From "Vicious" to "The Job Lot" - ITV Comedy

For weeks, ITV subjected us to previews to their 2 new comedies. "Vicious" and "The Job Lot".

As a lad in the 70's and 80's, I loved the comedies on the BBC and ITV. Both channels had their share of half hour sit coms that families could sit down and enjoy. Whether it was Steptoe and Son, Bless This House, George and Mildred, The Good Life, Fawlty Towers....etc.... They were all classics.

Then in recent years, both channels seemed to have lost the plot and home grown sitcoms almost disappeared from our screens. All we were offered were rubbish from America with canned laughter and nothing else. Friends has been repeated so many times and I cannot understand how it has a following. I must be one of the few to have never laughed at the programme!

Then the BBC discovered Mrs Brown's Boys and I have loved it since Day 1. Probably the best sit com on TV, in my opinion, since Father Ted, which was shown on Channel 4.

So now we had adverts enticing us to watch 2 NEW comedies on ITV, one after the other.

What extremes of comedy they were!

Vicious stars 2 big names. Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi. Playing 2 old "queens". I guess that term is politically incorrect these days, but it was a reminiscent of a 70's sit com .....and an awful one at that. I cannot believe how these 2 greats of the theatre and TV had allowed themselves to appear in what can only be described as dross and should be pulled immediately to save them any further damage to their careers and to save us from having to be confronted with it.

I am sure they must have focus groups to test programmes on and can only think that they ignored their comments as they had spent so much money to get McKellen and Jacobi on board. Even having Frances de la Tour in the comedy did not help. I still remember her as Miss Jones in Rising Damp, where she played alongside Leonard Rossiter as Rigsby, the landlord. Seeing her in Vicious, I thought I was watching Rising Damp once again.

Marks out of ten..... 0

On the other hand, "The Job Lot" followed. Whilst its not on the same level as Mrs Browns Boys, I am prepared to give it another look tomorrow.

Set in a West Midlands Job Centre, it was more plausible and shows more potential to develop.

The main star is Russell Tovey who plays Karl. As he was a werewolf in "Being Human", he is one of my favourite younger actors on TV today. He must be good as he was supposedly in the running for taking over from David Tennant as Dr Who. But the star of the show for me was Jo Enright who plays Angela, a typical jobsworth civil servant with attitude problems. Now that is a character who we can all associate with and will have plenty of scope to develop the character.

Marks out of ten ...... 7.5....... shows promise.