Way To Go

As the assisted-suicide sitcom faces its final curtain, Warren Clarke puts in a guest turn as world-weary has-been actor Nigel Banks, now crooning at the posh country hotel where Scott (Blake Harrison) drags his mates to help him get over being dumped.

Joey (Ben Heathcote) wants to help put Banks out of his misery with the McFlurry of Death but gets into a heated debate with Scott over the difference between mercy and murder. As sitcoms go it's, well, different.

Way To Go : Series 1 - Review

It's not perfect - as I say, some scenes get jarringly tired-sitcom, and Scott's girlfriend comes around awfully quickly at the end. Still, we don't see many of these comic-yet-dramatic quirky shows in the UK, and I'm glad to see Way To Go not just having a go, but doing it damn well. Another series please, BBC?

Penultimate episode of Bob Kushell's likable black comedy about a bunch of DIY euthanasia facilitators. Scott (Blake Harrison, aka Neil from The Inbetweeners) is still trying to win Julia back after accidentally cheating on her with his boss, and Joey's gambling-addict sponsor threatens to spill the beans about the boys' operation. Yet again, there's another excellent guest cameo, this time from Kate Fleetwood as a furious young cancer sufferer. Very funny, perversely touching, and way more thoughtful than anticipated.

Blake Harrison interview

Blake Harrison talks about his new TV show Way To Go, the possibility of an Inbetweeners Movie sequel and which superhero he'd like to play.

This comedy about three friends trying to set up an assisted suicide business has its moments thanks to its talented cast. When it works, the mix of the dark, the absurd and the comic is very funny but crassness (maybe hard to avoid given the subject matter) sometimes gets in the way. Tonight Scott (Blake Harrison) falls for Julia (Laura Aikman), the daughter of his first client. Cozzo (Marc Wootton), meanwhile, has some explaining to do after his girlfriend (Sinéad Matthews) finds a stash of cash. The boys also help an old man find relief and a reason to live - which is not exactly part of their remit!

Bob Kushell interview

I wanted to find out more about the controversy surrounding the show, so I got in touch with Bob Kushell, and offered him a chance to speak out about it here on my blog. Thankfully he obliged and here is what he had to say...

"This is a post-watershed programme and contains adult content and language," read an advisory note on the screener version of Way to Go, a new BBC3 comedy about euthanasia.

Way to Go isn't very "adult", the word here essentially used as a code for "involves swearing and sex". It is quite intriguing, though - a black comedy in which three friends, all down on their luck, find a new career offering euthanasia without the airfare (not so much Dignitas as Indignitas). Scott gets the idea when his neighbour offers him a pair of George Best's old football boots in return for an easy exit, and he then enlists his mate Cozzo, a fast-food-equipment engineer, who constructs a suicide kit he calls the McFlurry of Death. Too much of the comedy is dependent on wild over-reaction but Blake Harrison, who played the thick one in The Inbetweeners, is good as Scott, who continually has to explain to his colleagues that normal business rules do not apply. "There is no word of mouth, you idiot," he says, when they're discussing routes to expansion. "If we do a good job our clients are dead."

Watching this BBC3 sitcom is the televisual equivalent of listening to a toddler squealing 'poo-poo' every five seconds because they think it's the most offensive word ever invented. Way to Go simply tries too hard to shock. The premise itself is controversial (and has already sparked the inevitable outrage from a Tory MP), but has plenty of potential for black humour: three blokes go into business to help the terminally ill to die. But the Beeb apparently feels the subject matter alone is not enough to grab our attention. Instead, it's stuffed the show with enough race, sex and vomit gags to make Judd Apatow blush (the writer is US TV writer Bob Kushell) and the result is heavy-handed and self-conscious. In this episode, the lads try to brush up their professionalism with a business seminar, while Scott (Blake Harrison) wimps out of helping a client with stomach cancer die. It all falls rather flat - and that's a shame. Assisted suicide is surely a subject, er, dying for a more intelligent treatment than this?

"What we have to offer you will change your life!" nurse receptionist Scott declares in his best impression of a Dragons' Den pitch. Then he remembers what he's selling. Death. Specifically, an assisted suicide machine to a stomach cancer patient.

The initial shock factor of this black comedy may set nerves jangling. However, watch it and you'll find a straightforward sitcom that has managed to engineer an unusual situation for its incompetent yet well-meaning characters.