Jonathan Pryce

In this new, six-part sitcom Jonathan Pryce plays madcap scientist Dr Victor Blenkinsop, who has dedicated 17 years and three marriages to a top-secret project for MI7. At his side is an inept assistant and, limping behind, barking orders, is his goggle-eyed boss, Colonel Black (Mark Gatiss). His mission is to create a super-soldier and, naturally, it goes horribly wrong: the clone is no deadlier than a newborn. Cue all sorts of social faux pas as Blenkinsop and his overgrown tyke go on the run from the fuming colonel. Unfortunately, this particular fish out of water is more tiresome than funny.

BBC3 has finally found something as desperately bad as Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps; the shock here is that this painful sci-fi 'comedy' stars an actor as highly regarded as Jonathan Pryce. Pryce plays Victor, a government scientist who has created the first human clone, a prototype super-soldier. But the clone (Stuart McLoughlin) turns out to be 'the world's most expensive idiot', a big-eared innocent, whom his creator has to protect when it's decided the clone has to be destroyed.

The brainchild of Adam Chase, one of the key writers on Friends, Clone is a new comedy series starring Jonathan Pryce as a brilliant scientist who unveils the result of his life's work: the first human clone, intended to be a prototype super-soldier. It soon becomes apparent that this is far from the case - the Clone (played along the lines of Tom Hanks in Big by Stuart McLoughlin) is more likely to hug someone than shoot them. There's no doubt that this is an interesting premise for a comedy, it's just a shame that it has to resort to crude gags, canned laughter and weak slapstick to get laughs. Nice riff around the smoking ban though, and Mark Gatiss is great as an odious Army colonel. Must try harder.

A new six-part sitcom starring Jonathan Pryce as Victor Blenkinsop, a research scientist involved in top-secret government experiments, under the watchful eye of the bonkers Colonel Black (Mark Gatiss). When his latest project, a cloned super-soldier, turns out to be no more intelligent than a new-born baby, Blenkinsop takes the clone and his feckless assistant on the run... Unfortunately, a couple of cute visual gags aside (the secret entrance activation, for example), the whole project is derailed by ridiculous slapstick, a weak script and an intrusive laughter track. At one point, Gatiss' Colonel Black says, You just don't get it, do you? My career is on the line! As Pryce's answer of What about my career? is greeted by Black's laughter, I felt the overwhelming urge to join in...

Jonathan Pryce Interview

Is he happiest as Hamlet or hamming it up ... The Times asks will the real Jonathan Pryce reveal himself?