Big Top

10 of the worst UK comedies that need to stay buried

Trawling the archives of the last 30 or so years of British comedy has, for the most part, been a pleasure. I've discovered shows I didn't know existed, unearthed gems which were completely side-lined by the cultural mainstream, and reintroduced myself to the glory of the likes of Nathan Barley and Marion And Geoff. I haven't seen sunlight in days and I think I've started to develop rickets, but overall, the search has been worth it. The problem is that while pigs may become adept at snuffling for truffles in the comedy forest, they're also prone to unearth the odd heaving turd whose obscurity is likely merited. That said, these are the 10 British comedies which really need to stay buried.

Amanda Holden's comedy Big Top has been axed

Amanda Holden's BBC1 comedy Big Top has been axed - for being a Big Flop.

Tonight's second episode of this circus-set sitcom relies on old-fashioned shtick such as a clown catching fire and delusional Georgie (Ruth Madoc) believing she's being bossed around by her performing dog. It's gently amusing, old-fashioned comedy, with the bonus of Amanda Holden in short shorts.

There's a terrible disaster with Big Top tonight. "The BBC is screening another episode?" you may ask. Well, yes it is. But the disaster in question is Lizzie's skydiver breaking his right leg.

He's in hospital in plaster but Lizzie (Amanda Holden) isn't worried yet - his left one still works... Oh dear, now it doesn't. Now she's worried. Just what is a girl in a red coat and giant black knickers supposed to do?

The audience expect a death-defying act but all Lizzie has are a Hi-de-Hi! escapee and her dog, two terrible clowns, a snide Baldrick lookalike and a man in green spandex and silver foil. Unless Erasmus (Tony Robinson) finally lets his hatred of Plonky the Clown (John Thomson) reach psycho killer proportions, the only thing that risks death is the show's script.

Lizzie offers a £100 bonus to anybody who comes up with an act to save the day. But with a team of idiots surrounding her, the suggestions aren't good.

Big Top Review

Sometimes as a TV reviewer you are forced to sit through awful programmes. Sometimes you are tortured and feel tempted to break your telly. Sometimes you wonder why you enjoy TV at all. In the case of Big Top, all three were true.

The setting - a small-scale circus - is colourful and original. The characters are fun. The cast, which includes Tony Robinson, Sophie Thompson, Ruth Madoc and John Thomson, is comprised of rock solid comedy pros who deliver the goods. It contains gently romantic elements which are rather sweet...

Truth be told though, I didn't find it funny. With one or two exceptions, the gags are limp and lumbered with punchlines Nostradamus probably saw coming. Moreover, it has as its star Amanda Holden, who totally fails to deliver any kind of performance through the mask that is her face.

In Big Top, Amanda Holden plays Lizzie, owner and ringmaster of a down-at-heel circus in North Staffordshire. "Gather round," she began the series. "We have a problem."

We certainly did. We had (un-) magically gone back to the imbecilic sitcoms of the 1970s.

A bogus poster had been put up by their rivals calling Circus Maestro/Big Top "the UK's lousiest circus. Groan at our useless jugglers, yawn at our tedious clowns.."

"Who could possibly hate us any this much ?" she cried. "Well it could be anyone who's seen the show," one performer quipped. Quite.

"If we're so terrible, how come we get a huge cheer when we finish ?" asked one of the clowns.

There were: ferret-down-the-trousers gags, Lizzie's Aunt Helen setting her up with (wait for it) a bearded lady, and (of course) a shot of John Thomson's bum. There was even a Romanian trapeze artist worthy of Mind Your Language.

The Hi-de-Hi! fan in me wanted to like Big Top (BBC1), the unashamedly 70s-style sitcom with Amanda Holden and Ruth Madoc and John Thomson, but it was just unashamedly lame. Surely if you have a circus comedy, the challenge is to create the world's first funny clown? Would putting ferrets down his trousers help? No it wouldn't. I couldn't believe Tony Robinson (Erasmus, the odd-job man) spent all those years of training on Blackadder and those archaeology programmes for this.

