Little Britain

Little Britain USA Review

You spend quite a lot of the time analysing what Matt Lucas and David Walliams have changed in their bid to crack America - and why. (Happily, the urinating old woman seems to have gone, along with the vomiting one.) You spend much of the rest wondering what on earth its target audience will make of it.

Matt Lucas and David Walliams certainly can't be accused of buttering up to American audiences in Little Britain USA, which begins with Tom Baker grandly informing HBO's viewers that we let you win the War of Independence because you threatened to cry if we didn't. They're not going to be accused of overdoing it with new material either. There are some fresh characters here, including a redneck sheriff who gets an erection as he displays weapons to his deputies, and a former astronaut who can't get over the fact that he was the eighth man on the moon and not the first. But mostly they've simply transferred the British regulars Stateside, and not worried much about the plausibility of the move. Quite how Marjorie Dawes comes to be conducting an American weight-loss class isn't clear, though it has to be said that imagining American sensibilities coming in contact with her rasping lack of tact adds a novel twist to the basic gag. Rosie O'Donnell sportingly takes a cameo, which allows two pieties to be outraged at once: Are you fat because you're a lesbian, she was asked by Marjorie, Or are you a lesbian because you're fat?

The show would be a lot easier to like if you had the sense that such calculated shocks were serving something other than mere shock itself.

Apart from some transatlantic locations and a couple of new accents, Little Britain USA was mostly more of the same old jokes recycled. Which isn't entirely a bad thing, familiarity breeding contentment among the modern sketch show audience.

Jim Shelley Review

It's the last sketch of Little Britain USA and Bubbles de Vere displays the kind of sharp observation totally lacking in the 'comedy' up until then. I think it's very important to know when to stop, Bubbles confesses, having gambled - and lost - her dress, wig, and ruby-encrusted 'panties' on the roulette table.

I only wish Bubbles had thrown her ludicrous fat suit into the pot, too. With the losing streak David Walliams and Matt Lucas were on, that would have been the end of her, guaranteed.

Little Britain USA Review

Has Little Britain become too much of a monster? Whether it has or not, it's impossible to deny that Matt Lucas and David Walliams have pulled off a sensational achievement. The first episode of Little Britain USA featured content that was every bit as good as the home-grown version and for that alone Lucas and Williams should be congratulated, applauded and showered with medals.

Am I the only person in the world who doesn't love Little Britain? The observations are quite nice, but I don't think Lucas and Walliams are great writers or great performers - a shame, given that they are our most successful comedy writing and performing double act. Each sketch is one idea dragged out tediously to the point of embarrassment. I can honestly say I didn't laugh once in this one, didn't even smile. I don't even find it offensive. Just boring and irritating. Moving it all to America doesn't change anything.

Little Britain USA Review

Little Britain has never been a particularly clever or unique comedy - it's just a melting pot of ideas stolen from Vic & Bob, The Fast Show and The League Of Gentlemen; brilliantly repackaged and sold to people who enjoy toilet humour with lashings of camp rudeness. Don't get me wrong, schoolboy humour has its place and can be hilarious if used sparingly - but, after years of gags revolving around peeing, vomiting, swearing and prosthetic nakedness on Little Britain, I've just become numb to it.

Little Britain USA Review

It's not a case of building something up to knock it down, or hating it when our friends become successful, Little Britain USA is an exemplar of something that was once sporadically twisted and frequently funny metamorphosing into utter rubbish.

Crisper and less gross than the last British series, the American Little Britain was made for cable channel HBO. New characters include an astronaut riddled with feelings of inadequacy and a granny who loves crystal meth, but the familiar conceits work well too: witness Marjorie Dawes briefing her class on questions for a visiting Rosie O'Donnell: Let's not go on about her sexuality. Let's stick to why she's so fat.

Matt Lucas and David Walliams attempted to storm the US with this bizarre transatlantic hybrid of their comedy series. It didn't exactly meet with critical acclaim in America, but British viewers will still find their favourite characters, as well as a few new American ones too, such as Bing Gordyn, the eighth astronaut on the moon.