Say you have been summoned to a lab and tasked with formulating the perfect British comedy. The details of the lab are not necessary for this, so stop asking. Stop asking who is funding this great experiment. It does not matter why they have chosen you, instead of someone qualified. We’re getting off topic. No, there are no windows. Well yes, fine, I suppose you could call it a “bunker” then. The point is: you have been summoned to a lab and tasked with formulating the perfect British comedy. It will be on BBC Two.
So you guide your hand past the conical flask marked Mel & Sue and you dawdle over the petri dish with Jack Whitehall’s Dad in it, but finally you decide to add a big slosh of Tim Key to the broth (for this analogy to work, you really have to imagine a broth). Obviously, every action has an equal and opposite reaction so you need someone to balance out the – yes this is all getting away from me very rapidly, thank you! – pH, or something, so you decide upon Daisy May Cooper. To, uh, brew the broth in a giant still? Something like that, anyway. To do that thing you decide upon the Gibbons brothers as writers, after they did such an exceptional job of reinventing the Alan Partridge universe with This Time. As a catalyst you are allowed one little dash of Steve Coogan as a script consultant. For colour, you get a bit of Jessica Hynes. And for a concept, you have, “a witchfinder and a suspected witch go on a Trains, Planes and Automobiles-style odd-couple journey across the English countryside circa 1645”. Perfect, perfect, perfect! You have made every correct choice you possibly could. Right let’s put that in the oven for a bit and … ah. That’s a shame. It’s turned out really bad.
