This Is Jinsy

...There is every chance you'll enjoy this. This is its own thing. But it's never going to escape style comparisons with Monty Python. And darn it, if you love weird, surreal, off-the-wall and unconsciously jarring British humour, Jinsy is going to sink under your skin. Even when you can't find it amusing, or find it repetitive, the visuals alone will haunt your back brain.

Jinsy also has flavours of Brazil, The City of Lost Children, The Delicatessen, and Twelve Monkeys. It includes the sort of self-consciously ironic music-comedy skits that peppered The Big Gig and The Sideshow variety shows from Australia.

I predict that in 10 or 20 years Americans will discover another reason why cults become classic.

Daily Greet! "This is Jinsy" is a surreal, satirical, ever-humorous look at life on an island administered by craven Arbiter Maven (Justin Chubb) and his ever-cynical assistant Sporrall (Chris Bran) by way of tessallators in every chalet and field. They labor in a Tower and under the sometimes bewildering eye of The Great He.

The tessallators, which look like a cross between a parking meter and an oscilloscope, spy on residents and also broadcast a range of light entertainment including island folk dibbler Melody Lane ("What's in my Handbag Today", "Types of Wood"), Weather Monk Tracee Henge ("Brrrr!" "Thud!", "Gentle Wafting!") and Sandy's Choice (a talent competition hosted by a dog).

The tessallators are also used to dispense justice to inebriates, petty thieves and other ne'er do wells by way of mild electrical shocks which honestly do wear off after several days and have only set a few small fires. One of the highest rated shows on Jinsy is "Punishment Roundup", hosted by a delightfully evil Joon Boolay (Harry Hill) who never seems to get tired of suspending dance vouchers and administering electricals!

Sporall and Maven are supported by Soosan Noop (Alice Lowe), their nearsighted tech, and Trinch (Geoffrey McGivern), who labors in the Law Caves under a stalactite. The Jinsy players round out the population of the island, constantly changing knitwear, wigs and genders to add to the surrealism.

Guest stars are also on hand to add to the lunacy. Especially funny are David Tennant as Mr. Slightlyman, Peter Serafinowicz as Eric Dunt, K.T. Tunstall as Briian Raggatan and Susan Horrocks as Mrs. Stenton.

Whether Maven and Sporrall are inadvertently exposing corruption in the island's wedding lottery, beheading an Ool bat, finding the way of the cupboard, making sure the spoons are clean or transferring name worms, "This is Jinsy" is always good for a laugh and repeated singing of the catchy songs (It's cold and it's wet and it looks just like an onion...").

Nightly Bye!

This is - I'll admit - a patchy but also occasionally brilliant comedy. Rather like League of Gentlemen or Monty Python, any surreal and original comedy will have moments where it doesn't work; this, like those programmes, is worth watching for when it does. The musical interludes are superb as are the guests who join in the fun - such as Rob Bryden's performance of "Female Badger" (see youtube). Don't watch it before visiting the supermarket as you'll end up singing questionable lyrics to bemused fellow shoppers. The use of language is also inventive and generates the claustrophobia of small communities. It is criminally under appreciated and definitely deserves to be better known.

The songwriting skills of Neil Innes at his best, the intelligent madness of Spike Milligan and an inventiveness that defies description, these are just a few of the elements that make This is Jinsy the best British comedy for many years. Justin Chubb and Chris Bran are to be congratulated on an original character based comedy that has joined sit-com to sketch-show with a joyful confidence and utter success under the superb direction of Matt Lipsey. The series is supported by a surreal design team led by Nic Pallace the captures an entire world of insane parallel development.

The highlights are almost too numerous to mention, but gold stars have to go to the entirely too believable civil service banter and by-play between the two main protagonists that occasionally riffs on Yes, Minister for the niceties of political structure formalities; Harry Hill as the sadistic Dominatrix punishment manager; The Jinsy Singers for some entirely too complex harmonies; Alice Lowe as the darkly frustrated yet interestingly sensual Tessellator engineer; the narcoleptic historian; David Hatton as the Weather Monk Tracee Henge, surely Spike Milligan on top Goon Show gibberish form reincarnated; songs you find yourself humming three weeks later; Simon Callow, Kevin Eldon, Jane Horrocks, Nigel Planer, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Serafinowicz, David Tennant and Don Warrington completely off the wall in guest roles.

It all makes a kind of mad sense, suspension of disbelief is entirely too easy, not to mention enjoyable as you immerse yourself in a very different normality. You can't help but laugh all the way through, each episode has gem moments, but the overall absurdity is a giggle form start to finish. Bravo, more please.

The reason most people who watch Jinsy will think it's genius is because nobody watches it under any illusions of its content - you know it's ludicrous, surreal and childish before seeing it and if you know that's your kind of humour then this will always tickle you terrifically in the tenderness of your titter pouch.

It is Monty Python/Goodies. People say The Goodies is a children's version of Monty Python's surrealist humour - Jinsy is the Island lovechild of their humour. It's like a place in the world where this humour sadly got put in a cardboard box over 30 odd years and has lost what little there was left of its mind and has recently been found and unboxed to confuddle and delight us all once again.

It is adult, although it never swears (unless you are native to Jinsy in which case it's terribly crass and appalling language), and it is just two very childish writers/actors/friends having a lot of silly fun with nonsense ideas that a seven year old could spin off high on sugar.

I envy them massively.

With a guest list involving so many brilliant people as well, it's just got the parrapawow-pop on top of the pong-shwing of swell. It's no low budget attempt at low logic laughs.