Well after two episodes, Lab Rats is hardly making any waves. In fact it’s barely generating any laughs.

Visually the university science department look like 1970s Open University professors, and gag wise they’re in the same ball park. I can barely remember sitting through such a tedious waste of 30 minutes in the name of comedy, and I watched 4 episodes Hyperdrive.

As things stand, it needs axing or quickly re-conceiving. There’s no excuse for poor sitcoms in this day and age, and despite a good cast the director isn’t bringing out the performances needed, and the script is so sub-quality… well really I could have done better, which is saying something.

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British character actor Hugh Lloyd has sadly died aged 85. The actor was best known for appearing opposite Tony Hancock as a multitude of characters in the classic sitcom Hancock’s Half Hour in 1960-61, as well as partnering Terry Scott in Hugh and I from 1962-1968.

His later career mixed appearances in comedy series with straight roles, such as Last of the Summer Wine and Heartbeat, My Family and Foyles’ War.

Lloyd also appeared in the Doctor Who adventure Delta and the Bannermen in 1987, as well as appearing in the 1979 movie Quadrophenia.

A keen football supporter, Lloyd was a lifelong fan of Chester City, and in 2005 received an MBE for services to theatre and charity.

Former Chester Chronicle colleague Eddie McDonald paid tribute to a man he says was well known for comedy shows in local halls in Chester before finding fame.

“It’s fair to say that he remained a true Cestrian. He didn’t spend enough time on the Chronicle to leave a deep impression there but everybody knew him and most people were proud of the fact that a Chester lad had got so far in television.”

A sad loss.

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Oh please say it ain’t so.

Alleged comedy Gavin and Stacey - which makes My Family look like Fawlty Towers - is reported to be switching channels for its second series, if star Matthew Horne is to be believed.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get any further than BBC Two.

With the second series complete and a Christmas special scheduled to be filmed in September, however, it seems that more Mong & Bint brown nosing is set to wash over QC’s head for months to come…

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If art imitates life and vice versa, then surely we are allowed to integrate some parts of our leisure into our daily lives, and in more ways then just putting a low resolution copy of Van Gogh’s Starry Night onto our mobile for wallpaper.

I suppose we all take some facet of ourselves from what we admire, and it helps to have a reason to do so. Enter Basil Fawlty… (more…)

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August is Channel 4’s new talent month,with nightly topical comedy, comedy shorts on E4 and a new selection of Comedy Labs pilots.

There are six 30-minute pilots among which five are sketch shows, including:
* Slaterwood, a showcase for comedian Peter Slater, one of the team behind The Unbroadcastable Radio Show, which has a monthly residency at the Manchester Comedy Store.
* School of Comedy, an adult sketch show performed by children.
* Pappy’s Fun Club - ‘It’s got a Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out feel to it, with a mixture of vaudeville and behind-the-scenes material.
* Mr and Mrs Fandango - real-life couple Tom Meeten and Barunka O’Shaughnessy play famous couples, an irreverent comedy ‘in the spirit of Kenny Everett’.

Sounds as though there is plenty to go on!

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Catherine Tate’s recent success as Donna Noble in Doctor Who and her subsequent move to the land of high-profile theatre roles is just one ina series of examples of comics “going straight”.

We’ve got former standup Alan Davies who became Jonathan Creek and is now an ear-biting regular on QI; Peter Kay has appeared in Coronation Street and Doctor Who - neither wholly serious dramas, but neither comedies; Michael Palin starred in The Missionary; Julie Walters effortlessly switches between comedy and straight drama; William Shakespeare was equally at home with tragedy as he was with comedy. Which brings us to the crunch - comedy gets lambasted because it isn’t considered as worthy as day-to-day drama, tragedy or even action.

The examples above however easily prove that comedy - probably the most accessible of all dramas - is far from being the least important quality in an actor’s range, and could even be the most vital weapon in an actor’s armoury.

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You’re in a room. On one side is Jack Dee with his grumpy deadpad repartee.

On the other is American deadpan absurdist Steven Wright.

Each is virtually unheard of outside their native territories, yet both are immensely funny.

They also have an obvious similarity in their delivery.

Of course Jack Dee is never going to say: “I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don’t know what to feed it.”

But then Steven Wright would never say: “I hate people who think its clever to take drugs. Like customs officers. Aren’t they a bunch of bastards!”

Very different styles, very similar delivery. Both hilarious.

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Currently enjoying the superb Max & Paddy’s Road to Nowhere, the Phoenix Nights spin-off starring Peter Kaye and Patrick McGuinness as the eponymous hapless road-tripping doormen.

From Dirty Dancing to Dirty Harry, the clever movie references alone are worth the cover price.

There’s a superb selection of deleted scenes, too, which can only have been dropped for running length issues as they certainly deserve to be a part of the broadcast epsiodes.

A modern comedy classic - get it watched!

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BBC Two’s popular sitcom from 2007, Roman’s Empire, is set to be remade in the USA with Frasier star Kelsey Grammer in the role of the overbearing father.

The British version starred Matthew Horne (Leo), Neil Dugeon (as girlfriend’s father Roman) and Monserrat Lombard (Ashes to Ashes) as Leo’s girlfriend.  It achieved ratings of around 1.2m - and it has yet to be recommissioned.

Original production outfit Tiger Aspect are involved with the US version, with executive producer Ben Cavey saying:

“It’s been a long journey since Jack and Harry sent me the first draft of Roman’s. But the US version crackles with that same comedic invention and joyous spirit that makes Roman’s such a special show.”

I can’t think of many unpopular - no disrespect the writers or performers involved in the original - sitcoms that have been remade in other countries.  I’ve no idea how many people watched Man Maid in the USA, but it was the basis for the inexplicably popular The Upper Hand in the UK in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

Best of luck with this remake, to all involved,

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The Guardian has reported on the recommissioning of Peep Show - and even suggested it could go on and on. Blogger Julia Raeside judges:

To sustain a sitcom in which the protagonists aren’t very likable is a feat in itself. Why do we love Mark and Jeremy so much when they include on their collective CV dog-eating, soiling themselves in church, marrying out of embarrassment and pooing in a swimming pool? They are horrible and yet somehow enormously loveable. Perhaps it’s because we can hear what they’re thinking and, no matter how dark their internal mutterings become, there is a corner in every viewer’s mind that knows what they are going to say just before they say it.

And she’s precisely correct, of course. There’s little worse than hearing how bad things are in the British sitcom-scape, so its grand to see a show that has approached the genre in a new way and given us these characters that while physically normal are in every way as ghastly as those we met in Royston Vasey, or on The Catherine Tate Show.

The internal monologues of Mark and Jeremy, while key to the nature of the series, are the setup to virtually all major comedy moments in the series. It’s a unique feat to bring a clever comic device in and then use it in such a manner several times an episode; it’s a gimmick, but one that behaves like every other element of the writing. It’s never out of place, and that’s why Peep Show is a success and could easily run and run.

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