Rent Little Britain USA: Series 1 (2008)

A total & complete misfire which is so unfunny it's painful. Literally there isn't a single laugh - Little Britain USA: Series 1 review by TB

When the first series of Little Britain was released, it was a genuinely subversive piece of genius. Satirising many of the elements of British life that we barely notice, it repackaged this as a mock tour guide, as if it was being shown to new arrivals to our country as an authentic way to connect with our various eccentrics. It was so influential that even today there are catchphrases & comments that people use which were created by Lucas & Walliams. It was also stratospherically successful, not only with viewing figures but also merchandising.

Unfortunately, and in yet another example of why Fawlty Towers got it spot on with only having 2 series, Little Britain rapidly went downhill as it went on/produced more content. The first series was genius, the second very good in parts but also hit & miss, the third series terrible. But then, as is the way with successful media products, the American market, in this case HBO, thought "We want a slice of that pie." So they backed a dumper-truck full of cash on Lucas & Walliams, commissioned them to create a USA version & waited for the success & money to roll in...

I can honestly say I have never sat through anything claiming to be a comedy that is this bad. This is an aggressively unfunny, barrel-scrapingly bad, moronic waste of time & talent. It actually is so terrible that you genuinely start to wonder if Little Britain was ever in any way funny, even though the answer is an emphatic yes when you look at the original series. Alongside this, the point was passed a long time ago when the humour around what was essentially one-joke characters with catchphrases stopped being funny. Now, it just is boring, turgid & stale.

But I am absolutely serious & honest about this: there was not one single laugh, in any way, of any kind. And what this series also does which makes things even worse is to double & treble down on the vulgarity element of the skits. Don't get me wrong, there was always off-colour & provocative humour in Little Britain, that's why the original series's were funny, because they took this risk. But the comedic material itself has to be funny to be able to work in conjunction with this provocativeness, otherwise it just comes across as desperate & a way to distract from the fact that it isn't funny, which then in turn draws more attention to the poor writing.

So you get some returning characters mixed in with new ones. But the well-known characters have had their various traits turned up to 11 & had other things added to them. One example is Carol "Computer Says No" Beer. The way it has been decided to refresh this character is for her to now repeatedly swear in the skits, which then draws attention to how far past its sellbuy date it is. With the new characters, the only thing they seem to have in common is how revolting & tasteless they can be, like the sweet innocent church-going schoolgirl who will randomly say toe-curlingly depraved sexual comments out of nowhere; or Phyllis Church who, on the "orders" of her dog, strips naked & stands in a rubbish bin on the street or does other demeaning & unfunny things...

Whilst Walliams & Lucas were at one time undoubtedly the best comedy writers/performers of their generation, this has now disintegrated into desperation to shock, thinking that this will bring the laughs rolling in. But it doesn't, it's just unfunny dreck. And more than that, it's actually quite boring.

I hope HBO asked for their money back.