The Kemps: All True

BBC iplayer, now streaming

Silliness is such an under-rated quality. While perfectly honed political satires and powerfully realistic dark comedies are rightly hailed by critics, flat-out absurdity and nonsense rarely get their due. The silliest TV programme of the year so far is The Kemps: All True, created by and starring Rhys Thomas, who specialises in hilarious mockumentaries like his shows about fake rock star Brian Pern and his annual faux factual fest of childishness that is A Year In The Life Of A Year. But The Kemps… is surely his masterpiece of mirth. It’s an affectionate spoof both of the rock-doc genre and ’80s New Romantic legends Spandau Ballet, with actual Spandau stars Martin and Gary Kemp playing ludicrous versions of themselves, riven by sibling rivalry and consumed by crackpot schemes to maintain their fame. Gary has a meat-free food business called Wonge, which would be great if it wasn’t for the fact that Wonge products turn out to have meat in them. And Martin is self-funding a movie franchise bringing together the universe of gangsters in The Hardest British Bastards In The Galaxy, led by Jack The Ripper coming back from the dead and gender-swapped to become Jackie The Ripper, played by Phoebe Waller-bridge. Obviously. Other revelations include the fact that Martin is married to both Pepsi and Shirlie, from the eponymous ’80s pop duo, and that Gary played the plastic sofa that ate people in a 1971 episode of Doctor Who called “Menopause Of The Autons”. All manifestly stupid ideas, of course, but they somehow come together in this orgy of daft gags to create a beautiful symphony of silliness.