Christopher (Tom Bennett) is a graduate student (resembling a shier Mark from Peep Show, spliced with The Office's David Brent), who is recruited by phone shop manager and chronic masturbator Ashley (Andrew Brooke) to replace an imprisoned colleague. "New man" Christopher becomes the charge of more experienced salesmen, wisecracking duo Lance (Martin Trenaman) and Jerwayne (Javone Prince), on a one-day trial to prove his worth as a salesman. But is the timid academic cut out for this high-pressure world?
PhoneShop certainly has potential, which is the good news. The cast connected together brilliantly and there were some nice lines and occasional insights into phone shop culture (like how attractive women are manipulated into bending over so someone can surreptitiously take a photo of their thong for the staff tea-bar.) It was certainly amusing to see how Lance and Jerwayne believe themselves to be high-flying alpha males, when in fact they're just peddling the latest Nokia's and Sony Ericsson's to largely indifferent customers. Oddly though, neither character came across as particularly likeable through the miasma of laddishness, although I appreciated the moment Lance told Christopher how to cheat his way through his induction by getting a friend to pose as a customer.
With PhoneShop already promoted to series, hopefully writer Phil Bowker will make his characters less caricatured and more rounded as realistic people – a la BBC Three's excellent Pulling, which he produced. The only character with inherent likeability was Christopher, and Bennett did a solid job as the innocent lamb thrown in with the lions. A lot of his mannerisms and the embarrassing situations he faced were reminiscent of other shows, particularly The Office (a coincidence that Ricky Gervais served as script editor?), but hopefully he'll find more unique quirks of his own in future.
The ambitious but thwarted Pay As You Go sales clerk Janine (Emma Fryer) was perhaps played too eccentrically, too. I'd have liked to see more realism in PhoneShop, as most of the characters were very broad, or felt like people you'd grow irritated by fairly quickly. Overall, PhoneShop worked well as a diverting pilot, but they'll have to adjust things if it's going to work as a regular series.
13 November 2009
Channel 4, 10.05pm
written & directed by: Phil Bowker starring: Tom Bennett (Christopher), Martin Trenaman (Lance), Andrew Brooke (Ashley), Javone Prince (Jerwayne), Emma Fryer (Janine), Ellena Stacey (Customer), Paul Pariser (Gruff Customer), Clare Vousden (Customer) & Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Graham)
