Jasmine Sahu is well suited with this new American drama exclusive to Dave.
Lois Cameron explains why this series is much more than your average cosy period drama.
The last episode of this series sees Sherlock and Moriarty attempt to solve the final problem with devastating consequences.
With major cast changes afoot, Jacob Martin ponders whether Being Human can live up to its own scarily high standard.
I’ll tell you a secret – I love Simon Bird. Everything about his bespectacled, grinning face, his geeky briefcase and his exasperated rants in The Inbetweeners appealed to me, as it evidently did to a lot of people. The show’s delightfully vulgar humour was awarded a BAFTA and it gave Bird enough comedic credibility to give him the chance to write, direct and produce his own BBC3 panel show. On paper this sounds like a smorgasbord of comedy for any Bird fan, which is why it was all the more painful to discover that The King Is Dead is, to put it bluntly, awful.
In Fresher’s Week this year, Bird actually performed a version of this show in Central Hall, using audience volunteers as the contestants. Although disappointed that I wasn’t going to see any of his stand-up, it was a pleasant enough way to spend an evening but, I thought, certainly not going to go anywhere. Alas, it did go somewhere. BBC3 to be exact. The basic premise is that Bird and two assistants, the chronically unfunny Nick Mohammed and Katy Wix, interview three (in Bird’s own words) “low-rent television presenters” for the job of an important figure who has recently died, e.g. the Pope, Father Christmas etc.
The opener of the series was for the job of the US president, an easy one for a pilot as it enabled Bird and his motley crew to dress as gangsters and make lazy, obvious and clichéd jokes about Americans. The hapless ‘celebrities’ were Sarah Beeny, who looked so out of place and uncomfortable that it was almost excruciating to watch, James Corden, whose main brand of humour seemed to be laughing manically at things and Peaches Geldof, barely able to disguise the air of boredom and contempt that radiated from her.
Without going into the soul-crushing business of describing rounds and so on, the general theme of the show is contrived buffoonery that utterly fails to be even vaguely funny. I felt like an indignant and disappointed mother as Bird was reduced to swearing constantly throughout and making obvious and crass comments, clearly trying to shake off his persona as an upright geek. Upright geek is how he should have stayed, as his attempts at being the new Simon Amstell backed miserably and just made him look cruel. James Corden’s best attempt at humour was “Is that a Ripple or your penis?” And that’s as good as it got.
Apart from the tasteless jokes and gratuitous swearing, The King is Dead is just boring. A human vending machine and firing plastic baby heads with a tennis racket were obviously intended to add surrealism to the show, something that Shooting Stars achieves but Simon Bird has miscalculated entirely, making it look as if the show is supposed to be ‘Ooh look at me, I’m so quirky and random.’ This works as flippant and well-meaning fun, but without actual humour, the show descends into a cold, awkward mess that attempts redemption by distracting you with loud noises and bright colours. I await the new series of The Inbetweeners to see whether my love for Simon Bird has completely gone.
You must log in to submit a comment.
