Green Wing

The search for comedy goes on. The latest serious attempt to make you laugh is Green Wing (Friday, C4). Medical comedies are a genre all of their own. Medicine has come a long way since Doctor in the House, James Robertson Justice and all that "Ooh er, matron" bedpan stuff - but, sadly, medical humour hasn't, like the military tattoo. Hospital jokes are still rooted in the past.

If I had reviewed the first episode of Green Wing last week, I would have given it a much rougher proctological examination than I am prepared to now. Having seen the second, its setup, dynamics and dialogue are quite clearly attempts to join in the subgenre of comedies that want to be the next Office (the last one was The Smoking Room). In the first episode, I found the style imitation annoying, but by the second, the cast had taken over. Green Wing has a better ensemble of actors than any comedy you have seen for ages, and they have created some amusing, repulsive and compulsively weird characters. What the drama lacks is a coherent overall sense of purpose and direction. So much of it is too much like plaiting with double acts; it needs an infrastructure, an injection of M*A*S*H.