John Thomson

New 'Fast Show' scenes revealed

Hit sketch show The Fast Show is making a return, with John Thomson slipping back into Jazz Club host Louis Balfour's polo neck jumper in newly-released scene pictures.

There's a terrible disaster with Big Top tonight. "The BBC is screening another episode?" you may ask. Well, yes it is. But the disaster in question is Lizzie's skydiver breaking his right leg.

He's in hospital in plaster but Lizzie (Amanda Holden) isn't worried yet - his left one still works... Oh dear, now it doesn't. Now she's worried. Just what is a girl in a red coat and giant black knickers supposed to do?

The audience expect a death-defying act but all Lizzie has are a Hi-de-Hi! escapee and her dog, two terrible clowns, a snide Baldrick lookalike and a man in green spandex and silver foil. Unless Erasmus (Tony Robinson) finally lets his hatred of Plonky the Clown (John Thomson) reach psycho killer proportions, the only thing that risks death is the show's script.

Lizzie offers a £100 bonus to anybody who comes up with an act to save the day. But with a team of idiots surrounding her, the suggestions aren't good.

The setting - a small-scale circus - is colourful and original. The characters are fun. The cast, which includes Tony Robinson, Sophie Thompson, Ruth Madoc and John Thomson, is comprised of rock solid comedy pros who deliver the goods. It contains gently romantic elements which are rather sweet...

Truth be told though, I didn't find it funny. With one or two exceptions, the gags are limp and lumbered with punchlines Nostradamus probably saw coming. Moreover, it has as its star Amanda Holden, who totally fails to deliver any kind of performance through the mask that is her face.

In Big Top, Amanda Holden plays Lizzie, owner and ringmaster of a down-at-heel circus in North Staffordshire. "Gather round," she began the series. "We have a problem."

We certainly did. We had (un-) magically gone back to the imbecilic sitcoms of the 1970s.

A bogus poster had been put up by their rivals calling Circus Maestro/Big Top "the UK's lousiest circus. Groan at our useless jugglers, yawn at our tedious clowns.."

"Who could possibly hate us any this much ?" she cried. "Well it could be anyone who's seen the show," one performer quipped. Quite.

"If we're so terrible, how come we get a huge cheer when we finish ?" asked one of the clowns.

There were: ferret-down-the-trousers gags, Lizzie's Aunt Helen setting her up with (wait for it) a bearded lady, and (of course) a shot of John Thomson's bum. There was even a Romanian trapeze artist worthy of Mind Your Language.

The Hi-de-Hi! fan in me wanted to like Big Top (BBC1), the unashamedly 70s-style sitcom with Amanda Holden and Ruth Madoc and John Thomson, but it was just unashamedly lame. Surely if you have a circus comedy, the challenge is to create the world's first funny clown? Would putting ferrets down his trousers help? No it wouldn't. I couldn't believe Tony Robinson (Erasmus, the odd-job man) spent all those years of training on Blackadder and those archaeology programmes for this.

Amanda Holden goes back to sitcoms to headline Big Top, a new BBC1 comedy set in a travelling circus. Holden plays Lizzie the Ring Mistress, which calls to mind a smutty joke the show would never contemplate tackling. No, we're in family-friendly sitcom territory for this series by writer Daniel Peak (My Hero), so it's all very innocuous and frivolous stuff that kids and the elderly will find amusement in. Predictably, it's taken a battering in the press for its old-fashioned sensibilities, but such critics forget the fact that a large portion of the British public just aren't interested in the cutting-edge comedy offered by The Thick Of It and Peep Show. A lot of people just want something colourful, inoffensive and cheeky, with signposted jokes and a few famous faces (John Thomson, Tony Robinson) thrown into the mix. It's not to my taste and I won't be watching a second more, but I've seen a lot worse, and some of the gags made me smile with a groan behind my lips. Plus, there's always the sight of Amanda Holden in hotpants if all else fails.

Do we really have to speak about Big Top? OK. Big Top is a sitcom about a failing circus, inexplicably starring the wooden, joke-killing Amanda Holden as the scatty, though apparently strong-willed, owner. There's a trapeze artist madly in love with her, Ruth Madoc as a dog-handler, and other rather good actors (Sophie Thompson, John Thomson) flailing with a lame script. Patrick Baladi as a health and safety advisor was ejected at the end of episode one after failing to persuade Holden of the merits of a life of mortgage trackers and convention. Lucky him. Poor us.

