Carl Cooper

Foster's Comedy Awards Panel Announced

The judges, headed by Lucy Lumsden, are Carl Cooper, Alex Hardy, John Nicholson, Charlie Perkins, Zoe Rabnett, Ben Williams, and public panel winners Dave Deverick, Kate Emmett and Mark Muldoon.

When I spoke to Carl Cooper, the producer of this series, I asked how much of the material for this edition - Kevin Bridges interviews fellow Glaswegian comedian Frankie Boyle - had to hit the cutting room floor. "It was a tricky one, content wise," he conceded, but you'd never know it from this brilliant edit.

All right, you might have an inkling when Boyle starts talking about beaming porn onto the outer walls of primary schools - not a practice he supports, takes part in or suggests, I should add, before the green biros come out to start an "appalled from . . ." letter.

For the most part, the conversation is on why the controversial performer has decided to stop - spending time with his family became more appealing than being under constant scrutiny for every word he said or wrote. There's an interesting section on why Boyle hates comedy panel shows where he reveals how scripted and planned they are, and how much he liked to drop a grenade into such proceedings.

He's certainly not lost his precocious comedy gift and shows like this are evidence that he can be put before a microphone without bringing a broadcast company into disrepute. I'd like to go on record now that he should be a guest editor on The Today Programme next year.

Veering between sitcom clichés (comedy accents, corny gags) and something more surreal, this series still feels like it's searching for an identity. It's a pity because Chris Addison and Carl Cooper's scripts show potential.

If you've seen any of the preview clips of this show, then you'd know that you were heading for a traditional set-up: studio, fixed cameras, and a live audience. There is nothing wrong with that, plenty of our greatest sitcoms have been made that way. You'd also know that it stars Chris Addison, known as one of the most cerebral comedians on the circuit.

The traditional set-up was matched by traditional humour, but does traditional humour really have to be this... well, bad? We had people with funny names, people with funny accents, a slow Brummie girl and 'hilarious' misunderstandings. Now, I love an obvious, dumb joke that you can see coming a mile off as much as the next dude - Spaced was full of them - but you have to intersperse that with other types of humour. Otherwise it is just obvious and dumb.

And to be fair, Addison and his co-writer Carl Cooper did try. In fact, despite what I've written so far, I'm finding it hard to hate this programme because I know exactly what they were going for. They were trying to say you don't have to be edgy and sweary to be funny, that sitcoms in this style can have a warmth and quirkiness that something like Peep Show may lack. And I agree! And there were glimpses of invention, and I think Addison has charisma, and I like his pink coat. But let's face it, that's not enough. Not by a long way.

Television comedies are so difficult to get right, it's little wonder hardly anyone bothers any more. We're given occasional gifts such as Peep Show and The Thick of It, but they are niche - mainstream, studio-based comedies are almost nonexistent. So it's good to see the genial Lab Rats tiptoeing into the comedy wilderness with a funny blend of the surreal and the silly.

Co-written (with Carl Cooper) by its star, Chris Addison (a gifted comic with The Thick of It and a handful of Radio 4 series to his credit), Lab Rats is a playful comedy set in the science labs of St Dunstan's University. The staff are well-meaning idiots who put up Christmas decorations in August just to brighten the place up a bit, with a boss whose entire purpose in life appears to be the pursuit of chocolate. It's cheerfully daft, in an old-fashioned kind of way (ie it isn't politically incisive or satirical) and it prompts a lot of uncomplicated laughs.

What better place to try to reinvent the studio-based sitcom than in a science laboratory? If you're stuck for the next surreal joke or lethal punchline you can always just set about whipping one up in a Petri dish.

Your man in the white coat here is Chris Addison (who played the hapless special adviser Olly Reeder in The Thick Of It) and co-wrote this with Carl Cooper.

His co-workers - including Selina Caddell, Jo Enright and Dan Tetsell - all come from the school of You Don't Have To Be Mad To Work Here, But It Helps.

And perhaps science-fiction lab would be a better description of the setting because this is a place where pretty much anything is possible - cloning, giant molluscs - anything really, except hiding your chocolate from your workmates.

Childishly inventive and frequently just silly, it's not a bad first impression.

The results of all this effort, are often, as Chris Addison describes - 'stupid' - but not often funny. Chris co-wrote the show with fellow radio scriptwriter Carl Cooper, so at least we know it wasn't all his fault.

Where science and silliness collide

A preview of Lab Rats, including a short interview with Carl Cooper and Chris Addison.