Ben Clark

Comedy podcasts round-up 2: from home and abroad

We're still some way off being able to see live performances in actual clubs and theatres, but here are some more comedy podcasts to keep your laughter quotient healthy in the meanwhile.

Gameface preview

It's probably impossible to review Roisin Conaty's Gameface without mentioning the F-word: Fleabag.

TV review: GameFace, E4

If you are the kind of person who doesn't watch E4 because you think it is a bit too youthy, then make an exception for GameFace, the new series written by and starring Roisin Conaty.

Host the Week review

File alongside ITV's Nightly Show as an experiment gone wrong.

Probably the most TV-experienced of the lot, thanks to BBC Three's Badults and more, the trio of Matthew Crosby, Ben Clark and Tom Parry have created a nicely put-together short as gags and observations build to a satisfying conclusion. It all starts as our Three Unwise Men break down on the way back from a Christmas Eve gig, where their cheesy puns had fallen on deaf ears. Trapped in their car they exchange wittily stupid musings on the likes of Secret Santa and the John Lewis Christmas ad. And Dara O Briain proves himself a great sport in a game cameo.

Interview: Pappy's

Hold on to your takeaway pizzas, Matthew Crosby, Ben Clark and Tom Parry return to BBC3 on June 2 for the second series of Badults.

New age cliches abound in the penultimate episode of this sitcom, as feckless Badult Ben (Ben Clark) finds solace in meditation and kimonos. Meanwhile, Matthew's on a mission to be the coolest person in the office by adopting a middle-class version of street slang, and Tom and Rachel capitalise on Ben's aforesaid spirtual awakening to impress a Tim Westwood-esque DJ. Sadly, heavily signposted jokes and twists make Badults a tepid also-ran rather than the offbeat, cult gem the trio were aiming for.

The Typhleotris is a freshwater fish that lives in Madagascar's limestone caves, a habitat of such consummate darkness that nature has not bothered to provide it with eyes. But even the Typhleotris, with a bag over its head, sealed inside a box, would have been able to see the jokes coming in Badults.

Not all the jokes, it has to be said. BBC3's new sketch show/sitcom hybrid served up several that were genuinely inspired and laugh-out-loud funny, suggesting the fault lay in lacklustre quality control rather than any shortfall in comic creativity.

But the wheat was bulked out by an awful lot of chaff, not to mention corn, which is very surprising for an inaugural episode out to impress.

Written and performed by Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Parry - hitherto best known as award-winning fringe troupe Pappy's - Badults places immature adults into a flatshare environment, inevitably inviting - and suffering - comparison with a host of other comedies, notably The Young Ones, The Big Bang Theory, New Girl and even the works of the Three Stooges.

It has manic energy to spare, an engaging cast, cheerfully throwaway plotlines and an instinctive understanding of how to extract the most from its predominantly studio-bound setting.

The surreal inserts - Darwin comes alive off a £10 note to comment on the action - look a bit tired, and the central characters need far clearer delineation, but Badults shows a lot of promise.

However, poor Emer Kenny will need an awful lot more to work with if she is going to make any impression as fourth flatmate Rachel, sidelined almost as soon as she appeared and looking every bit the arbitrary, add-on female.

A berserk mix of Les Misérables, board games, pyjamas and beardy men in glasses behaving like 15-year-old nerds, Badults (BBC3) is a kind of Friends for the stunted generation, a British spin on The Big Bang Theory where clueless misfits bond against the world outside.

I'll admit, the first five minutes had me climbing the walls at the unsubtle geekiness of it all - three hopeless blokes and a token woman who, in the real world, would never have been within a mile of them - shouting unfunny lines at each other.

But weirdly, after a while, my defences were broken down by the sheer relentless energy Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Perry threw at the screen.

It was like watching a Hollywood movie where a starlet knows it's her big break and gives it her all. Coming on like a sixth-form revue on speed, the Badults gang leapt from musical theatre fantasy to murder weekends to perving over the lady who does sign-language for BBC2 shows with reckless abandon. More exhausting than actually funny, it could be a grower - this lot have ideas coming out of their armpits.

Another spin on the tried-and-tested flatshare sitcom formula, this one follows the goonish antics of Ben Clark as Ben, Matthew Crosby as Matthew and Tom Parry as Tom - you see what they did there - three thirtysomethings who make The Inbetweeners look like the epitome of sophisticated cool. So if the broad strokes of overgrown schoolboy comedy, with the odd spot of bizarre musical theatre fantasy thrown in, is your bag, then Badults will hit the spot.