Horne and Corden - a disappointing sketch show (Horne and Corden Show)

Member Name: jesperado

Product:	Horne and Corden Show
Date:	24/04/09 (124 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Jonny Lee Miller sketch is funny

Disadvantages: The rest aren't

I really enjoyed Gavin and Stacey and loved the tender and pretty truthful relationship Horne and Corden built up as the show progressed. And so when I heard that Mat Horne and James Corden were going to write and perform a sketch show together I didn't hold out hope for great things. Now that may seem like quite a strange statement coming from someone who had enjoyed them working together on a previous show But trust me it does make some sense. The strength of Gavin and Stacey was that it had many slightly odd but relatively believable characters and it was the interaction between members of the ensemble cast that made it good. The jokes themselves weren't particularly strong and there was no single character or pair of characters that would work in another setting.

Unfortunately, my predictions of Horne and Corden's over-ambition proved to be correct. The characters are weak and have been done to death. Corden seems way out of his depth and falls back on 'Hey, look, I'm fat!' where there should be real humour. In contrast, Mat Horne is labouring under outdated and clunky material that is far too one-note for an actor of his talent. Just look at his contribution to the 'Lauren' sketches of the Catherine Tate Show to see an example of his excellent comic timing and character work. In this show he is reduced to fairly moronic characters such as the 'camp journalist' and try as he might there is just not enough humour there to sustain the sketch more than once. The only segment which has persistently raised a chuckle from me is the 'Jonny Lee Miller' magic act which consists of the two of them perform a lame magic tragic involving some homoerotic interpretive dance, their sheer enjoyment of this ludricrousness makes it funny to watch but that's about the only good thing I could find in this series.

I think the problem with it is that their style is too matey; it's more like watching some guys in your university drama group put on an end of term comedy show than watching professional comedy actor/writers. There is no tension between them like there is between Mitchell and Webb, none of Fry and Laurie's witty surrealism and no discernable straight man as with Morecambe and Wise. Perhaps if they had better material to go on this would be better but it may turn out that this double act just wasn't meant to be.

Summary: I wouldn't recommend this