Come Fly with Me

People compare Little Britain and Come Fly with Me unfavourably. They say the humour is different, or that the latter is not as funny as the former. Having watched the two series' back-to-back in a matter of weeks I have to say I disagree. The humour is essentially the same. The difference is a matter of targets.

Little Britain famously made fun of the disadvantaged and peripheral elements of the UK population: the people that everybody prefers not to see. At the same time it celebrated the English eccentricity in a weird way. We saw the disabled, the flaming queers, the transsexuals, the illegal immigrants, the chavs & council estate skivers as players in the national drama, even if only satirically. That was a first for British telly. The catch, and what made their style of satire acceptable, was that many of these people were not actually what they seemed: Ting Tong was actually a man from Tooting, Andy was actually able bodied, Dafydd was actually a repressed queer-hater, etc., etc.

The characters satirized on LB were freakish, fringe characters who were almost guaranteed not to be part of BBC's viewership. They were people that you would be more likely to see terrorizing the streets and the newsagents, stuffing themselves with cakes over a bodice-ripper or (as I imagine in Lou's case) watching obscure documentaries and re-reading newspapers from the previous decade. It was satire with a large element of "I'm glad that ain't me" humour. Those two styles of comedy are usually incompatible but in LB they found a balance; half the audience seemed to be laughing at the Walliams & Lucas duo while the other half was laughing with them. But the humour in Come fly seems to have sent those two camps scuttling back to their respective sides of the humour divide.

Come Fly With me targets more familiar faces and it's failing seems to be that it is set in an average setting, peopled by average characters. It satirizes people who have the time and money to use airports regularly - people with respectable dayjobs, authority and status; people with a shot at a managerial role. Basically, it targets the half of the audience that laughed AT the freak parade that was Little Britain. They are much more stable, affluent and secure characters than inhabited Little Britain - the kind of people who like to think of themselves as 'average' men and women, and that they should be able to hide behind their averageness.

I suspect that Little Britain fans who dislike Come Fly with me makes me are the same ones who never really understood LB's more satirical elements. They might have laughed at Little Britains' freakshow because, "I'm so glad that's not me" but they never recognized that the joke was also on them, at least in part. Walliams and Lucas took mainstream preconceptions to extremes and subverted them in unexpected ways. Basically, I think that Come Fly with Me hits hits too close to home and has dented the vanity of a certain BBC-watching demographic. That's why less people can take it and it's also exactly why it makes me laugh. I really hope there will be a second season of this!

Loved the show, I wish they would make more! It's really enjoyable!

Written and performed by Matt Lucas and David Walliams, creators of 'Little Britain', Come Fly with Me is a fly on the wall mockumentary set in an airport that spoofs the many British reality TV shows that have followed this format. It features a wide array of characters such as owner of low-cost airline FlyLo Omar Baba, work-shy coffee kiosk worker Precious Little, highly camp passenger liaison officer Moses Beacon, racist immigration officer Ian Foot, quirky ground crew worker Taaj Manzoor, catty air steward Fearghal O'Farrell, serial holiday-makers Peter and Judith and the extremely thick burger joint worker Tommy Reid who has ambitions of becoming a pilot.

Firstly, this is a well written and very well performed comedy. There have been criticisms of it but to be honest I thought it was very funny on the whole. Lucas and Walliams are very amusing and talented comic performers and they are on very good form here. I can't compare it too much with 'Little Britain' seeing as I have only seen bits and pieces from that on-going series. But suffice to say, I think the idea of setting the comedy around a specific place works very well and means that there has to be a bit more discipline in the writing in order for the characters to all fit within the specific confines of the airport setting. Sure, it could be accused of being repetitive to a certain extent with some characters being slightly more one note than others. But on the whole Lucas and Walliams extract a lot of varied comedy from their characters and I have to admit I laughed quite a bit at this one.

As far as the accusations of racism I have often seen, I simply can't agree with this. It's actually quite lazy to label the show racist on the basis of these white actors applying dark make-up to their skin in order to play ethnic characters. To say this is not acceptable is illogical and lazy thinking, seeing as Lucas and Walliams play an assortment of characters from various regions around the UK. To say that they can play characters with different accents and hair colours but not different skin pigmentation is simply absurd. The fact that they do play these characters is in fact the opposite of racist – it's inclusive and treats types of Britons in the same manner irrespective of skin colour. Aside from this, you need look no further that the character of the immigration officer Ian Foot to understand what the creators really think of such narrow-minded thinking.

This is for sure a funny show that is probably a little under-appreciated.

Considering that this was made long after Little Britain's success, Come fly with me certainly pulls its weight. An airport setting is a nice refresh from a lot of mainstream comedies. Only 6 episodes where ever made, and that's a real shame because I feel they could have done a lot more with the show. On the upside, it genuinely gives the impression of a real documentary-you could show someone the intro and they would think it is actually about a real airline.

Some people would find it a bit offensive, but personally I didn't find it at all distasteful. The only complaint I have about this show is that I felt the husband and wife pilots "Jackie and Simon" were a bit over used. But it is very minor. It is a good show and is certainly worth your time if you liked Little Britain.

Great show and much more modern than Little Britain. The jokes and take on the idiosyncrasies of an airport are just great.

Pity it never got a second season and it is no longer available on most streaming services. But the DVDs asap and enjoy this timeless classic.