Nick Helm

TV review: Uncle, Mom, House of Fools

Three new sitcoms featuring the comedic talents of Nick Helm, Chuck Lorre and Vic & Bob.

Uncle's Nick Helm on the cult of the manchild

The stand-up turned star of BBC Three's new sitcom on Men Behaving Badly, Simon Pegg and the evolution of boys who won't grow up.

Now, normally I'd have to search far and wide for the guitar riff to a cruelly forgotten classic. I'd have to burrow deep into the hinterlands of BBC Four, which is basically all hinterland but you know what I mean. Generously, though, a new comedy called Uncle began with (Don't Fear) The Reaper. Brilliant. Nobody plays the Blue Oyster Cult's only song anymore. At this moment the uncle in question was trying to kill himself after being dumped by his girlfriend. But then his sister phoned, asking him to look after her son - the nephew who until that point he'd barely acknowledged.

Nick Helm plays Andy, who can't stand kids - "They're all 'Oo, look at my cool allergies and my wheelie backpack!' They think they're so fascinating" - though he's no slouch when it comes to self-obsessiveness. Elliot Speller-Gillott is Errol, 12, possessed of a bowlcut only a mother could love and a Britpop-loving wardrobe assistant could give him. Andy is an out-of-work musician. "That's another way of saying unemployed," quipped Errol.

First stop was the lad's football practice, and from there, bizarrely and maybe surreally, it was on to a strip club, with Andy supplying life lessons along the way. Love, he said, was like walking on water, until a shark bites off your foot. Then another shark goes for your testicles. You're rescued by a seagull, which tosses you onto the jagged rocks. And that's when the hyenas come along and eat you. Uncle is highly promising and it also comes with impromptu songs.

Opening a new comedy with a broken-hearted man who is reeling from a failed love affair and about to attempt suicide in his bath is a high-risk manoeuvre. Imminent electrocution is not generally high on belly laugh potential.

But oddly, Uncle (BBC Three), a curious tale of a man buddy-bonding with a nephew he'd not hitherto even noticed, pulled it off.

Thanks to a pair of winning turns by Nick Helm (as slacker musician Uncle Andy) and Elliot Spencer-Gillott (as the 12 going on 35-year-old Errol), Uncle offered an amusing and admirably unsentimental twist on the struggles of the modern family unit.

It was great to hear the 'he's the greatest thing that ever happened to me' line, the default tear-jerker card played by talent show hopefuls who got knocked up at 14 and who bring the kid out on stage to bag the sympathy vote, trotted out with such tongue-in-cheek insincerity by Andy. He was deviously trying to win back his ex by using the 'I'm a great dad' card. It can work with puppies too.

It wasn't all on the money. Quite where a bizarre dance sequence involving a male dance troupe in tight white shorts and Andy dressed like Liberace fitted into the picture is anyone's guess.

But when Uncle concentrated on building the fledgling relationship between Andy and Errol, the fateful turn of events that pulled Andy back from the suicidal brink, it hit the mark.

The struggle between the two of them, Andy dissing kids for their 'look at me with my cool allergies' self-involvement on the one side, Errol's sophisticated brand of manipulative cunning on the other, promises a formula with plenty of potential. At the very least, it'll do until Moone Boy comes back.

This dark new comedy sees musical funnyman Nick Helm (Live At The Electric) play Andy, a jobless musician whose plans for suicide are interrupted when he's drafted in to look after his 12-year-old nephew. Episode one sees a bizarre escape from footy practice for nephew Errol (Elliot Spencer-Gillott), as Andy embarks on his own shambling reimagining of About A Boy. Posing as a single dad in an attempt to win back his ex only leads to more trouble for the hapless uncle and his glum charge, however.

There's a touching pathos to the dark humour in this promising new comedy starring Nick Helm as heartbroken musician Andy.

A gnan's whisker away from killing himself, Andy makes a split-second decision to answer the phone - which lands him with a nephew he hardly knows, played with deadpan style by Elliot Spencer-Gillott.

As events send them spinning from footie pitch to gay bar, the pair forge a bond founded on mutual disinterest, blackmail, lies and... a semi-naked male dance troupe.

Radio Times review

It's the familiar buddy-comedy dynamic: two contrasting characters are reluctantly thrust together by circumstance. Initially, they can't stand each other, but as the frost thaws a semblance of a relationship starts to bloom. In this case it's slobby, boozy Andy (Nick Helm) and his sickly, smart-arse nephew Errol - the kind of kid who says things like "I hate cartoons, they give me a headache".

In this opener, Andy is suicidal after being dumped by his girlfriend, but it's hard to find sympathy for him as he blunders about lying through his teeth, hitting the bottle while driving and trying to repair his rather unconvincing relationship with his ex. It's not particularly subtle, but Errol is a great little character and the unexpected musical interludes provide a satisfying injection of quirkiness.

Nick Helm: Loud, aggressive & a big pussycat off stage

The comic's aggressive style does not match his true self, finds Gerard Gilbert.

South Bank Sky Arts Awards - 2014 nominations announced

Comedy award between Psychobitches, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, and Bridget Christie's Fringe show A Bic for Her. Nick Helm nominated for "Breakthrough Award".

Nick Helm v Evel Knievel

The bolshy comic's new show is a tribute (of sorts) to Evel Knievel. But how does Helm size up to the daredevil? We put them head-to-head.