Matt Berry

Radio Times review

Steven Toast is in awe of his old friend Axel Jacklin (played by the excellent Terry Mynott as a constipated-sounding James Mason), Britain's finest exponent of acting in high winds.

But if something were ever to happen to Axel, then Toast could step into his shoes, as he's Britain's second finest exponent of acting in high winds. Of course, Axel dies, hurled across the studio to his doom in a windy re-creation of Master and Commander.

There's a great set piece as Toast (Matt Berry) and his nemesis Ray Purchase (Harry Peacock) both audition to be the deceased Axel's replacement, in front of a nuclear-strength wind machine. It's an old-fashioned bit of comic idiocy, the kind of daftness Toast does so well.

This week, Toast ruins his reputation, along with the 60-year run of West End whodunnit The Moose Trap, by revealing the murderer's identity in an interview on Woman's Hour. Matt Berry's magnificent intonation aside, it's the little details that give this sitcom its appeal, like the characters' names (The Moose Trap's cast includes Ken Suggestion and Penny Traitor), and the ambience of Toast's retro, thesp-ridden London, which for all the modern references still feels like something from a mid 20th-century Iris Murdoch novel.

Radio Times review

Overtired after an all-nighter in the studio doing "Sat Nav for the Elderly" ("Abbotsbury...Abingdon...Acton") bumptious actor/voiceover artist Steven Toast accidentally reveals on Woman's Hour the name of the murderer in Anthea Crippen's creaky old play The Moose Trap. So, after a 60-year run, attendances dwindle and Toast's chance of a West End comeback as Inspector Attenborough are torpedoed.

Maybe Toast is too insider-y for some, though it's not as full of actors' inside jokes as you might think, but when it soars, it hits the comedy sun. There's a good running gag about Breaking Bad bores, and Toast (Matt Berry) has a catastrophic encounter with Jeremy Paxman (The Mimic's Terry Mynott) when he auditions for the job of the man who shouts out the contestants' names on a "university quiz."

Radio Times review

Pompous actor Steven Toast's nemesis, Ray Purchase, has ratted him out to The Tax People, so he owes £250,000 and he needs to find work, fast.

But suitable jobs are thin on the ground. Even John Midsomer Murders Nettles and has resorted to poaching to make ends meet. (Yes, that really is the John Nettles in a guest cameo).

In desperation, Toast's magnificently raddled agent, Jane Plough (Doon Mackichan) suggests that her client might like to direct a stage version of Calendar Girls.

Matt Berry as Toast is at his glorious best when he launches into tirades of scene-chewing pomposity. His outrageous treatment of the Calendar Girls women ("I intend to treat these people like cattle") will make your eyes water.

Toast Of London: funniest UK sitcom nobody's watching

Should you be watching Matt Berry comedy show Toast Of London on Channel 4? In the words of Stephen Toast... Yes!

How to describe Steven Toast, the man/beast at the centre of the absurd but funny Toast of London? He is, in hair and moustache, a postmodern, and quite possibly post-mortem, version of Dickie Davies, who hosted ITV's World of Sport with such aplomb from 1965-85. Toast has Dickie Davies eyes and a Mallen streak in the middle of his bouffant. He has an Actor's voice, designed to reach the cheap seats and no longer capable of modifying its volume. He sounds, at all times, like a repertory version of Patrick Allen, the voice actor who brought an apocalyptic note to the public information film Protect and Survive, as well as scaring an entire generation into buying Barratt homes.

Matt Berry, who plays Toast, is just about old enough to remember Dickie hosting the grappling on a damp Saturday afternoon but he's also a voice-over artist in real life, toiling in the service of volcanic mineral water and financial services. Toast the character (created by Berry and Father Ted co-writer Arthur Mathews) is a distorted echo from those Soho casting calls, rendered from the dreamscape of an insecure thespian -- a place where almost everything that is said is unsayable in polite company. It is also the funniest thing going, with Berry's clowning rendered absurdly plausible thanks to the efforts of Tracy-Ann Oberman and Louise Jameson as the leonine Toast's gamey co-conspirators.

Burnt offering: Matt Berry's Toast's no laughing matter

It's as if two sixth formers had watched a few old DVDs - The Dick Emery Show, Rising Damp, the odd episode of Bottom or Alan Partridge - then written down the first thing that came into their heads.

In the unlikely event that the Children in Need celebrity single flops, they could always try a celebrities and prostitutes blow-football tournament. It's not in good taste exactly, but voiceover artist and thesp Stephen Toast (Matt Berry) has never cared much about that. Britain's "second best actor acting in high winds" entered one such tournament in aid of homeless ponies last night, and thus began another brilliant series of Toast of London.

How is it that the first series - co-written by Berry and Father Ted's Arthur Mathews, no less - averaged only 300,000 viewers per episode? Exactly how loud does the bombastic and easily infuriated Toast have to shout to get some attention around here?

Like all the best comedy, this sitcom defies explanation, and maybe all humour is subjective anyway, but if you don't find Toast of London's idiosyncratic pronunciations, grotesque sex scenes and Clem Fandango mentions hilarious to the point of hernia, there's simply no hope.

Radio Times review

Voiceover artist Steven Toast is back in the studio, being tormented by producer Clem Fandango and a familiar-sounding man. Is that really Mayor Boris Johnson who wants Toast to record the familiar Tube warning "Mind the gap"?

The perpetually fuming Toast (Matt Berry, co-writer with Father Ted's Arthur Mathews) returns for a second series, which mines the rich seam of bawdiness opened by the first.

Toast of London is spectacularly coarse (in the opening episode Toast signs up for a Prostitutes and Celebrities Blow-Football Tournament). But Berry is brilliant as Steven, a hopeless actor with a career so far on the skids he has to dress up as Charles Dickens for a themed London bus tour. It brings him into direct conflict with his nemesis, the repellent Ray Purchase.

Things are looking up for Matt Berry's thwarted thesp: he's got an audition for a role as Charles Dickens, he's having a not-so-secret affair with Ray Purchase's wife, and there's a further opportunity to humiliate Purchase in the annual "celebrities and prostitutes" blow-football match - if Toast can manage to find an escort in time. Add Boris Johnson and an inspired Clockwork Orange reference and you've got an agreeably daft opener of Berry and Arthur Mathews's chaotic sitcom.