Cheap laughs, but not nasty
The Beeb has cooked up two shows from the scraps in its store cupboards and still managed to create nourishing comedy fodder. Leftovers never tasted so good, says James Belfield.
As much as we love our homegrown telly fodder, it can be hard to battle behemoth broadcasters like the BBC when it comes to style, quality and consistency.
And even while Aunty Beeb seems to find itself forever backed into a corner through the constant rollcall of scandals – just mention Jimmy Savile, Jeremy Clarkson, Cliff Richard or gender pay gaps in the hallowed corridors around Portland Place and watch lawyers and middle management scurry for cover – she still emerges with some of the world’s greatest small-screen entertainment.
In fact, such is the size and scope of the organisation that it is even able to feed off its own scraps and discomfort to satiate global demand.
In the ancient world, philosophers had a symbol for infinity called the ouroboros – a snake eating its own tail – and these days it sometimes feels as if this ought to somehow be incorporated into the BBC’s coat of arms.
When these self-saucing shows eventually wash up on our screens in New Zealand, they can sometimes feel a little tenuous, overly packed with in-jokes and staffed by a constantly revolving cast of (usually comedic) faces. I sometimes feel, for example, that if Alan Davies one day gets the gig on Antiques Roadshow, the universe may just explode in a puff of logic.
The trouble is, they’re usually still very watchable – as with the latest culprits, Round Planet and the marvellously named Insert Name Here.
There was a time when David Attenborough, by virtue of dating back to the BBC’s pre-scandal-days-of-yore, was untouchable – save for the odd spot of reverential, doffed-cap ribbing from impressionists. But Round Planet sees his glorious nature docos irreverently revoiced by Little Britain’s Matt Lucas (who, as presenter Armstrong Wedgewood, sounds ever so slightly similar to Peter Jones’ deadpan radio voiceover for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and is at times equally as zany).
Among the fourth-wall satire (a mother polar bear “teaches her cubs a valuable life lesson by biting them on the bum – it’s a metaphor”, and a peaceful narwhal confrontation dismissed with “let’s be honest, we were all hoping for violence”) and Wedgewood’s Keith-Floydesque banter with his producer (including his weird quest to be delivered his toasted panini), the half-hour show even manages to send up what’s probably been Attenborough’s lowest moment: Frozen Planet’s fake footage scandal.
While back in 2011, the BBC had to explain why parts of a polar bear birth were filmed in a Dutch zoo, this time Wedgewood goes to great lengths to cover the veracity of a dead reindeer, which certainly hadn’t been brought in by the cameramen to attract carnivores. No, sir. Absolutely not.
While Round Planet is a great half-hour of laughs and the perfect chance to rewatch what’s undoubtedly the world’s greatest nature film-makers at work, it’s hard to know what to make of Insert Name Here.
There’s a quiz hidden among the gags but, since the first point-scoring opportunity doesn’t arrive until 10 minutes into the 30-minute show, it’s hard to care.
And then there’s the personalities, who seem to have been harvested from a sweep of nearby studios. Host Sue Perkins takes little time to squeeze in a sharp one-liner about losing her Bake Off gig (another big BBC blunder), sports broadcaster Gabby Logan grins her way through her idea for inventing a “happy car horn” and somehow we get on to the topic of why elfin historian Kate Williams, who’s better known on the Beeb for po-faced explainers on ancient royalty, is scared of foam mattresses.
Richard Osman from Pointless is, as ever, a font of quirky knowledge and ready quips while Josh Widdicombe, Nish Kumar and Katherine Ryan are simply three of the interchangeable stand-ups that pack the benches on this type of BBC show.
Amid the banter, there’s time to poke fun at various Toms and Thomases to give sense to the title (Cruise, Edison, Selleck and Tank Engine all get a fair run) before Osman’s team is announced the winner and they all, presumably, retire to the green room to find out which show they’re shooting next.
Undoubtedly, both these shows are cheap (in BBC terms, anyway) television to make, but they’re certainly not nasty. And when our schedules are packed with so much truly cheap, tawdry reality telly, it can be a relief to find something that’s inexpensive and also fun. Round Planet screens on Prime on Sunday April 29 at 6.30pm, while Insert Name Here is on UKTV on Thursdays at 7.30pm from May 3.