David Mitchell<\/a> and Robert Webb, now in their early 50s, is perhaps not what those yearning for a new wave had in mind. Still, the self-deprecating title \u2013 Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping \u2013 precludes any saviour narrative, and they\u2019ve chivalrously held the door open for some fresher faces, including actor Kiell Smith-Bynoe and standups Stevie Martin, Krystal Evans and Lara Ricote.<\/p>\nWith fresher faces \u2026 David Mitchell, Lara Ricote, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Krystal Evans and Robert Webb. Photograph: Channel 4<\/p>\n
The duo remain front and centre, however \u2013 and it is comfortingly surreal to see them side-by-side again. In fact, from the quirky animated title sequence to the pair\u2019s trademark strain of pedantically logical observational comedy, the whole endeavour feels very 00s. It\u2019s easy to imagine the show\u2019s opening sketch \u2013 about a group of 18th-century poshos who can\u2019t see the advantages of a toilet over defecating in a pot and chucking it out the window \u2013 airing 20 years ago. This isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing, especially considering the duo were never exactly bleeding-edge in the first place: Mitchell\u2019s whole shtick is bewildered fogey, while as Peep Show\u2019s Jez, Webb will always be synonymous with the tragically misguided pursuit of cool. Few comedy double acts are better placed to cruise into middle-age.<\/p>\n
That toilet sketch is a decent premise nicely realised. Yet its follow-up \u2013 about the changing demands of airport security \u2013 is a better idea executed with an energy so cartoonish, shouty and bewigged it wouldn\u2019t have seemed out of place in Little Britain. It is a truth universally acknowledged \u2013 even by Mitchell and Webb themselves, who riffed on the topic in their original series \u2013 that sketch shows are hit-and-miss. Why, I don\u2019t know \u2013 because humour is subjective? Because nobody has ever had enough good ideas to burn through 10 of them in 30 minutes? Or, as Mitchell wryly put it, because \u201cif we didn\u2019t perversely include about 50% deliberately unamusing material\u201d people would be driven to find other faults with them?<\/p>\n
Whatever the reason, it does feel fairer to focus on the show\u2019s successes rather than its failures. And after a questionable start, there are some real highs. Precisely which programme Sweary Aussie Drama is parodying is unclear, but this expletive-riddled soap about a family of potty-mouthed farmers makes me laugh a lot. So does a skit about horror fans delighting in their disturbed psyches in post-screening vox pops, as well as a gameshow parody called Hot Seat, essentially musical chairs trussed up as a shiny floor format.<\/p>\n
David Mitchell as Prince Andrew. Photograph: Channel 4<\/p>\n
At its best, this series makes a very convincing argument for why we needed sketch shows in the first place. There are certain comic observations about the modern world that don\u2019t fit anywhere else: a great skit about a drama chronicling the making of the two (real) competing TV dramatisations of Prince Andrew\u2019s Newsnight interview being a case in point.<\/p>\n
From Morecambe and Wise to Smack the Pony, you used to be able to trace the history of British comedy, and culture, in TV sketch shows. Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping isn\u2019t novel or timely enough to carry that torch \u2013 but it is proof this criminally neglected genre still has legs. I hope it runs and runs.<\/p>\n
Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping is on Channel 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been 15 years since That Mitchell and Webb Look left our screens, but it\u2019s still hanging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-401065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115154017580751238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}