Mind, I may not be a majority opinion on this.
Despite reports of impressive ratings for the debut episode, it’s been difficult to find many people prepared to admit to enjoying it and my unscientific research is starting to suggest that whether you enjoy the show or not depends largely on whether you’re susceptible to Tovey’s charms.
The show’s not quite good enough to convince me that spending almost £120m of public money every year on a schedule of largely uninspired, derivative, fly-on-the-wall TV is a good idea but I am at least happy to see there’s still some space in the schedule for things which actually have a script.
Admittedly this is no Inbetweeners – as British TV produces something as funny as that
series about once every 10 years that’s hardly surprising – but it is funnier and better written than most of the BBC comedy efforts.
Mind, the BBC has an odd approach to comedy. Genuinely funny shows often vanish from the schedule – think Little Miss Jocelyn, The Smoking Room or Beautiful People – which seem to become ever more stuffed with episodes of Two Pints or panel shows.
If you missed either episode and are – or even suspect you may be – susceptible to Mr Tovey’s charms, they’re available to watch on the iPlayer for the next couple of months.
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