James Lance

The Oral History of Alan Partridge

Alan Partridge is Middle England incarnate. From hapless sports presenter, to hapless TV presenter, to hapless podcaster, Norwich's favourite son is as maddening as he is endearing. He's also managed to do what very few characters in the comedy world successfully manage to do: endure.

Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense comes to Newcastle

The Olivier award-winning West End comedy Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense is set to arrive on Tyneside this autumn, starring James Lance and John Gordon Sinclair as P.G. Wodehouse's iconic double act.

If you can cope with the fact that the central idea is completely barmy (and come on, there's no crime in that), then you should find this new Friday night comedy-drama series a whole lot of fun.

There are plenty of familiar faces popping up in the cast, including Angela Griffin and Marshall Lancaster (Ashes To Ashes) as Danny's DIY store colleagues, plus Paterson Joseph (Peep Show) and James Lance (Moving Wallpaper) as fashion journalist Veronica's boyfriend and lover respectively.

Martin Freeman is on home turf playing a lovable loser who works in a DIY store until ... dah-da-daaaah ... he is struck by lightning and transmogri-techno-babbled into the body of a mwaah-mwaah fashion journalist played by Rachael Stirling. Fish out of water hilarity ensues. You might think that the premise is the sort of thing that Jim Carrey or Rob Schneider would find behind the sofa on a wet Tuesday, but the two leads have enough chops to pull it off, just about. Also, it has James Lance in it, who tvBite definitely has a bit of a man-crush on. Worth a look. Part one of FOUR, which seems a bit de trop, mind you.

At some point last year, ITV started making some good decisions. Classy dramas got made and a load of rubbish got dropped. Someone noticed that this Ben Miller sitcom about the making of a soap was funny, but the novelty idea of having an actual soap (Echo Beach) as a companion piece was rubbish. So Echo Beach got dumped and MW remains. Happily so, as the second series kicks off in excellent form. Egomaniac Jonathan Pope is about to be kicked out of ITV drama following the flop of Echo Beach but finds a clause in his contract: he is allowed to make a pilot before they can fire him. There's good in-jokes, character comedy, well handled farce and a decent support cast (Kelly Brook excluded). James Lance, by the way, is ever brilliant.

The main problem with this comedy is that the writers have apparently decided to replace the jokes with an unremitting coarseness - the swearword count is impressively high - and to produce characters that no-one in their right mind could give two hoots about. The only performance that has anything going for it is James Lance as Timebomb, as at least he has a bit of whithering, self-deprecating wit about him, but mainly the actors seem to be on autopilot.

And this is all a great shame because it should be a good idea. The likes of Heroes shows that we love our comic book heroes, and showing them on their days off should be a great starting point for comedy. As it is, No Heroics is just another reason why ITV is known as the graveyard of comedy.

Ever wondered what superheroes get up to when they're off duty? That's the premise of this new comedy series starring, among others, Patrick Baladi (The Office) and James Lance (Moving Wallpaper and Teachers). But forget about Superman or X-Men, these 'capes' are a lazy lot who spend most of their spare time drinking in their local. They have cool powers, though. I love the idea of being able to control machines with your voice, like Electroclash or - even better - being able to summon avenging simians, like Thundermonkey. But what the show really needs is a superhero with the power to make us laugh.