Paul Higgins

Greed review

Michael Winterbottom's comedy drama opens with a scene of Caroline Flack, the late television presenter, handing over a big cheque to the wealthy wife of a rich businessman while his poorly paid minions look on.

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I'm holding out hope for BBC One's The Wrong Mans. Mathew Baynton from CBBC's Horrible Histories plays Sam Pinkett, an employee of Berkshire County Council who gets mixed up in a thriller plot-line entirely at odds with his mundane existence to date. Gavin & Stacey's James Corden (who also co-wrote the script with Baynton) plays his colleague Phil Bourne, a man who makes up in enthusiasm what he lacks in common sense.

Wisely judging that the Hitchcock reference will go over our heads, this first episode of six spent much of its time in setting tone. Thanks to slick direction and, one suspects, a large chunk of the BBC's autumn budget, it certainly looks as good as a Hollywood thriller.

It's only a shame that the combination of ordinary blokes and extraordinary setting won't feel original to anyone who's seen Shaun of the Dead or any other Simon Pegg/Nick Frost collaboration. Unlike Pegg/Frost, Baynton/Corden isn't yet a natural double act with natural chemistry. Instead, they came across like the straight man(s) in search of a comedian.

Still, if Baynton and Corden don't do it for you, we're promised forthcoming episodes will include a supporting cast of contemporary comedy talent to compensate. There's Him & Her's Sarah Solemani, The Thick of It's Paul Higgins and Dawn French, among others. As the trail for next week's episode revealed, Lock Stock's Nick Moran will also be stomping around doing his well-worn cockney gangster bit. But don't let that put you off.

This new comedy drama written by and starring James Corden and Horrible Histories' Mathew Baynton is quite good. What's remarkable is the wealth of on-screen talent involved, and I don't just mean Dawn French, Rebecca Front, Nick Moran, Homeland's David Harewood and Him & Her's Sarah Solemani. When you can employ Paul Higgins (The Thick of It) and Twenty Twelve's Vincent Franklin in the seemingly throwaway roles of traffic cops, then that is casting in depth. Taking its title from Hitchcock's 1956 thriller of mistaken identity, The Wrong Man, it stars Baynton as a Berkshire County Council office drudge accidentally mixed up in a criminal conspiracy. Corden is on his best form as his excitable colleague.

This 2007 edition of the black political satire is packed with blood-drawingly sharp observations and ruthless, brilliant dialogue. As well as a lot of laughs. We eavesdrop on Peter Mannion (Roger Allam), a bemused politician who wonders if he's out of step with the modern world. Can he still call yobbos yobbos, for instance? Monstrous spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) and his ferocious sidekick Jamie (Paul Higgins) are back with language that would make a modern rugby league team blush.

As much a celebration of Scotland's acting talent as it is of Robbie Burns, this mockumentary was first shown on BBC Scotland in January, on the 250th anniversary of the bard's birth. The gags are as recognisable as the poetry, yet there's plenty of fun to be had. Set in Burns's hometown, Alloway, it follows the ragbag of entrants for the annual recital competition. Familiar faces include Ashley Jensen, pushy mum of wide-eyed Hayley; Denis Lawson as the despotic head of the Burns Society, with Paul Higgins his lovesick hopeful; and a gleeful cameo from Bill Paterson as a touchy-feely tartan seller.

Hope springs eternal whenever I get set for a new British drama. I don't demand too much: believable characters; some wit; a mood-enhancing soundtrack; a story that makes some kind of sense; performances that hint the actors haven't just learnt their lines in the nearest portable loo. Suffice to say, Hope Springs fails on all counts.

Bad Girls meets Hustle on the backlot of Take The High Road, Hope Springs stars Alex Kingston as the leader of a group of four ex-jailbirds who have unfeasibly scammed a cool £3million from Alex's too-timing gangster bloke. For reasons too absurdly contrived to bother with, they wind up hiding out in the Scottish Highlands at a hotel where Annette Crosbie spends every waking moment getting plastered. You can see where she's coming from.

Don't be too shocked, but their hideout is not the rural idyll it looks. Far from passing their time tossing shortbread and knitting haggie, the Hope Springs locals spend their time murdering, plotting, covering up dark secrets and eyeing up the new girls in town. It's the kind of material David Lynch could turn into a surreal and alluring mystery. But Hope Springs reduced it to Carry On Up The Caber cliche.

The unbearably jaunty background music set the tone. When the action needed a touch of tension, what you got was what sounded like a jingle for a snack biscuit. And what Paul Higgins (brilliant as Jamie in The Thick Of It) was doing in it as a drippy policeman is anybody's guess. You can only hope for his sake that he gets to cuddle up to the corpse beneath the floorboards before this shambles kills his career stone dead.

When I tell you Hope Springs comes from the same stable as Bad Girls and Footballers' Wives, you'll know it isn't a searing human drama where finely-etched characters battle existential angst. No, it's a cheerful piece of nonsense featuring a cockernee-sounding Alex Kingston as the head of a band of female ex-cons whose final job goes pear-shaped (sorry, I can't help myself) and who hide out in the Highland hamlet Hope Springs. It's your typical fish-out-of-water fare as the silliest of the women screams in terror at a motionless sheep and the Kingston character exchanges moody glances with the presentable local policeman (Paul Higgins). If you need to know more, let me tell you that in Hope Springs, a man performing the kiss of life on a woman is seen as a comedy romantic gesture.

The 2007 special edition of the black political satire is packed with blood-drawingly sharp observations and ruthless, brilliant dialogue. And a lot of laughs. We eavesdrop on Peter Mannion (Roger Allam) a bemused politician who wonders if he's out of step with the modern world. Can he still call yobboes 'yobboes', for instance? Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) and his ferocious sidekick Jamie (Paul Higgins) and back too (hooray!) with language that would make a northern rugby league team blush.