
You know that tedious old cheesy cliche about the show that you didn't know you needed in your life? Well, it turns out it's true. I've found it. Forget Armstrong and Miller, Mitchell and Webb and all those other smug, Oxbridgey sketch show pretenders and fly-by-nights, it's Ellie White and Natasia Demetriou that I need in my life. Right now. Without further ado.
Their three-part series - why only three we all shout at the top of our voices from the rooftops – is a brilliant, orginal spot-on skewering of modern times, types and tropes. There's the airhead podcasters who seem to think that if they take a common phrase and turn it round they are being profound. Oh and one of their hats keeps sprouting things. Bit of a Vic and Bob touch that. Then there is the duo that review white sliced bread online from their car, a bit chicken shop, a bit like all those blokes that review restaurants on the hoof for TikTok. Except that these women are raving about - did I mention this? – sliced white bread – "with a woman's jaw you are gonna struggle getting through that."
I absolutely loved their vacuous, inane middle class shopppers who decide everything in a Labour and Wait-style artisan corner shop is "so nice" but after four hours haven't bought anything. It's a bit like Harry Enfield's I Saw You Coming only funnier. Oh and there's the Only Fans women trying to be sexy and make terrible food-based puns at the same time ("me and you are a mash made in heaven").
There are more conventional sketches too, but with an Ellie and Natasia twist, such as genetically very clumsy Scottish Pauline and Pat selling fragile teeny tiny things and Mary Poppins having an intimate examination only for all sort of things to be extracted, including Dick Van Dyke, played, incidentally, by a famous actor* (don't scroll down if you don't want to know who). Other cameos include Jamie Demetriou, surely some relation, Matt Berry, Sian Clifford and Asim Chaudhry.
I'm not quite sure, however, about their dim East European/Greek Internet Nails entrepreneurs Nicky and Donna, running the sleaziest of businesses, including the world's bleakest private members club from their grimy suburban gaff just off the A406. I've been in too many places like this to find it funny. Is it punching down? Watch for yourself and decide for yourself. What do I know?
Ellie & Natasia, Wednesdays from October 21, BBC Two, 10pm. It's all oniPlayer right now if you can't wait.
Image:BBC/Nit TV/Jack Barnes.
*Spoiler: it's Steve Coogan
