Ideal

Johnny Vegas on 'Ideal'

Much to his surprise, English comedian Johnny Vegas says his real life has been playing out like an episode of HBO's crime drama The Wire.

Positive review of Ideal Series 5

Ideal is in its fifth series now, and it has developed into a seriously good sitcom. The sit is solid. Moz, a small-time dope dealer played by Johnny Vegas, never leaves his squalid Salford flat. And the com is full of incident, because Moz's life is marked out by the comings and goings of a motley crew of customers, family, neighbours and business associates, actual and potential, and many of them are bigger crooks than he is.

A little medicated focus readjustment definitely helps when it comes to Ideal, which is unfeasibly into its fifth series and kicking on towards 30 episodes. Not bad for a show which is basically Johnny Vegas dealing drugs in a flat, a 'sit' which allows a parade of 'com'edy characters to come knocking.

Except season five has rung the changes. Stung by a promise he made to his girlfriend in a coma (we are in Manchester, after all) Moz has called time on his drug-dealing and determined to go straight. Yet thought things started off brightly with a fantasy sequence that suggested The Singing Detective as soundtracked by Primal Scream, it was pretty quickly back to business as usual as a string of wacky eccentrics pitched up at Moz's front door.

It's all a bit of waste of a wasted Vegas, who is in severe danger of being remembered as that bloke off the monkey tea ads. The best lines came from Moz reading to said comatose girlfriend 'meanwhile in Heat magazine, Jordan, Cheryl Cole Dannii Minogue have been spotted wearing... sparkly belts! Frankly, you're better off out of it'. It was Ideal's ideal line.

Small-time dope dealer Moz is now even smaller as it's a relatively svelte looking Johnny Vegas who returns for a fifth series.

And there's good news for those shell-shocked by the apparent death of his friend Jenny at the end of series four. Turns out she's not dead, she's in a persistent vegetative state - and there's arguably more intelligent brain waves going on in her head now than we ever saw from her before.

From her vantage point propped up in bed in Moz's living room, she sees the world now in a series of song and dance numbers - making a series that was already on the edges of weird just that little bit weirder.

By way of making amends, Moz announces that he's giving up dealing - a development that none of his regular stream of oddball clients can quite get their heads around. And every one of them is convinced that they can snap Jenny out it.

Although as Moz points out: "She's in a coma. Not in a sulk."

He's no Lee Mead, of course, but we can see Johnny Vegas taking over as Joseph - although they might have to let out his multi-coloured coat somewhat. Indeed, the prospect of a singing-dancing Vegas looms large with the return of his entertaining big-on-awards, small-on-viewers slacker sitcom. Tonight, coma-bound pal Jenny hallucinates a number of musical dream sequences...

Some people might question why Pulling has been axed after two well-received series, while Ideal, starring Johnny Vegas, has notched up five series. But then, I never liked Pulling, so it doesn't bother me. Ideal, in amongst all the surreal stuff, has quite a good heart, and there's something rather lovable about drug dealer Moz.

Johnny Vegas returns with a shuffle and a sigh as hapless drug dealer Moz. Entertaining an endless stream of zany clients in his poky Manchester bedsit, he's an acquired comic taste. Series five comes with the shock news that Moz has decided to go straight - although it's not enough to wake his girlfriend Jenny. She's in a coma, entertaining even zanier all-singing, all-dancing visions (the opening number stars a barely recognisable Moz as a slick, suited crooner). This is for those that like their gags surreal, bawdy and more than a little off-key.

Johnny Vegas slumps into series four as small-time dope-dealer Moz. A series which starts with its central character keeling over in the midst of an apparent heart attack is clearly playing for the darker laughs. Unfortunately, it's hard to find any in the scenes that follow.

Ideal finale kept under wraps

Chortle reports on the fact that the ending of this new fourth series is being kept a closely guarded secret.

I must say, three years on, Ideal has bedded in very nicely. Moz has now acquired a permanent partner, an infant son, and an assortment of regulars, who, while odd and sometimes nasty (such as the criminals led by the eerily comic Cartoon Head (David Sant) and Moz's necrophiliac neighbour, Judith, played by Joanna Neary), all work within the series' logic.

Graham Duff's writing was sharp, with the gags coming thick and fast, and while not all made the grade, the hit-rate was impressive. Well done BBC3 for sticking with it.