It's not that I feel like a middle-aged fuddy duddy exactly - although I was even almost too old for The Word and I'm clearly not the target audience for BBC Three. But if I were still in the 16-34 age group - even at its most juvenile end - frankly I’d be insulted by a show like The King is Dead. Is it a valid criticism of a BBC Three show to call it puerile? Perhaps not, but unfunny is unfunny.
Created, written and produced by Simon Bird, which must be some sort of reward for starring in the Bafta-winning (and genuinely funny) E4 sitcom The Inbetweeners, The King is Dead comes in that by now dog-tired ‘comedy panel show’ format – the variety where the guests are celebrity stooges hand-picked to smile as they are humiliated by some upstart stripling with unwarranted notions that he is the next Simon Amstell. I hope they were well paid for their services.
“Three bargain-bucket celebrities even pantos won’t touch... one of these pricks is going to be Father Christmas” is how TV ghost-hunter Derek Acorah (Living's Most Haunted), former Fun Lovin’ Criminal Huey Morgan and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett from Misfits (another successful E4 youth show – why don’t BBC Three leave it to the commercial opposition?) were wittily introduced by Bird’s MC. Why Father Christmas? Well, the premise of the show is that a well-known individual is killed off, and the celebrity guests must then compete to replace him. It was enough to make Eight out of Ten Cats seem unlaboured.
Bird’s accomplices were Katy Wix (Not Going Out) and Nick Mohammed (one of the yes men in the retooled Reggie Perrin) – Wix here playing Mrs Christmas, wife of Santa, Mohammed being dressed as an elf. I could go on to describe the various rounds, but that would risk the life draining out of me once again. Huey Morgan displayed the only signs of spontaneous wit - the native New York variety, so you could say that he wasn't even trying.
Acorah struggled to finish his sentences, let alone find anything funny to say (perhaps he was waiting for an intervention from the other side), and Stewart-Jarrett looked like he couldn’t wait to get back to the set of Misfits. Me? I was so annoyed by the experience that it had me snapping biliously for the immediate destruction of an entire TV channel. Hey, BBC Three, if you can't do better than this (or the only slightly less mirth-free Him and Her), then leave those kids alone.
