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Twenty Twelve is filmed in a mock documentary style, revolving around the characters who work in an office for a paper company... no, sorry, that’s not right. It revolves around characters who work in an office preparing for the 2012 London Olympics. This is a solid premise that, you would have thought, would lead to some hilarious situations. I can tell you now, it doesn’t.
Probably the most astonishing thing about this programme is that it’s on BBC4, the home of intelligence and the sublime, painfully funny Jo Brand comedy Getting On. Twenty Twelve, on the other hand, is painfully unfunny, with very little intelligence on display. Seriously, the big joke at the end of the episode was that Peter Andre would be carrying the Olympic torch. Oh, the inspiration.
Another astonishing factor is that there is a wealth of talent involved. There’s Hugh Bonneville and Karl Theobold, and comedy geniuses Jessica Hynes and Olivia Colman; the latter two being the only shining lights in an otherwise horrifically dull opening episode. Having said that, the amount of light they provided was about the same as is emitted by a supermarket torch, with the main joke about Hynes’ character being the way she talks, while Colman was given as much material as can be found in Tarzan’s wardrobe. Another admittedly impressive performance came from Amelia Bullmore (probably best recognised as Alex Drake’s mum in Ashes to Ashes), with her constant late arrival to meetings actually leading to (gasp) a mildly funny line.
However, as so often happens where there is an incredible amount of talent in front of the camera, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as much behind it. Indeed, the writing is outstandingly mediocre, missing almost every opportunity to make the show funny. The situations needed to be far more outrageous, and there was never the sense that events were increasingly escalating out of control as the end of the episode approached. As for the finale with the clock, it just had no impact, boredom having set in 20 minutes previously.
In addition, using the mockumentary style that was so perfected with that other, little-known comedy involving a man who does a funny dance, was always going to be a risk. What was great about aforementioned other programme was that the mockumentary style was not the primary source of jokes, focusing instead on the characters, and the development of the relationships between them. In Twenty Twelve, the characters are nothing but caricatures, with very little room to develop any of them, and the mockumentary style gets in the way of allowing the audience to care for them. Barely a minute passes without narrator David Tennant chipping in with an unnecessary comment.
To call Twenty Twelve a failure may seem a tad strong but, unfortunately, it is woefully accurate. If we can say nothing else about the upcoming Olympics, at least we’ll be able to see that they were better than this.
See the second episode of Twenty Twelve next Monday at 10pm on BBC4.
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