HR

This is a very odd little comedy, a satire on modern office life. In truth, there's enough material here for a great five minute sketch, but stretched out to half-an-hour it really seems to groan. There are vague reminders of David Nobbs' 1970s sitcom 'The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin', but not really the zim of that brilliant series; and absolutely none of the contemporary pointedness of Scott Adams' cartoon 'Dilbert'. A few smiles can be found, but in truth, this is a boring half-hour that even the distinguished cast (of two) can't make interesting; in fact, they seem rather bored themselves in performing it.

Middle manager Peter is called into the office of his human resources manager Sam to discuss his appraisal. Both men seem to be on edge about how it is going to go. Central to their discussion is a tape recording of a phone conversation Peter had with a client a few months ago. Both men are keen to manage and contain the situation because the short snippet that Sam has listened to has Peter calling the man a "c**t". Keen to put it in context Sam and Peter review the rest of the tape.

Last week I watched Freezing on BBC4 which was a comedy that I disliked and felt was an obvious rip on Curb Your Enthusiasm. So with the second film in the "Tight Spot" collection I approached with caution for fear of more of the same – and knowing that the C word was going to be used a great deal also had me fearing a poor Curb copy. However this does mark itself as its own creature and I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn't rolling with laughter but I did find myself being carried along by the quick dialogue. The script captures the fear and pointlessness of modern office work really well and, although slightly exaggerated for the sake of humour it is still very recognisable. Just yesterday I had a colleague critique a five sentence email, underlining one or two specific words that had upset him, so trust me that the sense of work being constraining and petty was not lost on me with HR.

Handed a two-hander to work with both Pryce and Le Prevost play off one another really well and deliver their characters convincingly. They have to deal with a slightly weak ending but for the most part they do good work with the well written script. Morahan moves the camera around quite well despite the space-constrained set. Overall then, not a hilarious comedy but a consistently amusing one with quite an astute script. Otherwise it is notable for surely being the concentrated use of the C word in a BBC produced comedy.