Peep Show 3 Dee Vee Dee is coming on 6th November and here is the cover!

In keeping with my Christmas theme…

Yes it’s another review of the tour… It’s what this week has been all about, after all. Shame that a fair few critics don’t seem to like it all that much but it’s in a whole different league to the depressing Little Britain Live… Will it match the greatness of the Boosh Tour? I have a bit longer to decide for myself. Anyway, on with the grumbling review from The Independent and a montagey pictures thing from me:

First Night: The Two Faces of Mitchell and Webb, Brighton Dome
The joke falls flat as stars of screen flunk it on stage
By Julian Hall
The Independent 20 October 2006
Timing is everything in comedy. What better to have a tour off the back of a TV series off the back of a radio show that followed a successful sitcom? That’s the line of recent career progression for Peep Show boys Messrs David Mitchell and Robert Webb. It’s no wonder then that, in a recent interview, Webb admitted that “things have gone rather lovely” for the duo who have performed together now for over a decade since meeting at Cambridge University.

In the same interview Webb denies complacency has set in despite the duos creative upspring. Yet on the evidence of the opening night of their first ever national tour, there is room for doubt.For starters, there is dubious merit in merely repeating sketches that ran on their TV show. Certainly they must have been under some pressure to turn around totally new material but there’s no apparent benefit in seeing Webb’s vague impresario character (“like that but not like that”)once again criticise Leonardo Da Vinci’s work. The stage does not add another dimension to the piece.

However, another sketch where David Mitchell’s anxious Nazi soldier admits to his colleague that he is worried about being the ‘bad guy’ is embroidered, justly rewarding a nice idea with a new lease of life. The sketch just thus turns out to be rather pleasant, if not quite lovely. There are some lovely lines though. Many of them belong to the cuddly Mitchell and his murderous character who persists in trying to find weapons in the unlikeliest of places; such as a patisserie (“Is a baguette harder than a skull?” he implores hopefully) and a library (“Could reading Baudelaire make you cry to death?”). The answer to both of course being yes.

Also admirable were the sweetly subservient sketches where the monarchy were gleefully put to the sword – or the acid bath in this case – and the plea that money for Africa is diverted to animal charities so that they could “charge up and down the motorway looking for kittens”. This challenged the audience to decide between man’s best friend and man’s duty to his fellow man. At times however, these sketches were interesting more than amusing.

In the intermission, the mood of the audience was one of disappointment. Many people spoke of their hope that there would be more banter between the two of them. It is too early to expect many of their sketches get loud cheers before they begin, as Little Britain’s did on tour. That said, the pair’s ludicrous game show “NumberWang” proved a relief for some as it kicked off the second half. Meanwhile, “Big Talk” where Webb’s meaty chat show anchor Raymond Terrific demands answers from “boffins” is Mitchell and Webb’s version of “History Today”, that old Newman and Baddiel classic.

They may never wish to have thousands of screaming fans clamber for a view of them at Wembley Arena, like their Cambridge predecessors did, but Mitchell and Webb can afford to go larger and hammier if they want to raise the rafters of the theatres on their tour.

Live show review from Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph, 25th October:

One of the funniest characters conceived by David Mitchell and Robert Webb, whose sketch show has hurtled from Radio 4 to BBC2 and now arrives panting on stage, with its wigs awry and make-up hastily applied, is an infuriatingly non-specific editor-type. Webb, who specialises in camp superciliousness, offers suggestion after self-contradictory suggestion: “What about this – not this, obviously! – but something like this, well not exactly that, scrub that”, and so on.

I feel a bit like that in offering my verdict on their touring show, which I saw at Southampton Guildhall. Fine, yeah, and everything, only actually not especially brilliant. Maybe, and this is just a thought, they need to try a bit harder. Or not nearly so hard. In any case, it’s not quite “there” yet. The title, The Two Faces of Mitchell and Webb, proves slightly misleading. In contrast to Little Britain – whose success the thirtysomething pair are clearly hoping to emulate, even though their style is markedly different – we’re vaguely encouraged to think we’ll get to know the performers as well as their characters.

However, the duo stick stubbornly to their scripted creations.

Nothing wrong with that, fans might think: they’ve already produced a bountiful crop of personae that play nicely to their physiognomical peculiarities and defiantly middle-class charms, which were first given sustained exposure on the cult Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show. Webb, blessed with an air of simian mischief and an aptitude for horsey, “hooray” types, is splendid here as Raymond Terrific, the barking, over-impatient host of discussion programme Big Talk (“Boffins, are you out of your massive minds?”). Mitchell, Womble-bodied and nerdish, scores a blinder with his exasperated paean to football’s limitless nature (“There’s everything to play for and forever to play it in!”).

Together, they’re delightful as alcoholic snooker commentators Peter and Ted or the SS soldiers forced to contemplate their place within the “narrative structure of this war”. Yet, lacking the sort of linking material that so vitally sustains the live incarnation of Little Britain, this compilation of skits suffers from too many awkward breaks for costume changes, which supporting actors Olivia Colman (Er, no, it’s actually Abigail Burdess: Dan) and James Bachman fill with no great aplomb.

More crucially, as it stands, Mitchell and Webb’s articulate, cerebral, even fogeyish brand of comedy may induce merriment when dished up in half-hour clumps, but cannot generate the requisite heat of hilarity in large venues over two hours. Not a disaster, then, but nothing to write home about. Back to you, boffins!

