The Wrong Mans

The best British crime comedy TV series

Who knew drug gangs, murder and front-line policing could be such a barrel of laughs? Featuring Matt Berry's Year Of The Rabbit, brand-new Black Ops and more.

Disney+ to make French version of The Wrong Mans

Disney+ announced today the cast and director of Mauvaise Pioche, a new ten-part French original series adapting the British comedy thriller The Wrong Mans, that will be available exclusively in 2022 on Disney+.

Jillian Bell to star in The Wrong Mans USA

In a gender switch from the original British series, Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street) is set as a lead opposite Ben Schwartz in The Wrong Mans.

James Corden & Mathew Baynton's film is on hold

Mat Baynton has revealed that he and James Corden have already written a movie together, but it has been put on the back burner while Corden remains busy in America as host of The Late Late Show.

The Wrong Mans is definitely not coming back

James Corden and Mathew Baynton's comedy crime capers in The Wrong Mans look to be over for good.

James Corden brilliant playing himself - a total dick

It's precisely because Corden is so infuriating that The Wrong Mans was so blindingly brilliant.

The Wrong Mans is not unfunny. There was much to smile about, and a terrific poke against Top Gear. But I think the move to America has harmed the show. Two council workers being caught up, in Britain, inside a network of drugs and kidnappings and bombs is borderline funny/credible. Move them to Texas, and to a Texas jail, with real racist thugs, and for it to work comedically one has to reduce the real villains to cartoon dolts. Which works less well as a thriller. It was always going to be an uneasy thing to pull off, a comedy-thriller - there's a long and ignoble history of failures in that genre - but earlier Corden and co-writer Mathew Baynton managed it, and last week they didn't, not so much. Maybe it's just that I don't like James Corden, a judgment about which he will surely lose sleep.

The best finale this Christmas undoubtedly belonged to this ambitious mix of action, comedy and espionage. The Wrong Mans was an unexpected blast of brilliance in its first series, so it's unfortunate that James Corden's imminent U.S fame (as new host of The Late Late Show) has apparently curbed any longterm ambitions for this show. Instead, we now only get a two-hour Christmas special, which I like to consider an unofficial four-part second series. Far surpassing series 1 in terms of production values and confidence, this saw Sam Pinkett (Baynton) and Phil Bourne (Corden) in witness protection as factory workers in America, before another combination of bad luck and mistaken identity found them imprisoned with hardened criminals, working as bomb-makers for a gang of terrorists, and pursued across Europe as they doggedly attempted to get back home for Christmas. Not always as laugh-out-loud funny as you want it to be, The Wrong Mans is nevertheless hugely entertaining and takes such obvious delight in playing with genre conventions and clichés. It's a shame there won't be more, but to be honest it would be ridiculous if Sam and Phil kept finding themselves in vaguely similar predicaments again and again. Great to see the show end on a high.

The Wrong Mans review - it got everything right

The adventures of Matthew Baynton and James Corden's two hapless council workers was an incredible mix of action, gags and emotional depth, deserving of a standing ovation.