That Look preview night…
Last night was the final Drill Hall Experience for now. This week’s Mitchell And Webb Thing was for a preview of new potential TV sketches, like they did last year at the very same venue and that converted toilet place. We got there at our usual time to find a rather big queue, which was odd. Those pesky young people who prefer Looks to Sounds were all rather keen, and we were ‘entertained’ by the two incredibly homosexual men who were ‘working’ behind the desk. All they needed was Siobhan Redmond and a trolley and it would have been The High Life. After a drink and the gradual crushing heat of far too many people in a tiny bar (not helped at all by a load of silly people pushing across to near the door 15 minutes before it openened, making everyone nearby quite squashed for no good reason) we went in and sat down, waiting for Procucer Gareth Edwards to do his ‘orange flickering light’ , ‘high visibility black t-shirts’ and pantomime acting routine. He did not disappoint, as the man is actually funnier than most of the so-called comedians who get work these days…
As usual I won’t do masses of spoilers (well not until the rejected sketches are well and truly rejected) but the point of the evening meant that the material was mostly of a lesser quality than the previous weeks’ radio sketches. Which made sense as the good stuff has already been guaranteed… My highlights included an interesting Hollywood version of Rebecca, a very amusing and accurate character who does silly bets to make books and television series (hmmm…) and something bloody weird that relates to a popular sketch from series 1 but is at the same time completely different than its original format. It will make sense if you ever see it (and as it got the most laughs I think you will) and I don’t want to spoil it. Well I do want to but I won’t…
There was an interval as usual where they played the regulation horrible music, this time Mariah Carey and The Spice Girls. Luckily the comedy aspect of the evening returned and I felt less like I was caught in a horrible flashback. A load more new sketches followed, and as I am a geek I noticed some factual errors that will mean nothing to anyone who was not there: Captain America was never in The Justice League Of America as he is a Marvel character and the JLA are DC, and Belgians do not speak French. It’s Flemish. But I am not a script editor so who cares… We hung around in the bar afterwards, as you do, and had a brief chat with Misters Webb and Bachman. Hurrah for friedly approachable comedy types! We learnt that the studio recordings are set for August so that’s plentry of time to get everything perfected and this isn’t going to suffer from Little Britain Syndrome at all. Phew.
Feed