 Print this page |
TV PREVIEWS
That Mitchell and Webb Look, Thursday 10pm, BBC Two 
|
We’ve still got more than a month to wait before David Mitchell and Robert Webb return to Channel 4 for a sixth series of their impossibly brilliant sitcom Peep Show. But in the meantime, the talented pair - who are fast approaching national treasure status - are back with series three of their BBC2 sketch show.
However, if you’re tuning in for the first time, please don’t get too excited. That Mitchell and Webb Look suffers from the same syndrome as Horne & Corden: just because you’ve made a celebrated sitcom, it doesn’t necessarily follow that your sketch show will deserve equal acclaim.
Mitchell and Webb’s sketches range from the bafflingly bad to laugh-out-loud funny - and they’re really not helped by an OTT laughter track. Among the highlights? Santa Claus’s domestic idyll with his wife, Joyce, is rocked to its core when Santa’s troubled brother Russ shows up. A brain surgeon meets a rocket scientist at a cocktail party. And Robert invents a genius alternative to the doorbell, which involves shooting a dog out of a cannon.
There’s also a vaguely amusing Apprentice spoof, which drags on a tad too long - a criticism that could be levied at quite a few of the sketches, come to think of it. But then again, it’s easy to pick fault: as with most shows of this ilk, some of the skits work, and some of them don’t.
So is it worth watching if you’re at a loose end at 10pm tonight? Absolutely! Is it worth staying home for? Absolutely not! Ah, roll on Peep Show…
by Jane Murphy, Thursday 11 June 2009
Picture: BBC
