Imagine, if you will, Anne Robinson on Watchdog or Eamon Holmes on GMTV ripping their respective skirts and trousers off as they wish us well at the closing of the show, or doing straightfaced interviews about a child, accidentally sucked up into a vacuum cleaner. If you can imagine this, you should be seeing something along the lines of Watch Yourself There Now, a parody of consumer affairs and news shows.
Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Unfortunately Watch Yourself There Now misses a spectrum of golden comic opportunities. This is a terrible shame, because the ideas for the skits are all well and good and conceptually it sounds like a great show. It’s just not that funny, sort of like The 11 O’clock Show.
On the plus side a lot of effort has evidently been put into this show. Professional looking video footage is intermingled with the stage action under the guise of live news feeds and the various “special guests”, who are interviewed on the inflatable sofa, help to carry the show along. Both presenters are suitably tongue in cheek and gormless in equal amounts. The male host is standout here as you can believe that he actually does belong on some ridiculously dire consumer affairs show.
Ultimately, the gags are just too far off the mark, which is a shame because you leave feeling that you really wanted to like it but it just isn’t that funny.
2/5
Steven Carey
