Telly Vision: The Wright Way and The Job Lot
The Wright Way (BBC 1, Tuesdays)
I had managed to resist the allure of The Wright Way up until this week. If you watched the Ricky Gervais sitcom Extras, you would understand what I mean when I say that The Wright Way is a real world When The Whistle Blows. It is completely, and I mean completely, unredeemable in every conceivable way.
I know that Ben Elton is an easy and popular target nowadays, but let’s face it; if this is what he is producing then he kind of deserves it. Perhaps ironically, The Wright Way does everything wrong that it possibly could. The writing is just horrible. Horrible to the point I was physically wincing every couple of minutes. There was even some ‘yoot speak’ in there this week. Every joke (and I use the term very loosely) was signposted from eight miles off, and almost exclusively unfunny.
The characters are neither believable nor wacky enough to be anything of interest, and the lines are delivered in an off-putting pantomime-style shout which makes the performances stilted to the point of being almost unwatchable.
I spoke last week about not really getting the ‘live audience’ set up, but that doesn’t always mean the death of a show. However, the laughter track on this only highlighted more the complete absence of my laughter. I like to think that I go into things with an open mind, happy to have my predictions shattered, but watching a second episode of this would be tantamount to emotional self immolation.
If you have any love in your heart for the Elton of old, the one who brought us Blackadder and The Young Ones, then I implore you: do not watch this show. Also burn any copies of the Radio Times which list it. And your TiVo box, in case it accidentally records it.
The Job Lot (ITV, Mondays)
In a break from tradition (ooh, get me) I’m going to revisit a show I spoke about last week. I did mention that I thought that The Job Lot would probably need at least another episode to warm up. So here we are.
The second episode of The Job Lot was a more promising offering than the last. I did chuckle a bit which is a good start. Not having to faff about with character setup and backstory, the show was able to bring us a proper episode.
Guest starring Sean Pertwee playing an Army recruiter, it focuses on the job centre’s drive to get people off their books and into service. As well as their drive to get jiggy and/or justify and uphold their masculinity. As episodes go it was okay. You know. Okay. It is watchable, most of the characters aren’t entirely hate-able and it pokes fun at the job centre system and its signer-onners in a gentle and non-discriminatory way.
This is probably never going to be revered as a classic sitcom, but if you have half an hour to kill and you’ve exhausted everything on Netflix, then you might as well give it a go. Or not. I don’t really mind.
Oh, but bad news: Hannah off of Hollyoaks was only in last week’s show. I am very disappointed about this.
What do you think? Leave a comment below…
