I caught the last episode of Moving Wallpaper last night, having missed the middle three episodes. It was quite enjoyable, too. Ben Miller's the main reason to watch as egomaniac producer Jonathan Pope (even if he plays it all much, much broader than everyone else), but that's a small complaint.

It's just a shame ITV didn't have the confidence to follow Moving Wallpaper's finale with a full-length, televised pilot with decent production values.

Dan Owen, Dan's Media Digest, 3rd April 2009

It's wrap party time at last for the pilot of zombie thriller Renaissance and, as ever, discontent and bitchiness continue to bubble under the surface. Punch-ups, misunderstandings and a visit from the police punctuate this last episode of the savagely funny parody of the TV business.

Metro, 3rd April 2009

We seem to be making rather a habit of recommending shows that are about to get canned - for that surely will be the fate of this ambitious satire that is pulling less than 2 million viewers in prime scheduling real estate. It's a shame: it's no 30 Rock, but because we're London media twots, we always like the concept of a behind-the-scenes TV show. Then again, the trials of making a terrible series about zombies is... less good. But, hey, Jim from Neighbours pops up, and Ben Miller is great value as the despicable TV producer. Kelly Brook, though, seems to struggle to play herself in real-life, let alone a version of herself, and is amusingly bad. Thanks for popping in, Moving Wallpaper.

TVbite, 3rd April 2009

Ofcom investigates Moving Wallpaper 'transphobia' row

Ofcom is investigating more than 50 complaints alleging that ITV1 comedy Moving Wallpaper was offensive to transsexuals.

Written by Robin Parker. Broadcast, 1st April 2009

Moving Wallpaper takes zombie show to itv.com

ITV1 comedy Moving Wallpaper will "take over" the itv.com homepage at the climax of the series, with 12 minutes of the show-within-a-show, Renaissance, debuting online.

Written by Robin Parker. Broadcast, 25th March 2009

Ben Miller stars as put-upon producer Jonathan Pope in this satirical sitcom. Well, we don't care much for the portrayal of the writers on Jonathan Pope's new project, zombie thriller Renaissance, because they're little more than quivering bags of ego and paranoia. So much so, that when a new writer on higher pay joins the team, they down tools like French truckers on a Friday. You wouldn't catch us... What's that, our Hob Nob budget's been slashed again? Everybody out!

What's On TV, 20th March 2009

I was thoroughly disappointed to see the ratings for last week's opening episode in this new series of the highly watchable sitcom. A rating of 2.12 million doesn't bode well for tonight's ratings or a third series. Shame really, as it's great fun and always worth it for Ben Miller as TV producer Jonathan Pope.

Mark Wright, The Stage, 6th March 2009

Friday-night comedies are on a winning streak at the moment, thanks in large part to a move away from those dire gag-driven sitcoms with their deafening laughter tracks that are so beloved at the BBC. Tonight's episode of Moving Wallpaper is as funny as ever, with the producer (Ben Miller) trying to convince American moneymen to co-fund ITV's first-ever zombie series.

David Chater, The Times, 6th March 2009

While definitely entertaining, this comedy just seems to lack the kick, insight and inventiveness that similar shows (like 30 Rock) achieve much easier. I'm also not sure a traditional ITV audience will get the joke (or be that interested in zombies), while the audience tuning in for Kelly Brook and horror-tinged comedy will probably find Moving Wallpaper rather toothless. Still, for an ITV comedy, this is already their best attempt in years.

Dan Owen, newslite, 1st March 2009

Like 30 Rock and the much-missed Studio 60..., Moving Wallpaper is a hard sell to a mass audience, despite the fact that it's sharp, funny and very watchable. It's just sharp and funny about the business of making TV, which non-media smug types find about as entertaining as Parents Of The Band. Shame - but this retooled second series stands a better chance of succeeding, freed as it is from the albatross of Echo Beach. This time, outrageous TV producer Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller) is tasked with siring a pilot for a zombie series - starring Kelly Brook and Alan Dale. Brilliant! Highly recommended.

Mark Wright, The Stage, 27th February 2009

So Echo Beach is no more. But it's better, cleverer, funnier half returns with producer Jonathan Pope explaining to his team of writers exactly why it was cancelled. "It was s*** and nobody watched it."

I couldn't have put it better myself - and a big part of what makes this series so good is its callous, unrose-tinted view of TV from the inside looking out.

By a series of events too ludicrous to explain, series two sees Jonathan put at the helm of a brand new drama pilot about zombies.

His writers reckon this is a terrible idea. They point out that ITV has never made a zombie drama before - even though the success of films like Shaun Of The Dead and 28 Days Later suggest the network should really think about producing more zombie shows - not less.

In any event, as the old Echo Beach signage is quickly painted over and replaced by the new logo for Renaissance, competing writers Tom and Carl look set to live through their lead characters by naming them Tim and Kyle.

