Coma Girl

Review: Coma Girl, Channel 4

Lead Balloon's Anna Crilly is wasted in the title role of this alleged comedy.

The second in the series of Comedy Showcase pilots, Coma Girl isn't the strongest of shows - and I can't see it getting a full series.

The girl in question, Lucy (Anna Crilly, who starred in last week's Comedy Lab pilot Anna & Katy), is trapped in a coma full of surreal moments - like seemingly being at a party and a pier, which made very little sense.

The main goings on was with the people who were coming to see her, especially three school friends: Siobhan (Sarah Solemani), a TV presenter who has recently got fired from her job, Pip (Katherine Parkinson), a bohemian woman, and Sarah (Katy Wix from Anna & Katy), a mother of three. There is also Lucy's mother Mrs. Kay (Julia Deakin) who is constantly taking photos in the hope of building up evidence so she can sue someone on her daughter's behalf.

For me the show was slow going. There was the odd good moment (Pip giving the comatose Lucy a copy of last week's Heat magazine to read), but I think the problem is that this show would probably work better as a comedy drama rather than a sitcom. The idea of a comedy about someone in a coma isn't a new idea (see the radio sitcom Vent) so it can work, but it wasn't presented too well in this format.

There's another issue I have with the show...the theme tune. If you have a show about a woman in a coma, surely "Girlfriend in a Coma" by The Smiths would be the ideal tune to play?

Coma Girl review

It's very hard to see why Coma Girl is part of this Comedy Showcase series. British sitcoms often revolve around limited concepts and ideas, but basing a comedy around the discussions of three women visiting a friend in hospital is perhaps a step too far.

Coma Girl review

Technically speaking, for a comedy Coma Girl was incredibly short on laughs. It was far too grim and dramatic.

Comedy Showcase: Coma Girl was a disappointment

Coma Girl was a little on the patronising side and not nearly funny enough for something purporting to be part of a 'Comedy Showcase'.

Unlike last week's Chickens, there wouldn't seem to be a whole lot of mileage in tonight's Comedy Showcase pilot.

Coma Girl is, not surprisingly, about a girl in a coma who - just like Stella in this week's Corrie - has also been hit by a car and now lies in a hospital bed.

While she's under she's visited by three old school friends as well as her mum.

From her mother's get-up, she might also turn out to be a time traveller from the 1950s, but the more likely explanation is that hair and wardrobe were just having a bit of an off day.

The friends are very well played by Katy Wix, Sarah Solemani, and Katherine Parkinson, while Anna Crilly - best known as the fabulous Magda in Lead Balloon - has the rather thankless task of playing the unfortunate patient Lucy, who's trapped in an Ashes To Ashes-style dream world.

It's pleasant enough but unless Coma Girl wakes up, or develops a much more interesting dream-life, it might be kinder to take this one off life support.

After last week's entertaining offering from Inbetweeners boys Simon Bird and Joe Thomas, we have this less successful pilot written by Jam And Jerusalem co-writer Abigail Wilson. Three school friends - a breastfeeding mum, a bohemian type and a down-on-her-luck TV presenter - meet on a monthly basis to see fourth friend Lucy, who is in a coma. It's more upbeat than it sounds and, as Lucy becomes more aware of her surroundings, we get whimsical glimpses into her subconscious. But the performances are way better than the pedestrian script deserves.