Lorna Watson

The first episode of Watson & Oliver was, on the whole, pretty poor. It began well - I was especially fond of the opening sketch in which Lorna Watson draws eyebrows on her face in response to Ingrid Oliver's feelings, which became more and more ridiculous as the conversation went on. The duo are good physical performers.

However, I didn't enjoy the second half of the episode nearly as much.

The problem seems to be the writing. Some of the sketches seemed lack any purpose, like the friendly conversation between a prisoner and a warden. It totally stumped me, and I think judging by the audience reaction the studio didn't realise understand it either (mostly light tittering and nothing more).

Concerning the writing, I think that the most interesting aspect of Watson & Oliver is that while Watson and Oliver are the main writers, there is a larger bunch of writers providing "additional material". In the opening episode, for example, Kevin Cecil, Ali Crockatt, David Scott, Alex Lowe and Robert Mills all contributed. In other words, apart from the two stars, all the writers are men writing for female roles. Perhaps if Watson and Oliver wrote all their material there'd be a fluidity to the show and it might, well, be a bit better.

Still, it's probably best to see what comes up in future episodes...

The newest thing in comedy sketch shows - and doesn't that very phrase feel antediluvian? - is Watson & Oliver, well known to Edinburgh Fringe audiences. They're an appealing duo. Ingrid Oliver has a thrillingly low voice - Fiona Bruce meets Victoria Coren - she's a dead ringer for Myleene Klass (who is duly ridiculed), and she can really act. Lorna Watson is blond, brittle and has to work harder for laughs. Their opening gambit was a direly old-fashioned bit of sub-Morecambe & Wise before-the-show backchat, but, once they settled down, their sketches were inventive and unusual. In a spoof of a TV Jane Austen serial, the mob-capped duo tittered like six-year-olds about pin cushions to a pair of bored Mr Darcys, then switched abruptly to double entendre. ("Our dance cards - we eagerly await the filling of our slots by two special gentlemen.") A Victoria Wood-style pastiche of 1950s ladies' kitchen conversation - all pinnies and hair-rollers - was surreally punctuated by Watson's response-appropriate eyebrows. A greasy-spoon café became a symphony of shouts and orders in which everyone called everyone else "darling" - "Cup o'tea, darlin'?" "Keep the change, my darlin'" - until someone silenced the room by saying "Love". In what is clearly meant to be the show's signature sketch, the girls do their impression of Prince William and Kate tucked up in bed, unable to find anything to talk about except their wedding day. But couldn't they have found a better punchline subject than Pippa Middleton's over-prodded rump?

The best sketch imagined two Playboy bunnies squeaking competitively about how pink their living quarters were, how appealing their fake boobs, how delightful their lives, until they were summoned to cuddle up to the saurian Hefner. Between retchings, they competed as to which had a better excuse not to fulfil this noisome duty. It was a gift of a subject to these two funny, appealing women, and they seized it with unladylike glee. I look forward to seeing a lot more of them.

New sketch comedies have been so mediocre recently that the format itself has sometimes looked on its last legs. However, portents for this new show are good. For a start, Robert Popper is producing. Also, it's been dropped straight into the BBC2 schedules without the customary trial period on BBC3/4, which indicates a certain assurance. Sadly, this confidence seems misplaced. Lorna Watson and Ingrid Oliver have good chemistry, but the scripts and ideas remain resolutely earthbound. There's a sketch lampooning mannered costume dramas. An extended, tedious musical turn from John Barrowman. A sketch about the enduring hilarity of working-class people's vocabulary and speech patterns. But nothing to suggest that Watson and Oliver might buck the trend.

Watson & Oliver: Bring out the Barrowman

Lorna Watson and Ingrid Oliver's new comedy sketch show is a peculiarly old-fashioned thing.

Are Lorna Watson and Ingrid Oliver poised to become the next French and Saunders?

They've got the talent and are both immensely likeable, but what they're lacking right now is better material.

There's nothing in the first outing for their new sketch show to dislike, but nothing that really stakes out new comedy ground for female comedians in the way that Smack The Pony or Catherine Tate did. A take-off of Kate and Wills capitalises on Ingrid Oliver's passing resemblance to Kate, but doesn't really know where it's going.

What's most worrying is that they deliberately let their guest star John Barrowman steal all their laughs as well.

Eric and Ernie might have used stage stars to their ­advantage, but Watson and Oliver are a long way from being Morecambe and Wise.

We're not writing them off yet - we're just saying they should write off their writers and get some new ones.

The Beeb's new comedy signing is about as edgy as Lorraine Kelly's guide to budget family dinners. There's more than a whiff of nostalgia in Lorna Watson and Ingrid Oliver's debut comedy sketch show, and if you long for the cheekily innocent days of French & Saunders, Watson & Oliver looks set to satisfy that itch. Expect period drama pastiche, Wills and Kate jokes, and live studio audience laughter aplenty.

It would be so easy to shoot this sketch show by a couple of relatively unknown comedians, Lorna Watson and Ingrid Oliver, right out of the water. I could say that on the whole it's pretty poor, with a few thin laughs in a clutch of woefully under-written sketches. I could say that Watson & Oliver must have known it was in trouble when it gave a substantial guest spot here to John Barrowman playing a preening, narcissistic version of himself.

I could add that with a lot more work Watson & Oliver might find themselves a niche on television after a successful live-performance career. I could say all of these things. But I won't.

New tonight is a sketch show featuring Lorna Watson and Ingrid Oliver, a comedy duo I'm probably meant to have heard of.

Watson & Oliver (BBC2, 10pm) would no doubt love to become the new French & Saunders, but on this early evidence the only thing the duos have in common is they both think they're way funnier than they actually are. Not so much Watson & Oliver, then, as Watson The Other Side.

Heralded as heirs to the long-vacant throne of French and Saunders, double act Ingrid Oliver and Lorna Watson don't disappoint in this hugely enjoyable new sketch show. With a comedy style that is, in Oliver's words, "big and silly", this pair make an instant splash with impersonations of everyone from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Myleene Klass, period drama spoofs, and verbally dexterous sketches reminiscent of The Two Ronnies. It has a rare sense of comic mischief that teases but doesn't offend.