My memory of these two comedians was that they were naked a lot and generally their material was pretty racy; I think I had their original Channel 4 show in mind, because this BBC show is a bit tamer in terms of what it does. This is not a criticism, because it does make the show more accessible and I think was more popular as a result. Watching the first season there is a clear theme of their characters appearing to be quite proper but actually being a bit outrageous or unexpected in some other way.
We see this in the inappropriate dentist small talk, the WWII pilots speaking like modern teenagers, the absurdity of the cheating couple who keep getting walked in on, the couples flirting at a formal Victorian dance, the women running the café, and so on. That this is common to so many of the sketches would be a bigger problem if they mostly did not work – but they do work well and are mostly pretty funny. It is not perhaps as consistent as I would have liked though, and some of the sketches do not get better with repetition; for example the teachers' advert one was funny the first few times but after that became stale and obvious. A few others ran the same way, although I still found the "kill him" bit to be funny even when I knew it was coming. The best example of this is the women in the café – the same excessive punch line every time and it loses its absurd freshness that the first time had.
The playing by Armstrong and Miller is very good; they have very good delivery and the material plays to their strengths well. Support is also very good, with Howick, Jakeways, Montgomery, Ransom and others all having good turns. It perhaps is all a bit familiar in some ways, and too much of a theme, but I enjoyed the majority of it and found humor in the frequent absurdity contrasted against well-spoken characters or situations.
We see this in the inappropriate dentist small talk, the WWII pilots speaking like modern teenagers, the absurdity of the cheating couple who keep getting walked in on, the couples flirting at a formal Victorian dance, the women running the café, and so on. That this is common to so many of the sketches would be a bigger problem if they mostly did not work – but they do work well and are mostly pretty funny. It is not perhaps as consistent as I would have liked though, and some of the sketches do not get better with repetition; for example the teachers' advert one was funny the first few times but after that became stale and obvious. A few others ran the same way, although I still found the "kill him" bit to be funny even when I knew it was coming. The best example of this is the women in the café – the same excessive punch line every time and it loses its absurd freshness that the first time had.
The playing by Armstrong and Miller is very good; they have very good delivery and the material plays to their strengths well. Support is also very good, with Howick, Jakeways, Montgomery, Ransom and others all having good turns. It perhaps is all a bit familiar in some ways, and too much of a theme, but I enjoyed the majority of it and found humor in the frequent absurdity contrasted against well-spoken characters or situations.