The Morgana Show

While my howls of pain at the continuing run of Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights - aka a televised version of the Nirvana b-side I Hate Myself And I Want To Die - were unnoticed, The Morgana Show gets stronger and stronger.

The show by a relative newcomer is full of great characters and solid sketch comedy. Comparisons with Kenny Everett's show with its grotesque gallery of characters and childish desire to shock have been made and they're on the money.

I loved Kenny Everett's schtick as a kid and Morgana carries on that tradition. Her takedowns of Cheryl Cole, Danni Minogue and Fearne Cotton are particularly brilliant. Skip Frankie Boyle's boorish balderdash and watch the Morgana Show instead.

Hands up anyone who's heard of Morgana Robinson. Despite her near invisibility on the comedy radar, Channel 4 has obviously decided Morgana is The Next Big Thing and commissioned an entire series based on... what, exactly?

Judging by the first episode, the answer would appear to be her ability to match Frankie Boyle in the use of the f-word, and her passable imitations of Fearne Cotton and Cheryl Cole. Sadly her own characters are little more than lazy, one-dimensional stereotypes that merely limp off the page.

Robinson's most "famous" creation, 14-year-old Gilbert the uber-nerd who's attempting to make a video diary with the help of his granddad, has apparently already garnered a following on YouTube. Despite the standard-issue geek clothes and inch-thick lenses, however, Gilbert barely passes for 17, never mind 14. Robinson also takes whining teenspeak to such a level that the dialogue is basically indecipherable.

Some sketches, like the bickering TV reporters, are mercifully short. Others, most notably Madolynn the past-it Hollywood starlet making a complete fool of herself in a restaurant, drag on interminably. Vicious drunks are not funny, particularly with lines like "This toe was caressed by Martin Scorsuzu". Even less tasteful is an attempt by her husband Norman to excuse her behaviour. As she topples off her chair, taking the tablecloth and crockery with her, he turns to their mortified companions and mutters "She has Asperger's". Boyle would have been proud.

Equally unlikeable are Joyce and Barry Dickens, funeral directors from Chumley, Yorkshire. Barry is a mine of useless information who never shuts up, much to the annoyance of acid-tongued wife Joyce, who never misses an opportunity to tell him what an absolute cretin he is. "You know the Aztecs used to burn stupid people, Barry". And what could be more hilarious that watching the two of them get all lovey dovey during a memorial service while the poor unfortunate corpse has his legs sticking out because Barry is too much of a dozy git to pick the right size of coffin.

The annoying commuter on a train who shrieks into his mobile the entire journey, a couple of senile Chelsea Pensioners who appear to have wandered in from a Harry Enfield/Paul Whitehouse sketch, Lady Gaga attempting to steer a riding mower in some kind of bizarre headgear - on it goes, all accompanied by the obligatory canned laughter. Heaven knows if it was performed in front of a live audience the silence would have been deafening.

Robinson's talents obviously lie in impersonation rather than straight acting - the highlight, such as it was, of the first programme was a 12-year-old Boris Johnson attempting to win a prep school debate by running roughshod over the opposing team. But alas she is no Catherine Tate - the lack of memorable characters does nothing but drag the show down.

If The Morgana Show had started out as a one-off pilot, and Robinson and co-creator James De Frond had been given a chance to fine-tune the sketches over time, the show might have evolved into something passable. But dumping her in at the deep end with a whole series to fill just highlights the weakness of the material. Back to the drawing board on this one.

A pity for Morgana that first impressions last

It's good to take risks with new comedy talent on TV, says Fiona Sturges, but Channel 4's latest starlet has badly misfired.

Whoever decided to commission this series should be fired and never allowed to work in television again. Not since Horne and Corden had the temerity to think that just because they had been on a successful (and massively overrated) sitcom that they could write on their own has a sketch show annoyed me to this degree.

Amazingly, The Morgana Show somehow manages to be lazier and more dim-witted than Horne & Corden. I refuse to label it as a comedy because after half an hour of TV time it didn't raise a single laugh. Not even an acknowledgement smile. I thought the caricatures on The Impressions Show were terrible but that was before The Morgana Show plopped onto the screens. Do we really need another series that relies on hackneyed sketches about Fearne Cotton? And what the hell is the Boris Johnson stuff all about?

I find the whole thing offensive. Not in a politically correct, "you shouldn't be saying those things, it's a bit cruel" kind of way (although that is a valid point) but just imagining the smug crassness of everyone involved in its production and slapping each other on the back thinking that what they are making is in any shape amusing or entertaining. Morgana Robinson is certainly confident in her performances but she's not funny.

Given the extraordinary amount of swearing in The Morgana Show, it's a little difficult to recommend it.

Worse, a lot of the first in this new series from comedian Morgana ­Robinson was short on original humour. However, her take on vapid TV presenter Fearne Cotton was extraordinarily good and almost worth wading through the dross for. Watching Fearne being fired from a cannon was certainly the TV highlight of my week.

About 10 minutes in, The Morgana Show, a new comedy showcase for Channel 4, was going to get a really terrible review. The opening sketch - a gag about Boris Johnson at prep school - combined a weak impersonation with a silly and unfunny script. The Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue take-offs weren't much better and a sketch featuring Gilbert - a teenager with learning difficulties who stars in his own home-made television show - struck me as bullying in its comedy, the kind of television that will go down very well with callow 14-year-olds, but will make life absolute hell for any of their contemporaries unfortunate enough to wear bottle-bottom glasses. But then Morgana released the bully in me by doing a wickedly accurate impression of Fearne Cotton, a presenter who richly deserves all the mockery she can get. And I laughed at the running gag about Lady Gaga, glimpsed doing banal household tasks in wildly improbable costumes. By the end, I even laughed at Gilbert, thanks to the detail of Robinson's performance. But I'm not proud of myself.

Morgana Robinson is the new comedy wunderkind who has gone straight from bit parts in cult shows to her own five part-series. But there's a huge gulf between being funny for 90 seconds in one sketch and holding together a whole 30 minutes. The opening sketch of Bozza as a schoolboy with Tourette syndrome was quite funny - if rather familiar - for about 20 seconds. Dragging it out for a couple of minutes killed it entirely. The rest of the show followed much the same pattern. At her best, Robinson is one of the sharpest and funniest comics around: unfortunately, this show didn't do her any favours.

We must part with our celebration of female- fronted comedy, thanks to The Morgana Show, a witless sketch vehicle for newcomer Morgana Robinson. Why has she got her own show? Is it because her agent is the powerful John Noel, who numbers Russell Brand among his clients? I wonder.

Like the similarly charmless Katy Brand, Robinson's toothless parodies of the likes of Boris Johnson and Cheryl Cole are an apolitical affirmation of the celebrity status quo, not an attack on it. They lack the backbone required for anything other than staggeringly uninspired whimsy.

And when Dom Joly escapes from the jungle, someone should alert him to The Morgana Show's suspiciously familiar bellowing mobile phone businessman. Shameless stuff.

The Morgana Show, Channel 4, review

Ceri Radford reviews the new sketch-based comedy show starring new talent Morgana Robinson, whose impersonations include Cheryl Cole and Fearne Cotton.

The Morgana Show review

My advice (for what it's worth)? Shorter sketches, more celebrity impressions and lose the laughter track.