Dan Clark interview

""One time a guy in a wheelchair started shouting abuse and an entire crew of 30 people were too scared to do anything. That's how scary this guy was - a guy in a wheelchair..."

Filming Diary Part 4

Week four of filming How Not To Live Your Life was the musical episode. I don't want to give away too much information about this episode but Don joins the local theatre club that Eddie belongs to and they put on a musical.

Filming Diary Part 3

Scene complete. It's about 3 minutes of screen time. Only took 5 days to do!

Filming Diary Part 2

Firstly here's a treat for you, your chance to be the first to see some photos from the new series...

Filming Diary Part 1

I ended my first day on the set of How Not To Live Your Life Series 3 tied up in S&M gear, running around outside, barefoot, freezing my breasticles off.

Video Interview: Dan Clark

An interview with How Not To Live Your Life star Dan Clark.

Men don't emerge very well from How Not to Live Your Life either, though the specimens on show in BBC3's sitcom are too timid and childish to represent a threat to anybody but themselves. I have a faint memory that I gave a charitable review to Dan Clark's series on an earlier occasion, for which I can offer my apologies, because whatever virtues I detected in it then have entirely evaporated. The gimmick is an occasional break for an animated Letterman list gag - "Five Things You Shouldn't Do in the Theatre", for example - with the narrative action pausing as Clark acts out the alternatives. There are moments when the lips twitch fitfully during these sequences, but they're restored to default mode (frozen into a kind of appalled wince) by the startling charmlessness of the central character in all the other bits. Oddly, my technology continues to try and tell me things. The DVD player stalled at one point and flashed up a message: "There was an error reading from disc. It might be scratched or dirty". Dirty, I think, given that our hero had just extricated himself from an awkward relationship by pretending to be a gerontophile: "You don't need someone to wipe your bum after you've been to the toilet," he explained apologetically, "...and that's the kind of thing that gets me going." "Are you sure you want to quit?" the DVD software asked me as I finished watching and closed it down. There are days when it crosses my mind, I thought.

Meanwhile, How Not To Live Your Life is back for a second series. Dan Clark stars as 'pathetic character' Don. What I truly enjoyed about HNTLYL is Don's neurotic mix of colossal wanker and schoolboy charm. If you don't enjoy films such as The Hangover, Superbad or Knocked-Up, this is not for you. I love it. Don's ridiculous lists, dream sequences and narcissistic behaviour are hilarious, and despite being one of the world's biggest prats, he always gets the girl. Priceless.

I didn't see any of the first series of How Not To Live Your Life, but given that this is the second series, it doesn't have any of the confidence of Home Time. Watching it you can imagine the original pitch: it's The Young Ones meets Rising Damp, and Dan Clark's character is indeed a mixture of Rik and Neil from The Young Ones - sometimes good looking, often nerdy and constantly depressed. While there are good performances and some funny moments, it seems too unbelievable to be really funny - however low the rent, I can't imagine why a gorgeous single girl would move into this house.

Series two of writer/star Dan Clark's comedy project How Not To Live Your Life kicked off with half the cast from series one gone but the premise was the same. Last time, Don lusted after his housemate Abby, now he lusts after new housemate Samantha. And the 'gimmick' remains - at various points we're presented with several things Don shouldn't do in a situation, such as the opening scene of things not to do when eating alone in a restaurant. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but it's the only thing that separates this show from the glut of other dismal sitcoms around right now.

The only actual amusement in last night's series opener came when the characters were served by a Michael Jackson impersonator at a 1980s-themed restaurant. It was a case of spot the joins as the dialogue was hastily dubbed over with lines such as 'but you're dead!' - a bit slapdash but it provided a chuckle even if the script didn't.

The problems with this show are that it isn't funny and the lead character is immensely unlikeable. It's all very well having an anti-hero as the lead but repeating unfunny lines in that annoying 'ironic' Hoxton-t*** intonation so beloved of rubbish sitcoms doesn't make the material any funnier, just much more irritating.