British Comedy Guide

It's Kevin Page 7

This show seems to suffer from the same disease as most recent sketch shows in the UK.

Great actors/comedians, decent budget, good direction but where are the jokes? I mean these shows must be quite expensive to make.

And yet 3 sketches that stand out as absolutely the laziest gags (Alexander Graham Bell, the after party office gag, the footballer gag). So bad one could believe this was deliberate and yet no just bad.

Compare to Smack the Pony or Big Train and it's how? Seriously easily the best written show at the mo is Newsjack.

That ep was the first one I've seen, and it's a mixed bag for me. There were times I laughed out loud. The sight perception bit with the female doctor was the best bit for me, made me cackle. I liked the bit about the drawers in his desk. Very funny I thought.

Didn't care for the Lloyd Webber sketch, or the telephone one.
Stewart Lee was crowbarred in though, you can see the uncomfortable look on his face.

Wasn't as bad as some people make out though. Not for me anyway. He's a funny guy, he makes even mediocre writing funny. I don't care how clever a sketch is, as long as it makes me laugh.

Quote: sootyj @ April 2 2013, 11:37 AM BST

Seriously easily the best written show at the mo is Newsjack.

Yes. Which is why I've decided to commit suicide.

(Not really. And even if I did nobody on here would phone the police at 1am in the morning to try and stop me. They'd probably think 'Thank God he won't ruin the Peep Show and Derek threads anymore and he was only a lightweight 'Alternative Carpark' anyway')

Kevin's charm keeps this crap easy on the eye and that's good enough nowadays.

I'm not impressed to be honest, and I'm quite a fan of Eldon.

Hello and apologies for not posting on here much over the past few months.

Despite a lot of the criticism on this thread, I reckon 'It's Kevin' is f--king ace.

Admittedly, there are a few bits that are weaker than others (for example, the hangover skeleton sketch promised much more than it delivered; Adam Buxton's character went on a bit too long for my liking; and, yes Sootyj, the Alexander Graham Bell sketch may well be a bit old/obvious) but show me a show where every single sketch is comic gold. Go on, I defy you. On the whole, I reckon 'It's Kevin' is top bollocks.

Admittedly, I have long been a fan of Eldon's work and have always relished it when he suddenly pops up in something, such as the barber in 'Nathan Barley' (another show I reckon is a classic but which nobody else round here seems to hold in much regard), so I admit to a certain degree of subjectivity on that score.

Anyway, I don't have a TV but two days ago I finally got my arse in gear and watched the first three 'It's Kevin' episodes back-to-back on iPlayer and thought it was bloody excellent.

In fact, I felt compelled to not only check out the opinions on this forum (some of which quite frankly shocked me) but also write the following review:

http://www.therakeandherald.tv/culture/culturestory.php?id=1244

I realise it's pretty rude disappearing for ages and then sticking a bloody link up to the R&H but it sums up my opinions on the matter in one fell swoop. I hope you can forgive me, especially as a fair few of you clearly won't agree with my findings.

In fact, I guess it would have been more acceptable to rejoin the forum under a different name so that I could have claimed to have "found this on the internet and simply had to share it with you" but alas I didn't. Maybe if I get a YouTube channel and start farting into bottles, which based on some of the posts here some of you would probably think is better than 'It's Kevin'. But I digress.

To reiterate, I reckon 'It's Kevin' rocks. The Amish Sex Pistols sketch is fan-bloody-tastic. Ditto the Hitler/George Martin ones and the French singer. But perhaps that's because Eldon is an old New Waver like myself and so we sing/shout from the same hymn sheet. Whatever. This is the best thing I've seen kinda on the box in ages.

Without going too overboard, I had the same feeling watching this as I did the first time I laid eyes on 'Vic Reeve's Big Night Out', 'The League of Gentlemen' and 'The Mighty Boosh' back in the days when I did use to watch the shitpump.

'It's Kevin' is ace.

The naysayers are just plain wrong. Insert emoticon to show I'm not really having a pop.

Right, I'll get my coat.

PS Hope you all had a good Easter.

I'm with Rake. Even Big Train had some stinkers. And there were some excellent sketches amongst the filler and the poorer ones.

No show is a 100% gold and this is easily the best show at the mo, so I complain in frustration not anguish.

This isn't the funniest sketch show. But I really like it, it's just a joy to watch and I love his songs and I normally hate songs.

I watched this weekend's episode and was again disappointed by lack of spontaneity and real originality. I then looked at the side-by-side Sex-pistols/Amish videos. The humour comes from the notion of Amish speaking like the SPs. That's in the first half-second. It's a promise of something wonderful but it never arrives. What follows is wasted time. The idea doesn't go anywhere at all, no development or insights. Zilch. It reminded me of one of those "Golden rain" fireworks that start by looking like something with a bang but give out sparks and then die.

I like Kevin Eldon as a supporting actor but he's simply not a strong enough writer or performer to have his own sketch show. It's very rare I record a sketch show and delete it halfway through but this was one such occasion.

Quote: Basil Rathbon @ April 9 2013, 1:48 PM BST

I like Kevin Eldon as a supporting actor but he's simply not a strong enough writer

He's not the only writer, other people are involved.

I feel I should hate this, but it is curiously watchable. I cannot make up my mind whether I am enjoying it or am just unable to drag my eyes away from a car wreck.

Quote: Tursiops @ April 9 2013, 9:43 PM BST

I feel I should hate this, but it is curiously watchable. I cannot make up my mind whether I am enjoying it or am just unable to drag my eyes away from a car wreck.

Well, are you laughing?

Mostly I am wrinkling my forehead, but occasionally the side of my mouth twitches.

There are some great cameos/guest appearances. The bongo bit in last week's episode (April 7) was a highlight for me - coming out of nowhere, the casting and performance (I won't say who) was a stroke of genius. It wasn't about the writing, or content, or substance really. It was just a sudden moment of magic.

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