Contrary to the featured review, I think this looks better with the passage of time. I found it creepy and off-putting at first view - maybe I noticed those implicit themes the FR mentions, while they didn't. If this was a picture of Britain, even one meant in fun, it was depressing. Without doubt Lucas and - especially - Walliams are, shall we say, unusual people, and they used this show to air some of their issues, pioneering things that are regarded as normal on TV now. And I can't say I enjoyed that aspect.
But it has two great saving graces. Firstly, it doesn't vilify or browbeat the audience squares as comedies do now - instead it invites you to laugh good-naturedly, with them, at their own oddities and neuroses. Second, it really is funny, permanently funny, not just dependent, like Catherine Tate, on temporary mass hysteria, or, like Enfield and Whitehouse, on mere exaggerated observation. LB's best gags are outrageous not just because they are rude, or taboo, but because they are so completely ludicrous. As with Python, though, there is usually a core of strange plausibility: we don't really act like this, but some of us would probably like to.
I think, eg, of wheelchair-bound Andy jumping into the aquarium and swimming behind his oblivious carer's back. Or tiny Denis Waterman with his giant cup of tea - it was a bit rough on the unsuspecting Waterman, but it really is funny. Or Bubbles Devere and Desiree rolling around naked on top of one another. The studio audience *howls* with laughter, the way they often did in the 70s, but rarely did in the 90s and 00s and probably never will again.
In its time, the BBC has churned out sketch shows by the ton - remember all those shows by Spike Milligan, Les Dawson, Little & Large, Morecambe & Wise, the Two Ronnies, Russ Abbott, Smith & Jones, French & Saunders, Armstrong & Miller etc etc? Apart from Python almost none of it worth returning to (except maybe out of nostalgia) - but this is.
