The Job Lot

The Job Lot review

There are certainly a few laughs sprinkled throughout the episodes, but as a whole, it feels like a missed opportunity for well-observed satire.

The Job Lot is a more interesting sitcom than Vicious. If Vicious feels pre-The Office, then this Midlands job centre-based comedy is more like Office copy. The mundane work environment, the juddery camera work ... it's not actually in mockumentary style, but it does look and sound a bit similar. Still, better to make something that feels like comedy from 10 years ago than 20, I suppose.

Ooooh, nas-tee. No, it really is better, because it's not just about the delivery of one-liners, it's about characters and situations that are nicely observed and recognisable. I love Jo Enright's Angela, a walking tribunal (almost certainly against you) who sucks the life and joy from the workplace. Every office has one, even this one. You know who you are, XXXXXXX XXXXXXX. Or maybe you don't ...

Nice performances from untitled Russell Tovey and Sarah Hadland too, acting with a lowercase a, which is sometimes preferable and a relief after the other. There's no audience laughter either, which is a certainly a relief. I could have done without the comedy plinky plonky music, though. I know when I find something funny; I don't need to be told by the music.

If Vicious and The Job Lot are ITV's big, triumphant, we're-back-to-prime-time-comedy fanfare, I'm wobbling a flat palm-down hand from side to side. Mmm, mixed. A bit safe and unadventurous, as you'd probably expect. Lower on LOLs than The Inbetweeners, or Peep Show, or Hunderby, or Him & Her, or lots of other funny recent shows not on ITV.

Nobody laughs for you in The Job Lot, which is full of those poised silences that are a feature of modern sitcom style, as non sequiturs falter to a stop or a character is left to silently absorb the absurdity of someone else's behaviour. But there is plenty for you to laugh at yourself. Sarah Hadland plays Trish, the job centre manager, in a way that makes you completely forget her more cartoonish performance as Stevie in Miranda, and Russell Tovey appears as Karl, a disenchanted employee who walks out after dealing with a particularly reluctant job seeker, and then walks straight back in again when he catches sight of the beautiful new temp.

There's a nice turn by Jo Enright too as Angela, a surly bureaucratic jobsworth. Most importantly, the comedy lies not in the lines as such but somewhere between what's said and how it's said. "I'd go mad if he wasn't here... I really would," says Trish brightly, commending Karl to the new girl. "I'd self-harm." And then, instead of the grating coercion of mass guffawing you get an awkward silence, as Trish realises she's said too much and the other characters try to think how to fill the gap. In my case, it was filled with a laugh.

The Job Lot is a new sitcom that is bang-up-to-date, being set in a West Midlands job centre. It's written by Claire Downs, Ian Jarvis and Stuart Lane, and direct by Martin Dennis.

Sarah Hadland is Trish, the neurotic and passive-aggressive office manager, and Russell Tovey is her shy assistant Karl - like her, unlucky in love. Trish, a great fan of both the clipboard and the white board, tries to gee up her staff with feelgood workshops ("Turn the unemployed into the funemployed," she writes on the latter) and has to deal with the recalcitrant Angela - "I'll contact the union" - whom she once sacked but has been reinstated after a tribunal. Karl is bored out of his mind, dealing with clients such as Bryony (Sophie McShera from Downton Abbey doing a nice turn) who last night "caught" MS in her determination never to find work.

The quiet first episode of The Job Lot was overpopulated by misfits - a clean-freak, a moonlighting security guard, a dimwit jobseeker - but both the sit and the com have promise.

The Job Lot is set in a busy West Midlands Job Centre and will focus on the relationships between the people that work there and the people that don't work there, or anywhere else for that matter.

This fly-on-the-wall comedy, set in a Birmingham employment centre, will take a little time to bed in, while we get to know the manager on the brink of a nervous breakdown (Sarah Hadland from Miranda) and the frustrated arts graduate on the dole counter (TV veteran Russell Tovey).

The obstreperous Angela (Jo Enright) was instantly recognisable. She's one of the awkward squad as only British public services can make 'em. Refusing to open the office until exactly 9am, handing out the wrong forms on purpose, and cutting hunks off a block of cheddar with a pair of office scissors: Angela was perfectly observed.

The Job Lot review

Despite The Job Lot's faults and knowing there's nothing very new to get excited about, it just about pulls itself through a morass thanks to these points.

TV review: The Job Lot

On difficult first impressions, the show is not as bold, distinctive or unexpected as it could be, but there's a hard-to-achieve likability to it, which could well make The Job Lot a grower.

The style and tone of the last half hour of the 'comedy double bill' was almost the antithesis of Vicious.

The Job Lot, starring Him & Her's Russell Tovey was more current in theme and in feel. The comedy was more observational and less in your face. The characters were easier to relate to and the gags more relevant. That's what I found particularly peculiar about the idea of grouping these together. I don't think the Vicious audience is the same audience as The Job Lot.

Although The Job Lot showed more promise in terms of where the characters could go, I wasn't particularly impressed with this either. In lots of ways ITV should be commended for taking a risk on a Monday night but for me it didn't pay off.

The Job Lot is [compared to fellow ITV sitcom Vicious] a gentler, more deadpan prospect from three first-time writers, following the travails of the employees and clients of a Midlands job centre. Sarah Hadland and Russell Tovey do their best in the leads, but it's a familiar premise lacking in one-liners. It does show occasional promise, especially during one protracted sequence unravelling the absurd red tape apparently wrapped around the jobseeking process. But it's good-natured and well performed, if light on laughs.

Sarah Hadland (Miranda's Stevie) and Russell Tovey head up the second of tonight's ITV sitcom double-bill. It's Trollied relocated to a job centre, with manager Trish and pet underling Karl tackling the trials and tribulations of the poor souls stuck on both sides of the counter. Frustrated Karl badly wants out - until a gorgeous temp (Emma Rigby) shows up. While over at front desk, newly-redundant job-seeker Sunil (Teachers' Navin Chowdhry) can't get past miserable jobsworth Angela (Jo Enright).