Badults, Episode 2, review

BBC Three's Badults has started to improve but that makes its shortcomings even more obvious, says Iona McLaren.

The Typhleotris is a freshwater fish that lives in Madagascar's limestone caves, a habitat of such consummate darkness that nature has not bothered to provide it with eyes. But even the Typhleotris, with a bag over its head, sealed inside a box, would have been able to see the jokes coming in Badults.

Not all the jokes, it has to be said. BBC3's new sketch show/sitcom hybrid served up several that were genuinely inspired and laugh-out-loud funny, suggesting the fault lay in lacklustre quality control rather than any shortfall in comic creativity.

But the wheat was bulked out by an awful lot of chaff, not to mention corn, which is very surprising for an inaugural episode out to impress.

Written and performed by Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Parry - hitherto best known as award-winning fringe troupe Pappy's - Badults places immature adults into a flatshare environment, inevitably inviting - and suffering - comparison with a host of other comedies, notably The Young Ones, The Big Bang Theory, New Girl and even the works of the Three Stooges.

It has manic energy to spare, an engaging cast, cheerfully throwaway plotlines and an instinctive understanding of how to extract the most from its predominantly studio-bound setting.

The surreal inserts - Darwin comes alive off a £10 note to comment on the action - look a bit tired, and the central characters need far clearer delineation, but Badults shows a lot of promise.

However, poor Emer Kenny will need an awful lot more to work with if she is going to make any impression as fourth flatmate Rachel, sidelined almost as soon as she appeared and looking every bit the arbitrary, add-on female.

A berserk mix of Les Misérables, board games, pyjamas and beardy men in glasses behaving like 15-year-old nerds, Badults (BBC3) is a kind of Friends for the stunted generation, a British spin on The Big Bang Theory where clueless misfits bond against the world outside.

I'll admit, the first five minutes had me climbing the walls at the unsubtle geekiness of it all - three hopeless blokes and a token woman who, in the real world, would never have been within a mile of them - shouting unfunny lines at each other.

But weirdly, after a while, my defences were broken down by the sheer relentless energy Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Perry threw at the screen.

It was like watching a Hollywood movie where a starlet knows it's her big break and gives it her all. Coming on like a sixth-form revue on speed, the Badults gang leapt from musical theatre fantasy to murder weekends to perving over the lady who does sign-language for BBC2 shows with reckless abandon. More exhausting than actually funny, it could be a grower - this lot have ideas coming out of their armpits.

Badults episode 1 review: Money

There's the seed of something great in here but it's only been half-realised. In their live shows, Pappy's get by with ramshackle charm and enthusiasm, but so far, this hasn't translated well to TV.

Badults, the sitcom from live sketch favourites Pappy's, bangs straight in there with a self-penned theme tune, and an image of the three boys dressed up as The Inbetweeners, before cutting to the three in the adult flat-share that is the sitcom's set.

Badults started under the working title The Secret Dude Society, which is proof, if such proof were needed, that Pappy's are quite bad at naming things.

The title, and the show's title sequence, give the audience a bad steer - because this doesn't at all touch on Him & Her-like themes of arrested development, or Inbetweeners-ey coming of age gross out stuff: it's Pappy's, and they're doing Pappy'sish stuff.

It's a real shame, because anyone who has seen Pappy's live knows that they're not normally bad at beginnings.

This one does little to ease the viewer into the world of their show.

Though beginnings are interesting things, sitcoms are notoriously difficult to judge from their first few episodes.

Sitcom history is lightly dusted with shows that started a little uncertainly, and most of them were more faulty than simply having an undercooked title sequence.

Once the show itself gets going, it's inventive, gag rich and very funny.

Built around the theme of money, this first episode rockets through a rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches tale at a pace that would put The Fast Show to shame, while putting together an impressively tightly-woven tapestry of highly televisual gags.

Get past that title sequence, tell yourself it's called Pappy's: The Sitcom, and I think you'll enjoy.

It could do with a better opening, but it's a very strong beginning.

All-male flat-share sitcom from sketch troupe Pappy's, who tasted 2012 Edinburgh fringe glory with their Last Ever Show. It's worth a watch for its strange moments, such as the recurring use/abuse of the Les Mis soundtrack and Matthew's (Matthew Crosby) obsession with the sign language lady off the telly. For the most part, however, the trio's slapstick stand-up doesn't transfer over as well to the small screen as it could in this first episode, although the show may well find its feet a bit more in the coming five weeks.

Another spin on the tried-and-tested flatshare sitcom formula, this one follows the goonish antics of Ben Clark as Ben, Matthew Crosby as Matthew and Tom Parry as Tom - you see what they did there - three thirtysomethings who make The Inbetweeners look like the epitome of sophisticated cool. So if the broad strokes of overgrown schoolboy comedy, with the odd spot of bizarre musical theatre fantasy thrown in, is your bag, then Badults will hit the spot.

Fringe favourites bid to conquer TV with Badults

Sketch trio and Edinburgh Fringe favourites Pappy's aren't at the festival this year. Instead, you can find them on television in their new sitcom, Badults.

Oh, men - sometimes you can be such silly-billies! From Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? through to Bottom and Men Behaving Badly, TV has a recurring soft spot for men old enough to know better.

The latest addition to this infantile strand is Badults. The name does most of the work here but, just to clarify, it's about three male flatmates in their late twenties getting into scrapes. The only sensible character is their lady friend Rachel, who pops in from time-to-time to make the boys look even more puerile. Pappy's, the sketch-comedy trio who are the creator-stars of Badults, are beloved of many for their live work, but this first episode - which sees them accidentally withdraw £5,000 from their joint account - misses the mark.

There's no faulting the imagination at work (at one point, they re-enact the French Revolution), but their linking gags and repartee are twee, cloying and weaker than your nan's squash. What made The Inbetweeners such a rare gem was that the weekly antics were appropriate for the character's ages. Badults is just another slightly cringey example of men behaving badly.

Andrew Collins: Being a script editor

Pre-show nerves? Pah. I didn't write it. I'm the script editor, says Andrew Collins.