God, I’m jealous of Michael Gove. Not for being a cabinet minister in the same coalition as Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, obviously, but for being outed as a queer in the new series of Harry & Paul (BBC2, Sunday). Now that’s what I call fame.
Harry & Paul has had mixed reviews. Some of the sketches — the ‘I’m a cop’ one; the US car salesmen — simply aren’t funny. But so what? Even at its best The Fast Show, arguably the funniest-ever broken-sketch comedy series, contained some sketches that weren’t funny. It goes with the territory. Unfunny sketches are the equivalent of the ‘darlings’ that William Faulkner advised authors they should kill. Sometimes, just like authors, comedy sketch writers can’t summon up the necessary callous detachment.
Personally, I reckon this new series still finds Enfield and Whitehouse at the top of their game, making the satirical points that need to be made about the modern world in a way so few of our almost relentlessly PC comics are capable.
Their sketch on the vapidity of Question Time, for example, was absolutely spot-on — as was Enfield’s impression of David Dimbleby: ‘Now, if you are a moronic whinger and you would like to make a fool of yourself in the Question Time audience with a witless, lame remark next week we’ll be at the former Polytechnic of Grey Buildings, now, of course, Cambridge Ring Road University…’ I like that line.
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