Harry & Paul

Rather than attempt to hold on to their youthful glamour like some yoiks I could mention, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse returned on Friday for the second series of Harry and Paul embracing old age so tightly it may soon expire on their chests. The opening titles feature them as a pair of old Soviet generals and they reappear as geriatric DJs playing their favourite Nineties rap and then again as Nelson Mandela and Castro.

You might accuse them of favouring some pretty old jokes, too. Thirties cinema remains an inspiration; here an early version of The Bourne Identity had a plummy Jason asking: "Hells bells who am I?" Whitehouse's version of Theo Paphitis in the Dragons' Den sketch was clearly a close relative of Stavros. And the pair still delight in imagining breaches of the walls that divide Britain culturally: meet the builders with opinions on Tracey Emin ("a child of five could become a ludicrous parody of themselves"), a foul-mouthed but multilingual football manager, the over-educated surgeon operating on a Foo Fighter and the fishermen chatting, by the side of their local pond, about the merits of Peter Shaffer.

For those of us of a certain age, this half hour was pure pleasure, or would have been were it not for knowing that its producer, Geoffrey Perkins, had died ten days ago without seeing the old age his stars parody with such fate-tempting brio.

Ruddy hell! It's not Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul. It's just Harry and Paul now. How confusing. Were you confused by the original title? Me neither. Maybe it was just too long for the Sky EPG.

Anyway, they're back: Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, former young Turks of comedy, are once again on primetime BBC1, shoring up old comedy and helping to showcase new talent.

But as always, the question is, are they funny?

Surprisingly, yes. Okay, some of the sketches fall quiet flat. There are far too many returning characters that have stretched a once-good joke too far. And the absence of comedy goddess Morwenna Banks is sorely felt.

But we did sit there laughing for a good portion of the show. The multi-lingual football manager was a fun opener. The 'cool old guys' were pretty entertaining. Okay, the Dragons' Den impressions were poor and where was Caaan!!!, but the general accuracy of the sketch was good. And, praise the Lord, the talented Laura Solon is still there with her Polish coffee shop attendant.

Maybe a little too traditional and too much like the first series at times, and given the rapid fall off in quality of the first series, it might not be a good idea to make it a permanent fixture in your diaries. But still far more hits and misses than is normal for a BBC1 comedy show. Anyone doubting that should have stuck around for The Armstrong and Miller Show afterwards...

Harry & Paul, back for a new series, wasn't the unmixed pleasure it might have been, not because it wasn't good (there were some fine new sketches and very funny variations on the best of the old ones), but because it was hard to watch it without melancholy thoughts about its producer, Geoffrey Perkins, who died suddenly just a week before transmission.

The Times Article

Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield are to be celebrated for the quality of their characters, not for being revolutionary.

Messrs Enfield and Whitehouse are back with their sketch show. There's not much new here; the jokes are mostly about people saying things you wouldn't expect them to (builders discussing the merits of Brit Art, etc) and funny foreigners, speaking funny. And yet I laughed. Not all the time - this is a sketch show, so it is hit-and-miss by definition. But when I did laugh, I laughed quite a lot. Maybe the old ones are the best.

Enfield and Whitehouse return with another loose collection of sketches, although be thankful that it's not as loose as their profoundly dodgy last series.

All their familiar obsessions are present: football managers (there's a very funny opening skit where an irate boss gives a half-time team talk in several different languages), class divides, stiff black-and-white films, and middle-aged men trying to have sex with gullible young women.

It has the age-old problem of sketches that don't build on their initial premise - see the 1940s Bourne Identity (Oh hell's bells, who the devil am I?), a funny idea that drifts on for about a week - and lot of the material is, in truth, a bit too familiar. But if, for instance, the elderly DJs who play nothing but hip-hop are one variation too many on an old gag, it doesn't matter when it's as well performed as this is.

The gabbling, Plasticine-faced surgeons, and the rabid northern man who lets out a pained squeak when told by his southern owner that he must be neutered, are rewind-and-play-it-again fantastic.

So much comedy water has passed under the TV bridge since Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse first did sketch shows together that when they reunited last year it seemed a rather retrograde step. Whitehouse had done funnier, subtler shows in between and with Mitchell and Webb and Armstrong and Miller on the scene, the market for male double acts is decidedly cluttered.

But they are back for a second series with old favourites such as the judgmental Polish café assistants and Enfield's badly behaved Nelson Mandela, and new sketches, including a Dragons' Den spoof and two elderly Jewish DJs. It should be at least as popular as the first.

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse are comedy legends but their last outing was hit and miss.

Bloody hell, it has been recommissioned! Amazing, really, considering how staggeringly painful Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's first series was.

Quality control has been cranked up a notch but I should warn you, Nelson Mandela is back.

Best reason to watch is a brilliant take on Dragons' Den. Harry is Deborah Meaden but the moment when Paul's Duncan Bannatyne leans forward to sneer at Harry's Peter Jones makes this worth investing in.

It may not have the inspired characters of their earlier collaborations, but Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's latest sketch show still has its inspired moments.