Ben Willbond

Yonderland series 3 episode 5 review

Creative, beautifully bizarre, unbridled fun, Yonderland is a show we all need in our lives...

Yonderland series 3 episode 3 review

Yonderland's third series is its most confident, consistently fun outing yet.

Six main actors and supporting cast play a variety of roles in the Horrible Histories' take on William Shakespeare's lost years. The Bard had tried being in a band but it didn't work out so it's off to London for fame and fortune and a nasty Spanish Catholic plot to kill Queen Elizabeth I.

It's all a hoot with touches of Python, Blackadder and The Young Ones as the great and the good of Elizabethan England tread the boards. Damian Lewis does a cameo as Sir Richard Hawkins, Ben Willbond hams it up as King Philip II of Spain with his trio of assassins, miserable Christopher Marlow (Jim Howick) helps the Bard and Helen McCrory is all you hope for as Elizabeth I.

Great fun but will it fill the big screen?

Radio Times review

Sports day! As Debbie's kids prepare to run their little races at school, she's going to be late because, in another world, it's time for Ye Grand Tournament. Every year the good guys stop rubbish villain Negatus snatching the cup, but now Debbie has to train a new contender. This uncovers the political fissures in Yonderland: women can't vote, talking sticks are wholly marginalised and noblemen can demand that pages talc their undercarriages. Among the highlights of another constantly funny episode are Ben Willbond's blond Aussie commentator, and a reptilian newspaper seller who flogs left- and right-wing news, using his actual wings.

Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond on Yonderland & more

I took my place at a round table in the middle of a wood-panelled library (also stuffed with puppets) to chat to the cast of Sky1's Yonderland. First up, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond - both familiar faces thanks to the BBC's wonderful adaptation of Horrible Histories. Here's what they had to say about their new show...

It's no secret that many alleged "grown-ups" are supplementing their haphazard history educations with CBBC's Horrible Histories, back for its fifth series with lovely, daft input from The League of Gentlemen. Tiny, mighty Sarah Hadland from Miranda and funny, clever Alice Lowe, writer of Sightseers are regular faces too. To adult eyes, Horrible Histories has the distinct feel of a group of bright, young, erudite, writery-actory sparks having a tremendously good time. One that they probably wouldn't be permitted to have anywhere else on telly.

Kids love them as they are the most peculiar sort of grown-ups. The sort of wonky uncles and aunties who turn up to tea with mild hangovers, scant regard for etiquette and a host of stories about idiot highway men, Second World War bat bombs (bombs attached to bats, prone to exploding before they left the American base) and an imaginary CD compilation called Now That's What I Call Spartan Warrior Music.

There's something about the Horrible Histories gang I find terrifically, stupidly, funny. They're the best bits of Monty Python, Roald Dahl, Tiswas, BBC2's The Tudors and The Young Ones all shoved into a bin and bashed with a stick. "Divorced, beheaded and Died! Divorced, Beheaded, Survived!" is the song that carousels in my mind whenever anyone mentions Henry VIII. Horrible Histories drummed the order of Henry's wives and their fates into my mind where A-level cramming failed forlornly. If only Mathew Baynton and Ben Willbond had shown up at my school in the Nineties and sung a few songs about the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, I could have a proper job now. Not just writing down stuff I think, drinking Earl Grey and taking Yodel deliveries in for neighbours.

An equalities minister who has voted against racial and sexual equality rights. Chuckle. A health secretary who supports homeopathy. Ha! It's good, this politics malarkey, isn't it? A right giggle. Some might think it beyond parody. But thankfully not The Thick of It crew, who, three years after its last series, returned last night with an eagerly awaited fourth to take on the calamity coalition.

First, the good. In fact, the excellent. Roger Allam as the Tory MP Peter Mannion, new head of Dosac - the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship - fills the role perfectly. The floppy hair, the floundering as he tried to explain a "networked nation" that was beyond him, the barely concealed contempt for those he works with ("I'm bored of this," he said, walking out of a meeting with his junior minister. "I'm going for a Twix") and those he works for. ("I hate schoolchildren. They don't even have the vote. Might as well talk to fucking geese.")

Then there's the spin doctor Stewart Pearson, a lighter touch than attack dog Malcolm Tucker, all herbal teas, brainstorming and, in the words of Mannion aide Phil Smith, provider of "seven years of ear piss".

That Tories and Lib Dems might not get on behind closed doors has been the subject of satire ever since this bastard child of Westminster was conceived in May 2010, but it was moved on here to good effect. It reveals the flaws in the central characters and allows for the best line of the night, uttered by Ben Willbond as Lib Dem No 2 Adam Kenyon. "Landmark day," he said as Mannion finally destroyed the launch of the Liberals' "silicon playgrounds". "We bring in an idea, you like it, you nick it, you put two bullets in the back of its head. Snuff politics: you've got to laugh." And you did, you really did.

Yet not everything was quite so sparkling. Punchlines were occasionally heavy-handed and the ranting felt sometimes forced. Consider Lib Dem junior minister Fergus Williams's tirade at punchbag press officer Terri Coverley: "Now you like musicals. Well this is 'Tonight' from West Side Story, and I'm going to bring the bloody house down, so you can't rain on my parade, Funny Girl." Too contrived. Maybe that was the point, but it made you pine for the eloquent misanthropy of Peter Capaldi's expletive-fuelled Tucker. Luckily, he's back in episode two...

The hugely enjoyable comedy chronology returns for a new series. There's nothing else on TV like it, with its spot-on mix of education and bodily functions. In this episode you'll learn about the surprising properties of women's tinkle, where the phrase "warts and all" came from, and how German second world war pilots chose their targets from a tourists' guide to historic landmarks. All this plus the return of Stupid Deaths and an incredible running gag on the Spanish Armada with Ben Willbond dressed as Sir Francis Drake. One for the mums. Actual television perfection.

Here's a quick turnaround. The first transmission of Alistair Beaton's comedy serial finished only recently. Still, I don't suppose they can't often afford a cast as glittering as this so why not make the most of it? Never mind that I think it's shouty, overacted, clattering with clichés and probably originally intended for TV. See what you make of its battle for a newspaper's soul between traditional hack (Robert Lindsay), wily editor (Alex Jennings), assorted nasty females and posh Freddie (Ben Willbond) who's pretending to be a Rasta.