You the Jury

BBC1’s The Armstrong and Miller Show doesn’t go in for easy catchphrases - the emphasis is on recurring characters and slightly more sophisticated comedy, like the pair of Second World War pilots speaking in upper class accents but with the vocabulary and attitude of Catherine Tate’s petulent schoolgirl Lauren.
The situations and the characters are so familiar and low-key that watching them with the sound down you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d tuned into a slightly dull set of documentaries. But pay attention to the script and you find yourself transported to a different world where everything is inverted. This show has been made with a great deal of pace and visual panache - the haunted house sketch was a directorial treat - comedy at the start and finish, but real horror in between. It’s not always big belly laughs, but certainly big smiles throughout.
In The Omid Djalili Show on BBC1, belly laughs have to compete with belly dancing. Omid uses his Iranian heritage to allow him to explore facets of multiracial Britain that many find difficult to tackle. He is also a brilliant comic actor, as seen in the characters of the crusty old High Court judge with Geordie Tourette’s.
This programme was at its best on the occasions when tightly written material met clever performance, such as the scene in which what appears to be a speed-dating event turns into a one-minute speed-relationship session - the spectrum of attraction, lust, marriage, kids, affairs and acrimonious divorce romped through in one minute. Omid’s a great talent, I hope the strengths of this series can be built upon.
Aptly Five’s 30 Rock is set behind the scenes of a sketch show production. It uses quick-fire gags and one-liners alongside some more stylish devices. A series of flashbacks illustrate how the producer/writer thinks she gets away with not telling the lead actress the truth about her appalling acting by finding a different irrelevant point to comment on each time.
The same flashbacks are then replayed later from the actress’ point of view with different intonations to reveal how she hears them as outright insults. Complete with cameos from Whoopie Goldberg and the sight gag of an oversized stuffed toy dinosaur being thumped in frustration to the disgruntled dismay of the actor inside it, this series is worth a return visit.

Jeremy Mills is managing director, Lion Television

The Armstrong and Miller Show has an eclectic mix of characters ranging from Rasta-speaking Second World War RAF pilots, a dentist that loves to tell you where he has previously had his hands while delving deep into a patient’s mouth, and not to mention the weekly dregs of society that get interviewed only to reveal they became a teacher - hilarious.
It is hard to create a seamless entertaining comedy sketch show, but Armstrong and Miller for my money have done just that. The huge diversity of characters and the quality of script-writing pours effortlessly through the 42-inch plasma and washes over the reality-fatigued viewer. Pleasure could only really be increased by a glass of Pimms. A great transition to the BBC and a loss for Channel 4.
Omid Djalili has a sell-out stand-up act on both sides of the Atlantic, has many Hollywood film credits to his name, as well as small screen credits on NBC and HBO. The BBC made the great decision to give this comic his own series, The Omid Djalili Show. Talented, gifted with accents, likeable and politically incorrect, being a non-Westerner he gets away with Nigerian jokes and changing WAGs to WOGs. I’m not sure the national newspapers would cut Jim Davidson the same slack in reviews.
The stand-up element of the show is great: well-written, funny and clever in delivery thanks to his “stock in trade” as a live performer. However, the sketches were soft and lacking in originality in content. I found myself wishing they’d finish so we could get back to stand-up Omid on stage - a contemporary Billy Connolly and Jasper Carrott poking fun and observing life Iranian style. Oh I forgot to mention his excellent dancing skills.
Five’s 30 Rock is a sitcom set behind the scenes of a television show penned, exec produced and starring Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live fame. It aired stateside in October 2006 but had poor audiences on initial transmissions. It managed to get into a second season and has been a slow burn that has grown and developed, finding modest, loyal but not huge audiences. It looks to have found a similar small, loyal audience in the UK on Five, but with the single camera style and absence of a laughter track this is not one for me.

Mark Lawrence is director of global acquisitions at Hallmark, Movies 24 and Diva

Have your say

You must sign in to make a comment.