John Warburton (I)

TV commissioning is just a bad joke

The only great comedy shows of recent times are ones where execs haven't been allowed to meddle.

As all right thinking people agree, Cheers is the greatest ensemble TV sitcom of all time. There have been several attempts to relocate its success in a British pub, the latest of which is Inn Mates, a pilot by John Warburton who is the first writer to have gone through the BBC's College of Comedy and got a script on screen.

Whilst it falls way short of its illustrious American predecessor, Inn Mates is amiable and entertaining fun set in a red-brick modern monstrosity optimistically called The Friendship Inn.

It revolves around the disparate groups of characters that frequent or serve in it. These include two twentysomething couples with contrasting lifestyles, their sexually abandoned alcoholic single friend, the ruthless landlady and her wheelchair-using DJ, two dozy and doting community support police officers, and a gay man whose donated sperm has come back to haunt him in the form of a teenage biological son desperate to form a bond.

The various strands don't really hang together, and Inn Mates feels slightly like several sitcoms sharing the same half hour. Of these the father/son scenario is by far the strongest, and could even go it alone as a spin-off.

It offers pathos, charm, wit, conflict and originality. Plus on-screen chemistry between Neil Morrissey, playing against type, and Joe Tracini, who is so good that I can almost forgive him for Coming Of Age.

The definition of insanity, according to someone-or-other, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The equivalent in a television review is complaining that a new BBC3 sitcom is puerile piffle - and yet, how can we avoid it?

There are so many of them and (with a few honourable exceptions, each a delightful surprise as they buck the trend) they are so bad. No-one ever admits to liking them, whether in the right age bracket they are supposedly targeted at or not, yet still they come, on and on, a grim onslaught of unfunny scenarios and jokes that most ten-year-old boys would reject as childish.

The latest is Inn Mates and what's most disappointing about this pilot effort isn't the lameness of its setting - a pub called The Friendship Inn, where various 20-somethings drink, get off with each other and trade unwitty banter - or script, but the "boast" that its writer, John Warburton, is the first person to have gone through the BBC's College of Comedy and get their script on screen. That was a scheme set up for aspiring sitcom writers which chose six people to have their scripts mentored and workshopped for a year before deciding if any would become a show.

The mind boggles at the ones which were rejected and at the idea that Inn Mates - whose jokes include someone getting Stanley Matthews the footballer and Bernard Matthews the turkey farmer mixed up - can have gone through so much yet still resemble a sub-par episode of Two Pints Of Lager..., BBC3's apparent idea of the ne plus ultra of comic achievement.

As well as its young cast, Neil Morrissey pops up as the sperm donor father of one character - his catchphrase is "I'm not your dad!" - who looks utterly depressed by it all. Given that he appeared in five series of Men Behaving Badly, this is a terrible indictment.

It is, of course, unfair to attack a young writer's first script, to judge a potential series by its pilot and to expect BBC3's young target audience to enjoy the likes of Rev or Roger And Val Have Just Got In. But comedy's a tough business and it's also unfair to keep churning out these unfunny booze-and-shagging sitcoms. For the love of God, please stop.

Pour yourself a cider and squirt some silly string - BBC3 has a sitcom aimed at young adults that isn't grindingly awful! John Warburton, graduate of the BBC's College of Comedy, writes about a bad pub and its crazy regulars in similar style to Two Pints... and Coming of Age, with the twist that a lot of his gags work, so you don't feel actively insulted. Inn Mates is a bit too reliant on sex, booze and easily anticipated set-ups, but there are enough naughtily imaginative visual gags to warrant a series. I enjoyed the dweeby police officers who, on a weekend off, misunderstand what "disco biscuits" are.

A comedy pilot from writer/comedian John Warburton, this sitcom is centred on a load of mates at a pub, the Friendship Inn. Hence Inn Mates. Its first gag is someone getting hit in the balls, and things decline from there. Jonathan Dixon (Darryl off Corrie) is joined by Joe Tracini (most recently seen in BBC4's The Great Outdoors) and Neil Morrissey. A likable cast, sure, but this is barely Two Pints-equalling.

John Warburton on writing Inn Mates

Inn Mates is the first of three comedy pilots by new writers about to be shown on BBC Three. Here, creator John Warburton talks about one tricky hurdle of sitcom writing...

From Sunday Lunchers to The Inn Mates

The college year ended with a showcase in March 2009, and of the scripts developed under the scheme, Sunday Lunchers by John Warburton made a real impact. And that was the beginning of the journey which turned Sunday Lunchers into The Inn Mates.