But Moving Wallpaper is still absolutely the Jonathan Pope show. Thanks to writer Tony Jordan giving him all the best lines and Ben Miller's brilliantly spiky performance, Pope is one of those appalling, self-serving characters who absolutely deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as David Brent and Basil Fawlty.

His trump card tonight sees him signing up his first cast member - Kelly Brook. And to think people laughed at Jason Donovan.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 27th February 2009

Last time around, you may recall, this came as part of a Friday night double-header: Moving Wallpaper, a show about the making of a show, followed by Echo Beach, the show that the show about the making of a show was about. If you, er, get my drift.

Anyway, my point is it's not a double-wotsit anymore, because while Moving Wallpaper, a comedy-drama starring Ben Miller as egocentric producer Jonathan Pope, was top entertainment, the soapy Echo Beach was just plain daft. And while that was the point of the gag, it hardly merited 30 minutes airtime of its own.

Anyway, we return to find Pope desperately trying to cling on to his job by producing a pilot for a zombie drama called Renaissance - for which he's casting Kelly Brook as his leading lady.

The Daily Express, 27th February 2009

ITV did some strange things last year, but surely none stranger than broadcasting a tacky soap opera called Echo Beach, immediately preceeded each week by a sitcom, Moving Wallpaper, about a gaggle of television producers making a tacky soap opera called Echo Beach. This year, Moving Wallpaper is back; Echo Beach is not. As Moving Wallpaper's lead character Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller) puts it, "We've been cancelled. Echo Beach is no more. The network executive said it was ---- and no one watched it." Which is, it's fair to say, what happened in reality too. Woo, post-modern. Anyway, the task for Pope and his production team now is to dream up a new programme to make; Pope begins the process by bullying a scriptwriter, unwittingly causes his death, then steals his idea. As a satire about television's dearth of originality and integrity, Moving Wallpaper would work better if it weren't itself an inferior version of somebody else's good idea: it's essentially a market-stall knock-off of I'm Alan Partridge.

Michael Deacon, The Telegraph, 27th February 2009

Last year's Moving Wallpaper, was - I thought - a very sharply written and cleverly characterised comedy about a TV company making a crummy soap opera, Echo Beach. Unfortunately the Echo Beach bits were genuinely dreadful, uneasily strung between self-parody and unabashed tackiness.

Now Echo Beach has been ditched, which is fine because Moving Wallpaper is more than capable of standing on its own. As well as having a wonderful deadpan performance by Ben Miller as a vile yet strangely sympathetic director, the first half of last Friday's opener was one of the best constructed pieces of comedy writing I have seen in years - each set-up dovetailing into another with great verve and ingenuity.

And the second half, you may, not unreasonably, wonder? That was pretty damn good too.

John Preston, The Telegraph, 27th February 2009

At some point last year, ITV started making some good decisions. Classy dramas got made and a load of rubbish got dropped. Someone noticed that this Ben Miller sitcom about the making of a soap was funny, but the novelty idea of having an actual soap (Echo Beach) as a companion piece was rubbish. So Echo Beach got dumped and MW remains. Happily so, as the second series kicks off in excellent form. Egomaniac Jonathan Pope is about to be kicked out of ITV drama following the flop of Echo Beach but finds a clause in his contract: he is allowed to make a pilot before they can fire him. There's good in-jokes, character comedy, well handled farce and a decent support cast (Kelly Brook excluded). James Lance, by the way, is ever brilliant.

TV Bite, 27th February 2009

The addictive postmodern parody of the TV producer's world returns tonight, with Echo Beach having been ditched ("it was s*** and no one watched it" declares the knowing script) and with a sense of desperation pervading the office of the callous Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller). After some sublime verbal tennis between the Pope and the icy Head of ITV Drama (Raquel Cassidy), and one ridiculous twist of fate, the gang start work on a new proposition - a bizarre zombie drama called Renaissance. Based on this sizzling start, it looks like Moving Wallpaper will do a fine job flying solo.

Sharon Lougher, Metro, 27th February 2009

Ben Miller is joined by Kelly Brook and Alan Dale as the comedy set in a TV production company returns.

Last time we saw smarmy TV exec Jonathan Pope, he was waiting to hear if ITV was going to give dreary Cornish soap Echo Beach a second series. Unsurprisingly, the answer was a resounding no - but that's not the end for Pope's put-upon team as they've been asked to helm a zombie-horror series starring Jim Robinson and Kelly Brook. Top-notch satire.

What's On TV, 27th February 2009

Kelly Brook may have been axed as a Britain's Got Talent judge but she's the star turn in this comedy about goings-on behind the scenes of a soap.

Actually, the soap, Echo Beach, has been axed and Jonathan Pope, played brilliantly by Ben Miller, has to come up with another idea or will lose his job.

His long-suffering boss is still watching over him sarcastically but, by chance, he stumbles upon Kelly Brook. Can he get her to star in his new venture?

