Adam Chase

Review in The Independent

The biggest problem of all is Adam Chase's script. It really is outstandingly poor, and its poverty is compounded by the canned laughter.

Jonathan Pryce is renowned as a fine classical actor with a good reasoon: he's a bit rubbish at comedy. This was made all too clear in Clone, a curious hybrid of sci-fi and sitcom which cast Pryce as a scientist whose attempt to create a perfect soldier backfires when instead of a Terminator he ends up with a freaky belly-buttonless nerd who behaves like Frank Spencer.

Much hilarity was obviously supposed to ensue but Pryce's boffin was neither crazed nor cruel enough to divert attention from Adam Chase's misfiring script, which strangely gave its only good gag to Mark Gatiss as a mildly psychotic army officer. When Pryce's perfect creation turned out to be a klutz, he told Pryce: 'Your career is over, it's ancient history - like a dial-up internet connection or pubic hair in porn'. If only the rest of Clone had been so well observed.

The brainchild of Adam Chase, one of the key writers on Friends, Clone is a new comedy series starring Jonathan Pryce as a brilliant scientist who unveils the result of his life's work: the first human clone, intended to be a prototype super-soldier. It soon becomes apparent that this is far from the case - the Clone (played along the lines of Tom Hanks in Big by Stuart McLoughlin) is more likely to hug someone than shoot them. There's no doubt that this is an interesting premise for a comedy, it's just a shame that it has to resort to crude gags, canned laughter and weak slapstick to get laughs. Nice riff around the smoking ban though, and Mark Gatiss is great as an odious Army colonel. Must try harder.

Hollywood Reporter article

An article from America examining Adam Chase's move into the UK market, and how he is finding production over here different from that of the US.