Jonathan Thake

Advertising sitcom The Persuasionists was so imbecilic, you had to see it to believe it. Episode one centred on the marketing campaign for "Cockney Cheese" and the slogan "Cockney Cheese. Leave it aaaaaat !"

"If he's a Cockney man, strolling along in Cockney London," pointed out their client, 'Cockney Jim'. "He wouldn't be surprised to find some Cockney cheese ? Would he ?"
Er... no.

The Persuasionists stars Adam Buxton, Jarred Christmas, Simon Farnaby, Iain Lee, Lee Ross, and is written by Jonathan Thake. Boys, your friends are embarrassed to know you.

'From the makers of The Inbetweeners!' trumpeted the press release. 'Written by the man renowned for the "slag of all snacks" campaign for Pot Noodle!' it continued in full big-sell mode. OK, so the second claim was a touch desperate, but there was still a sliver of optimism twitching in my remo-finger as I prepared to be persuaded by The Persuasionists (BBC2).

How wrong can you be? Despite gaining kudos for a title that sounded like it was dedicated to a cult 1960s harmony group who only ever recorded two tracks on an obscure Memphis label before imploding in a soul stew of drugs and sibling-related adultery, thus guaranteeing legendary status, The Persuasionists turned out to be as tasty as, well Pot Noodles - and cold ones, at that.

There were warning signs: Iain Lee, for one, here sporting a strange spray tan and spray-on hair and the same self-satisfied sneer that made him so irksome on The 11 O'Clock Show. Surely, though, he'd be balanced out by Adam of Adam & Joe fame and a script, by Jonathan Thake, that promised an insider's assault on the absurdities of advertising.

Well, no and no. 'Adam Buxton - what were you thinking?' was the note I wrote as his character Greg turned out to be as dripping with weary clichés as the rest of Thake's join-the-dots advertising idiots. Thake might have a killer way with advertising slogans but, on the evidence of The Persuasionists, he can't tell the difference between satire and stereotyping. The Persuasionists was rammed to its smug rafters with the latter.

Come to think of it, does advertising even need sending up? Such an easy target, and The Persuasionists, with its shouty Australians, dodgy foreigners with big pencils and smelly Cockney cheese gags, missed it by a country mile. Now watch it clean up at next year's Comedy Awards.

Considering the daftness of the advertising industry, it is surprising that it has inspired so few comedies. The Persuasionists, a six-part sitcom starring Jarred Christmas which starts tonight, redresses this balance. The ad world is peculiarly suited to comedy treatment, complete with outrageous personalities, facile themes, a frenetic pace and a limitless supply of colourful "visiting" personalities (to pep up each episode). In the series, which is written by Jonathan Thake (who used to work in an ad agency) and produced by the company responsible for The Inbetweeners, such outlandish characters are well represented: there's a sexual predator, a brainy loser, a neurotic female executive, a bullish boss and witless account director. The agency is called HHH&H, a wry reference to the vain habit among marketeers of forming their agencies' names around their initials. In tonight's episode, Greg (the witless one, played by Adam Buxton) must pitch a sub-standard campaign for brown, pungent "Cockney cheese" ("for empty nesters who like dairy products") to an antagonistic client Jim, played by Lee Ross. The presentation goes terribly and the team has to use cunning to win over the client, enlisting a female team member as a "honey trap". It all goes desperately wrong and concludes with a booze-stoked confrontation. It's light, sometimes entertaining, vacuous stuff - like the industry it depicts. Just try to ignore the overdone canned laughter.

When American scriptwriters decided to put the advertising world on telly, they gave us the perfectly scripted and critically acclaimed Mad Men. This side of the pond we end up with The Persuasionists, which follows the more traditional vein of Brit sitcoms.

It's often said advertising execs have no idea what they're doing and the five idiots in this certainly live up to that image. They work for HHH&H and have to come up with a clever campaign for Cockney Cheese, a bizarre brown cheese that smells of something incredibly unpleasant (I won't spoil the revelation - it's almost certain to give you a chuckle). Creative Billy (Iain Lee, in his first acting role) has come up with a slogan and it's up to uncertain Greg (Adam Buxton) to sell it to the client, Cockney Jim.

Trouble is, he's terrified of Jim, a caricature of an EastEnders baddie... played by former EastEnders baddie Lee Ross (he was Owen Turner). And unlike one colleague, Greg doesn't have a giant pencil to save the day (that's not a euphemism - one of them really has a giant pencil).

The series is written by former ad man Jonathan Thake, who was responsible for Pot Noodle's "the slag of all snacks" campaign, one of the most complained-about TV ads of all time. I'd love to have seen how he managed to sell this little show to the Beeb.

The Persuasionists - Billy's Cockey Cheese ideas

The Persuasionists begins tonight on BBC Two. It's a comedy about the staff of a marketing agency called HHH&H and it is written by Jonathan Thake - a man with a good idea about life in this world, as it was he who came up with a certain controversial Pot Noodle advert back in 2002.