Stuart McLoughlin

BBC3 has finally found something as desperately bad as Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps; the shock here is that this painful sci-fi 'comedy' stars an actor as highly regarded as Jonathan Pryce. Pryce plays Victor, a government scientist who has created the first human clone, a prototype super-soldier. But the clone (Stuart McLoughlin) turns out to be 'the world's most expensive idiot', a big-eared innocent, whom his creator has to protect when it's decided the clone has to be destroyed.

The brainchild of Adam Chase, one of the key writers on Friends, Clone is a new comedy series starring Jonathan Pryce as a brilliant scientist who unveils the result of his life's work: the first human clone, intended to be a prototype super-soldier. It soon becomes apparent that this is far from the case - the Clone (played along the lines of Tom Hanks in Big by Stuart McLoughlin) is more likely to hug someone than shoot them. There's no doubt that this is an interesting premise for a comedy, it's just a shame that it has to resort to crude gags, canned laughter and weak slapstick to get laughs. Nice riff around the smoking ban though, and Mark Gatiss is great as an odious Army colonel. Must try harder.