Lloyd Woolf

Blog Review

Cowards is a new sketch show that doesn't completely suck. I mean it's still hit-and-miss, but the great thing about Cowards is that I don't mind watching the misses because they're still being performed by hugely watchable comedians.

In this new sketch series from comedy quartet Cowards, performance is stronger than punchline. This is no bad thing: the deadpan-absurdist approach works well, especially with the rooftop judiciary and worryingly precise job-seeker. But the schoolboy schlock (a Russian roulette soiree) doesn't.

Individually, Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski, Tim Key and Lloyd Woolf have caused quite a stir on the live comedy circuit, and their shared love of deadpan, absurd and irreverent humour shines out in this inventive, enjoyable and subtle sketch show. Particularly pertinent highlights include a middle-class game of Russian roulette where adhering to the rules is paramount, and a job seeker whose only aim is to become Mick Hucknall's PA.

Sketch shows rarely justify the sum of their parts, but there is sometimes an exception. Adapted from the Radio 4 show, the cowards in question are comedians Tim Key, Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski and Lloyd Woolf and their act works because the sketches are a blend of the subtle, imaginative and absurd. Scenarios include an excruciatingly dark Russian-roulette dinner-party game.

This gaggle of fraidy-pants have managed to stop their knees knocking in terror to produce this spiky sketch show, featuring a gang of delinquent judges and a dinner party at which boring old Trivial Pursuit is swapped for revolver-based fun.

I'm not afraid to say I love Cowards

It's only got a three-show taster run, but the episodes are brilliant. If BBC4 has got any sense - and the likes of The Thick Of It and Screenwipe suggests so - they'll order a second, full-length series pronto.

Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski, Tim Key and Lloyd Woolf's delightful sketch show returns to Radio 4 for a second series.

Theirs is a performance that likes to keep it real - instead of larger-than-life characters, they bring out the comedy in the everyday. Not that their screations are average Joes: in one sketch Mr Sneeze comes to blows with the other Mr Men, while in another, Harrison Ford desperately kowtows to a casting director.

It's about left-field observations rather than catchphrases, and makes for a refreshing, rib-tickling change.

Sketch shows are, by definition, hit and miss affairs, and it's unlikely that this will be any exception. However, the heritage of this comedy troupe, back for a second radio series, bodes well.