Pompidou

I'm such a huge fan of Matt Lucas, his work in Little Britain & Come Fly With Me were admirable. He portrayed a wide diverse range of characters and if you've ever watched his work you'll agree he's very good at it.

However what is clear from Episode 1: 'Hunger' is that take away the vocal side of Matt and your left with not an awful lot. I watched the first episode in its entirety to see if it progressively got better but it amounted to nothing, psychical comedy is clearly not Matt's forte.

I understand this won't be his usual work given the pre-watershed time schedule therefore it cannot be crude or dark humour, but there is a reason why most comedians don't do silent comedy, because they don't have watch it takes to be a psychical comedian, Rowan Atkinson portrayed Mr. Bean amazingly and I'm afraid that level of genius is far out of Matt Lucas's reach with this new work of his.

I'll probably continue to watch the series in its entirety due to my admiration of Matt, but feel he has belittled himself with such a shoddy idea for a show, I'm sure he could of thought of something more intriguing that this.

I'm really struggling to see what went through anyone's mind when this was commissioned, or allowed to air. Maybe the powers-that-be thought that if they didn't get it, then it must be edgy or good, or clever, or all three.

It isn't.

It isn't funny either.

This is why pilots exist. Make one, try it out on an audience, see what they think (although, honestly, it should never have got that far, the editor should have saved the rest of us the pain and wiped all the media before it left the edit suite).

Please, don't bother. I watched this so you don't have to.

Everyone who worked on this should be ashamed of themselves for being absolute failures. Not only have they completely failed to understand what works in silent comedys, it also fails to understand what works in any comedy. There is an inexcusably low amount of jokes and the jokes it had I could see coming from a mile away. Also, every single one of these boring, milquetoast, stupid jokes went on for about two minutes.

This is the worst comedy I have ever seen, and that is coming from someone who actively seeks out bad movies. Painfully, unreasonably bad. So bad I can't even understand the mindset of the writers. I can't imagine how anyone could ever think this was funny. I'd be embarrassed for it if I wasn't so angry and astonished. It also makes me sad because it's attempts to bring back the dead genre of silent comedy probably did more bad than good. An absolute waste. Watch this if you're interested in just how bad comedys can be. Otherwise, avoid at all costs.

This is undeniably silly. It's meant to be. I giggled through every episode. Matt Lucas is already a favourite actor of mine from previous TV shows & films. Hove and the dog interact brilliantly with him. While this series has been billed as "silent"; in actual fact all the characters speak. It's just in their own special "gibb-lish." The plots are easy to follow and full of comic visuals. Some of these are surreal. There is no crudity in the humour. Pompidou is an innocent who inadvertently causes trouble for everyone around him, especially Hove. He endears himself to the audience, occasionally breaking the 4th wall. This is evidently a project that Matt put his whole heart into and I hope he can make more. There's nothing wrong with SILLY, providing that's what you're looking for. And there's a special surprise for Little Britain fans. (Ep 5.)

4 episodes in and Wow… talk about dross TV.

There is only one good element to this show and that's the puppet dog. The dog is the creation of the people that helped to make another BBC show called 'Mongrels' (epic win). To watch Pompidou just to enjoy the puppet character Marion though would be like; eating crap just to enjoy a piece of sweet corn.

BBC Controller of Comedy Commissioning Shane Allen said: "The concept is wonderfully imaginative, the writing hugely inventive and it's the perfect vehicle for Matt – one of a handful of performers in the whole world who could pull this off."

Well.. it isn't, it isn't, it may well be and he couldn't. The "writers" last "wrote" for Chucklevision BTW.

Danny Cohen should have stopped this sham… was he on holiday?