Vic Reeves

Vic and Bob's latest offering, House of Fools, is a sort of parody of a classic sitcom and sees the pair's unique humour employed in a new setting.

Anybody who's ever seen one of Vic and Bob's comedy shows before knows exactly what to expect from House of Fools. Their new sitcom is essentially Shooting Stars in a house with all of their comedy regulars popping by to sing a song and do a bit of comedy.

I have to personally say that I rarely laughed during the course of the show, but that's to say I didn't enjoy it. Though the antics of Vic and Bob have begun to get a bit stale, especially after seeing how good Vic is when he acts under his real name of Jim Moir. Luckily there's a lot of talent in the supporting cast namely from Morgana Robinson as the sex-starved neighbour and Matt Berry as the boisterous Beef.

I have to say I'm not quite sure about House of Fools yet, as I don't know if it's trying to be a fully-fledged sitcom in its own right or simply attempting to parody the art of the situation comedy. But I'm definitely going to stick with it for now, mainly because I find Vic and Bob utterly enjoyable in whatever they do.

Everyone knows what they're getting with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, whose new comedy House of Fools - an absurdist spoof of 70s sitcoms played to a fashionably live audience - kicked off on BBC2. Would Bob get the peace and quiet he needed to invite his date round to watch Conan the Barbarian on TV? Or would Vic get stuck in a hole drilled through the wall to next door while their booming-voiced friend Beef (crazy Matt Berry in a role familiar to that seen in his recent Toast of London) defecated in a cereal box? Amid the chaos and rude slapstick there was much pleasing drollness, not least Bob's cri de coeur at Vic's promise to change his ways: "You can't change, you're fully realised."

The front room setting for almost all the action was the messiest, most fire hazard-ish, most tinned-pineapples-next-to-gas-masks collection of junk since Steptoe And Son. Even the set-up - one of the occupants trying to break out of this foosty male world to meet members of the opposite sex, only to be thwarted by his co-habitee - reminded me of at least half the episodes of Albert/Harold malarkey in my treasured boxset. This was House Of Fools, the return of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, welcome any time but especially last week.

It's Bob's house, and Vic's his lodger, which strictly speaking makes them the Hugh And I of right now. I imagine that in every instalment Bob will try to evict Vic, along with his gubbins, and fail. "General fannying about and whimbrelling," Bob will mutter. Whimbrelling? As I write, there are a mere seven mentions of the word in the whole of cyberspace, with five claiming Reeves and Mortimer have added a brand new word to the language. Not quite true: the other two mentions state that whimbrelling is the high-pitched call of the whimbrel, the wading bird. Then Vic will promise to mend his slovenly ways, only for Bob to sigh: "You can't change; you're fully realised." A running gag, then, or lying-down one. But that's all right: every sitcom needs one. And the tremendous advantage House Of Fools has over many is that everyone who wanders into the front room must sing a song of introduction.

The other fools include Bob's Norwegian son, randy cucumber-wielding Julie who lives next door, an ex-con called Bosh, and Beef played by Matt Berry, hot from Toast Of London, a ludicrous lothario in a cravat. "I travel this land removing my pants while making love to African ladies," warbled Beef.

House Of Fools is what in comedy used to be called surreal, before the word got appropriated by sportsmen at the London Olympics to describe the sensation of winning. Vic and Bob have just reclaimed it, and a good thing too.

Who doesn't need a good wimbrel around the madcap edges of life every now and again? I didn't know I'd forgotten how good Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer could be until House Of Fools came up and slapped me round the kippers with its sheer intoxicating daftness.

The best thing is that, while middle-aged men pratting about like students and cracking gags involving body parts could easily come across as tragic, it just seems appropriately Vic and Bob, like the past 20 years never happened. Just when I was about to send my pointy stick off for recycling, Reeves and Mortimer got good again.

Well, they've never actually been bad, but House Of Fools revealed how they footled around with quiz shows for far too long. I know it's a minority view but I was glad they axed Shooting Stars, it was a show rapidly disappearing down its own plughole.

