John Robinson

  • Actor

Press clippings Page 6

Nina Conti - lately of Family Tree and the only reason you will ever need to use the words "amusing ventriloquist" - comperes this final episode of the standup comedy series. Conti specialises in a kind of elaborate, mechanical audience participation, and here she introduces acts of a similarly high polish. Jimeoin (latecomers: you say "Jim Owen") will reprise his gentle and not enormously surprising range of observational material, while Rob Beckett offers an amiable take on class.

John Robinson, The Guardian, 15th January 2014

The production values of this Gregor Fisher-starring comedy remain trapped in the 1980s, but its concerns are bang up to date with the Big Society. Rab's spare room is under investigation. Mary is rooting through bins for food, and there's no money to send Peaches on the school trip. Rab's solution? Take up arms against capitalism, with only Andra and the repulsive Jamesie to help him. Living in the woods, though, is tough for these Scottish Robin Hoods. "It'll be July soon," says Jamesie. "We'll freeze."

John Robinson, The Guardian, 2nd January 2014

Eddie Izzard is your host tonight as the mainstream comedy slot returns. After his stints in Hollywood dramas, it's genuinely strange to see Izzard doing his uniquely bewildering surrealism again, even if you suspect that it might be a bit much for the Michael McIntyre crowd. More easily assimilated stuff is at hand with the reliably baleful Josh Widdicombe and show-closer Trevor Noah. Noah's bits on growing up in apartheid-era South Africa and on learning German from Hitler speeches are, as Izzard suggests, "annoyingly good".

John Robinson, The Guardian, 22nd November 2013

In this amusing second of a three-part comedy-drama, British ambassador Keith Davis (David Mitchell) and his No 2, Neil Tilly (Robert Webb) face the prospect of a "diplomatic" visit from a member of the royal family (Tom Hollander). What follows is very funny, but as much as it is a modern political situation (it's set in "Tazbekistan", a former Soviet republic) with some amusing satirical points (bribes for contracts, royal faux pas), this is basically Mark and Jez in suits, performing some effective but ultimately traditional comedy.

John Robinson, The Guardian, 30th October 2013

So long has QI been going (a decade; we're now up to "K" in the alphabet) that some of the arcane facts presented in earlier seasons of the show (there's no way of knowing how old a lobster is) have since been disproved. That uncertainty forms the agreeable theme of tonight's show ("knowledge"). Here, the guests (Graham Linehan and Jo Brand) not only arrive circuitously at their answers, they also question their legitimacy. Incidentally, should you ever need to age a lobster, you cut off its eye stalks and count the rings.

John Robinson, The Guardian, 18th October 2013

Possibly thanks to its big-name cast - including David Walliams, Catherine Tate, Philip Glenister - Big School continues to have the feeling of a show that is a long way from being as funny as it should be. In fact, there's a rather unattractively retro, 1970s feel to tonight's episode, in which staff are instructed to behave sensitively towards a pupil called Josh: after an African holiday, his mum has run off with a Masai tribesman. Frances de la Tour as the headmistress remains the only bright spark in a class of underachievers.

John Robinson, The Guardian, 6th September 2013

You've heard of the Grey Pound. Pat And Cabbage is what you might call a symptom of the Grey Remote: TV geared to older people, ie the ones who actually watch TV on a television set, not a handheld device. Inevitably, this seems amiable stuff, the vaguely interesting premise a cut above the likes of My Family. Pat (Barbara Flynn) and Cabbage (Cherie Lunghi) are cast as sixtysomething divorcees - in a time when 60 is considered youngish. What will their dependents make of their new alliance, and their new start?

John Robinson, The Guardian, 5th September 2013

A bid to present real people as characters in a structured-reality-cum-sketch-show format. There is no affection for the eccentric subjects, just a cold lens trained on them as they are encouraged to say whatever comes into their heads. A lot of them are foreign, so we're supposed to reap bonus laughs from their loose grasp of English, are we? Not dissimilar to what Eurotrash was doing 20 years ago or what Tim and Eric did more recently. But one hundred million times worse. Dreadful, tooth-pulling, gag-free gloom.

John Robinson, The Guardian, 14th August 2013

A strong premise for this sitcom by Steve Delaney and Graham Linehan: Michael Baker, an author of rather dry books is commissioned to write a biography of his dead father, a famous comedian of the 1970s. Research duly leads Michael to his father's double act partner, Arthur Strong. Rory Kinnear is great as Michael Baker, but Arthur himself (Delaney) seems to be not so much a character as some cliches about elderly people, wearing a hat. What follows is mainly a procession of Last Of The Summer Wine-style "funny business".

John Robinson, The Guardian, 8th July 2013

Beginning another series of amiable panel-game mendacity. Should you not have caught any of the previous six series, this is a show in which Rob Brydon presides over two teams as they attempt to wrongfoot each other with claims made by their members. An "if it ain't broke" format, even down to the guests: David Mitchell and Lee Mack captain the teams, with return appearances this week from comedians Dara O'Briain and Rhod Gilbert, and newcomer celebs Denise van Outen and Vernon Kay.

John Robinson, The Guardian, 3rd May 2013

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