Luke McQueen

Review: Jerk, BBC Three

BBC Three has come up with a pocket-sized gem in Jerk. Following a one-off pilot in 2016, this is only a four-part series but there's a surprisingly pleasing arc to it as we go from squirming at the main character Tim's behaviour to cheering him on at the end. As they say, we laugh and we learn.

After his vampire exposé mock-doc and an ultra-awks sex travelogue, the third of Luke McQueen's daft pilots is a delirious send-up of staged dating shows like Love Island. Six attractive young hopefuls vie for the hapless standup's affections, though the real star is a demonic Teddy Ruxpin.

Review: Luke McQueen Pilots - The Luke of Love

At a running time of an hour this episode is a little too long.

The Luke McQueen Pilots: The Luke of Love review

Some of the scenes are certainly funny, especially the image of the comedian as a baby, 'Pukey Lukey', in a segment purportedly designed to test the contestants' mothering skills, which again goes on too long. Meanwhile McQueen crashing a date in the real world is as embarrassing as it gets, another step towards the inevitable collapse of the format.

TV/Online review: The Luke McQueen Pilots

The second of his three pilots spoofing TV formats is a little close to home for comedian Luke McQueen.

The Luke McQueen Pilots: Sex With My Father review

After a disappointing opening episode that failed to make its mark among so many other awkward mockumentaries, the second of Luke McQueen's supposedly aborted BBC pilots is on a firmer footing. Even if the title star is outshone by fellow comic Mark Silcox, who quietly steals every scene he's in.

The Luke McQueen Pilots review

The outrageous standup moves into TV with a mock-doc full of public stunts, faux-naive interviews and blood-letting.

A new mock-investigative series begins with a report on our "hidden vampire crisis". Fitfully funny, although McQueen's faux-naif-meets-Russell Brand shtick (standing in a street yelling "Lower the age of sexual consent!" in order to protect virgins from vampires) is an acquired, er, taste.

TV/Online Review: The Luke McQueen Pilots

McQueen doesn't exactly re-invent the spoof documentary wheel here, but he throws himself into the proceedings with gusto.

In The Luke McQueen Pilots, McQueen plays a comedian making a failed documentary about the so-called British vampire crisis. It is not exactly a spoof, though there is a laboured joke about doing something "like what Stacey Dooley or Reggie Yates would do". It is, in its better moments, a spoof of spoofs, though that may be an accidental by-product of inhaling the exhaust of those who have done that sort of thing with more precision (Chris Morris, Sacha Baron Cohen, Charlie Brooker/Philomena Cunk).

The bit where McQueen pours milk over his head is quite funny. The bit where he meets an online paedophile is less so. It's a pretty tough line of humour, the paedophilia gag, and it's not clear whether the individual in question is an actor or a real pervert. There's also a passing joke about Barry Chuckle, who died recently, and a mock protest in which McQueen pretends that Theresa May is a vampire.