I was very unimpressed this week. I quite like Djalili as a performer and his stand-up interludes were again the main reason to watch, but the majority of this episode consisted of extremely weak (no, embarrassingly bad) sketches...
Episode 2 began on a duff note and went down from there, opening on a sketch with Djalili playing a cockney Arab flying around on a carpet he's thinking of buying from a shop. See? Arabs. Magic carpets. Hilarious, no?
But the main culprit was a prolonged and extremely unfunny parody of Jane Austen called "Pride & Racial Prejudice", where Djalili played Persian ambassador Mr Farcy. It seemed to be just another excuse for Djalili to dance around while the Victorian stiffs looked bemused, before he parodied Colin Firth by emerging from a pond covered in frog spawn. Has a sketch ever failed so dismally?
You see, while Djalili's stand-up comedy is considered brave and compelling (albeit purely because he tackles racial issues and touches on hot post-911 topics), he's obviously a terrible sketch writer. If, indeed, he's the one responsible for penning these comedy tumbleweeds. I hear that one of the series' writers worked on The Two Ronnies, which is a good pedigree to have, but unfortunately said writer doesn't seem to have watched a sketch show since 1990...
I mean, honestly: annoying Ray Stubbs at a kid's football match, being a bad extra in a scene from Casualty, a Roman Emperor realizing that the colloseum react to the position of his thumb during gladiator bouts... all were mind-numbingly unfunny and tedious.
I think Djalili's a funny guy; despite his reliance on belly-dancing, faux Iranian accent, miming a rope-pull, and laughing maniacally. These tics are excusable in a stand-up routine (where they're flourishes to the verbal gags), and Djalili has some good material -- but why can't he spot a bad sketch when he reads one? The efforts here aren't even brave failures! They're just inane, old-fashioned and totally at odds with his comparatively hilarious stage routines.
Would The Omid Djalili Show be any better if he wasn't on BBC1? I can imagine far more interesting and controversial material being created if this were a Channel 4 series. But, while there are flashes of brilliance when Djalili just does his stand-up set to the audience, all the supporting sketches lack substance, laughs, and sap whatever pace Djalili manages to build...
24 November 2007
BBC1, 9.40 pm
Episode 2 began on a duff note and went down from there, opening on a sketch with Djalili playing a cockney Arab flying around on a carpet he's thinking of buying from a shop. See? Arabs. Magic carpets. Hilarious, no?
But the main culprit was a prolonged and extremely unfunny parody of Jane Austen called "Pride & Racial Prejudice", where Djalili played Persian ambassador Mr Farcy. It seemed to be just another excuse for Djalili to dance around while the Victorian stiffs looked bemused, before he parodied Colin Firth by emerging from a pond covered in frog spawn. Has a sketch ever failed so dismally?
You see, while Djalili's stand-up comedy is considered brave and compelling (albeit purely because he tackles racial issues and touches on hot post-911 topics), he's obviously a terrible sketch writer. If, indeed, he's the one responsible for penning these comedy tumbleweeds. I hear that one of the series' writers worked on The Two Ronnies, which is a good pedigree to have, but unfortunately said writer doesn't seem to have watched a sketch show since 1990...
I mean, honestly: annoying Ray Stubbs at a kid's football match, being a bad extra in a scene from Casualty, a Roman Emperor realizing that the colloseum react to the position of his thumb during gladiator bouts... all were mind-numbingly unfunny and tedious.
I think Djalili's a funny guy; despite his reliance on belly-dancing, faux Iranian accent, miming a rope-pull, and laughing maniacally. These tics are excusable in a stand-up routine (where they're flourishes to the verbal gags), and Djalili has some good material -- but why can't he spot a bad sketch when he reads one? The efforts here aren't even brave failures! They're just inane, old-fashioned and totally at odds with his comparatively hilarious stage routines.
Would The Omid Djalili Show be any better if he wasn't on BBC1? I can imagine far more interesting and controversial material being created if this were a Channel 4 series. But, while there are flashes of brilliance when Djalili just does his stand-up set to the audience, all the supporting sketches lack substance, laughs, and sap whatever pace Djalili manages to build...
24 November 2007
BBC1, 9.40 pm
