Harry Enfield

Harry Enfield fails to set fire to dated Hollywood show

Once in a Lifetime is a satire of a young Hollywood, but it's also a love-letter to the forgotten men of Broadway who penned Hollywood's early classics. Like most love letters, this one would have been better left unsent.

Once in a Lifetime review

Harry Enfield plays a studio mogul in a curiously underpowered performance.

Laughably bad... Harry Enfield in Once In A Lifetime

What a jolly surprise. The Young Vic, where they so often beat you over the head with Arthur Millerish gloom, has revived a dotty 1930s comedy satirising early Hollywood. It stars Harry Enfield - who is actually almost laughably bad - as a pugnacious movie mogul.

Once in a Lifetime review

Playing a studio mogul at the dawn of the talkies, Harry Enfield makes an assured theatre debut but this production puts visual bravura before verbal precision.

Once in a Lifetime review

Harry Enfield makes the grade in his stage debut.

Harry Enfield resists the urge to screech "Only me!" as he joins the high-concept sketch show built around a different special guest each week. With such a veteran on board, Walliams mostly cedes the spotlight as the pair romp through some scattershot spoofs, including a skewering of MasterChef that entertainingly reimagines Gregg Wallace as a petulant, fussy eater. The talented Morgana Robinson, meanwhile, does some brilliant work in the margins.

I was lukewarm about this sketch show last week, but there's a definite improvement tonight as Walliams's "friend" and comedy partner this evening is Harry Enfield. In a silver wig and a nice pink dress, Harry Enfield plays the Queen who's amazed to learn she's descended from Queen Victoria in Who Does One Think One Is? "Who'd have thought it? Little old one related to royalty?" Walliams awkwardly explains who Victoria was and the Queen enquires, "Was she named after the pub in EastEnders?" No? "Ah. One sees...."

The pair also do a great sketch mocking Torode and Wallace from Masterchef. It makes for a vastly superior show, but maybe also a tiny bit of embarrassment for Walliams as he's totally outclassed by Enfield. If only we could have Harry back every week. However, I've peeked ahead to the third episode and it has someone equally as talented.

Preview - Walliams and Friend

The David Walliams comedy vehicle continues apace this week dragging Harry Enfield along for the ride.

Walliams & Friend review

Walliams & Friend was a reminder of how good Harry Enfield's Nineties sketch shows were.

Preview: Walliams & Friend with Harry Enfield, BBC1

After last week's edition in which David Walliams teamed up with youngish turk Jack Whitehall this week he teams up with oldish master Harry Enfield. And not surprisingly, given Enfield's sketch comedy pedigree the result is very good indeed and at some points positively brilliant.