Genius With Dave Gorman

Genius: Pros and Cons

You imagine that in seeking a replacement for Room 101, the BBC locked Genius and I've Never Seen Star Wars in a cage to fight for the more prestigious BBC2 slot with tooth and claw.

Genius presented by Dave Gorman, is a comedy version of Dragons' Den in which members of the public describe their own rib-cracking inventions. Normally I'm a great fan of Gorman's, but he's struggling here, largely because the idea feels undernourished. The one funny idea - a raincoat with an inbuilt hat in the sleeve to put over a girl's head - was presented by someone who sounded like a plant. The others were simply feeble.

Everyone laughed a lot, but there was a sense that they were doing so in order to keep the balloon inflated. Otherwise, it would never have left the ground.

Genius offered a little bit more in the way of things to look at than I've Never Seen Star Wars did. Things like a whiteboard with felt pens, a scale model of a running track, complete with moving athlete and a pair of shoes, but even these failed to disguise the show's Radio 4 origins.

Dave Gorman hosts, aided and abetted by a guest celebrity, and together they sift through eccentric innovations and idiotic inventions sent in by the public. Such as the 100-metre high shoes to allow the unfit to compete in Olympic sprints by falling forward. Which is funny, but the gag is over once the idea has been shared, rendering Gorman's subsequent product analysis largely superfluous.

Genius is essentially BBC2's replacement for QI, which was promoted to BBC1 for its current run. The ever-likeable Dave Gorman presents the series, which gives a platform for members of the Great British Public to share their "genius" ideas. It's essentially a silly version of Dragons' Den, with harebrained ideas like a jacket with a hood secreted in an arm-zipper, to enable a man to shelter a girl from rain by putting an arm over their shoulder.

The comedy is reliant on the idea being pitched and Gorman's ability to comically evolve and test the brainwave, so it's a little hit-and-miss, but generally this showed promise. And the would-be inventors were often funnier than Gorman and guest Catherine Tate combined, which was a surprise.

Sam Wollaston Review

I'm going to give it another go. And that's because some of these guys' (they are all blokes, and probably always will be) ideas are actually pretty funny. Mark and his hood for example. He's hilarious, much funnier than either of the two professionals.

The primary concept is one of baffling unreasonableness. Members of the public are encouraged to write in with their "wacky" suggestions for future inventions - basically rehashes of the "Letter Bocks" pages of Viz. If they are chosen, they then have to stand up and fill five minutes of prime-time television sparring with two professional comedians - who, additionally, have had time to prepare relevant material - in order to "win". As you would expect, it's a bloodbath - like a light entertainment Wounded Knee, but with a studio audience.

In the opening episode, Dave Gorman and Catherine Tate "challenged" four members of the public on their inventions, which included an anorak with an extra hood, for sharing with a friend, and some surrealist, sub-Vic Reeves nonsense about winning a race on stilts. As soon as Tate and Gorman started on them it was like watching two cats idly biting at frogs they'd found in the garden.

The BBC amazes me. It takes four years for Stewart Lee - a comedian with 17 years' experience - to get a six-part series; yet in Genius wholly inexperienced members of the public are expected to deliver five minutes of broadcast-quality improvised material at the drop of a hat. What, literally, is that all about?

TV Review: Genius, BBC Two, Friday 20 March, 10pm

This isn't groundbreaking TV - if anything it felt slightly '90s in its Room 101-ness - and the unnecessarily huge studio gave an strange atmosphere to proceedings at times. But it is a big-hearted, fun celebration of oddness which is no bad thing. And I've a feeling that the bit where they read 'rejected' ideas might become a highlight of each episode. Which reminds me - just what is 'bicurious potholing'...?

The show may have had charm on radio but now it's transferred to the box with Dave Gorman hosting, you can obviously see the would-be genii and they just look mad.

Madder still, though, is the set designer who went to the trouble of creating the revolving stage complete with dry ice - and in the first edition, a model of a 100m running track to illustrate how lazy people would line up in running shoes 98.2 metres high and forward-flop over the finish line. Give me Sunday night telly over Friday post-pub bilge like this.

TV Scoop Review

This isn't groundbreaking TV - if anything it felt slightly '90s in its Room 101-ness - and the unnecessarily huge studio gave an strange atmosphere to proceedings at times. But it is a big-hearted, fun celebration of oddness which is no bad thing.

Making the jump to TV is this Radio 4 staple in which Dave Gorman and a celebrity guest consider 'genius' inventions from the public. Radio is probably the most logical home for the simple premise but this actually works quite well if you view it as some kind of idiot's version of Dragon's Den. In this series opener, Gorman and guest Catherine Tate consider a bus whose destination is decided on by public vote, and a man who wants 100m-high shoes for a very specific purpose.