The Stage

TV review

Published Tuesday 27 January 2009 at 10:25 by Harry Venning

Perhaps it was the unapologetically middle class setting, which screamed of My Family revisited. Perhaps it was the spectacularly mirth free trailers repeated ad infinitum on TV and radio. Perhaps it was reading the now customary critical kick in, delivered by the press to all new sitcoms. Whatever the reason, it was with a heavy heart and a sense of impending dread that I approached, three weeks late, BBC1’s new prime time sitcom Life of Riley.

Well, shock horror. Even allowing for the fact that my expectations could not have been any lower, Life Of Riley turned out to be surprisingly good.

Basically a Brit Brady Bunch, the show follows second time round newly weds Jim (Neil Dudgeon) and Maddy (Caroline Quentin), and their extremely extended families from their first marriages. This week Maddy’s husbands, past and present, became the best of pals.

Coming in on episode three, I really hadn’t a clue which child was which, or who belonged to who, but it really didn’t make any difference. The script was sufficiently amusing, imaginative and inventive to carry all before it.

Even the unfunny trailers took on a whole new comedy complexion when placed back in context.

Life Of Riley is that rare beast, the traditional, mainstream, joke driven sitcom. Rarer still insofar as the jokes are consistently funny. The Elvis/Elves sight gag even made me laugh out loud, which I hardly ever do.

I think Jonathan Ross should be denied access to the airwaves more often, since his enforced sabbatical seems to have done him the power of good.

After beginning his comeback with a short but seemingly sincere apology for past sins, Ross threw humility to the wind, sank his teeth firmly into Friday Night With Jonathan Ross and proceeded to shake it around like a Rottweiler with a rag doll.

Ross at the top of his game is a very impressive sight, and you could only feel sorry for his first guests of the new series. Stars of the calibre of Tom Cruise, Stephen Fry and Lee Evans found themselves totally eclipsed as Ross turned up the charm, the energy, the wit, the irreverence. I doubt if Tom Cruise has ever been asked if he fans or stifles his farts with the duvet before.

Normally I find Ross’ self-regard infuriating, but this was an almost calculatedly bravura performance to remind the public of what they had been missing, and what they could have been denied indefinitely had the self righteous humbug army, marshalled by the Daily Mail, got their way.

Does BBC Comedy have some sort of Soviet five year plan to quintuple the production of sketch shows? Is there a sketch show arms race being fought with a rival broadcaster?

Cowards is yet another one, but I have to say that it is funny and original enough to stand out from an ever increasing crowd.

The humour is a mix of the deadpan and the surreal, performed with subtlety and skill. Having said that, episode one was stolen by a long haired terrier who - assisted by subtitles - was trying to explain through barking that he was actually a man under a witch’s curse.

DETAILS

Life Of Riley - BBC1, Thursday, January 22, 8pm

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross - BBC1, Friday, January 23, 10.35pm

Cowards - BBC4, Tuesday, January 20, 10pm