Upstart Crow

Preview: Upstart Crow, episode 4, Love is Not Love

I'm not enough of a Shakespeare scholar to vouch for the accuracy of Ben Elton's historical sitcom, but as a comedy geek I can at least confirm that it is funnier than his last effort, The Wright Way.

Review: Upstart Crow, BBC2, episode 3

There was a bit of chat on Twitter recently about how Upstart Crow is a refreshing real sitcom, contrasting it with the trend for non-sidesplitting studio comedies, which I guess means things like Going Forward and Mum. I think there is room for both. I like the more subtle comedies and while there is nothing subtle about Ben Elton's Shakespearen send-up I can certainly see the attraction of Upstart Crow if you just want stupid, painless laughs and smutty innuendo.

On the eve of its presentation to Queen Elizabeth I, William Shakespeare's controversial new play about the Mary Stuart - Mary The Frog-Jock - goes mysteriously missing. And Will's best friend Kit Marlowe (Tim Downie) is in the frame, in ye second parte of Ben Elton's Tudor comedy. Perhaps make that "tragi-comedy": this is no Blackadder II, and the usually assured David Mitchell as Shakespeare certainly seems a trifle uncomfortable barking out lines such as "I am not going bald, I have low eyebrows."

Upstart Crow: joke's already wearing thin in episode 2

Last week's episode of Upstart Crow (BBC Two), Ben Elton's new ye olde sitcom starring David Mitchell as William Shakespeare, would have worked as a one-off stand-alone special for Comic Relief or similar. The thought of a whole series of the thing is a bit tiring.

Very early on in Upstart Crow, a collaborative Ben Elton-William Shakespeare vehicle for the hopelessly thick and untalented David Mitchell, a member of the studio audience reacted to Liza Tarbuck just saying something in an accent, with her titty-dumplings to the fore with the kind of prolonged loud screeching fit that you or I could only hope to achieve while dousing our genitals in hydrochloric acid. My heart sank. But soon it actually began to get funny, sometimes very. The audience member had obviously been led out by an intern with the promise of a cup of tea and perhaps, actually it's to be hoped, a reassuring whisper of "you're not clever enough for this, dear". By the end, this mashup of Will's artistic frustrations in an England seething with stupidity, and as relevant to today as to 1584, had become a delight, to the extent the audience was anticipating the gags. Of a fiendishly cunning plot to frustrate young love, in which it had become necessary to procure a play-dead potion, Mitchell's brimming "I can't see how it can possibly go wrong" had much of the hubristic glee in seeing it coming of a Mainwaring, a Hancock.

Inevitable parallels - there was much God's bodikins! and gut-porridge stuff - will be drawn with Blackadder, although perhaps someone could tell me why that's in any conceivable way a bad thing. But Mr Elton has (almost) wholly redeemed himself for crimes against David Haig in the relentlessly smile-free elf'n'safety trudge that was 2013's The Wright Way, and it's nice to see he's got his brain back. And I do like Spencer Jones as Kempe, played as Ricky Gervais as David Brent - way too knowingly see-what-I-did-there, but that's how Ben rolls.

We had a new comedy from Ben Elton, a phrase that's likely to strike fear into the hearts of any sitcom fan after the woeful The Wright Way. Thankfully Upstart Crow saw him back at his best although the show seems to have been made up of deleted scenes from Blackadder II. The show focuses on the life of Will Shakespeare (David Mitchell) as he splits his time between his family home in Stratford-Upon-Avon and his digs in London. As this was an opening episode, Elton seems to have focused on a universal subject matter namely the Bard's creation of Romeo and Juliet. In Upstart Crow though Shakespeare has all intention of having his young couple living happily ever after that is until he allows the lovelorn son of Sir Robert Greene (Mark Heap) to stay at his home until he goes to university. Unfortunately Florian (Kieran Hodgson) soon falls for Shakespeare's serving girl Kate (Gemma Whelan) and the Bard is forced to find a way out of a predicament that could cause him serious bother. Although you can see some of the gags coming a mile off, especially what will ultimately happen to Florian, Elton perfectly paces the show so that the gags never overpower the story. There's also a great running gag about the line 'Where For Art Thou' Romeo that is actually very clever and Elton also satirises the sexual politics of the time to great effect. Of the cast I found that Mitchell really anchored the action well as Shakespeare and his tortured academic persona really suited that of the Bard. In supporting roles I found Liza Tarbuck and Harry Enfield gave memorable turns as Shakespeare's wife and father respectively. Similarly amusing was the performance given by Dominic Coleman as the go-to performer of female parts who was hurt that he couldn't play the thirteen-year-old Juliet. Although there is the argument that a lot of Upstart Crow is just recycled Blackadder gags that's not exactly a bad thing as Elton's historical comedy still remains one of the best British sitcoms of all time. Whilst I don't think Upstart Crow will ever match Blackadder in terms of quality I still found it to be a consistently funny sitcom and a return to form for Ben Elton who I'd almost written off after the debacle that was The Wright Way.

Preview: Upstart Crow, episode 2

It's great to report that the first episode of Upstart Crow was not a fluke. Writer Ben Elton repeats the trick again in the second episode. In fact if there is a problem here it isn't so much that this week's episode is like Blackadder, it's more a case that it is too much like last week's episode.

Ben Elton's Upstart Crow seems stuck in the 1980s, or 1970s, with its embarrassing canned laughter (if it's actually a studio audience, then it deserves to be confined to a can) and eagerness to please.

David Mitchell portrays a more modern William Shakespeare, who is struggling to make a name for himself - not helped by an uncaring world, and family. The Ricky Gervais mickey take character (Kempe - Spencer Jones) is faintly amusing, but Elton crams in far too many words - many of them, sadly, pathetically juvenile.

Review: Upstart Crow

While I didn't feel a hankering to watch more, and there weren't many laugh-out-loud moments, Upstart Crow deserves some time to find its feet. The cast are good, the concept has potential, and Ben Elton's on surer ground than The Wright Way debacle of 2013.

Loving Ben Elton's new Shakespeare sitcom

There's no way of saying this without shredding the last vestiges of my critical credibility, but this new Ben Elton comedy series, Upstart Crow (BBC2, Mondays), about William Shakespeare: I'm loving it and think it's really, really funny.