Ian Wolf

This mockumentary is now half-way through its run, so we can now get a good idea of what it's truly like. My overall conclusion is thus - it's good, but not great.

There's a big problem with any mockumentary which can be summed up in two words: The Office. As soon as any new series comes up it's almost naturally compared with it, and because The Office was so prolific any similar show is cast in its shadow. People instantly say it is not original. In the case of Twenty Twelve, it's not just critics saying it, but the Australians claiming it's copying their sitcom The Games.

There are some problems with the show anyway, though. Just little things, but (for example) how come one of the main characters was not included in last week's episode? Some of the jokes are rather unsurprising, too, especially during the Ian Fletcher routine which felt so, so predictable.

There were some high points however. The highlight of last night's episode was Amelia Bullmore trying desperately to do a video blog which she kept messing up - though that's probably because, as a former media student, I know what it's like. I constantly kept fluffing my lines like Bullmore did, so I know that things like this do happen. It all ties into that fear of public speaking that most of us have, and it's a really clever observational piece.

Ian Wolf, Giggle Beats, 4th April 2011

Sex and the Sitcom looked at the history of the sexual revolution through the lens of British sitcoms. The history is really rather tragic.

Because the most successful British characters in sitcoms are failures - like Hancock, Mainwaring, Steptoe, Fawlty and so on - you knew that there was no way that they were going to find someone to love, and those characters who were married never had it off.

Amongst the pieces of information was how 'the pill' revolutionised sitcoms. Before the invention of the pill, sitcoms were male dominated, but post-pill women had more freedom, and therefore could have more time on screen. It's a bit of a loose analysis but still interesting. Also mentioned was that during the 1970s ITV was more adventurous in covering sex and the permissive society than the BBC, with programmes like On the Buses being much more rowdy. To quote David Quantick (who was featured on the documentary), you could only have sex on ITV, 'If you had chips.'

In terms of the 1990s, perhaps the most annoying thing was the fact that the Americans were much better at covering sex in sitcoms than the British, with things such as "The Contest" episode of Seinfeld - probably the greatest single episode in American sitcom history - being shown, while in the UK one of the most complained about sitcom episodes was Christmas special of Men Behaving Badly when Caroline Quentin gets a tissue stuck to her face.

In conclusion, the series claimed that the biggest enemy against sex in sitcom is the jokes are simply not funny enough, which may explain why neither Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps nor Coming of Age were mentioned in the programme.

Ian Wolf, Giggle Beats, 4th April 2011

Is BBC revealing the signs of Tesco's Danish invasion?

This BBC report about tonight's edition of Panorama, covering the growth of the four main supermarkets, features some interesting yet disturbing graphics.

Ian Wolf, The Media Blog, 22nd December 2010