Angelo's

Angelo's was (it won't be back) a sitcom set in a café (ie sleazy coffee shop) off Trafalgar Square. It was 4 years in development, apparently, which explains the patchiness and generally dated style of the humour. It started life as a mockumentary on 'The Office' lines, and one or two of the scenes look just like standalone sketches in that style, but at some point it became a sitcom.

Channel 5 put it on at 11PM on a Friday which was pretty much the kiss of death, and in spite of the marathon development 'Angelo's' came across as undercooked: far too many wacky characters propping up weak story lines, and the characters were mostly two-dimensional, founded on one particular gag; eg the police couple having sex/fertility problems, or the guy pretending to have a job. Angelo himself was really bland. Reminiscent of the 'Dick Emery Show' at times, if anybody remembers that.

The only character that rang true was the friend who agreed with everything the daughter said, but even that had been done in 'The Fast Show' long before. Yeah, there were bits to laugh at, and bits to go 'aaah' over, but in the end it was like a well-watered-down 'Shameless'.