Chris Addison

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.

Dispensing with character and plot must be tempting for writers trying to create a zany sitcom. Anything can happen when you're not tied to a story, and if your protagonists aren't believable people, you can make them say anything that comes to mind.

Lab Rats hops gaily from one idea to the next and a lot of the broad visual jokes are funny. Co-writer Chris Addison does well in the Father Ted role of the only person who isn't eccentric to the point of mental illness (It's like being in a room full of my Gran!)

But the free-form silliness stops comic momentum building. If a gag fails, the audience have nothing else to hang onto - the loosely defined supporting characters can't even be relied on to do their funny thing, because you're not sure what that thing is.

Comedy like this is almost impossible to get right. Lab Rats valiantly fails.

This bonkers and self-proclaimedly stupid comedy, co-written by and starring Chris Addison, is odd: not very funny yet vaguely appealing none the less.

There are nicely worked scenes in Chris Addison's sciencey sitcom this week as an officious inspector comes to visit the lab - another great turn by Kim Wall (last seen in Five's sitcom Angelo's). As luck would have it, he calls on the day Cara has accidentally defrosted the wealthy benefactor who was being kept cryogenically frozen in the lab, despite not being dead. It's more complicated than that but the details hardly matter; it's all about well-observed comedy moments, for instance when Alex (Addison) distracts the inspector by nudging the pictures on the wall crooked, knowing his adversary will feel compelled to put them right. I'm not convinced the characters or tone have quite gelled yet, but there are sparkles of something good.

Lab Rats is a truly appalling new sitcom. The characters - geeks who work in a lab - are not even colourful enough to be stereotypes. Chris Addison, star and co-writer, is a man transformed (all for the bad) from his winning performance in The Thick of It as the wry chief geek.

Bad puns, redundant characters, lame jokes (about twenty involving 'gay hair') - and yes it really did end with a huge, rampaging snail. Not even the best surgeon in the land could save this.

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.

You're going to need a lot of patience with this new sitcom, starring Chris Addison. Either that or copious supplies of the laughing gas that the hysterical studio audience seem to be on as the first episode unfolds.

That's a shame because potentially it's good, with shades of The IT Crowd, Father Ted and The Mighty Boosh. This is skewed comedy, where nothing is quite as it seems, the main protagonists are all well the other side of barking and the plot has plenty of unexpected twists and turns.

If the feedback I get is anything to go by, there are two things viewers dislike above all else. One is orchestral Muzak in wildlife programmes. The other is canned laughter in sitcoms. The latter is particularly bad because it sets up an old-fashioned style of comedy with one character dollying up a feed-line and someone else hitting it for six. Unfortunately this new sitcom, set in the laboratory of an English university, uses a laughter track. It is a pity, because the characters are an entertaining lot who would benefit from the chance to escape from this straitjacket of comic conformity, while Chris Addison - last seen on our screens in The Thick of It - has a wonderful line in engaging, deadpan delivery.

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.

Chris Addison Interview

The Independent interviews Addison on swapping satire for sitcom and why he is leaving The Thick Of It behind.