The final film in Channel 4's Comedy Showcase run, Kevin Bishop may very well lack imagination in regards the title but that is happily pretty much the only place. I have never watched Bishop's other main output (Star Stories) but on the strength of this I think I have been missing out because this 25 minute sketch show was very funny indeed. Taking its lead from the multi channel world in which we now live, Bishop's sketches flick around in the style of someone channel surfing (even, in some cases with the channel menu bar at the bottom).
This gives us such moments as HBO's version of Last of the Summer Wine, news coverage, adverts for celebrity perfume, Batman (but with OCD) and many others. Personally I was sold from the start when it opened with the famous Morceambe & Wise sketch where they make breakfast to the stripper song but twisted to feature Kate Moss and Pete Doherty instead. After this it was rapid fire all the way and I reckon that pretty much it must have averaged a sketch every 30 seconds maximum. This firing rate means two things. Firstly it means that the show benefits from being a one-off showcase, because it takes the pressure off doing that weekly or indeed having to worry about catchphrases or characters that have more than one joke about them.
The second thing it means is that not all the jokes will be as strong as the other and this is true here. None of them are "bad" but certainly some are less imaginative than others but mostly they are moving so fast that you are caught up in it as it goes. Bishop is backed by a strong team of writers but the delivery is also spot on. A very strong conclusion to the Comedy Showcase collection of films then. While others in the season have attempted to be full films with stories and characters, "Kevin Bishop" throws up every idea and joke the writers can come up with and delivers them with pace and imaginative to produce a very funny and enjoyable sketch show.
This gives us such moments as HBO's version of Last of the Summer Wine, news coverage, adverts for celebrity perfume, Batman (but with OCD) and many others. Personally I was sold from the start when it opened with the famous Morceambe & Wise sketch where they make breakfast to the stripper song but twisted to feature Kate Moss and Pete Doherty instead. After this it was rapid fire all the way and I reckon that pretty much it must have averaged a sketch every 30 seconds maximum. This firing rate means two things. Firstly it means that the show benefits from being a one-off showcase, because it takes the pressure off doing that weekly or indeed having to worry about catchphrases or characters that have more than one joke about them.
The second thing it means is that not all the jokes will be as strong as the other and this is true here. None of them are "bad" but certainly some are less imaginative than others but mostly they are moving so fast that you are caught up in it as it goes. Bishop is backed by a strong team of writers but the delivery is also spot on. A very strong conclusion to the Comedy Showcase collection of films then. While others in the season have attempted to be full films with stories and characters, "Kevin Bishop" throws up every idea and joke the writers can come up with and delivers them with pace and imaginative to produce a very funny and enjoyable sketch show.