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That Mitchell & Webb hype

October 14th, 2006 · Posted by Skuds in Life · No Comments · Life

You cannot open a newspaper or magazine at the moment without coming across something about Mitchell & Webb, usually saying they are the future of British comedy and comparing them to Peter Cook & Dudley Moore.

I saw That Mitchell & Webb Look last night, and thought it was funny enough. Robert Webb has the ability to deliver in a Chris Morris-type tone which is always good to see, and was likeable in the film Confetti. David Mitchell is sharp, but comes across as a bit smug on the many, many appearances he has made on chat shows and panel shows.

I would quite happily make a point of watching their stuff in the future, but there is no way I would put them in the same league as Pete & Dud. Whatever they did together, whatever parts they were playing in a film or sketch, their own characters came through – and thats what we wanted.

I don’t think anyone has come along who can fill their shoes, but if you want to make comparisons I would say that Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson have come closer than Mitchell & Webb. They may be more based on slapstick than on satire and wordplay, and they may have played basically the same characters all the way from 20th Century Coyote and The Dangerous Brothers to Bottom, via The Young Ones and Filthy, Rich & Catflap, but they have a chemistry together. Like Cook and Moore they have only proved their versatility when doing work away from each other, whether it is New Statesman, Holby City, Blackadder or Jonathan Creek, or in Edmondson’s writing and music video directing.

On top of all that, their Bottom live show is till the funniest thing I have ever seen on the stage.

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