House Of Fools

House of Fools could return

Bob Mortimer says rumours that House of Fools has been axed are premature.

Are the BBC about to axe House of Fools?

Rumours are abound that the duo's first ever studio sitcom will come to an end after just one series following a rapid decline in ratings.

It's the last in the series of Vic and Bob's debut foray into the world of the sitcom, most notable for Bob's largely failed attempts not to collapse into fits of giggling in front of the studio audience. This week, Vic's on the hunt for ghosts in the flat using a can of tyre weld with a spatula on the end as a makeshift spectre detector. He's hoping to win a chimp, the first prize in Ghost Hunter Monthly's photography competition. Reece Shearsmith guests as Martin the poltergeist. They've saved the best until last.

The gloriously silly world of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer draws to a close with Reece Shearsmith joining the gang as poltergeist Martin for a ghostbusting end-of-series romp. There's a chimp up for grabs in a ghost photo competition and Vic's determined to bag the primate but Bob's not keen, so Beef pitches in with his Sword of Draxos - which looks a lot like a clarinet - and Julie whips her torch out. Let's hope there's more to come of this delightful delirium.

House of Fools' funniest running gags

Also contains Pork pie WAR, de-bearding Richard Branson and getting stuck in things.

Radio Times review

Sometimes, you can't help wondering if Vic and Bob jotted down their script on a hungover bus journey to the studio. Tonight's episode has gloriously silly moments (including Bob as a clashing-cymbals monkey and, later, a Kafka-esque beetle on the wall) but feels more than usually thrown together. As ever the biggest laugh-out-loud moments come courtesy of booming lothario Beef (Matt Berry) who steals every scene he's in. We don't get to see Beef attempt the kiss of life on Bob's ex-wife (who has turned up for his birthday) but we do get to hear it, and that's terrifying enough.

House of Fools: A sitcom beyond classification

I was a bit befuddled right from the start.

Disaster strikes this week as a geriatric rat steals Bob's wig on the morning of the Toupee Wearer Of The Year Awards. Don't you hate it when that happens? Vic is on the case, though seeing as he's hopped up on Bosh's (Dan Skinner) home-made energy drink, that might not necessarily be a good thing. Other details poking out from the shattered remnants of a plot include Beef (Matt Berry) complaining about a frying pan through the medium of song, and a guest appearance from TV's resident scam-foiler, Dominic Littlewood.

The great skill of Outnumbered is to keep its humour just the right side of believable. Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's House of Fools travels the wrong side, but not as far as you might think. Unbridled absurdity soon becomes tiresome - Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy being a case in point - which is why House of Fools is careful to establish some sort of norm from which it can then deviate.

The starting point is that most traditional of sitcom set-ups: the flat share. Bob is the owner of the property, Vic his infuriating tenant. A parade of comic grotesques pop in uninvited and unannounced, accompanied by some wilfully cheap animations and rubbish props, adding further mayhem to whatever spurious plotline is driving that week's episode.

This week, the flat played host to a pop-up restaurant intended to impress a probation officer, who was subsequently served a coconut-topped pizza made of grout.

I watched it in a state of bemused delight, punctuated by the occasional guffaw, but then I've always been a Vic and Bob fan. Non-fans, I suspect, won't get past the bemused stage.