When I was a child, wintry Sunday evenings meant watching Last of the Summer Wine while eating my supper, snuggled up to the radiator. It wasn't so much the thrill-a-minute antics that held me in thrall as the gentle rhythms of Peter Sallis's voice, later employed to such wonderful effect by Aardman. "More cheese, Gromit?" Certainly, but if you don't mind, I'll stick to the Stinking Bishop rather than the terrible stench wafting over from Big Top.

One can only imagine that the BBC commissioners are hoping to recreate the feeling of warmth engendered by Cleggy, Compo and Foggy with this throwback of a comedy, and the cheese gauge is certainly set on full fat - but the gags are never more than inanely mild.

To judge by her hotpants and hunting jacket, Amanda Holden must be the ringmistress of a circus whose acts we never see but which sounds, from behind the scenes, where the action takes place, frankly, rubbish, despite an all-star cast. The Thompson twins, Sophie (of EastEnders, and, erm, sister of Emma fame) and John (Cold Feet and Coronation Street, though admittedly a Thomson without the "p") are married circus clowns - Helen and Geoff - who, we are constantly told by Erasmus (Tony Robinson, in an odd-job role I could never quite put my finger on), would bring more joy to the assembled crowds by leaving the ring rather than finishing their act. Ruth "Hi-De-Hi!" Madoc finally drains any goodwill her campers might still hold for her as a demanding grande dame who can't keep her dancing dogs on a leash; and Bruce Mackinnon harks back to the benign world of Alf Garnett as the idiotic acrobat Boyco, from Eastern Europe. (Thank you for the geographic tip, BBC press release.) Bruce who? Oh, come now, Bruce Mackinnon... you know, that one from The Office and The Catherine Tate Show. Still no? Me neither.

Sorry, did I say benign world? I meant disturbingly racist world. Eastern European, is he? He'll probably have a funny accent. Oh, he does. And he's casually homophobic in a nonsensical way? ("That homosexual pop group ... Coldplay.") Of course he is. But that's OK. Because he's Eastern European. Any particular country? Apparently not. But then, as stupid and offensive as Boyco's character is, it's no worse than the rest of this trite bunch. Did you not know that everyone who works in a circus is dim?

One could dwell on the curiosity of Holden's Botoxed face not allowing her a full range of gurning (or, indeed, any expression at all); on a paucity of imagination (one of Madoc's dogs is called Fido. Fido, for goodness' sake); on the offensive and pathetic punchlines (Geoff: "When we come in, you're supposed to play Looney Tunes, not ..." Erasmus: "... Hitler's speech to the 1935 Nuremberg Rally." Do we really need the date as detail - in case we thought it was a different rally? Is that speech even comedy fodder?); on the repeated attempts to get a laugh from a story straight out of a Victorian music hall about sticking ferrets down trousers ("Looks like they had a ball." Ho ho!). But to go on like that would be cruel.

Amanda Holden goes back to sitcoms to headline Big Top, a new BBC1 comedy set in a travelling circus. Holden plays Lizzie the Ring Mistress, which calls to mind a smutty joke the show would never contemplate tackling. No, we're in family-friendly sitcom territory for this series by writer Daniel Peak (My Hero), so it's all very innocuous and frivolous stuff that kids and the elderly will find amusement in. Predictably, it's taken a battering in the press for its old-fashioned sensibilities, but such critics forget the fact that a large portion of the British public just aren't interested in the cutting-edge comedy offered by The Thick Of It and Peep Show. A lot of people just want something colourful, inoffensive and cheeky, with signposted jokes and a few famous faces (John Thomson, Tony Robinson) thrown into the mix. It's not to my taste and I won't be watching a second more, but I've seen a lot worse, and some of the gags made me smile with a groan behind my lips. Plus, there's always the sight of Amanda Holden in hotpants if all else fails.