The Matt Lucas Awards - TV review
Where did the boom in comedy panel shows start? Was it the day Angus Deayton was forced to swallow spoonful after spoonful of humiliation as his tenure in charge of Have I Got News For You crumbled?
Where did the boom in comedy panel shows start? Was it the day Angus Deayton was forced to swallow spoonful after spoonful of humiliation as his tenure in charge of Have I Got News For You crumbled?
Where did the boom in comedy panel shows start? Was it the day Angus Deayton was forced to swallow spoonful after spoonful of humiliation as his tenure in charge of Have I Got News For You crumbled?
Perhaps it was the day the BBC's commissioning editors gave the green light to Stephen Fry and Alan Davies on QI.
Regardless, as a cheap-to-make filler for the ever-expanding number of channels, it serves its purpose well.
The love of chucking a few comedians around a table and squeezing them for nuggets of wit and wisdom shows no sign of abating, and Matt Lucas is the latest man to take the lead.
In The Matt Lucas Awards (BBC1), the funnyman – sadly not dressed as an overgrown baby as he did in previous outings – is joined by three guests to hand out awards in three unusual categories – including smuggest country and worst football song (won, somewhat inevitably, by Hoddle and Waddle's Diamond Lights).
Should you make it through the unnecessarily long and tiresome title sequence, you are rewarded with Lucas inviting three celebrity comedians to provide nominees for awards categories put forward by the host.
Jason Manford is here, but when is he not? I'm beginning to wonder whether his image has just been burned into the corner of my screen, bent double in laughter. He doesn't stray far from his usual schtick – hints of rudeness, knowingly duff puns, and observations about day-to-day life.
Former Goodies star Graeme Garden looks more than a little baffled about being involved, particularly when he's dressed up as Sven Goran Eriksson and made to sing a song about the Swedish football manager.
Only the other guest, the German Henning Wehn, manages to inject a hint of wry wit into proceedings.
It's all designed to be anarchic and surreal, which is very much Lucas's stock-in-trade after stints on Shooting Stars and Little Britain in the past.
It's set in Lucas's flat, his mum is drafted in to help out with presentation duties, and at one point he holds a door open to reveal his female 'flatmate' sitting on the toilet with her trousers round her ankles while Lucas debates the footballing prowess of Robin van Persie with film score composer David Arnold, who is also thrown into the mix without explanation.
At another point, the guests, and the audience, are asked to draw an elderly man who has wandered on stage in a posing pouch.
It's a chuckle-free interlude that interrupts whatever rhythm the show had.
So yes, it's surreal. No, it's not like most panel shows (except for Jason Manford being there, of course). And yes, it's anarchic.
But it's also a pretty flimsy concept, played out to slight laughter from a sparse audience, despite everything being delivered with a twinkle in the eye, and a knowing smirk.
When it seems like the contestants are enjoying the show far more than the audience, you feel something has gone wrong.
Matt Lucas and his mum seemed to have a grand old time at The Matt Lucas Awards. I just wish that everyone else could have joined in on the joke.
What did you think of The Matt Lucas Awards? Have your say below.
By Thom Kennedy
