A new kidult sketch show that's "gleefully immature", presided over by writer Stuart Kenworthy (Green Wing/Smack The Pony) – who mentored new writing talent to get this on the air. It's a BBC Three comedy, which means my expectations were immediately rock bottom (the sting of Tittybangbang still hurts), and memories of Three birthing comedy giant Little Britain are fading fast. I know the channel has given us BAFTA-winning Gavin & Stacey recently, but it also refuses to axe Two Pints and provides employment for Rhys Thomas...
Scallywagga' aims to be as irreverent, cheeky and streetwise as the BBC believes all of today's kidz are. It stars a cast of total unknowns: Carl Rice, Jessica Hall, Luke Gell, Joanna Higson, Stefan Gumbs, Lena Kaur, Scott Taylor and Curtis Cole, which at least keeps characters difficult to predict. But it also means the more-famous supporting cast (Coronation Street's Sally Lindsay, Star Stories' Steve Edge and Peep Show's Neil Fitzmaurice) draw your attention more than they should. And, while Edge and Fitzmaurice aren't household faces, Lindsay's presence sticks out a mile – and I always sense a strange desperation to be funny from her.
This first episode was slick and well-constructed, with sketches mixed to a soundtrack of indie hits, but nothing really stood out from the crowd. There was a tired pastiche of MTVs Cribs (where, get this, the star was a teen rapper wannabe living at home with his mum – har-har), a family whose lives seem to mirror adverts/TV, a posturing "psychic" who tries to guess your PIN number, a teacher despairing at her pupils' zombie-like quoting of a TV catchphrase during lessons ("a-chillymondo, a-chiggybondo!"), and a slew of others I've forgotten already.
There were a few sketches that raised a slight smile (the mobile phone features "face-off"), a few others where the idea behind the sketch was better than the execution, but nothing that caused big laughs. While it's nice to see fresh faces, you don't laugh as readily at "strangers", so maybe things will pick up once we're accustomed to the cast and the recurring characters. But, crucially, the material looked pretty thin and the hit-rate was depressingly low, no matter who was on-screen. Sketch shows usually put their best stuff in episode 1 (see Mitchell & Webb), which is worrying if that unwritten rules holds true for Scallywagga'!
Still, it wasn't offensive or catchphrase-orientated, and it was certainly more polished than Tittybangbang and Blunder -- but as the brainchild of a writer who's worked on Green Wing, Harry Hill's TV Burp, Smack The Pony and many others, it was very pale in comparison and didn't make me laugh.
29 April 2008
BBC Three, 10.30 pm