Big Top, a new sitcom set in a travelling circus, is one of those programmes that get you wondering about the commissioning process. You'll need something to entertain you while it's on and speculating about the way it came into being will do as well as anything, unless you've got a dog that's overdue for a combing or some socks to pair up. One assumes that the performers' names came first on the pitch document. One certainly hopes that they came first on the pitch document, since the idea that it was sold on the essential concept and a sample of the writing seems implausible, to say the least. We've thought of a vehicle for Amanda Holden, somebody said, and what's more it's a role that will make it feasible for her to wear hotpants and black stockings nearly all the time. And if you bite there's a good chance that we can bolt on John Thompson, Tony Robinson and Ruth Madoc. How's that for belt-and-braces coverage? Cold Feet, Blackadder and a dab of Hi-De-Hi! behind the ears.

"So what's the sit?" asks the commissioning editor. Down-at-heel circus, replies the pitcher, run by Lizzie, a mildly over-controlling ringmistress who's the only grown-up on payroll. There's a terrible husband-and-wife clown act, a depressive East European acrobat with a crush on Holden's character, a cynical soundman called Erasmus (Tony Robinson) and the self-seeking Welsh dame who does a performing-dog routine. Oh, and it's written by Daniel Peak, who wrote Not Going Out, so there's a bit of pedigree there. Lot of running gags, lot of slapstick, comedy of types. Think Dad's Army with red noses and spandex tights. And then, one guesses - since it's not very often these days that sitcoms get green-lit without jumping through this particular hoop - there would have been a rehearsed reading of the script, so that a collection of executives could mull over its prospects. And it's at this point that speculation hits an obstacle. How could they sit in the presence of gags this lame and character depiction this arbitrary and not say no?

It does go out at 7.30pm, so it's possible that the younger audience will be advanced as an alibi. It seems heartless to use children as a human shield in this way though, and surely they deserve better than gags about ferrets down trousers and punch lines that audibly creak as they're winched into place. "I was so worried that you'd fail us on the raw sewage round the hot-dog stand," blurted out Lizzie when the health and safety inspector gave her the all clear, a line that not even Helen Mirren could have made psychologically plausible. And without an underlying psychological plausibility (the urgent cartoon drives that you'll always find in Hi-De-Hi! and Dad's Army if you dig deep enough) it just isn't comic. That line isn't an inadvertent revelation - it's hopelessly, mechanically advertant, only there to be funny. In the end, an exchange between Plonky the clown and Erasmus offered the best verdict: "If we're so terrible why do we get a big cheer when we finish?" "I think you've answered your own question there."

Suddenly it's like the 1970s all over again, at least in TV sitcom land. If it's not Miranda gurning to camera and tripping over her giant feet, then it's Amanda Holden in fishnet tights and John Thomson shoving ferrets down his trousers. Which, sadly, is not a scene from a retro fetish club night but what passes for comedy on the fantastically rubbish Big Top.

The Office must have seemed another lifetime to Patrick Baladi when he found himself stranded amid the spit and sawdust as a health and safety officer in a circus sitcom so old-school it made Last Of The Summer Wine look raw and edgy. Assigned to the unenviable task of romancing Holden's dull ring mistress - think school ma'am on a hen night - Baladi was confronted by a box of dog poo. No, seriously, that was the punch line of the best joke of the night.

It was the once mighty Gladys of Hi-de-hi (aka Ruth Madoc) who was proffering the said turd, which made you feel for the talent being frittered away all round the ring. Sophie Thompson is a talented comic actress, but she has an unhappy knack of ending up in total turkeys and she's picked another one here as Thomson's clueless co-clown.

It was as though The League of Gentlemen had never happened. You can squeeze laughs out of clowns without resorting to abusing furry animals - the consistently excellent Modern Family had a great running gag about coulrophobia last week - but Big Top isn't anywhere near that league. The title isn't even a joke: it might have worked if Jordan was playing the lead but as it is it's just plain lazy. Another tent-peg in the coffin of the British sitcom (it's got so bad, I've even started laughing at Miranda. But that's probably the medication).

With Britney Spears and Take That going down the circus route for their recent albums, suddenly the big top's back in vogue. But even if it didn't feature Ruth Madoc as one half of a dog act (the other half being a West Highland terrier called Dave) the ghost of Hi-de-Hi! hovers over this show.

Like holiday camps, a circus - where this is set - is like a sheltered environment where all kinds of eccentrics can live in safety, at arms' length from the outside world. The genial folk at Maestros appear to have been preserved in aspic from some time in the 60s and their biggest star seems to be Amanda Holden in a ringmaster's outfit.

Also on the bill are Tony Robinson as a grumpy caretaker named Erasmus, leotard-wearing Boyco, (Bruce MacKinnon) and John Thomson and Sophie Thompson (not related) as a pair of clowns, Jeff and Helen.

The gentle comedy tonight revolves around some ferrets down a clown's trousers and a visit from a health and safety officer - who's played by a seriously bemused-looking Patrick Baladi.