Shane

Now before i get started don't think i am biased towards Frank Skinner because he is from the same city as me.

I thought Shane wasn't a bad sitcom not brilliant and it wont be remembered as a classic but I thought it was a damn good attempt. Frank himself is not the greatest of actors but he tries his best and his great supporting cast covers up his lack of acting experience. The script was pretty good and and at times is very clever and witty. All in all i would rate it a 6.5/10 I would have gave it a seven but because the sitcom was on ITV (and we all know ITV's drab history of sitcoms eg 'Sam's Game 'Babes in the Wood') It spoils it just a little.

I don't usually have the strength to complain about ITV1's output. I figure it is a commercial station with a large, loyal mainstream audience and that mine would be a solitary dissenting voice among the legions of Coronation Street and Robson Green aficionados. As long as my license fee does not contribute to the pap it habitually produces, I am happy to simply steer well clear. However, occasionally a programme enters my radar that is so bad, I feel obliged to speak out. Shane is one such programme. I consider myself an apathetic slob when it comes to spleen-venting – usually a shake of the head and some mild tutting is all I can muster when something gets my goat. If I'm really cross, I might be moved to change the channel. But if the BBC had the audacity to commission drivel like this, I would have half a mind to right a stiff letter to the Director General demanding my money back.

Despite it not being my cup of tea, I have the utmost admiration for ITV viewers. Anybody with the mental fortitude to regularly sit through Heartbeat and Emmerdale and actually enjoy them deserves credit, but they are being made mugs of here. Funnily enough, I actually quite like Frank Skinner. With the right format and a warm audience he can be genuinely entertaining. Fantasy Football League made him a household name, but before that, he was a successful stand-up in his own right. Good for him, but, memo to ITV executives: That does not mean he can act or write sit-coms. Skinner should have had the sense to look at previous examples of stars who have signed exclusive 'Golden Handcuffs' deals with ITV (Des Lynam and Ross Kemp, for example) – it is professional suicide.

I can just imagine the embarrassing fawning and ego massaging that must go on at ideas meetings: 'Wow, Frank – a sit-com? Great idea – we'll give you carte blanche. A taxi driver, you say? Brilliant! I know, you can even sing the theme song! This is going to be amazing!'

Actually, it isn't amazing. It is quite, quite awful. Skinner's forte has always been his risqué gags but here he is hampered by ITV's cosy family reputation so most of those are out of the question. Instead the smut is masked by hackneyed Carry On style innuendo. Unfortunately, as turns it turns out, the risqué gags are about all Frank has in his locker and in any sit-com, if the comedy is lacking then the situation had better be pretty damn impressive. Here, it is about as criminally unoriginal as it is possible to be: A rude, neglectful husband; a good-hearted wife (quirkily attractive, but still suitably mousy and put-upon); A rebellious teenage daughter; A younger smart-alec son; A local pub with buxom bar-maid. I won't go on – you get the picture. In the one episode I watched, the only discernible purpose of the other characters was to act as stooges, spoon-feeding Skinner his punch-lines. Any merit the jokes may have had to begin with is mercilessly siphoned off by the clunking, contrived set up:

Baz (to barmaid): I'll have a Coke, please.

Shane (to barmaid): I'll have a pint of Cider

Baz: 'Ere Shane, your daughter's over there with her new fella

Barmaid: Ice and lemon?

Shane: In Cider??

Baz: No, I think they're just talking

'There must be something better than this,' Skinner laments in his whining, Elvis-Costello-wannabe, West Midlands drawl during the title sequence. My advice to viewers is to take his word for it and switch to Channel 5.

You can replace the questions marks in "2004 to ????" with 2004! This one is a total turkey.

A series of lame double-entendres (and the odd abysmal "dream sequence") from start to finish. The people on the canned laughter track are clearly imbeciles (or relatives of "Fun Time" Frankie.)

Here's an example of Skinner's dialogue:

Shane and his mate (played by David Schneider) are discussing a girl who has propositioned Shane:-

Shane: "I didn't say much at all"

Shane's mate: "Poker face"

Shane: "I might do"

Pitiful, just pitiful. If you laughed at this you're probably dead.

0 out of 10.

P.S. Why can't we give ratings to TV series anyway?!

This new Sitcom written by and starring Chris Collins (Frank Skinner), is a breath of fresh air from ITV (especially after that awful show "The impressionable Jon Culshaw"). It seems that a new series of "The Frank Skinner Show" will not emerge this year, but I found this as equally entertaining in it´s place. The first episode was aired last night, and I watched it today on video. I thought it was written well, and loved the way every gag fit into place. Congratulations Frank, on producing another fine 30 minutes of television (if only it were longer!!) P.S. I loved the six cents joke. Classic Skinner !!!!

For me there is always doubt over any sitcom, or perhaps any comedy in general broadcast on ITV. Their track record just doesn't match the BBC in recent years. However, watching 'Shane' I found myself laughing almost constantly.

Admittedly 'Shane' is almost totally a vehicle for Frank Skinner to deliver more of his one liners and occasionally dirty jokes and it relies upon these a lot more than the plot, which is never strong. However, the supporting cast (none of them are any more than that) do a really good job, with special mention going to Shane's son, who seems to have grasped the art of comedy at a frighteningly young age.

'Shane' isn't really a sitcom. It is just a different form of stand up comedy for Frank Skinner. Even without the basis of a good plot it works, purely because Skinner is a very funny bloke. I don't know how someone couldn't find 'Shane' even grudgingly funny.