Sticking with aquatic imagery, you could take a bubble bath in Vic and Bob's luxuriant language, a surreal Jacuzzi of absurdity, filth, poetry and celebrity invocations, often in the same sentence. That the name Sandi Toksvig played a pivotal plot role in episode one gives you the drift.

Oh, yes, plot. For what it's worth, it's poor old Bob being beset by clueless chumps and the odd offspring who clutter up his house and his love life. Mortimer is the perfect fall guy, forever fiddling with his maverick toupee while Reeves gets wedged between walls and has his bits tortured. Not forgetting Matt (Toast) Berry dressed as a regency fop and rolling fol-de-rols round his tongue.

House Of Fools revels in references to forensic pets and psychic cutlery, and comes with bizarrely erotic animated sequences. In one, Vic demonstrated an unusual way of egesting a television.

And there are questions you won't hear anywhere else: 'Why is it always you that suffers from sausage drift?' Yes, they're back.

Radio Times review

Imagine a 1970s domestic sitcom left so long in the cupboard it's gone fizzy, then been taken out, dipped in sprinkles and thoroughly baked by the surreal imaginations of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. That's the drift here. The notional setting is Bob's house, where Vic is a troublesome lodger who fills the place with junk - a painting of a pygmy, tins of pineapple, and so on. In the opening scene Vic sings a song about a knight's gauntlet he has just acquired, then Bob berates him for getting toilet rolls and curtains mixed up. Matt Berry arrives as their friend Beef, an expansive lothario of the kind Berry does better than anyone, and there's a man-eating neighbour called Julie.

The farcical sort-of-plot they get wrapped up in barely matters (Vic gets wedged in a hole cut between the two houses) and it's as obsessed with body parts and weird about the opposite sex as a 12-year-old boy. But if you like Vic and Bob's ludicrous humour, it's very funny.

Video: Vic Reeves on laughing when he shouldn't

Vic Reeves is interviewed on BBC Breakfast.

Vic & Bob interview

Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer promise 'heavy nudity' and 'acting the giddy aunt' in their new sitcom.

Episode two in the second series of this strangely frictionless sitcom. It's got some really nice performances from Jim Moir (Vic Reeves) and Gina McKee; the script bobs along gently and the story develops in the way you imagine it should. It's just not quite sharp enough, leaving it blowing around in the breeze like a sliver of whimsy that's broken free from Gavin & Stacey. Dorothy moves in with the family. Ramsey builds up to proposing, and Jack's literary dreams may finally be coming true. It's nice.

Though it's occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, the main appeal that Hebburn has is its characters most of whom are likeable and realistic. Jason Cook, who also stars as Ramsey, has written a great script which obviously draws on experiences of his own family life and I feel that the series is incredibly well-observed. In addition, this second series sees the cast become much more comfortable with their characters which just adds to the charm of the piece. Ramsay and Nixon share great chemistry as the lead couple while McKee is brilliant as the warm yet slightly patronising matriarch. Stealing the show though is Dunn, who plays the greedy mother-in-law from hell roll with great aplomb and therefore generates the majority of the show's big laughs. In fact it comes to something when Vic Reeves is the straight man of the series but here, using his real name Jim Moir, is just happy to be a supporting player as his Joe attempts to recuperate. Overall, Hebburn is a charming and well-observed sitcom that feels very old-fashioned but at the same time has plenty of modern sensibilities.

It's good to be back in the Tyneside town of Hebburn again, with the chaotic, rambling and well-meaning Geordie family nestled in its warm heart. Young married couple Jack and Sarah (Chris Ramsey and Kimberley Nixon) are still unwilling lodgers with Jack's parents Pauline and Joe (Gina McKee and Jim 'Vic Reeves' Moir). But Sarah's nesting instinct is overpowering now that she's pregnant, hormonal and desperate for a home of her own.

Jack is editing the hopeless local newspaper ("Dog Burns Down Factory") and Jack's mother, the magnificently passive/aggressive Dot (Pat Dunn) is still hurling barbs at Pauline. There are some great satellite characters - deluded wannabe popstar Gervaise and brassy care home worker Denise - and though the laughs might not be hearty, you'll smile a lot.