We loved the Almeratron sketch at the tryout for Look series 4 a while back but it didn’t get made.

Until now…

More of that sort of thing at the BBC Comedy site.

We went to the lovely yet uncomfortable Drill Hall on Thursday night to attend the now-regular-before-the-filming That Mitchell & Webb Look tryout night where a whole load of sketches that don’t score quite enough points to be given a place in the To Film list are performed in front of a mostly live studio audience whose laughter is measure by some boffins using secret scientific means. Probably. Some of it was filmed for the inevitable DVD. It was not for transmission so Super Producer Gareth Edwards was without the usual suit but did of course mention red flickering lights and high visibility black t-shirts to somebody sitting near me’s delight. Also no green flashing pineapple thing or disembodied voices which was a shame. The Drill Hall was as unbearably clammy as usual though, hurrah!

*SPOILER ALERT*

Here are the sketches that were performed, in a handy Hit, Miss or Maybe format:

HIT!
Car showroom: Nissan Almera does not transform into robotic Almeratron as promised.

Behind the scenes: Sorry! remake. Very good.

Sam & Joe 1: Wearing vaguely women’s clothing. Good first sketch but idea is repeated and weakened.

‘Get A Baby’ advert. Based on Rob’s recent new lifestyle change?

Chess players in the style of Big Brother contestants. Very funny, more so than it sounds.

2010 House with the Webdesignerson family. Very Mitchell & Webb Look.

Arse (in the style of Apple) shop. Great sketch that becomes a sketch about sketches.

Dosh For Gold! Good silly one.

Bed & Booze makeover show featuring drunk B&B couple from series 3.

Cash For Plutonium! Men in toilet queue loved this sketch.

Awful obituary poem in local newspaper. Great.

French Grandstand. Gloriously silly fun.

www.massiveyachts.co.uk The eccentric billionaires have a new idea. Woman in front of us got very excited.

Laboratory-based sketch with punchline I don’t wish to spoil. Very funny, led to a bit of corpsing.
Reports Mode 1: Bavarian TV show. Excellently silly sketch surprisingly not written by Simon Kane.

Reports Mode 2: Viewers’ reports.

Two evil wizards turn up at the same time. Great and geeky.

MI6 planning Diana’s death but with twist ending. A bit too “ooh” for telly?

Ad men in meeting about Titanic before it sets sail. Funny wordy one.

Reports Mode 3: Classic Report.

Barristers: Half drunk for a better life.

MISS!
Stand Up comedy club for aliens. Good start but missing a punchline.

Alan stood up by bride so friend Michael stands in for her. Too long.

Sam & Joe 2: Vaguely female bee keeping outfit.

Sam & Joe 3: Knights etc.

Seen the new Shakespeare? A bit weak compared to other sketches.

Convoluted Phil Collins FM sketch that went on too long.

Porn & Drugs Towers theme park. A bit obvious.

Low budget afternoon TV quiz show with repetitive interrupty host. Not that strong.

Donnie Cosey : A Prayer & A Pint 1: Tehran. Not bad but not great.

Alan Bevan with slapstick gene.

Donnie Cosey: A Prayer & A Pint 2: Large Hadron Collider.

Donnie Cosey: A Prayer & A Pint 3: Colliers Wood.

MAYBE!
Artificial Intelligence 1: Internet comes to life in Aussie PM’s house.

Danny and Philip in hot air balloon: celebrity chef kidnapper. Not bad but not brilliant.

Artificial Intelligence 2: Skeptical PM’s son. Could work if done right.

Martin and Neil door to door like mormons but in fact just curious about world.

Artificial Intelligence 3: Rob as Aussie PM. Quite funny but not quite there.

“Good with people” person at party.

Voice of God records voice over. Not bad.

Lapdancing sector saved by government.

So… the biggest winners were as follows:

Sorry! remake.
Apple-style ‘Arse’ shop.
Awful obituary poem.
Massiveyachts.so.uk
Laboratory.
Reports Mode.
MI6 Diana plan.
Titanic ad men.
Half drunk lifestyle.

We (politely) demand that these sketches are made when production begins in January.

After the recording we had a nice drink and a chat with Mr Guest List Benefactor and all round funny man Jason Hazelely where things temporarily went weird due to top comedy writwer and co-creator of Father Ted Arthur Mathews randomly thinking that I was Gareth Edwards. I checked and I was not him. Said hello to Rob too but James Bachman (who also helped out with guest list) was busy so I shall say hello via the medium of blogging instead: “Hello.” We had fun.

For those of you who don’t have Facebook and are not aware of the Mitchell & Webb Fans thing, here’s a photograph from Sunday night as taken by a man named Thom…

Imagine laughter, fidgeting, noisy sweet wrappers, more laughter, plastic pint glasses going boink and some clapping and it’s like you were there.

Can you guess where I’ve been?

