Big Top

Family friendly sit-com set in a travelling circus, featuring a surprisingly top notch range of comic performers (its good to see Ruth Madoc back performing regularly on TV again), this show is never going to win any awards for the quality of its scripts, but there are some inventive touches that show there is enough potential for a second series.

Other reviewers have commented stating that it bears no comparison to The Office, Fawlty Towers etc - and indeed it doesn't, but this show is clearly aimed at family viewing and is going out in a relatively early evening time slot so should be viewed in that context.

I just viewed the first episode of the new British comedy "Big Top" and it will be the last time I will ever watch this show. It features a traveling circus full of misfit clowns and incompetent performers managed by the only competent person on the show, Lizzy, an attractive female ringmaster. Boyco, the acrobat character is almost unbearable to watch with his horrific Eastern European accent. The jokes are second rate retreads, and overused clichés. I had to force any of the few laughs I had while watching it. I've seen some great British comedy series such as "Spaced", "Peep Show", "The It Crowd", and "The Office" and this series just makes me appreciate them more.

Enthusiastic ringmaster Lizzie has been handed Circus Maestro from her father, but it's struggling. Week after week, it moves from one crisis to another.

One thing I've always wondered: how on Earth did the BBC transmit the whole series? I can remember the backlash after episode one aired; people didn't respond well, but they put out the whole thing. I quit after about only ten minutes. Sixteen years on, I decided to dip my toe in once again.

This must rank as one of the worst comedies ever commissioned. Nothing works; the scripts are unfunny, the acting is poor, and all efforts to make Amanda Holden a comedy sitcom star failed.

There just aren't any laughs, apart from one or two decent lines in episode three. The stereotypical characters aren't likable, goofy, or in any way appealing. I'd argue Georgie and Boyco are the worst of the lot. Boyco's accent will make you think of Miss Popov.

At times, it felt as though it was written many years before it went out; it's dated, but I'm being unkind to the great comedies of yesteryear.

The biggest crime had to be the misuse of the great Tony Robinson. I can't understand how he agreed to be in it.

2/10.

In one episode of this 'comedy' series someone suggests the lead character should sleep with a Health and Safety Inspector to pass a routine inspection. Maybe this is a case of art imitating life and the sales pitch to the BBC involved a little indoor wrestling on the casting couch.

Seriously, I came across this on the cable channel BBC Entertainment and just sat hypnotised by the sheer awfulness of this show. I mean, was this the organisation that gave us Tony Hancock and Fawlty Towers? How did a member of the 'Blackadder' team end up spewing out trite one-liners which were nowhere near as venomous and cynical as his former master (but were obviously intended to be)? Could the cast read? How hungry do you have to be to do this sort of stuff? Added to the terrible scripting was a cheap, shoddy production in which the principle characters were backed up by extras doing nothing in particular in the background, and obvious inserts of a real circus audience for 'performance' sequences.

If you need something to take your mind off a toothache don't watch this, live with your toothache, it will be funnier.

I've forgotten the last time the BBC did an amusing comedy , as has the majority of viewers in Britain , so I'm guessing BIG TOP with its large ensemble cast playing a circus troupe is a throw back to the days of DADS ARMY , HI DE HI and ARE YOU BEING SERVED . It also features Tony Robinson best known for Baldrick one of the truly great comedy characters from the classic BLACKADDER series , and there's John Thomson from THE FAST SHOW fame . That said the cast also features Amanda Holden at the top of the cast list who is so untalented she strikes me as someone who'd have a problem playing herself . If the omens weren't good the reality is far worse than can be imagined

As has been pointed out the jokes are lamer than a horse that's had its limbs amputated . This is only be expected from a BBC comedy from the 21st century . That's not the main problem . One episode centres around the immigration bureau investigating one of the circus acts who might be an illegal immigrant . Being a BBC show there's not much call for racist gags - which might have raised a chortle if only for nostalgia's sake - but no the real offence comes with Holden's character thinking about whoring herself to the immigration investigator ! This in a show broadcast at 7.30 pm ! It's amazing the amount of sexual references and innuendos there is in a sit-com that on the surface considers itself a family show . In fact if you can imagine a children's show with sexual references this is what it looks like - a kind of TORCHWOOD with canned laughter