With the BBC currently receiving complaints a gogo for daring to broadcast anything that might mildly irritate anyone – even about safe shows like Have I Got News For You (apparently you're not even allowed to call the Queen a "Kraut" these days without people bellowing) – it's hard to imagine the broadcaster commissioning a comedy like Campus.
Thanks, then, Channel 4, which last night kicked off its experimental Comedy Showcase series – a testing ground for new talent, the first series of which engendered full-length commissions for Plus One, Free Agents and The Kevin Bishop Show – with a show full of scatological swearing and general unpleasantness.
He’s f***ing back! What better way to rouse us all from our TV-talent-show-induced Saturday night stupors than a swear-o-matic tongue-lashing from The Thick of It’s Malcolm Tucker? Yes, Armando Iannucci’s political satire has made its long-awaited return to the small screen - albeit in a slightly odd time slot.
Just a few minutes into last night’s opening episode, Malcolm laid down the law to the new Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Citizenship, Nicola Murray (Nighty Night’s Rebecca Front). “You are now being scrutinised for what you wear, what you say, for your hair, your shoes, your f***ing earrings, your f***ing cleavage and your dress - which, by the way, is way too loud. I’m getting f***ing tinnitus here.”
Played to perfection by Peter Capaldi, Malcolm is one of a mere handful of contemporary vile-but-brilliant sitcom motor-mouths (Jeremy Piven in Entourage also springs to mind), whose runaway rants, ingenious scheming and anger management issues conspire to steal whatever show they're on.
But while Capaldi is undoubtedly the star of The Thick of It, the rest of the cast turn in fantastically understated performances - with each of the characters indulging in plenty of passive aggression, bitchy banter and unbridled self-interest.
Front is perfectly cast as Nicola. My favourite line so far? “I have about as much real power as those t**ts who sit either side of Alan Sugar.“ And special mention must go to Joanna Scanlan, whose hideously patronising PR woman Terri can barely disguise her contempt for the Cabinet newcomer.
This is a full-on, eight-part series - so we’ve still got three-and-a-half hours of squirm-inducing political shenanigans to enjoy over the next few weeks. Now, that really is worth staying home on a Saturday night for.
What did you think of last night’s The Thick of It? Tell us here.
Russell Howard's Good News, Thursday 10.30pm, BBC Three
Posted by Will Parkhouse
Poor Russell Howard. The Mock the Week comic’s breakout show, a topical news programme, clashed with another, marginally more anticipated topical news programme over on BBC One. Really, with nearly eight million viewers tuning in to see a fat racist getting shouted at on Question Time, was there anyone left to watch this?
Oh well, on the positive side for Russell, it’s a nine-part series, Nick Griffin probably won’t be invited back to QT for a while, and BBC Three’s schedule apparently has time for six repeats, an extended spin-off show and a repeat of the extended spin-off show (seriously!). Who needs an iPlayer, eh?
The Armstrong and Miller Show, Friday 9.30pm, BBC One
Posted by Tom Murphy
One of the golden rules of TV reviewing is that anything involving a sketch show has to include the words "hit and miss" – and there was nothing in last night's Armstrong and Miller Show that made me want to tear up the rule book.
The busy pair's second BBC series includes the return of some old favourites. The show opened with their best-known characters, two RAF pilots who talk in modern yoof-speak, although something about the characters leaves a nasty taste of middle-class sneering, like Little Britain's Vicky Pollard. Also making a comeback were the foul-mouthed comedy singers Brabbins and Fyffe and the subtitled Neanderthals, this time discovering hairdressing.
The big news for the seventh series of Curb Your Enthusiasm is the reunion of the Seinfeld gang, with Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards and Jason Alexander all set to come together – but it looks like fans will have to wait a couple of episodes for it.
Still, the new run kicked off well. Last season's finale was about as unexpected as you get – it almost felt like a weird dream sequence – with Larry, now completely separated from wife Cheryl, suddenly falling for Loretta, the woman from the hurricane-stricken family he and Cheryl had been sharing their home with. LD dating a black woman – what could possibly go wrong?
Actually, as the episode began, it turned out everything had: Loretta, ill in bed, had turned into a bit of a monster, refusing to cave in to Larry's pleas for central heating moderation (coincidentally, a topic our very own Peep Show tackled in its recent series opener). Meanwhile, Larry's offer to pay a visit to Marty Funkhouser's mentally ill sister Bam Bam ("It was an empty gesture!") backfired, when Funkhouser immediately called him on it.
So Larry and his agent buddy Jeff went to visit, culminating in a rather startling twist: Jeff slept with Bam Bam, a low point even by his standards. Despite Larry's tantalising and rather touching chance tryst with Cheryl, the episode ended in worrying style, with our hero realising he urgently needed to dump Loretta before her biopsy results arrived. Of course, he got there too late, leading to the question: could Larry end up breaking the ultimate taboo and dumping a woman with cancer?
