User Reviews

Wow, I must say I'm amazed at the negative reaction. I loved Harry Enfield and Chums and eagerly awaited this series, and was not disappointed at all. I've watched the whole series at least 5 times in the last week since I bought the DVD.

The sketches are generally based on observations of things in real life and are things I particularly find amusing, and I think Harry and Paul have dealt with them exceptionally well. Other sketches seems to be just a bit bonkers which is also quite fun I guess. Particular favourites of mine were 'I saw you coming', the builders, and the surgeons Sheridan and Sir Charles Curtis. Indeed some sketches were miss, for example the Jamie and Oliver one and the ones about Pete Doherty being arrested. Some I found to be slow burners but immensely funny when I got into them, for example the Nelson Mandela one and the 'Leccy Spongers'.

So, don't let the above comments put you of watching it by any means, there are some people that really love the series! As for comments about the humour being too 'obvious'- firstly I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, and also the previous 'Harry Enfield and Chums' has plenty of so-called 'obvious' humour and that seems to be well-loved. I would genuinely say that this is just as funny as 'Chums', and it's more of the same (ie, predominantly 'class-based' humour: 'The slobs' and 'Tim nice but dim' and others from 'Chums' and 'I saw you coming', 'The builders', 'Clive the Geordie' etc from 'Ruddy Hell').

You know how it is when you meet an old girlfriend in the street, and wonder what it was you saw in her in the first place? I felt that way after watching the first few episodes of this new series.

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have been brilliant together in so many shows, yet here they could barely raise a chuckle. As one sketch after another went down like a lead balloon, I became embarrassed for them. 'Revolver' was better, and that was dreadful. Why ridicule a decent man like Nelson Mandela? Where was the humour in the Polish coffee shop sketches? And the obese schoolboys were considerably less funny than the 'Billy Bunter' comic strips I used to read as a boy. Whoever came up with the idea for the 'Laurel & Hardy' spoof on 'Brokeback Mountain' deserves to be horsewhipped.

Enfield and Whitehouse should have made an effort to keep on board Ian Hislop, Nick Newman, and Charlie Higson, who wrote for them so successfully in the past. Their replacements are utterly hopeless. The absence of Kathy Burke is noticeable too.

Part of the problem for Enfield is that his earlier work is repeated endlessly on Sky, which means in effect he is in competition with himself. I do not see the point of watching an off-form Harry when a click of a button on my remote can conjure up the man at his peak.

The show may well improve ( I hope it does ), but the signs so far are it will shred what's left of Harry and Paul's reputations. Perhaps they should team up with Ben Elton ( another '80's comedy icon currently making a chump of himself in an effort to win a new audience ) and do a show called 'The Three Ninnies'!

It had been a long time since we had seen Harry Enfield on TV, and work with friend and regular partner Paul Whitehouse, and this new sketch show wasn't a bad return. Enfield's characters included Nelson Mandela, the Notting Hill antiques shop salesman serving to the gullible customer, the normal man buying cappuccino from Polish café servers, Guy Richie (with Madonna), and Pam and Ronald the eccentric American tourists, who like to show people their photo album. Whitehouse's characters included self-obsessed football manager José Arrogantio, Chelsea FC chairman Roman Abramovich (who thinks he can buy anything and everything, and usually does) and The Chocolatier. Together they do Bono and The Edge, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the posh Scaffolders (who at the sight of young women turn into stereotypical vulgar/sexist builders), Jamie and Oliver the obese kids who eat large quantities of food, The Consultant surgeons Charles and Sheridan and The Clean Chavs. Also starring Morwenna Banks and Catherine Shepherd as supporting female characters. Worth watching!