Girl Friday Review

The final Comedy Showcase pilot ended the season on a real downer. The main problem with Girl Friday was that none of the sketches were actually very funny - with the "highlights" only raising a wry smile, at best.

Tonight's finale sees five solid actresses, including Josie Long from Skins, launch a sketch show in the same female-friendly vein as Smack the Pony. It's most successful when focusing on women's obsessions - two office girls torture another by forcing her to eat carbs, and female reporters grilling a kidnap victim are only interested in how much weight she lost. On balance, very promising.

Possibly the best offering from the current showcase so far, this all-female sketch show comes complete with a free game to play at home - "Where have I seen her before?"

Most of the six-strong cast will be familiar so you and your sofa buddies can annoy each other with questions such as, "Oh jeez, who is she again?" and, "Argh, wasn't she in that show with so-and-so?"

The show itself is, on the whole, silly, well-scripted fun. There's a genius method of starting a broken-down car, a brilliant way to get a free drink and a sketch set in a dog rescue centre with a difference (male viewers look away).

Spliced between these and other gems are two running strands, Memories of the Blitz, which is wonderful, and Looser Women, which should probably be ditched if the girls get the series commission they deserve.

The all-female ensemble sketch show is an easy and predictable target for sexist comedy-haters, but Girl Friday should provide the opposing camp with plenty of ammunition. There's a hint of Chris Morris's Jam in the way it twists the usual fodder for less sophisticated sketches, such as the crazy drunk girl in a pub, and gives them a surreal or clever denouement. Josie Long heads up the cast, and it all works so nicely that it deserves to get a full run.