Channel 4 has released its latest batch of Comedy Blaps. These are short, pocket-sized online pilots featuring some of the best up-and-coming talent from the comedy world plucked and polished up. Previous Blaps have given breaks to Edinburgh favourites such as Dr Brown and Nick Helm as well as The Rubberbandits. The latest Blaps feature Roisin Conaty, who is already well-established thanks to numerous panel show appearances and her role in the Greg Davies sitcom Man Down. Second up is Liam Williams, erstwhile members of Sheeps sketch group, who was one of the word-of-mouth hits of Edinburgh 2013. Third up is Pond, a sitcom written by comedian Will Smith. In keeping with the mini-format here are mini-reviews.
Onwards & Onwards features Roisin Conaty playing what appears to be an extreme extension of herself – thirtysomething singleton Marcella never says or does the right thing when the wrong thing will do. Following life coaching/therapy sessions, she is told to go out and try new things to sort out her chaotic life. She goes to a yoga class and makes a fuss about exercising while the man in front sticks his bum in her face, she annoys her book club by claiming that she can't read. It's a funny take on a woman living in London on a diet of casual sex and chicken-in-a-box and makes Lena Dunham's Girls seems as sleak and glossy as Sex & The City. And C4 clearly likes it, they are already developing a longer vehicle for Conaty. A strong supporting cast includes Elis James, Cariad Lloyd and Conaty's co-star in Man Down, Mike Wozniak, as her lifecoach/therapist.
Liam Williams' Blaps trilogy takes his bleak post-existentialist onstage outlook and puts it into real situations. In the first episode he explains how he is intent on rejecting society's accepted materialistic values. Until that is, he meets a woman he likes, who likes him but thinks that he doesn't have a personality because his flat is so bare. Charlotte Ritchie, aka Oregon from Fresh Meat, plays his girlfriend. Very distinctive, but mainly because Williams has such a fabulously dour, distinctive voice rather than because of what he says. He could easily do voiceovers for dour products. Funeral directors maybe. Can't really see him getting the gig promoting Cillit Bang.
The final new Blap, Pond, is the longest, at over ten minutes, and also the one that feels most like a fully-formed sitcom. Rufus Jones and Lucy Montgomery play executives in a TV production company under pressure to come up with new shows. Ralph Michaels (Jones) needs a format to pay for his kitchen refurb and he needs it quick. Can Sally (Montgomery) come up with something now that it turns out that their latest project Office Junkies – their reality TV show giving junkies jobs in offices – has not been recommissioned? Fast-paced, funny, a little bit Thick-Of-It for the TV industry, though maybe the dust has to settle on W1A before there is space for another bout of television eating itself.
To watch all the Blaps click here.
