School of Comedy

"School of Comedy" is E4's new comedy sketch show. Like the show "Beehive" that came before it, "School of Comedy" is different from the bulk of today's comedy for featuring a less diverse cast - in this case, kids.

It's a good idea in theory, but in practice, it doesn't work - the reason being that not even the most competent young actor/comedians can carry a comedy show if it's written as poorly as this show is.

The comedy in "The School of Comedy" is as bad as it is simple: Kids act like adults (wear moustaches, work in a courtroom etc.), while putting on exaggerated comedy accents (Yokel, Cockney and hilarious White South African) and swear - because often, kids swearing is the punchline in this comedy - you can tell by the canned laughter that seems to punctuate each naughty word.

However, the performances the young actors give cannot be criticised too much, because they're only young. They haven't been in comedy too long. They act out many different accents and personalities required of a sketch based show - but at the end of the day, they are kids playing doctors/teachers etc. with squeaky young voices. The writers and producers on the other hand (unless they are also 14 years old) deserve no such sympathy, writing the lamest jokes and the weakest characters, and giving us a show that is just another one of those wretched sketch based comedies that will last one series, and be reborn 1 year later as another weak comedy.

Needless to say, I didn't smile once through this first episode, and I can safely say I won't expect to be bellowing with laughter during any of the following episodes.