This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 23 April 2016.
I Want My Wife Back: Monday, BBC One
Michael McIntyre’s Big
Show: Saturday, BBC One
Only
in the boating pond of gentle British farce do the following vessels collide:
meddling in-laws, slovenly best friends, philandering workmates, flirtatious
secretaries, easily avoidable misunderstandings and, drowning in the middle,
our old friend the harassed, suburban middle-aged man shrugging haplessly.
There’s
nothing wrong with these stock devices in and of themselves, it’s just that I Want My Wife Back sticks to them with
rigid orthodoxy.
Part
of BBC One’s new Monday night comedy power hour – the other half being a
curious Peter Kay compilation largely comprised of work he did for Channel 4 – it’s
a traditional sitcom starring Ben Miller as Murray, a well-meaning business
drone who is dismayed when his wife decides to leave him on her 40th
birthday.
Murray
is a workaholic, an absent partner, so she’s had enough. The spark has gone. But
Murray still loves her (it’s suggested that she still has glimmers of affection
for him), so he does everything in his limited power to woo her back.
It’s
a half-decent premise, predictably executed. Miller, a competent comic actor, does
what he can with his beleaguered nice guy act. But his hunched-up jumble of
jittery faux pas can’t disguise the fact that Murray is a bland protagonist.
It’s amiable enough, but we’ve seen it all before.
Inevitably,
the first episode climaxed (gently, of course) with a surprise 40th
birthday party during which everything went wrong. Thanks to the estranged
wife’s parents, she and Murray were shipped off to a romantic foreign holiday.
Oh the calamity!
The
first episode of any sitcom has to work hard to get viewers onside. We need
time to get to know the characters and for the situation to bed in, so it’s
perhaps unfair to dismiss I Want My Wife
Back completely at this point. But there was nothing in this lazy opener to
suggest that it will offer any surprises in future.
Joining
it squarely in the middle of the road is Michael
McIntyre’s Big Show. It’s a shamelessly derivative yet tolerable heap of
Saturday night variety flotsam in which the tirelessly mainstream comic
unleashes a slick barrage of Beadle-esque disguises, Edmonds-style pranks and
Barrymore-shaped japes with the Great British Public.
I’m
not a McIntyre fan, although I appreciate his appeal and the skill with which
he plies his trade. Delivering trite observations in a consummately
professional, excitable simian fashion, he’s the benign king of cuddly comfort
comedy. He’s good at what he does, but what he does is of no lasting interest.
Nevertheless, it would be silly (albeit funny, a la Stewart Lee) to pretend
that he’s detestable in any way.
A
seemingly improvised segment with an audience member showed how quick he can
be, and the item in which he surprises members of the public is quite sweet.
Last week it was a Welsh hairdresser who dreams of becoming a professional
singer. Big-hearted McIntyre rewarded her with a Michael Ball duet. Surely
every girl’s fantasy?
There
was music for the kids from Tinie Tempah, old-fashioned novelty from some
acrobats, and a mildly amusing skit involving Geri Halliwell (she’s apparently
a Horner now) during which McIntyre harmlessly bothered people in her mobile
phone address book.
All
in all, a passable rival for Ant & Dec on t’other side.
And
if we must have MOR comedians, then I’d rather McIntyre over John Bishop.
McIntyre has some presence at least. Bishop is just a man who says things.
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