Seann Walsh

The third and final show in BBC1's revived Comedy Playhouse series was an ensemble piece set in a tiny, debt-ridden monastery.

Broad doesn't even begin to describe the comedy, and the characters rarely achieve the giddy heights of two dimensions. Yet there was something eminently likeable about Monks - not least the inclusion of several funny jokes, not always a given in a new sitcom.

However, the show is scuppered by the casting of stand-up comedian Seann Walsh as layabout, fixer and benefits cheat Gary. Put bluntly, he cannot act. Stilted in delivery and underpowered in performance, Walsh is asked to drive the several plot lines and just isn't up to the task.

When a sitcom arrives tagged with a premise so flimsy a butterfly could tear it asunder, it had better be something special. In the case of Seann Walsh vehicle Monks, serial benefit fraudster Gary Woodcroft evades prosecution by ... joining a monastery. Essentially it's One Flew Over The Nimmo's Nest. Sadly, the torturous proposition isn't backed by anything approaching gilted ribaldry, with a decent cast including Mark Heap and Angus Deayton reduced to delivering insultingly sub-panto fare throughout.

Radio Times review

"New and daring projects" were what comedy exec Shane Allen promised with this season of comedy pilots. This showcase doesn't feel as daring as a sitcom set in a monastery might once have done - when, for instance, a previous version of this project appeared on Radio 2 in 2000 and in an unbroadcast pilot in 2008, long before viewers gave clerical sitcoms their blessing via Rev.

This is worlds away from Rev.; it's a traditional studio sitcom with broad characters and pleasantly cartoony storylines - a bell falling out of a bell tower, drunken monks, and so on. Seann Walsh plays Brother Gary, who fled to the monastery to escape a conviction for benefit fraud. Mark Heap plays the monastery's second-in-charge, a former air traffic controller fuming with pent-up anger, and Justin Edwards looks promising as Brother Bernard, who likes a tipple.

Monks is hard to get Revved up about

Tonight, BBC One airs Monks, a comedy pilot in which Seann Walsh plays benefits cheat Gary who has joined a monastic order in an attempt to evade the fuzz. Co-starring James Fleet as the Abbott and Mark Heap - doing a good Mark Heap - as the Monk who hates Gary it's... it's... well it's OK. But it does seem to smack of a return to the bad old days of religious-based comedy.

Seann Walsh interview

Seann Walsh prefers a lie-down to a stand-up.

Opinion: Critic's notes - Audience...again

After the annoying chatty fan at Tommy Tiernan the other week there was another audience irritant at Seann Walsh last night at the Soho Theatre.

This week's new live comedy

Previews of Seann Walsh, David Trent and the Leicester Comedy Festival.

Radio Times review

Actors Robert Lindsay and Rufus Hound appear as a duo tonight to discuss their upcoming performance in the West End version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - no doubt Ross will be quizzing them on how scheming they can be in real life. Stand-up comedian Seann Walsh, who is about to embark on his Lie-in-King tour, has kindly got out of bed to share some banter on the sofa as well.

It'll be interesting to see if Ross can rap along in time to Tinie Tempah, who will be performing live. Let's hope Tinie doesn't completely overshadow fresh-off-the-production-line X Factor winner Sam Bailey, who will also be taking the stage.

Opinion: Comedy gets tied up - with ties

Lots of comedians seem to be getting tied up at the moment and I don't mean in a Fifty Shades of Grey way. John Bishop wears a tie. Jack Whitehall wears a tie. Frankie Boyle might come out with controversial jokes but there is nothing controversial about his tie. I think I've even seen Seann Walsh wear a tie.