I'm glad that some comedies are moving away from catchphrase-based sketches - a genre brilliantly sent up in Student Grant in Viz!, where every term there's a different T-shirt and a different set of catchphrases to demonstrate how "in" you are. However, I'm not overly impressed by Help either. It seems to be a ripoff of the animated series Dr Katz, but letting that go I think its problem is deeper. I think that when you see a sitcom in a seemingly real place, sounding and looking unlike a studio, you tend to demand verisimilitude. The kind of silly gags I saw in the first episode stand out like a sore thumb. This is why The Office was rightly lauded; it looked and sounded right, and could well have been a documentary if you hadn't known better. Also any "characters" who aren't rounded seem like stereotypes. (Thus the mediterranean man who wanted to beat his daughter up feels to me a racist portrayal. Did Whitehouse learn nothing from standing next to Harry Enfield when he did Stavros?) In Help, the character of the Jewish cab driver is inspired and touching, but it makes the rest of it look pedestrian and a little old fashioned.
Chris Langham is I think one of the best non-household name comic actors we have. Paul Whitehouse is gifted too, but he's caught in a sort of 1950s gag warp, as though Hancock and The Likely Lads hadn't existed. I wish people like him would not write the stuff themselves, and work with some talented new writers, but I don't think Whitehouse has the confidence. I also think the BBC should produce more modern guidelines about sitcom along the lines of: no jokes; comedy arising from characters reacting to situation; funny lines exposing character traits; no funny faces; no reliance on ethnicity unless the ethnic minority character gets the upper hand; etc.
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