Anila Baig, The Sun, 27th February 2009

Back for a new series, Moving Wallpaper is joyously and uproariously funny. Its companion piece, the soap opera Echo Beach, has been axed because the fictional head of ITV drama (played by Raquel Cassidy) said: "It was shit and no one watched it." Faced with the prospect of unemployment, the unhinged producer (Ben Miller) turns to the writer for inspiration.

Having lectured him on the realities of the marketplace ("It's the Simon Cowell era! You either hitch up those trousers and get on board or you ship on out!") he proceeds to kill him, stuff him in the lavatory and steal his idea. At ITV, this creative process is known as banging heads against a wall, blue-sky thinking, running things up flagpoles and shaking dramatic trees. And the idea for the pilot, which will star Kelly Brook, is about zombies. Rarely are viewers given such a privileged insight into the workings of television.

David Chater, The Times, 27th February 2009

TV can be a cruel business. Just look at the fate of dismal soap Echo Beach after its disastrous forced marriage to the sitcom Moving Wallpaper. The latter was quite good, the former was awful and thus the two divorced, with Echo Beach cut adrift for good. And so Moving Wallpaper returns, all on its ownsome, to resume its comic behind-the-scenes tales of fictional television folk. With the death of Echo Beach, brutally and quite truthfully dismissed because it was "s**t and nobody watched it", according to venal producer Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller), the neurotic production team anxiously awaits news of its future. The first series of Moving Wallpaper was too TV-insidery for a broad audience, and the second will probably look just as smug, or impenetrable because it's full of in-jokes. It has its moments, though, even if it too often descends into farce.

Alison Graham, The Radio Times, 27th February 2009

When they started, ITV1's Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach were universally hailed as a "brave" commission - which of course can cut both ways. (In Yes Minister, you may remember, Jim Hacker was always terrified when Sir Humphrey called any of his ideas brave.) Now, though, it also looks like a distinctly inspired one.

Moving Wallpaper is not the controversial bit. A clearly impressive sitcom set behind the scenes of a TV soap, it bristles with sharp dialogue, fine performances and wholly believable satire. Echo Beach, the soap in question, then follows immediately and is played absolutely straight. Yet, because of Moving Wallpaper, we're aware of all the compromises and cock-ups that lie behind it - from ITV's insistence on a token Asian to the scenes put in to placate the stars' egos.

The critical consensus appears to be that this leaves Echo Beach badly undermined - with the only issue being whether the undermining is deliberate or not. For my money, however, there are two other possibilities. The first is that the model here is Popstars: The Rivals, where we saw how cynically a band can be put together, but still weren't meant to be put off the band itself. The second, meanwhile, is far more intriguing - not least because it might well be true: we're not supposed to know what to think at all. And, in television terms (especially for prime time ITV1), that really is brave.

James Walton, The Telegraph, 9th December 2008

Series 2 preview interview with Tony Jordan

Moving Wallpaper creator Tony Jordan talks to Digital Spy about the second series of the show.

Written by Neil Wilkes. Digital Spy, 8th December 2008

Interview with ITV Drama Controller

Laura Mackie on Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach: "Would I commission that again? Yes I would. Because it was Tony Jordan, it was Kudos, it was an absolute passion project for Tony. Of course we had conversations about television about television, and we knew the two shows were pointing in slightly different directions - and I think clearly Echo Beach didn't deliver in the way we hoped. But what we felt standing back from it was that elements of Echo Beach, when woven into Moving Wallpaper, actually worked very well."

Written by Gareth McLean. The Guardian, 17th November 2008

One out of two ain't a bad deal after all

While Moving Wallpaper stands by itself as a show, the problem with Echo Beach, as one British critic put it, is that it's just not bad enough.

Written by Georgina Windsor. The Australian, 24th May 2008

I have no idea what "moving wallpaper" means. But I take it to be a slightly dismissive TV term since Moving Wallpaper is the title of a new comedy which takes a cynical look at programme-making.

Extras did this sort of thing well (at least in the first series); Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip did it brilliantly. But Moving Wallpaper is ITV1, which is far from being a safe house for irony or post-modernism.

Producer Jonathan Pope makes a lot of jokes. His performance was more like a stand-up routine. But I suppose you can get away with that sort of thing on a show-about-a-show, which doesn't have to grip us in the traditional are-Amy's-bunions-still-bothering-her? sense. And, yes, some of the jokes were good. I especially liked the one about a viewer survey which revealed that "the ITV1 audience has a slightly higher IQ than average". (What, you mean that wasn't a joke?)

Moving Wallpaper's big gimmick is that it's actually a show-about-a-show-about-a-show, and that straight after the ad break we get to see the jaded soap, Echo Beach, which Pope and his team have re-branded and injected with "actors who make women leave their husbands". No pressure, then, Jason Donovan.

Aidan Smith, The Scotsman, 13th January 2008