From Chortle, a review of the night in Cambridge:

Robert Mitchell and David Webb have been teetering on the brink of the big time for a very long time, but their TV shows have tended to underperform. Now it’s the time for them to underperform on stage, too – but this time, perhaps surprisingly, in terms of consistent quality rather than audience numbers. The main problem appears to be is that their touring show seems to assume that they have a devoted audience who will greet old favourites like the lascivious snooker commentators or nonsensical game show Numberwang with a roaring cheer. In truth, though they can pull the crowds, not one sketch gets even a polite round of applause at its conclusion until almost the end of the first half. Mitchell and Webb are not Little Britain – nor should they want to blindly follow in their grotesque footsteps. As a rule, their sketches are subtler, driven by awkwardness and doubt, rather than catchphrases, and are al the better for it. But without that panto feeling, what you’re left with a show that pretty much recreates verbatim their previous work, with little acknowledgement they’re in a live environment now. No wonder the response is muted, it’s like watching TV in the front room. Those snooker commentators, for instance, started on the radio, and they haven’t evolved since. You can close your eyes when they’re on stage and lose nothing.
Nor are these two like comedy’s other M&W, able to step in front of the curtain and chat to the audience as a heightened versions of their real selves as Eric and Ern so brilliantly did. Towards the end of the show, they do seem to relax more, and events become more fluid, and more enjoyable for it. The duo ad-lib as they solicit Big Questions for aggressive panel show Big Talk from the audience; Robert teases David for gratuitously dropping in local Cambridge references just because he was a student here; and they have to spontaneously cope with the all-too frequent technical shambles that mean the show still has an unfortunate amateur feel a week into its run. It would be nice to see more of the ‘real’ them outside of the tightly-scripted sketches – however good they are. And it’s a technique they’ve already harnessed on their BBC Three with the supposedly ‘unguarded’ moments between takes. But here, the costume-change gaps are filled with their able supporting cast, Abigail Burdess and James Bachman, forever trying to launch into their own vaudeville routines. It’s a decent enough joke, but does lead to the feeling that, rather than being the main attraction, Mitchell and Webb are actually guests in their own show.
For all the flaws in direction and presentation, the best sketches remain mightly impressive, especially those that deal with the petty, trivial reality behind familiar scenes – such as the henchman asking the Bond baddie to clarify his ambiguous threats to ‘deal with’ an enemy or the SS officer slowly realising that he might be the baddie in the whole ‘narrative arc’ of the war – an imaginatively clever script that remains a modern classic, no matter if you’ve heard them do it before.
Mitchell’s intolerant waiter and vicar are also highlights, as is his parody of the excited Sky Sports hyperbole heralding every mundane football clash as a apocalyptic battle, or his uptight uncle who can’t relate to his baby niece. In Webb’s canon, Numberwang is still a small delight even though it loses a lot by being done too long and too cheaply, and his take on The Weakest Link with Anne Robinson’s teasing sneer replaced by unadulterated disdain is nicely done.
Sketch shows are almost obligated to have misses as well as hits. Mitchell and Webb strike a pretty good average, but even they’re not immune to damp squibs such as a tired spoof of a TV property makeover show or the psychopathic man seeking various murderous tools in High Street stores.
But it’s the good skits you’ll remember, making this a tour you’re likely to enjoy more in retrospect than in the auditorium. Shared experience and the thrill of live performance usually mean comedy is better experienced in a theatre or club than at home, but with Mitchell and Webb, it might be the one time a DVD would be your best choice.
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett ambridge, October 25, 2006

The Culture Show, tonight, 7:10 PM BBC2… or click here.

It’s Those Deleted Scenes!

This is from memory so therefore rather hazy and some of them might just be variations from various rehearsal shows that we attended, but there are quite a lot of things that will be on the inevitable That Mitchell And Webb Look DVD…

A couple of posh idiots decide to save money on the tax they have to pay in the modern world by moving back to the past.

The Hugh in corner shop sketch: Additional bit at the end where he attempts to shoplift some miniature bottles.

Party planners: Inviting Ghandi. This has a good visual gag about a well known cleaning brand.

The repressed monks at the monk nightclub.

The ‘basically fine’ restaurant.

The man with a bit of ham on his face.

The ‘not like but..’ sketch but about not having cancer.

A couple of sketches involving showing a couple round properties with loud sex noises from above. (this might actually be from Bruiser or The Mitchell And Webb Situation. My memory is bad)

Solitaire Heaven.

Party planners: Inviting Doctor Jekyll. (they may not have actually filmed this, er…)

Coverage of people commissioning daytime television ideas.

Early days of television: More sketches than the ones shown.

Snooker commentators: Alternative ending to final sketch in case Table Of Reds was not used.

Any more for any more?

It’s the final part of that thing with the tramp who thinks he is a detective but he is not and he runs away to the Dick Barton music and…

That sketch show that we all worship has been given a 2nd series… like we never would have guessed! If Catherine Tate can get 3, Rob and David can get at least 2, can’t they?

Thanks to That James Bachman for this news.

I could do the whole catchphrase thing nicked from Look Around You (if you’ve not got it, get it) Series 2 now but I won’t….

Oh alright then.

Thachman.

Damn!

Ah, Pam Bachelor. How I miss thee!

Goodnight.