"Comedy Showcase" Plus One (2007)

Director:

Simon Delaney

Writers:

Tim Allsop (co-writer)
Stewart Williams (co-writer)

TV Series:

"Comedy Showcase" (2007)

Original Air Date:

19 October 2007 (Season 1, Episode 3)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Rob Black gets invited to his ex-girlfriend's wedding. She is marrying a pop-star (Duncan James from...

Cast

Rory Kinnear	...	Rob Black
Duncan James	...	Duncan From Blue
Miranda Raison	...	Linsey
Manjinder Virk	...	News Reporter
Ruth Bradley	...	Laura
Ingrid Oliver	...	Rebecca Black
Nigel Harman	...	Rich Black
Steve John Shepherd	...	Paul
Eric Carte	...	Uncle Phil
Jan Goodman	...	Barbara
Gemma Atkinson	...	Herself
Sapphire Elia	...	Kerry
Laura Haddock	...	Nicky

Runtime:

UK:30 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Kudos Film and Television

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Uncle Phil talks to Gemma Atkinson about her coming fourth in "Soapstar Superstar" (2006) but she actually came fifth.

Movie Connections:

Remade as "Plus One" (2009)

Not as imaginative, clever or sharp as I had hoped but still funny and enjoyable

It has been some time since Rob Black was dumped by his girlfriend in favour of her new boyfriend, Duncan from Blue. He is now sleeping on his sisters sofa with all his possessions smelling of sewage (due to a pipe explosion) while she is endlessly happy and in love. When Rob gets an invitation to their wedding, he knows that he is only going to look like a failure compared to Duncan from Blue – particularly when he is unable to fill the "plus one" part of the invitation he has received. Rob decides to find someone so stunning that everyone will be focused on him and his date.

The Comedy Showcase season on Channel 4 continued with this film which offered a nice concept at its core in combination with imaginative humour that would play on its unlikeliness to good effect. It does this from the start with some nice asides and imaginative moments involving the main character and Duncan (formerly of the pop group Blue). The start is strong and engaged me easily enough but it is as the short film tries to have a clear direction where it actually gets a bit weaker. As it heads down the direction involving the model (sorry, forget her name) then the film becomes much more about the comedy of errors that is there brief relationship and offers less room for clever asides.

What it turns into then is a sort of sketch whereby "simple" misunderstandings occur. These are funny enough but they are not quite as inspired as the film seems to hope and indeed the punch-line is far too obvious but yet is played out over more than a minute on screen. Duncan from Blue (as he is constantly referred to) was a clever bit of writing but could have been used a lot more and indeed could have been more central to the film. Kinnear is a fine lead and he plays the comedy really well alongside solid turns from Haddock, Bradley, Raison and others – FHM regular Gemma Atkinson makes an appearance that is amusing and uses her for her "talents".

The material is not as sharp or as imaginative as I had hoped but it did produce a couple of laughs as well as general amusement throughout. It gets weaker as it goes on but, as it is only 25 minutes long, it doesn't have time to collapse – even if the climax is the weakest part of it. A solid enough one-off comedy.