Tittybangbang

Comedy is the hardest thing to get right and yet the thing the public hunger for the most. The end result: Lots of comedies that aren't very good, but are often watched and discussed a lot despite their mediocrity (Catherine Tate anybody?) The success of Little Britain was bound to bring forth a whole host of rip-offs of which TBB is just the first and -- when you think about it -- a welcome first step towards being the last.

The problem with this show is that the first episode got reasonable reviews from the critics and why not? Some of the acting is first class and lead Lucy Montgomery (the thin one) is a great mimic -- you can hardly recognise her from one sketch to the next, but I don't want to spend time with these characters. Middle class people from Primrose Hill can laugh at council house clowns and slimy perverts in smelly bed-sits, but I don't want to. I have actually had to live with some of these people and they are not so funny in real life!

Catchphrases equal desperation. Something from 1950's radio where you couldn't see the people and needed vocal references. This is more than catchphrases, this is the just another case of the same gag being done over and over again against slightly different backdrops. They come on -- show their dysfunction -- shout their catchphrase (often more than once) and then the screen fades to black. And then we start over. No wonder people still want to watch the Two Ronnies twenty years after they were made -- at least they only did the gag once!

All TV is an education. Even bad TV. I have learnt something from watching this. This is an extenuation of what I see in real life. Women getting away with acting badly. A man having sex with a corpse wouldn't have got past the BBC blue pencil, but a woman? Hell that is OK, just as long as it is clearly fake. They even put it on-line so children can watch it any time of the day or night.

We shouldn't knock this show too much, we need to get over our Little Britain period and try and find something that is really funny (and clever-funny would be a change), because comedy is about tons of failure for ounces of success. Like mining gold for real.

BBC three released two comedy sketch shows within two months. One was rotten, but TBB was a gem. When TBB started being advertised I was of course very reserved in my enthusiasm, little Britain is a hard act to follow...

TBB really is unique and brilliant for many reasons. The editing couldn't be better, the choice of music is inspired, just look at the use of Divine comedy's national express as the entertainers theme. Then at the start of Peacocks scene you can hear the music coming up through the floor of his apartment!

So many funny characters, I am very hopeful for a second series.

With the quick-fire sketch show format of "The Fast Show" (1994), the risqué crudity of "The Catherine Tate Show" (2004), and the random absurdity of "Little Britain" (2003), clearly BBC3 were convinced they were onto a winner with this new all-female production.

Except, er, somewhere someone forgot to put the jokes in. Painfully unfunny, so far the programme has desperately relied on the repetition of catchphrases which weren't amusing in the first place. Maybe the quality will improve as the series progresses, but at the moment I'm not sure I've got the will to stick with it.

Some of the characters may have potential, and there were occasional flashes of inspiration; however these were more often due to skillful camera-work and editing of the scenes than any dialogue in the actual sketch that was taking place. Overall, if for some reason you crave an all-female sketch show, stick with "Smack the Pony" (1999); this was very weak indeed.

TBB is brilliantly funny... but not on a level that actually makes you laugh. It's a satire on the state of modern comedy... it's full of empty catchphrases, paddling-pool characters, endless repetition, forced "dark" humour, and cloning of successful shows. It's not "like" Little Britain - it parodies it mercilessly! You have to watch for a while to really see what's going on: it's taken me a while to "get" it. But TBB is revolutionary! It turns the whole genre on its head by taking every current trend in comedy, and extrapolating them to their logical extremes. The result is a blistering attack on the stale state of TV comedy today. They're saying "Look what we can get away with!" (listen closely to the end of episode 1), and at the same time illustrating everything that is wrong. It's what Nathan Barley could have been, if the makers hadn't wussed out and decided to put jokes in it.

Hats off to the BBC for putting this on an entertainment channel! Considering how clever it really is, it ought to be on BBC4.

I wish there were more shows like Tittybangbang. I hate to think of BBC budgets being wasted on other so-called "comedians".

Incidentally, this was actually co-written by Bob Mortimer, under a false name (Robert Renwick). I don't really understand why. If I was Bob Mortimer, I'd be really proud of myself after this. Probably his finest work.

I feel the above comments are overly harsh, there are some genuinely funny sketch's present in both series ie the Darts women, the Geordy girls,women/man as the fisher woman, the pee man, the seepage woman, need I go on?!. O.k there are bits that craze you, but that happens in most comic series. The above comments should not be used as a definitive guide to the program as they are judging comedy on the BBC to that of live, or pioneering material. Its a comedy show on the BBC it is meant to appeal to a wide audience and that may compromise its originality, but compared to the comedy out there at the moment i.e Katherine Tate and two pints of lager its good! Watch it and judge for yourselves!!