Terry Mynott

The Mimic (Channel 4) is an odd little one. Impersonation on its own, as a form of comedy, has obviously had its day. But woven into a comedy drama series - about a bit of a nobody, who becomes somebody when he becomes somebody else, so to speak - hmm, that might kinda work.

I'm not laughing very much. And to be honest I don't always know who Terry Mynott's character is being when he's doing his impersonations (Morgan Freeman good, Ronnie Corbett less so). And the whole thing is really just a vehicle for his impressions. Nor do I really buy his loser image - he looks like someone who's charismatic and handsome trying to be less charismatic and handsome by doing something weird with his mouth.

But, in spite of all of the above, it's not entirely unlikable. In a funny kind of way. Worth another look, certainly.

New Channel 4 comedy The Mimic appears to have been built around the ability of its lead actor, Terry Mynott, to do impressions and there are moments when you wonder whether he provides a solid enough foundation. His Terry Wogan was very wobbly and his David Attenborough was a weird hybrid of Alan Bennett and Ian McKellen. Other impressions are so left-field they have to be visually signposted or cued up by a line of dialogue to make sure we get them.

But there was a promising little sequence as Martin (Mynott's character) sat slumped in front of his television and Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones fought it out over who was best at adding gravitas to a natural-history programme. It's a comedy of underachievement essentially, complete with marimba noodling on the soundtrack to signal the underlying pathos, but it has some lovely downbeat moments and funny silences where some comedies might strive (unsuccessfully) for a big guffaw. Look out for Jo Hartley as Martin's friend Jean too. She's very good, so quietly you might miss it.

The Mimic review

The Mimic is definitely a slow burner and, if I'm honest, my faith in Terry Mynott's capabilities made me persevere as, other than a few scenes referring to the protagonist's possible fatherhood, this debut episode seemed to lack a plot somewhat.

There's a reason there aren't too many sitcoms about impressionists, and The Mimic - at least this first slightly underwhelming episode - shows why. Very Important People's Terry Mynott plays a deadbeat maintenance man with a paternity test coming up. He also has a gift for mimicry. As a result, plot becomes a bit secondary while we wait for the next impression (everyone from Wogan to Walken) to be crowbarred into the narrative at the slightest excuse. The good news is, it gets better and funnier over the course of the series.

Terry Mynott: Being school 'thicko' made me funnyman

Mimic Terry Mynott has revealed he does voiceover work for David Attenborough on his award-winning shows - despite struggling to read.

Impressionist Terry Mynott, last seen in Very Important People, stars as stuck-in-a-rut odd-jobs man Martin in this downbeat comedy drama. Whenever things look bleak, Martin's escape valve is to air his thoughts through other people's voices. From Terry Wogan to Morgan Freeman, anybody's voice is preferable to his own - until an old flame gives him pause for thought, claiming he's the father of her 18-year-old son. Can mimicry help him handle that one?

For a sitcom, this is at the loose, gentle end of the spectrum. There aren't many out-and-out gags, it's filmed on location, there's no laughter track - if it were an hour long, you'd call it a comedy drama.

Our sort-of-hero is Martin (Terry Mynott), who has a dead-end job doing site maintenance for a drugs company (called, cheekily, CelPharm). When we meet Martin, he's in a traffic jam, amusing himself with a scabrous impression of Terry Wogan ("It's mornings like this, I wish I was back in Phuket bouncing a ladyboy on each knee...") and we soon gather that this is Martin's Walter Mitty-style escape.

He may be a man adrift, but his impression of Morgan Freeman arguing with James Earl Jones is uncanny (his Ronnie Corbett less so). What threatens to shake up Martin's world is learning he may have a son he has never met. That's if the DNA test pans out...

It's strange how little the art of the impressionist has evolved since the heyday of Mike Yarwood. But this new sitcom written by Matt Morgan achieves the unusual feat of placing this variety club act in a fresh context. Terry Mynott is Martin Hurdle, a quiet, unremarkable middle-aged man with a hidden talent.

Hurdle's a freakishly good impressionist, prone to slipping into Terry Wogan in traffic jams or getting his own back on his boss over the intercom at work. So far, so ho-hum. But where "The Mimic" feels both promising and unusual is that Martin's mimicry is, at this point, a dead end. Martin has a rubbish job. He has a charming but, as far as we can tell, unfulfilled relationship with [p[Jo Hartley]'s Jean. And he has an 18-year-old son whom he's taking the first tentative steps towards getting to know. In other words, The Mimic is brave enough to be gently melancholy rather than uproarious - Martin's gift feels more like a product of confused identity and low self-esteem than any desire to entertain.

It will be interesting to see whether this ventures into more conventional sitcom realms as it progresses - on the evidence of this opener, it could be a subtle, understated treat.

'The Mimic' TV Review

Most impressive was Terry Mynott's ability to be convincing as a man destined to travel in what his manager admitted was a professional 'cul-de-sac', even when Mynott's talents must surely lead him much further afield.

The problem for impressionists, once you're past the original impact of their mimicry, is how to sustain the entertainment value. This five-part series takes the approach of fitting funny voices into a bittersweet comedy drama. Terry Mynott plays mild-mannered Martin Hurdle: a loyalty card-collecting maintenance man who happens to have a gift for aping the voices of celebrities and colleagues alike. It's clumsy at times, with impressions crowbarred into the script, but likeable enough with a certain gentle charm.