Borderline. Clive Hassler (David Elms). Copyright: Little Rock
David Elms

David Elms

  • English
  • Actor, writer, composer and musical comedian

Press clippings Page 2

Sky Arts reveals 7 Valentine's comedies

Sky Arts has announced 7 romance-themed short comedies. Stars include Rosie Cavaliero, Nick Mohammed and Liam Williams.

British Comedy Guide, 20th January 2017

Live Review: Ricky Whittington & His Cat

The result is a clever up-to-the-minute adult version of a traditional theatrical form with lots of good knowing lines, good subversive humour and good catchy tunes.

Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 6th January 2017

Capital panto: Ricky Whittington surveys modern London

A crack cast of millennial comics deliver social satire amid the poo jokes and spoof songs in an alt-panto created by Liam Williams and Daran Johnson.

Brian Logan, The Guardian, 30th December 2016

Ricky Whittington & His Cat review

Ricky Whittington is a modern-day panto that's got everything, not least a sense of raucous fun with intelligent lines mixed with the nonsense, a social astuteness to underpin the big-and-daft comedy, and a tightly directed cast of talented people.

Steve Bennett, Chortle, 16th December 2016

Channel 5 orders Borderline Series 2

Channel 5 has ordered a second series of Borderline, its semi-improvised sitcom set in the security office of an airport.

British Comedy Guide, 25th August 2016

In its almost twenty years on air, Channel Five have produced very few sitcoms with the only ones I can remember being co-productions with other networks. Written and created by Chris Gau and Michael Orton-Toliver, Borderline is a mockumentary set around the border control of a fictional Northend Airport. Of all of the comedy formats I feel that the mockumentary must be one of the easiest to produce as the characters can spout of expositional dialogue without it feeling out of place. Borderline also does feel like the sort of show that you would see on Channel Five ordinarily with it smacking of the likes of Holiday Airport UK and UK Border Force. The characters that Gau and Orton-Toliver have created are also believable enough and resemble those sort of people you'd see on a low-rent documentary. So for example you have the pencil-pushing boss Proctor (Jackie Clune) who in the opening episode is keen on enforcing the latest mandate from the Home Office. There's also Clive (David Elms) who is perfectly suited to the job and Grant Brodie (Jamie Michie) who is known for detaining a lot of passengers purely based on their ethnicity. Just like any workplace comedy, Borderline has a couple of characters who don't want to be there with Tariq (David Avery) having aspirations to be a DJ and Andy (Liz Kingsman) wanting to be anywhere other than the airport. While I thought that the characterisation of the central five figures was strong, Borderline lacked anything in the way of amusing material that felt original. Anything that was done during Borderline had been done better elsewhere in the likes of The Office, W1A and the incredibly underrated People Like Us. In fact Borderline feels rather old-fashioned when you consider the fly-on-the-wall documentaries that the show spoofs aren't as prominent as they were at the turn of the century. Of the cast I enjoyed the performances given by Clune and Elms both of whom inhabited their characters well and tried their best with the weak material. Whilst I do applaud Channel Five for having a go at producing a sitcom I didn't find anything particularly memorable about Borderline. The most damning thing I can say about the show is that I didn't laugh once and that's not good for the first episode of a sitcom which is meant to make you want to stick around for the rest of the series.

Matt, The Custard TV, 8th August 2016

TV preview: Borderline

Much is made of how Borderline is part-improvised, though it's the result, not the process, that matters, and the subdued tone does mean it's relatively short on laugh-out-loud moments, though there are plenty of droll smiles. And while the characters are engaging, they don't have the strong personalities that would make Borderline an appointment-to-view, though that's always a hard call to make from just one episode before we know them properly.

Steve Bennett, Chortle, 2nd August 2016

TV review: Borderline, 5

There is very little that is original about Borderline, written by Chris Gau and Mike Orton-Toliver and partly improvised by the cast, but the good news is that there are some nice performances and decent slow-burn gags.

Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 2nd August 2016

Ten former Chortle Student Award competitors

It's the 13th year of the Chortle Student Comedy Award, with former entrants going on to be familiar faces on TV, the comedy circuit and at festivals.

Chortle, 26th July 2016

Fringe Q&As: David Elms

David Elms on why Edinburgh is the New York to London's LA.

The Herald, 29th August 2015

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