Tittybangbang

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.

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.

I just found this older series online and love it! It's rude and crude. But, if you're middle aged or older and grew up before all the PC stuff became the norm, you'll probably love it! Some skits are 10's. Some are 4-5's. So, I'm giving it an average rating of 7 Stars! Keep in mind that there are some dogs in the mix.

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.

*sigh*

A new year and the promise of BBC3 shoving yet another over-hyped and under-written comedy down the nation's collective throats is already enough to make me seriously consider not making it to midnight.

If the utterly hateful trailer was not enough to make you despise this rubbish then I'm delighted to say that I'm sure the pilot will be more than adequate (though it's not really a pilot the series will be airing regardless of whether anyone watched the pilot).

This series manages to bring together much of what is wrong with British comedy today. It offers a subtle blend of unfunny catchphrases, unchallenging and dull 'adult' content (that TV producers seem to think is hilarious) and endless mugging to weak jokes and a script that could have stood to have been re-written seven or eight times and should probably still not have been made.

• Lesbian Lion Tamers

• Necrophilliac morticians

• Exhibitionnist cleaners

Basically this is comedy that is all about marketing and viral spreading of catchphrases and ultimately not about good writing and good characters. In this respect it's quite typical of BBC3's output. Because the writers lack the skill required to put together a good line of comedy there's a tendency to systematically go for the shock... to reach for some sexual or "dark" angle that is essentially used to mask the inherently weak nature of the comedy. The problem is that A) this requires all the comedy skill of children shouting "Poopoo" and B) it doesn't fool anyone because it's not particularly shocking anyway because this tactic has been so over-used by weak comedy writers that it no longer has any effect.

Expect it to be hyped so heavily that it will become inescapable like Big Brother and Catherine Tate.

Hateful.