The Sketch Show

A great british comedy full of short quick-witted sketches. One great joke after another. Sometimes it has its downs where a sketch drags on and wasn't funny. But most of the time it is hilarious.

I recommend watching this for a good comedy rather than the boring Australian sketch shows that only has ONE or TWO ..soso jokes such as Skithouse, comedy inc and big bite. Those are the worst sketch shows that drag a sketch on and on. They don't know when to end the joke. Most the time when the "punch line" comes in they still continue on with the sketch draining it out of its joke.

A good sketch will have the "punch line" and quickly on to the next like this series.

I guess DEANNE must be a woman because most girls don't have a sense of humor and to compare good british comedy with full frontal and fast forward, she must be an idiot. Fast Foward was a good sketch show, Full frontal was an alright sketch show - and thats the ONLY good sketch shows that eventually came from Australia.

But british sketch shows kills over australian sketch shows any day. Watch this series, its pretty funny and people should judge shows by ONLY watching it once. Some days its really funny, sometimes it will probably be dead. I watched skithouse, comedy inc and big bite about 3-5 times....what a waste of time and tv space that was.

First of all I think it was a shame that only two series of this show were made. The sketches were fresh and original and not boring and predictable like most comedy shows are. Maybe the people that don't like it should watch more than 10 minutes of it before posting their reviews as Im afraid to say not every sketch can be hilarious.

I loved it! 10/10.

but thats not coz i think its not good, it's coz i think it's too good! I have nearly died laughing at every episode! Whenever my mum and dad come upstairs while i'm watchin it in my bedroom, they think i'm a bit mad coz they can always hear me going crazy laughing at it! I once made the mistake of eating a packet of crisps while watchin it! I was laughing so much i nearly choked on them! Some sketches aren't as funny as others but they are all very funny and very clever! When the show starts the first five minutes might not be as funny, they seem to save the best sketches til the end in most episodes! But give it a chance! Don't just switch off after five minutes! You don't know what British comedy is all about until you've seen this! The new series is due to start on ITV1 very soon(should be sometime in february i think!) so my advice to you is watch it! If you don't like this, you don't like comedy!

Re: Transparency of jokes.

The Sketch Show is the sort of comedy that is hilarious without trying to be too clever. That's what I like about it - its simplicity. The humour comes from the way its acted and delivered - without needing to resort to excessive crudeness or political impersonations which you find in a lot of comedy shows these days. It's light entertainment that is a good filler for half an hour every Monday night.

I don't know what it is about the Sketch Show that appeals to me. IT has all the elements that I usually hate and will usually turn me off a show forever; a lot of the sketches are either really bad puns or are highly predictable, and the cast, all made from British stand-up comedians of varying fame, are all incredibly smug and very sure of themselves without really being brilliant at acting. But having said all this, it works, and really well.

The show is hilarious at best and grimace-forming at worst but it still always makes you smile. Perhaps it's because it doesn't always try to be funny, and when it isn't being funny, it knows it, and so do the cast. I first saw Jim Tavare doing a piece at the Montreal comedy festival some 15 years ago with his double bass, and the humour is very much the same. I love it.

Lee Mack is especially good, he has some very good routines that he accomplishes with a smarmy and very unlikeable air but the fact is he is more often than not playing very smarmy and unlikeable characters and in the process is poking fun at them.

And with all those comments also said, occasionally they will come up with an absolute pearler of a sketch that stands out in the history of sketch comedy. The one in the men's toilets, for example, or the sign language sketch- neither of them particularly clever or witty but both just make you fall about laughing. I thoroughly recommend this, particularly to my fellow countrymen who are bored as I am with the tired and hopelessly predictable comedy of Skithouse and Comedy Inc. 4 stars out of 5.