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Meet soporific late-night DJ Adrian Locket; seedy snooker
commentators Peter and Ted; crime fighter Angel Summoner and
his redundant sidekick, the BMX Bandit; a Stone Age flint-chipper
who reckons bronze is just a fad; a very unpleasant man who
wants to take you out on a little date; Zombie Poppins, the
undead nanny; and Asbo, the naughty baby seal who offers dubious
advice on text messaging. In Mitchell and Webb’s peculiar
world you can also hear the Alpine Archers on Radio
Switzerland and Numberwang!, the incomprehensible maths
quiz. In addition, there’s Rabbit Newsnight or
you can tune in to daytime TV presenter Jason broadcasting
live from Makeover City, where you can get a complete sock
or handbag makeover. And, for some reason, a milk helpline...
The
three series contained within this box set are quite possibly
the best material David Mitchell and Robert Webb have done
to date. Though their Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show comes
in a close second, its third series was a disappointingly
uneven affair. And amusing though it was, the television version
of this show, That Mitchell and Webb Look wasn’t
quite up to the standards of the Sony Award-winning radio
version. Throughout all 18 episodes of the radio series, the
next laugh-out-loud moment is never far away.
My
personal favourites include Rabbit Newsnight, Fox and
Badger, the irate man who calls a milk helpline, the Nazis
who realise that they are the bad guys (well, they do have
skulls on their uniforms), the campaign to save the mad bears,
a newly single man who’s so helpless he can’t even
hang a painting, and Asbo Zaprudder, the talking baby seal
who offers extremely dodgy texting advice.
As
with their UK Play series, The
Mitchell and Webb Situation, many of the sketches
here are one-offs, though some, such as Mad Bears, Angel Summoner
and the BMX Bandit, Daytime Coverage of Things and Over to
You, are reprised during the course of a particular episode.
Very few characters or situations are carried across an entire
series, apart from the snooker commentators Peter and Ted,
who exhibit a different obsession in each episode of the first
two series and who, notably, do get a little tiresome by the
end. Unlike Little Britain, you don’t need to
be familiar with the likes of Peter, Ted, Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar
or Raymond Terrific, the over-excitable presenter of Big
Talk, in order to fully appreciate the humour.
With
the exception of Peter and Ted, the performers tend not to
go in for impersonations or anything much in the way of vocal
diversification, instead sticking to their own recognisable
voice patterns and personality traits, applying them to characters
as diverse as the Devil and anthropomorphised animals. The
latter include a couple of luckless pit ponies, a hopeless
flock of flightless birds, Mowgli’s parents and another
fox, who, since the hunting ban came into effect, cunningly
sells his services like a prostitute (“Of course I’m
cunning - I’m a fox”).
I
can’t imagine these zoological sketches working nearly
as well on television with the actors in animal costumes (though
perhaps the panel on Imagine That can). It’s refreshing
to hear a radio comedy that is not merely a testing ground
for potential television material (though viewers of That
Mitchell and Webb Look will recognise several sketches
and characters, including Now We Know, Touching Cloth, Numberwang!,
the lazy writers of a hospital drama, Friends of Moneypenny,
Peter, Ted and Sir Digby). Many of the more surreal ideas
are defiantly unfilmable, including the reality TV spoof Celebrity
Fame Zeppelin and the mordant Zombie Poppins.
There
are more recurrences of theme than of character. For example,
much time is spent spoofing television programmes, particularly
discussion shows and daytime TV. The comedians pour scorn
on pointless news coverage, as presenters urge viewers and
listeners to email in their ill-informed opinions (during
the three-part Over to You skit); we realise how it’s
always either too early or too late to speculate on facts
(in Speculate to Accumulate); and there’s an interviewer
who is anything but hard-hitting. They also ridicule football
supporters for their inability to separate their team’s
accomplishments from their own (in We) and football managers
for their inability to see anything beyond the score (in The
Main Thing is the Three Points).
Charity
advertising campaigns also come in for some stick, in sketches
such as Just £3 a Month and Mad Bears, as do telephone
call centres, in Milk Helpline and Child Call Centre. However,
our sympathies are switched from the caller to the call-centre
staff in the Understanding Man sketches, which challenge the
logic of choosing to speak to a real person rather than an
efficient automated service.
The
pair also seem to hold a fascination for tour guides, with
no fewer than five sketches in Series 3 dealing with embittered
and lonely or mischievous guides, the former type played by
Mitchell, the latter played by Webb.
Anger,
phoney coolness and sadness are recurring personality traits
in the comedians’ work. As in Peep Show, Mitchell
all but corners the market in being irate, usually with a
generous side order of snobbery. However, Webb also gets in
on the act with the overwrought Raymond Terrific, while both
performers are equally bitter in the sketch Unity of Purpose,
as two people who don’t see why mobile phones should
have cameras in them, why microwave ovens should have clocks
on them, or why cars should contain heaters.
Webb’s
characters tend to be laidback, or rather they pretend
to be laidback, though Mitchell also has a go with his depressing
late-night DJ Adrian Locket (shades of Alan Partridge here).
Which
brings us to sadness, which both comedians do equally well,
whether in the guise of Webb’s Solo Man or shopper tormented
by a caricaturist (Mitchell), or Mitchell’s man with
a pathological aversion to other people’s children. In
Series 3, it’s co-star Olivia Colman’s turn to feel
upset, as an insulting Robert Webb repeatedly reduces her
to tears as a way of encouraging her to go out with him on
“a little date”.
David
Mitchell’s rapid-fire and/or verbose delivery is particularly
impressive during Series 3, in enthusiastic routines such
as Celebrity Fame Zeppelin and spoof adverts for useless
periodicals and partworks such as Buy Me!, Car-Hate
Cheese-Love magazine, Chicken-Ambivalence Tap-Ambivalence
(“You don’t actually need to buy it”) and the
complete works of Charles Dickens, at a rate of one page per
week (“Heritage Masterpieces - helping you to make us
richer”). At times, he reminds me of the great Robbie
Barker.
Science
fiction/fantasy fans will particularly appreciate the numerous
genre-based gags, including Friends of Darth Vader; Friends
of Freddy, Daphne and Velma; a Middle Earth Dinner Party;
numerous sketches on the theme of secret agents; a challenging
look at the dubious selection process employed at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; and a skit involving He-Man’s
bad back. The sketch Lazy Writers - Space, in many respects
an embryonic version of Daydream
Believers, depicts a space opera by numbers
featuring such edifying lines as: “Put on the special
motorcycle helmets for breathing with. We’re humans -
we breathe air, not space!” There are also references
to invading aliens in Over to You - Part 3 and to Raiders
of the Lost Ark in We.
The
box set also includes a 50-minute bonus disc containing eight
previously unheard sketches and a very laidback interview
with Mitchell and Webb, conducted by their co-star James Bachman.
The sound quality of the interview is rather poor, and the
interviewees are all apparently hung-over, so this doesn't
get very in-depth. It was obviously recorded before the transmission
of That Mitchell and Webb Look, because the comedians
discuss what will be in the TV show as though the listener
won't have seen it yet - a bit late for that really. The sketches
are definitely the highlight of the bonus disc, including
a further edition of Imagine That; a routine involving
Batman, whose sulky protégé Robin won't fly the nest; biscuit
insurance; the invention of the world wide web; and a sci-fi
spin on 10 Years Younger.
Love
Mitchell and love Webb? Then you need That Mitchell and
Webb Sound: The Complete Radio Series 1-3! Buy it!
(That’s
Numberwang!)
Richard
McGinlay
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