What to watch and review on Friday. Tonight's TV tips

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What to watch and review on Friday. Tonight's TV tips

November 25, 2016 - 15:02
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What to watch and review on Friday, November 25.

David Walliams and Jack Whitehall spoof Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in Sherlock

EastEnders (BBC1, 7.30pm) Not so long ago he was a strutting soldier with anger management problems striking fear into the hearts of all who encountered him. Now the new unimproved Lee Carter is a cowering bullying victim depressive with erectile dysfunction. Bummer. Tonight, worried wife Whitney confronts him about bunking off work and their non-existent sex life.

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Coronation Street (ITV, 7.30 and 8.30pm) Weatherfield’s incredibly gullible idiots try to recover from the shock of Phelan’s phony flats scam. Meanwhile, Tracy and Peter Barlow continue to fret over the inanimate weirdness of their long lost block-of-wood brother Daniel.

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I’m A Celeb (ITV, 9pm) Two weeks in and sod-all has happened. The luvvies all love each other and they’re winning so much food in the too-easy tasks they’re actually putting on weight. A-grade oddball Martin Roberts is providing a scintilla of entertainment, but otherwise it’s just a bunch of nice unargumentative people getting cockroaches poured all over them. What’s the point?

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Alan Carr’s Happy Hour (Channel 4, 8pm) New series as TV’s Chatty Man hosts a variety-packed show from a social club in Hammersmith, west London. Featuring stand-up comics, music and fun-filled parlour games. Woohoo.

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Walliams & Friend (BBC1, 9.30pm) First of six comedy sketch shows in which David Walliams joins forces with a celebrity chum. Tonight’s star guest is Jack Whitehall. Watch out for Middle Class Jeremy Kyle in which a furious family-at-war tear into each other about their next expensive ski-ing trip.

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AMAZING, WONDERFUL, INVENTIVE, ORIGINAL, CRAP - only one of these words is used as part of my review of David Walliams and Friend- I'd seen the trailers, I know Walliams and his schtick, and of course have seen Jack Whitehall on numerous panel shows doing his pseudo posh bloke act , and so the day came when the BBC decided it was well worth the license payers fee to foist these two together and cobble together what I can only describe as a total and utter disaster.

All the sketches seemed to be parodies of other TV shows most notably the utter awfulness of Sherlock, Whitehall as the eponymous detective and Walliams was well Walliams in a wig, we then sat through an over long sketch where Holmes apparently deduced that Watson had been pleasuring himself in the front room, half way through we sae Whitehall's face crack and begin to laugh, believe me the only laugh in this terrible giggle free zone.

The problem is, and this is the rub, David Walliams is not funny, he is lucky, Little Britain was funny, but mostly due to Matt Lucus as he had the majority of funny characters, Walliams relied heavily on catch phrases and wigs. The same wigs he used on Walliams and Friends, every sketch saw him sporting a different syrup and this you feel was the basis for his character dynamic, that and one of his two comedy accents, token posh bloke or token northern bloke, We saw token northern bloke on the dating sketch, if i was Paddy McGuinness I wouldn't worry the impression wasn't even near enough to be an issue, the problem is that no matter how much effort was made to deliver a new TV parody Friday night comedy sketch show it failed on every single level.

I sat through and watched as numerous celebs gave their 5 minutes of mirth to this abhorrent car crash, Vernon Kay, the chuckle brothers and Biggins all appeared to give this flagging old, tired and woefully unfunny show a jolt of life, but sadly as the flat line of comedy continued everyone had to stand back and declare it dead on arrival.

The worrying aspect is not that there are 5 episodes left (Watch it get ditched to 11pm in future) its that BBC comedy execs thought this was the right thing to spend our hard earned money on, Walliams is not funny, has never been funny, will not be funny and cannot be funny. We have seen his pseudo camp frippery for many years, and occasionally on Britains got talent can be amusing but dear god why have we let him get away with this rubbish for so long, he maybe a successful children's author but...oh hang on that's it, Walliams and Friend actually is perfect, if it was on Children's BBC at 3.30 in the afternoon, the characters are so broad, the sketches so telegraphed and the punch lines so ineffectual only children of 7 and under would laugh, but only at the wigs!

It a terrible shame that there are thousands of brilliant performers and writers who are creating funny, clever and witty material that deserves a Friday night BBC slot.

Walliams and Friend only serves to show that once again David is not a Goliath of comedy and the only way it could be any worse is if it had Miranda Hart in it, thank heavens for small or in her case tall mercies!