Amazingly, after 60 episodes, it's still a great show and, despite being quintessentially American, one that it's easy for Brits to love. After all, which of us polite, reserved types doesn't aspire to have a conversation as frank as this?
After the high drama and helicopter rescue of the summer special – and the small matter of winning Best Comedy at the National TV Awards – the sitcom Benidorm is back for a third series. And not only that: despite its well-publicised financial problems, ITV has such faith in the expat chucklefest that it has bumped it up to hour-long episodes.
Following their hostage ordeal, the regulars at the Solana Resort have turned up to take advantage of the free holiday being offered as compensation by the management. So, we bump again into the argumentative Garvey family, middle-aged swingers Donald and Jacqueline, awkward southerner Martin and his new Scouse girlfriend Brandy (Nicholas Burns and Sheridan Smith, pictured above), and sniffy gay couple Gavin and Troy.
Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Thursday 9.30pm, BBC Two
Posted by Will Parkhouse
Has it really been 13 years since Never Mind the Buzzcocks first tentatively rocked up to our screens? No conferring. Well, yes, it has, actually – and if memory serves, no one was really expecting it to last because Have I Got News For You seemed to have cornered the comedy quiz show market so decisively that it was basically blasphemy to even commission another.
Still, here we are at the start of series 23, and Bill Bailey has left for good, leaving the right hand side of the screen with a permanent new team captain in the form of simpering surrealist Noel Fielding (him out of The Mighty Boosh). Oh, and Simon Amstell's gone too, meaning the show gets a different host every week, a bit like… Oh, you know.
Was the world really ready for a tongue-in-cheek Michael Jackson tribute from Bo’Selecta! star Leigh Francis? Even Leigh himself wasn’t too sure. “I think a lot of people will think I’ve done something sick and twisted,” he told the press ahead of last night’s Cha’Mone! Mo’Fo’Selecta! A Tribute to Michael Jackson.
The spoof documentary - complete with a plethora of Leigh’s trademark rubber-mask talking heads - opened with Aussie croc-botherer Steve Irwin greeting the recently deceased King of Pop in heaven with the exciting news that paradise is full of pick’n’mix, Tupperware and kids’ toys.
Then Mel B and real-life guest star Emma Bunton popped up to discuss Jackson‘s legacy while hanging out their washing - and Craig David took time out from working in a call centre to reveal the singer’s impact on his own music.
So far, so surreal - but we hadn’t seen anything yet. As the programme began its chronological journey through Jackson’s life, Leigh extended his rubber-mask repertoire to include key characters such as Diana Ross, Elizabeth Taylor and a spot-on Uri Geller (“Michael was one of my best friends - even though I only met him six times”).
But then the real David Gest showed up to deliver a smattering of solemn soundbites about subjects such as Michael’s “addiction to Lucozade tablets” - and to back up the claim that the reason the singer always wore one glove is because he‘d had one of his arms replaced with Heather Mills’s leg. I’m guessing David felt safe in the knowledge that viewers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between his own face and a rubber mask - but still… Some “friend”, eh?
Ultimately, the programme worked well as a spoof of all those hastily thrown-together, insight-light documentaries that popped up in the days following Jackson’s death - and, in the main, it was far too silly to be deemed offensive. Still, it’s hard to think of any other famous person who’d be subjected to this kind of small-screen send-up so soon after their death.
What did you think of last night’s Cha’Mone! Mo’Fo’Selecta!? Tell us here.
The first few weeks of university are such an easy experience to parody, it's a surprise it hasn't been done more often. This being the case, new youthy sitcom Off the Hook can't have been a huge stretch to write – but that's not to say it wasn’t a half-decent watch.
Danny is a normal nervous 18-year-old arriving at university for the first time, a bit embarrassed about his mother, who's keen to help him settle in, and eager to make new friends. After escaping from Depressed Weirdo in the housing queue, he was suddenly doing quite well, managing to meet Hot Righteous Girl (HRG) and listening to her gush about her gap year.
Justin Lee Collins: The Wrestler, Thursday 9pm, Sky1
Posted by Will Parkhouse
Justin Lee Collins is one of those Marmite comedians – and by that, we mean that you either love him or hate him, not that he's bitter and good to spread on your toast. Me, I was quite sad to hear his Bring Back… series was being axed by Channel 4 and also to see that his chat show was a bit rubbish, just like 99% of chat shows.
This new series on Sky1 is a bit like Faking It - the reality show that gave all the others a bad name by actually being quite decent - except the only contestant is Justin Lee Collins. Each week, the hairy Bristolian, to use his eternal moniker, has a different challenge, like becoming a West End star or learning to surf. The stakes were high in last night's opener, with JLC attempting to become a luchador, one of Mexico's hugely popular Lucha Libre wrestlers.
