Okay, that was bad. Awful, in fact.

Omid Djalili is a decent stand-up, but the writers behind his show's accompanying sketches need to be fired. Now!

A lucky Arab (who strikes oil in everyday situations) was the best effort, and I quite enjoyed Steve "The Dragon" Thompson's instructional video on "How To Find Love" (despite it being much too long), but everything else this week was painfully unfunny...

That god-awful wannabe actor character returned in a sketch with Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman (doing her best, but clearly not suited to full-on comedy). There was also a moment with a man dropping his glasses on a hospital floor which was bafflingly devoid of any point or punchline. Likewise, a recurring sketch of a man being attacked by fish!

Seriously, was I missing something here? Throw in a boring pastiche of an arty-farty type (Janek Oberman) being interviewed by Alan Yentob, a gangster sketch that I can't even remember the jokes in, and you clearly have THE worst sketch show of the past 10 years. Woeful.

To make matters worse, Djalili's stand-up material is obviously getting thinner, too -- so there were fewer opportunities for him to make you forget the comedy crimes going on in the sketches. His stand-up tics (belly-dance opening, fake Iranian accent for awhile, etc.) are also becoming quite irritating now...

By all means give Omid Djalili a stand-up special on the BBC, but a sketch show/stand-up hybrid was quite clearly a big mistake.


1 December 2007
BBC1, 9.40 pm