Little Britain USA
I can tell anyone eagerly awaiting the first episode of Little Britain USA, tonight on BBC 1 at 9.30 just after Harry and Paul, that it really isn’t that funny. But stay tuned, because the the second one’s a lot funnier than the first. You’ll just have to wait until next Friday to see if you agree. Unless you have a hotline to the BBC previews desk and they have any DVDs left.
I suspect the star-studded team involved in making Little Britain USA - not just its writers and stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams, but also David Schwimmer of Friends who directed some of the studio segments and Simon Fuller of American Idol fame who smoothed the path between the BBC and US cable broadcaster HBO - felt they had to let American viewers in slowly to the depraved world of Little Britain.
So we only get Vicky Pollard at a boot camp for delinquent yoof in ep 2, along with the gay British Prime Minister trying to seduce a black American president who is in no small way a version of Barack Obama. Also in episode 2 are the homoerotic body builders indulging in a spot of pubic grooming. As I say, the first episode just isn’t funny by comparison.
Which reminds me that we’d all got a bit bored of Little Britain, with the same old gags - which were edgy when we first saw them - returning in slightly tweaked sketches. It was 2005 when the programme swept the board at the British Comedy Awards. That’s probably why Lucas, Walliams and the BBC thought they’d ship it over to America to inject new life into the format. It’s had a very patchy reception so far in the US. Who knows? Little Britain USA may be another comedy classic in the making, but I’d rather see the guys do something completely new with their comedic talents.