Toast Of London

Toast Of London: the five rules of thesping

The Shakespearean actor Steven Toast - a close associate of The IT Crowd's Matt Berry - shares the wisdom built up over a lifetime of luvviedom

Matt Berry on Toast of London

Cult sitcom star Matt Berry talks about his ageing thespian, Steven Toast.

Will Toast of London be more than just a one-man show?

From Ricky Gervais to Matt Berry, more comedians are writing and appearing in their own sitcoms, but the test is whether these shows can develop beyond mere character sketches.

A mere pilot episode, but in our list because this was the show that finally harnessed and distilled the animal comic talent of Matt Berry. Previously best known as the mad boss from The IT Crowd (where Graham Linehan wrote his lines - here they were co-written by Father Ted's other creator, Arthur Mathews), now he was fruity actor Steven Toast. Toast's humiliations included auditioning for the part of a gay, corrupt detective in a prison visiting room (because the director had been sent down for making racist remarks on his previous job) and a howlingly funny scene where a voiceover job forced Toast to spend the whole afternoon saying one word over and over. Would Toast of London make a hit series? "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeeee-eeeees. YES! Yes. Yes."

Review: Toast Of London

Overall, I'd like to sample more Toast of London before I make a definitive judgement, because the pilot was overreaching, and eccentric sitcoms are often better once you've forged a connection with the characters.

Last night's viewing: Toast of London, Channel 4

At this early stage it's almost impossible to decide whether Toast of London is really any good, so I shall rely on that most irritating critical fall-back and call it promising.

Toast of London review

There were some good moments, don't get me wrong (Matt Berry's camp voice and his repeated shouting of "Yes!" when doing a voice-over did make me laugh) but they were few and far between.

Channel 4's Funny Fortnight is delivering such a rush of promising pilots you don't envy the boss who has to choose between them. I'd say for volume of belly laughs, this is the pick of the bunch so far, a slapstick, surreal take on artistes and agents in London's theatreland. Matt Berry (The IT Crowd) has combined forces with Arthur Mathews (co-creator of Father Ted) and plays hapless actor Steven Toast. The scene where Toast does an audition in a prison visiting room is good but better is the Soho voiceover session where he has to deliver one word. Again and again.

Ever since The IT Crowd began its hiatus, we've been missing the braying buffoonery of Matt Berry's mighty Douglas Reynholm. So it's good to have Berry back reprising something vaguely resembling his Reynholm chops, this time in the form of Steven Toast, a struggling fortysomething actor performing in a play so unspeakably offensive he's often attacked by members of the public. Elsewhere, Toast auditions in a prison for the racist producer of TV drama Summer Time Murders and upsets the agoraphobic with whom he lives. Written by Arthur 'Father Ted' Mathews, Toast of London is far from the finished article. But any pilot that sees an agonised Berry spending hours on a voiceover part which simply involves bellowing the word 'yes!' before breaking into song probably deserves at least one series.