Sarah Millican

The Sarah Millican Television Programme review

Sarah Millican is both warm and friendly while simultaneously mischievously quick and sharp.

Here's a bold idea; get Sarah Millican to take over Harry Hill's now-vacant chair on TV Burp. She'd be perfect, she can see all that is both fun and ridiculous about television and she's quick on her comedy feet. Though of course she'd have to tone down the saucy bits. In between a routine about her abandoned sex toys (Sex Toy Story 4) she gets her own back after being patronised by fashion designer Julien Macdonald of Britain's Next Top Model and grills a very game Robert Peston about his domestic austerity measures.

'This has been lush,' sounds very odd in a snooty English voice and Jack Whitehall played cultures clashing for all they were worth in Hit The Road Jack - a move not dissimilar from Sarah Millican and her working class Geordie jokes aimed at a traditionally middle class BBC Two audience that are currently going down well in her Television Programme.

His comedy road trip kicked off in Cardiff where he stayed with a local family and joined a local men's choir. They Welsh. He British. Nationality-based awkwardness obviously ensued, before Whitehall took on a cameo role in soap opera Pobol y Cwm and rounded up with a stand-up gig.

He shamelessly revelled in every boyo cliché in the book (token rugby coach in particular), but, playing on the posh chump charm of Fresh Meat's JP, Whitehall pulled it off.

Where are all the female stand-ups?

Male stand-ups still dominate our TV shows, the live circuit, and last night's Chortle awards. Why? Sarah Millican, Josie Long, Isy Suttie and others give the inside story.

The very funny Jack Whitehall launches a fairly
funny show of his own. In the way of comedians' first solo TV outings, it's a little fiddly and over-engineered (see also Sarah Millican on BBC2) but cheerful and charming, too, like the man himself.

The idea is that Jack immerses himself in a different part of the UK each week, starting in Wales, where
he joins a male voice choir and gets a cameo in Pobol y Cwm. There are pranky bits (he poses as an alternative sports guru and tricks some rugby players into pretending to be animals) and a guest (Ruth Jones) and a bit of music and a bit of stand-up and yes, it's all a bit scattered and frantic, but good fun.

Sarah Millican Television Programme: safe but charming

The Sarah Millican Television Programme breaks no boundary with its alternating interview and stand-up format, but its well-observed and self-deprecating humour is sure to charm audiences.

This week's guests are warmly witty north-eastern comedian Sarah Millican, who discusses her debut TV vehicle The Sarah Millican Television Programme, and retired boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, who now acts as a fighting consultant on films and recently showed off his twinkle toes on Dancing with the Stars.

There's something of Mrs Merton in the way Sarah Millican asks questions that aren't really meant to be answered, just to get a cheeky laugh. So when one of her guests is "weather legend" John Kettley, she asks him innocently, "Is it possible for the sun to actually shine out of someone's a***?" Only a comic as seemingly sweet as Millican could carry it off, but she knows exactly how far she can go in a 10pm show, and goes there, a lot.

Comedian Sarah Millican's new show is a jumble of stand-up, sketches and chat, but it serves her talents well. Tonight she swaps banter with actor Simon Callow, weatherman John Kettley, and Downton Abbey's Phyllis Logan. She seems that unlikeliest of creatures, a happy clown, and her jokes hit more than miss. On why Millican never watches Top Gear: "If I wanted to watch slightly racist middle-aged men driving, I'd just take a cab."

This is Sarah Millican's first steps into a television series of her own, after appearing on nearly every panel show under the sun!

There have been complaints from some quarters that Sarah Millican's possibly the most overexposed comedian currently around. I personally don't think that's the case. Yes, she appears on a lot of panel shows, but she always the guest - she doesn't host any or appear as a team captain, unlike David Mitchell for example.

The Sarah Millican Television Programme is part stand-up, part talk show. Each show covers two different television genres, this week being "animals" and "dating", with the guidance of a guest expert (Chris Packham and Tracey Cox respectively). It has to be said that she seemed to look a bit uncomfortable dealing with this format and perhaps the given material, but I don't doubt she'll soon cope with it as the series goes along.

Millican is certainly funny and the show is very good, but it does have one or two problems, namely with video cameras. There's annoying gimmickry with the "Millicam" in which a video camera is sent into the studio audience and certain people answer Millican's questions. The main problem, though, is that they also filmed the audience members holding the Millicam, so the Millicam instantly becomes redundant...

Then there was Sarah's guest interview with her own father Phillip, during which she wore a silly headcam, which gets one laugh at the beginning but then of course just becomes rather tiresome.

However, other than those minor issues, I'd recommend you giving The Sarah Millican Television Programme a viewing.