Big Bad World

Audio: Joe Tucker & Lloyd Woolf interview

Joe Tucker and Lloyd Woolf are the co-writers and co-creators of Big Bad World on Comedy Central.

Seann Walsh interview

EntertainmentWise sat down with Seann Walsh to find out what it was like to star opposite Caroline Quentin and The Inbetweeners' Blake Harrison in Big Bad World and why he would be on the dole if he wasn't a comedian...

Big Bad World: A snapshot into the life of a graduate

Having just recently graduated from university myself, I was intrigued to see whether or not this comedy would get it right when it came to the ins and outs of life after uni.

In the second episode of the Brit comedy about a hapless graduate, things seem to be looking up when Ben (Inbetweeners alumnus Blake Harrison) lands a job at a local pub. This being the Big Bad World, however, he's on an unsalaried graduate scheme. Desperate times call for desperate measures, namely faking a job on an oil rig to win back his ex, Lucy. With James Fleet and Caroline Quentin as Ben's overbearing parents heading up a strong cast, this is a funny take on the challenges of adulthood.

Hapless graduate Ben gets unpaid work as a trainee bartender in episode two of Comedy Central's flagship sitcom. His mission to prise ex-girlfriend Lucy away from her terrifyingly passive-aggressive fiancé isn't going well. And in a narrative mirroring the superior Spaced, Ben is blithely unaware that he'd be much better off hooking up with his "kooky" confidante, Beth.

Despite being marred by some unnecessarily post-Partridge moments, Big Bad World sparks into life when it stops trying too hard and forges its own path. Ben and Beth are easy to warm to, while Scarlett Johnson expertly cuts a diabolically fluffy figure as femme fatale Lucy.

Big Bad World is an incredibly traditional sitcom with a fairly obvious storyline but at the same time it does have some pretty believable characters.

Even though I didn't particularly like Ben in this episode, due to Blake Harrison's mundane performance, I can see that he's going to grow as a person.

I felt that stand-up comic Seann Walsh stole a fair few scenes as the incredibly inappropriate Eggman. However, the stars of the show were sitcom veterans Caroline Quentin and James Fleet, who were an absolute hoot as Ben's parents.

Though all of the jokes and situations were fairly obvious there was still a lot of effort made to let us get to know all of the characters. It may be a fairly predictable sitcom, but Big Bad World did make me laugh a couple of times and that's more than can be said for the majority of comedies that have aired this year.

You wouldn't have thought it but it appears as though Blake Harrison could have the most interesting post-Inbetweeners career. His latest move away from the ghost of the gormless Neil is Big Bad World (Comedy Central), in which he plays graduate Ben, a chap with an MA in Norse poetry (900AD to 1100AD) no less.

Having said that, Ben is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so he's been forced to move back in with his parents in Great Yarmouth, the small-town seaside setting being, thus far, Big Bad World's biggest drawer.

That and the fact that Ben's situation, echoed across the land as graduates discover they're not the hot property in job land they thought they'd be, is right on the zeitgeist.

So far, so promising. Harrison is adept at the whole man-child thing and he's surrounded by a convincing bunch of slacker, lives-going-nowhere mates, for whom a trip to Chelmsford is the height of excitement. Though how that joke translates to anyone outside the A12 axis is anyone's guess.

Dan (Blake Harrison) returns to his native Great Yarmouth with a postgrad degree in Norse poetry and delusions of grandeur, dreaming of a cushy job in the City while crammed into the back seat of his parents' car. It doesn't take long until the façade crumbles and he's targeting the less demanding goals of crashing on the sofas of former schoolchums and trying to get back with his ex, Lucy. After the disappointment of Tosh.0 knockoff Seann Walsh World, a surprisingly engaging original show from Comedy Central UK.

It's all happening for Inbetweeners fans - this week sees three of the four lads debuting their latest forays into TV comedy.

Tomorrow, Simon Bird and Joe Thomas pop up in Chickens but first, here's Neil, sorry Blake Harrison, playing the slightly less gormless Ben in a show that breaks new ground in sitcoms - it's set in Great Yarmouth, dog-eared jewel of the Norfolk coast.

Ben's got an MA in Norse poetry but amazingly, he's not been snapped up by the job market. So he's back in his home town, tail between his legs, and face to face with his ex, who's now dating the local copper. Ouch. Seann Walsh co-stars.

This eight-part comedy cunningly taps into the ever-expanding demographic of the rudderless graduate, straight out of uni and forced to return to the fold. Ben, played by Blake Harrison (The Inbetweeners' Neil) is our delusional hero, struggling to find work and stifled by life in his seaside hometown.

Right now that premise isn't translating to comedy gold, but that's not to say that it won't. The opener is rescued by a surreally tacky marriage proposal and Seann Walsh as Ben's unhygienic pal. Caroline Quentin and James Fleet milk it for all it's worth as Ben's embarrassing parents.