Yes, that’s right. Mitchell & Webb Time at The Bloody Drill Hall, that’s what!

Honorable mentions to James Bachman for making it possible for me to say “I’m on the guest list” to the gay man with the clipboard who always looks rather stressed; to the woman who was dressed as a cat in the front row (why did nobody bring her a saucer of milk in the interval?) and all of the people who decided to go for a wee one at a time during the first half. Other mentions must go to Producer Extraordinaire Gareth Edwards for doing his “fire exits” routine which of course culminated in the “high visibility black t-shirts” punchline, and fellow fan Sonia who we often bump into at these things and is thankfully not one of those ones who spend the show looking like the voices in their head are commanding them to lunge at David or Rob. No mention must go to the woman sat next to me who never clapped. Not once. Boo hiss boo!

!!!SPOILERISH ALERT!!!

As it was a Try Out Night thing where the best material for the forthcoming series has already been given the green light we got to see sketches of varying qualities. I didn’t take the Special Notebook this time so here are some things from memory, split into categories:

Good:
Drunk hoteliers.
Ted & Peter: The Snooker Years.
Two hermits forced to live together.
Quiz: “Metil” or “Normel”?
Channel 4 TV Chef teaches bad chef how to cook, badly.
Abraham & Isaac.
Food snobs.

OK:
Christopher Hitchens Kids TV.
Mister Darcey Disco Dancer.
Dying Man’s last wish.
Writing to Jimmy Saville.
Lazy Writers: Prostitute drama TV series.

Bad:
Lovely Lady Who Is Sometimes A Shit.
2 Stuarts car pooling.
Post-Event TV.

Or, in picture collage:

So there you have it. It was bloody hot in there so we scarpered at the end without schmoozing. Hello famouses, thanks for a great evening.

The first of two planneed Try Out sessions for new That Mitchell And Webb Look 3 material took place at The Drill Hall on Sunday. I was in France so I sent a spy to find out more and acquired these random phrases and facts …

Olivia Colman was not there (!!!) but Sarah Hadland (from Look 2, Peep Show, Magicians) was. James Bachman was of course present.

Simon Kane wrote a sketch involving the smell of trees. I am confused.

A sketch written by Toby Davies and Chris Pell involving toy trains.

Police Man versus Community Support Officer, in a couple of sketches.

A superhero whose ocncept is linked with animal genitalia for some reason.

Roberr playing Santa Claus’ brother Russ.

A sketch about things not being rocket science or brain surgery, which wasn’t found to be very funny.

David as Captain Todger in a few sketches. Oh dear.

A few of those Behind The Scenes sketches like in previous series.

Remember folks, these ideas were the ‘try out’ ones and were judged as ‘maybe’s for the television series so if they sound a bit peculiar it’s because they probably were. The second Try Out evening is next month.

After pottering round the house all morning and some of the afternoon (spent watching Sea Devils emerge from the sea and squawk at landmines while The Doctor eats all the sandwiches) it was time to go to London. Again. This time was in the car and not on the tube, which was nice, and it didn’t take as much time too. Marvellous! After parking and buying a panini we wandered to The Drill Hall (yay!) to lurk around outside with other rebrobates before they opened the doors, or so we thought. As we were on the guest list because I have the necessary connections from my Mitchell And Webb fansite-ing (thank you James Bachman) we had guaranteed seats but still wanted to get there early to enjoy the Drill Hall Experience. We actually mean this, no sarcasm intended, and we love the slightly fizzy drinks, the rubbish music (Janet Jackson instead of the usual Five Star, still acceptable) and free gay papers. It beats the BBC Radio Theatre hands down for these special treats and Cheryl in particular was pleased to be there.

See?

As we were on a list that wasn’t yet in the hands of the man who ticks the list off when the people on it appear we had to lurk in the foyer for a while and admire the posters, which I sneaked another look at on the way out and had to appear in a photo with. We lurked outside while the people with tickets all went in and Cheryl decided she needed a drink and sulked like a child, but only slightly so. We were eventually let in and relieved to find the place hadn’t changed all that much even though they had bought new tables and put nice pictures on the walls: It was still uncomfortably sweaty in there! Hurrah!

After a drink and a mooch about and finding the third of my ‘+3′ people we all went into the theatre and sat in the bit near the back, trying not to point at people we recognised and failing ever so slightly. David Mitchell looked like he was enjoying himself and Frank Skinner certainly did as he was very nearby and had a loud laugh. The show starred (and was written by) James Bachman and Mark Evans, with acting also done by David ‘David Soul’ Soul as their slightly mental but nice neighbour who knows too much about ways to kill people, Carla ‘My Parents Are Aliens’ Mendonca as their evil neighbour who has a phobia of oompah music, Nicholas Parsons as Nicholas Parsons From Just A Minute, and Jon ‘Spitting Image’ Glover as everybody else. The sound effects woman, whose name I forgot, was also bloody marvellous and a joy to watch in the corner with all her noisy props around her. The show itself was just the perfect amount of silliness and cleverness and readers of this here blog will knopw that I do like a nice bit of silly comedy. I could spoil the plot but I shall not, saying only that it is about a man named James and a man named Mark who share a flat and have strange neighbours who are warlike in different ways. With a bad joke about tactics/ Tic-Tacs. It’s highly recommended and bound to get a series commissioned by the powers-that-be at Radio 4 because it made lots of people laugh a lot and that is the best way to judge a comedy’s success in my eyes. And ears.

