The Sketch Show

To be honest, I'd pretty much written off British comedy in recent years. After producing comedy classics one after another for so many years (as well as numerous pointless timeslot fillers), the BBC & Channel 4 seem to have had all comedy and creativity and independent thought drained from them by the humourless PC Marxists who succeeded in infiltrating and ultimately taking over. After seeing programs like "The Fast Show", "The Office", "Brass Eye" and "The League of Gentlemen" hyped, and then trying to force a laugh when watching them, I'd pretty much assumed that the last of Britain's comic talent (apart from Borat) must have either retired or moved across the Atlantic. The sudden eruption of outstanding comedy TV programs from the USA starting in the 1990's, after decades of canned laughter abortions, made me think the latter.

After seeing the, promos for "the Sketch Show", and considering that it was on commercial TV on first run, I held out little hope for it. I thought it would be like the aptly named Skithouse. Then I accidentally saw an episode. Wow! A genuinely funny sketch! and then another! And then another!!! Granted, I haven't seen every episode, but what amazed me was how many of the sketches were genuine belly laugh sketches - more than 50%, an outstanding ratio. The production values were high, the acting was good, and even the women were funny. There is a pleasant absence of tedious political hectoring - Ben Elton take note. It lacks the surreal elements, stylistic gimmicks & recurring themes that make for cult comedies but can also be used to mask a lack of funny ideas. Instead it's just good unpretentious sketch comedy that delivers laughs. What more can you ask for?

"The sketch show" is one of the funniest shows I have ever seen!

The sketches are funny and entertaining.

I don't know how they come up with it all! The actors are amazing at acting different characters.

The humor is one-of-a-kind, but oh...so funny! "The sketch show" always makes me laugh.

Personally, I just love British TV-series ( most of them), and the sketch show is one of my favorites. The humor maybe weird, and different, but that is just exiting, isn't it? Hilarious!

I recommend the show to anyone who cares for a laugh!

First of all I think it was a shame that only two series of this show were made. The sketches were fresh and original and not boring and predictable like most comedy shows are. Maybe the people that don't like it should watch more than 10 minutes of it before posting their reviews as Im afraid to say not every sketch can be hilarious.

I loved it! 10/10.

With a line-up including Ronni Ancona and Jim Tavare, plus writing credits from the likes of Ricky Gervais, and production by Steve Coogan and Henry Normal, you'd think that this would be something special. BIG mistake! Without a doubt, this has to be one of the poorest comedy shows ITV has put out in the last 20 years - and as you can imagine, it's up against some pretty stiff competition!

The punchlines to the sketches are so transparently obvious, you can see them coming as the sketch starts, but not in a fun intelligent way (see The Fast Show for a better example of obvious punchlines). Example: Man #1 is collecting money in a bucket. The bucket reads 'Pickpockets In Need'. Bet you can't guess what happens next?? That's right, Man#2 takes money from the bucket rather than putting some in. Oh, hilarity!

I can't stress highly enough how much this should be avoided. Think Three of a Kind without the laughs and you're getting pretty close.

ITV - must try harder!

A great british comedy full of short quick-witted sketches. One great joke after another. Sometimes it has its downs where a sketch drags on and wasn't funny. But most of the time it is hilarious.

I recommend watching this for a good comedy rather than the boring Australian sketch shows that only has ONE or TWO ..soso jokes such as Skithouse, comedy inc and big bite. Those are the worst sketch shows that drag a sketch on and on. They don't know when to end the joke. Most the time when the "punch line" comes in they still continue on with the sketch draining it out of its joke.

A good sketch will have the "punch line" and quickly on to the next like this series.

I guess DEANNE must be a woman because most girls don't have a sense of humor and to compare good british comedy with full frontal and fast forward, she must be an idiot. Fast Foward was a good sketch show, Full frontal was an alright sketch show - and thats the ONLY good sketch shows that eventually came from Australia.

But british sketch shows kills over australian sketch shows any day. Watch this series, its pretty funny and people should judge shows by ONLY watching it once. Some days its really funny, sometimes it will probably be dead. I watched skithouse, comedy inc and big bite about 3-5 times....what a waste of time and tv space that was.