcast and some retro audioMonday, 22 March 2021Fawlty 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... Read more... |
The Other One, BBC One review - entertaining odd-couple sitcomSaturday, 06 June 2020This 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... Read more... |
Space Force, Netflix review - fails to launchFriday, 29 May 2020Since 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... Read more... |
Code 404, Sky One review - surreal cop comedy presses the right buttonsThursday, 30 April 2020DI 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... Read more... |
Run, Sky Comedy review - vicarious thrills for the self-isolation eraWednesday, 15 April 2020Watching 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... Read more... |
Mister Winner, BBC2 review - gentle comedy about one of life's losersThursday, 26 March 2020Spencer 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... Read more... |
Feel Good, Channel 4 and Netflix review - a fresh, bingeable comedy that digs deep but feels mildThursday, 19 March 2020“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... Read more... |
Sunnyside, Sky Comedy review - the immigrant experience and the American dreamTuesday, 17 March 2020The 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... Read more... |
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