(Un)expected odd face from me as usual. Sorry.

So keep an ear out for Zoom. I’ll mention it again anyway, as I will mention Jamie having a chat with his comedy hero Nicholas Parsons at the bar and our brief hello and well done with the very nice James Bachman who got us tickets in the first place. Bonus mention for Emma’s enormous handbag. Just what was in there?

If you went to any of the That Mitchell And Webb Sound recordings or the try-out nights for Look then you’ll love The Drill Hall in London. You’ll also love James Bachman and Mark Evans so how about a bit of Zoom? From BBC tickets:

Zoom
Radio 4, tickets available
Set in a world just like ours – only sillier and a lot more exciting – Zoom features the adventures of flatmates James and Mark and their ex-Special forces neighbour, Ken. In this pilot episode James and Mark – lifelong friends, lifelong rivals – find their world turned upside down when a new neighbour moves into the building. Before long she is playing loud music, coughing into a megaphone and playing her oompah records non-stop. Their attempts to regain control of their lives will take them on a thrilling journey involving Nicholas Parsons, Melvyn Bragg, Happy Shopper grenade launchers and an international poetry competition involving fists. In Zoom the stories are big, the characters are struggling, and you’re only ever a few seconds away from something bad happening to Mark.

In his follow up to the hugely popular Bleak Expectations Mark Evans joins forces with fellow Mitchell and Webb stablemate James Bachman to take centre stage in their first sitcom.

Date of show: 06 May
Studio doors open: 7.15pm
Age limit: Minimum age is 14
Venue: The Drill Hall
Maximum tickets per request: 4

Ah go on. It’ll be fun, see you there…

Hmmm…
Bleak Expectations Ep 1/6
Wednesday 15 August
11.30am-12.00noon BBC RADIO 4

It’s written by Mark Evans from That You Know What Look.
James Bachman is lurking around there too.
Anthony Head from all those things you love is in it.
As is Celia Imrie.
It’s produced by Gareth Edwards.
It was recorded at The Drill Hall.

But it’s on the radio starting next Wednesday lunchtime. Hurrah for the Listen Again function then!

I got so excited I made a montage:

Nice to see the art schooling didn’t go to waste.

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.

Those Mitchell And Webb Fans went to The Drill Hall (Drill! Hall!) to see Mitchell and Webb do a radio recording of Daydream Believers which was previously a Comedy Lab pilot for the telly in 2001 and is now a Saturday afternoon Radio 2 pilot for the 5th of May 2007. It’s a little bit sci-fi but has the usual things you would come to expect, and I don’t mean Olivia Colman and Mark Evans being in it although they both were actually in it. James Bachman was not in it but was there, in a chair, over there. Mark Benton was also in it (Doctor Who link!) , as was Simon Greenall (Doctor Who link again!) who we still love from Mash And Peas even though that was years ago now. We worked the room afterwards and learnt that Olivia Colman is reasonably pregnant (her second time) and that Bruiser was her first television work. We also learnt that she is involved in a forthcoming M&W sketch project which we assumed was location work for series two of ‘Look.’ We also learnt that James Bachman’s beard is going to be gone by the end of the week when he does that thing with Celia Imrie and Anthony Head (yet another Doctor Who link!) , and that David Mitchell is still rather shy but Robert Webb loves to talk to us fan geeks. We also learnt the dates for the new third series of That Mitchell And Webb Sound and a special warm-up for the second series of That Mitchell And Webb Look. But we are not stalkers. And everyone has been in Doctor Who. Probably.

James Bachman and another impressive beard.

Olivia Colman on the soft drinks.

Robert Webb recommends That Mitchell And Webb Log.

David Mitchell looks less scared of us this time.

Robert and That Chezza The Superfan.

This is the description for the original Comedy Lab version. See how much it has changed when you listen to the radio on May 5th:

Two men share a house. One is Ray, who earns a good living by writing strange sci-fi books about Baron Amstrad, a Hitlerian despot touring the galaxy with his space crew. The other is Colin, his somewhat confused lodger and friend, whose main task seems to be rubbing ointment into the spots on Colin’s back. Parallel storylines (and character roles) portray their humdrum existence, including Colin’s temporary association with some hypocritical anti-capitalists determined to change the world from their Billericay base, and Baron Amstrad’s determination to wreak interstellar havoc.