Toast is hot stuff — with more laughs in 30 minutes than in most sitcom series
The mortal enemies and worse friends of Stephen Toast over the years have included Cocker Boo, Kikini Bamalam, Iqbal Achieve, Una Length, Kay Tightneck and Peanut Whistle.
But as Matt Berry’s failed thespian returned in Toast Of Tinseltown (BBC2), the Pretentious Name Generator excelled itself. Within minutes, we’d gained film producer Neil Doubla-Decka and anger management guru Des Wigwam.
Toast, switching to the Beeb after six years on C4, is a failing actor who loathes his career but can’t think of doing anything else.
his life is a round of lectures from his agent, drinking sessions in his seedy club, legovers with the wife of a despised rival, and mindnumbing voiceover jobs. every aspect of Life Among the Luvvies is sent up. It’s stupidly funny.
The opening scene was Toasted to perfection. Fans’ favourites Danny Bear and Clem Fandango (Tim Downie and Shazad Latif) were the hipsters in sleeveless T-shirts and tattooed mascara, sniggering behind the console in the mixing room. Better still, U.S. comedian Larry David popped up as an o b n o x i o u s l y a r r o g a n t a u t h o r, correcting every word Toast read aloud, including his very first: ‘The’.
This time there’s a more ambitious storyline, as Toast lands a role in the latest Star Wars movie and flies to hollywood. The show is so loved by actors for its wicked injokes Matt Berry really does have a credit in Disney’s new Star Wars spin-off, The Book Of Boba Fett.
Not all the jokes rely on Berry’s booming voice and his mispronunciations. Many are sight gags, waiting to be spotted. Drinkers at the Colonial Club, the Soho dive where Toast goes to booze with other reprobates, included hilarious lookalikes of Tom Baker (in his Doctor Who scarf), Zara Rhodes, David hockney and George Melly, complete with eyepatch.
No one comments on Toast’s mobile phone, a yuppie monstrosity from the 1980s, the size of a breeze block. And a five-second flashback skewered Strictly, as Toast took part and accidentally broke his partner’s neck with an overly flamboyant twirl.
More was packed in to half an hour than most comedies manage in a six-part series. Robert Bathurst doesn’t even have to get dressed to raise a laugh — as Toast’s flatmate ed, he just sips tea in his dressing gown and arches an eyebrow. White-suited actor laddie Ray Purchase (harry Peacock) finally discovered Toast has been sleeping with his wife (Tracy-Ann Oberman) for 20 years. (‘Really?’ remarked Mrs Purchase. ‘I don’t remember.’) And Doon Mackichan as the shamelessly superficial agent, Jane Plough, meets every outburst with a smile as brittle as frosted sugar.
Brittle and superficial smiles were everywhere in the Spanish sunshine on Davina McCall’s new show, The Language Of Love (C4).
This daft concept pairs singletons from Britain with local lotharios and flirts, without providing a translator. The pretence is that couples will pair off on the basis of physical attraction alone. Christobal, a nursing assistant from Gibraltar, says he lives in a UK ‘colony’, and single mum Thalia thinks he’s talking about ‘cologne’. Yes, of course she does . . . It’s obviously a set-up.
Most of the Spaniards can speak english and barely bother to hide it. Tensions and arguments are scripted, emotions are faked and no one has a shred of real interest in dating — they just want to be on TV.
‘All my princes have turned out to be frogs,’ says Kimey from Tenerife. ‘I’m tired of being treated as a sex object,’ announces Jose Carlos. how many takes did they need to get those lines right?
It’s not nasty or exploitative, as some of these shows can be. It’s just pointless.