Top 40 TV Shows of 2016: #22 The Windsors

Channel 4's extremely rude cartoonish soap opera about the royal family imagined them as irredeemably stupid, lazy, self-indulgent and so absurdly posh that they can't even pronounce the wordy "gypsy" correctly. But the lashings of Spitting Image-style tomfoolery lent it a certain innocence and allowed the creators to be extremely bold.

There were more laughs in The Windsors than there were in the frankly bizarre Flowers. The Windsors comes from team behind the long-forgotten Star Stories and imagines the royal family as the stars of a Dallas-style soap opera. Obviously some of the jokes are quite obvious such as everybody fawning over Pippa Middleton's arse and Fergie (Katy Wix) being a complete embarrassment to the entire royal family. However there were some gems among the myriad of gags most notably the Middletons gypsy heritage which Kate (Louise Ford) is still proud of to this day. The bizarre soapy elements of The Windsors also lend a sense of ridiculousness to the show which is keen to demonstrate the fact it doesn't take itself too seriously. The main thrust of the plot is that Charles and Camilla (Harry Enfield and Haydn Gwynne) are worried that the line of succession is going to skip a generation as Wills and Kate are much more popular than they are. Camilla's plot to take down Kate by getting her to dress as a pirate during a military amputee ball was an inspired gag as is the central plot thread of the Duchess of Cornwall attempting to have another child. Other highlights included Harry (Richard Goulding) not being able to differentiate between the many blondes he's been linked to and Wills' (Hugh Skinner) need to become a helicopter pilot again. But my favourite characters was the frankly clueless sisters Beatrice and Eugenie (Ellie White and Celeste Dring) who attempted to start an online make-up tips business to make some much needed cash. Although The Windsors didn't always hang together it did a good job at both creating larger-than-life versions of our royal family and at the same time staying true to its soap opera spoof style. The majority of the cast looked like they were having a good time and I was particularly fond of W1A's Hugh Skinner's performance as the affable William who tried to balance his duty with his love of flying. In fact the only person who slightly spoiled the show for me was Morgana Robinson who, despite being a fine impressionist, was a bit out of place here in her role as Pippa Middleton. While nobody should go into The Windsors expecting the next big comedy hit it's good to have a bit of satirical fun on the box once in a while. Additionally I feel that Channel Four have definitely made the right decision by putting it on on a Friday

In Crashing six disparate, oddball people are not squatting but "protecting" unoccupied premises, in this case a mothballed hospital. So far, so much the reflection of our loopy property values, and plenty were the nods to Fresh Meat and This Life, neither of which this is at all. Yet. Do give it time. There are great moments of comic timing - not least from Kate (Louise Ford) - and, actually, not a little to get excited about, and the second episode's even better.

In many ways Crashing is like a traditional house share sitcom with plenty of mismatched characters having little in common other than the space they live in. However what separates Crashing from the plethora of past flatshare sitcoms is that the characters are all living as property guardians in a disused hospital. I did find the way that Phoebe Waller-Bridge introduced this concept was quite heavy-handed in some respects as the strait-laced Kate (Louise Ford) and obnoxious estate agent Sam (Jonathan Bailey) attempted to explain their situation in one of the opening scenes. Meanwhile Waller-Bridge's Lulu arrived at the hospital as an old friend of Kate's fiancée Anthony (Damian Molony) and was presented as a possible threat to their future together. Of the characters my initial favourite has to be the uninhibited French artist Melody (Julie Dray) whose one-liners provided some of the only highlights of this first episode. Rounding up the group were nervous diabetic Fred (Amit Shah) and Kate's recently divorced colleague Colin (Adrian Scarborough) who has already formed an odd bond with Melody. I did feel that Waller-Bridge was fighting somewhat of a losing battle with the first episode of Crashing primarily as she had so much plot to get through and so many characters to introduce. As the opening episode was only about twenty-three minutes long I don't think I really got to know any of the leads and therefore I wasn't as invested as I possibly should have been. That being said there were flashes of greatness layered within the patchy first episode as Waller-Bridge revealed the complexities that lay behind the seemingly annoying Sam and the highly strung Kate. I personally feel that Crashing deserved a longer amount of time for its opening instalment as it suffered from rushed storytelling and under-developed characters. I think that Waller-Bridge's script showed flashes of promise and that's why I'm going to give Crashing a second go however it feels that if her show had a longer running time then the characters and story would be given more room to breathe.

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