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It's Kevin review

To sum: Kevin Eldon has been on your TV for ages, so it's thrilling to see him get his own show, show off his own writing, and carry a vehicle with his own antics. A real treat.

'It's Kevin' not returning for second series

Kevin Eldon has confirmed that his BBC Two comedy It's Kevin won't be returning for a second series. The sketch show debuted last year and received a positive reaction from critics and viewers.

Radio Times review

Were you part of the club? Kevin Eldon's sketch show was a huge favourite among comedy nerds, and among the nation's top performers, most of whom had a guest role in it. But, dispiritingly when good new sketch shows are so hard to come by, nobody tuned in to see Eldon lovingly turning the format inside-out. He brought his impeccable timing and faint air of menace to a pile of brilliant, weird ideas, led by him imagining Hitler talking with the voice of Beatles producer George Martin: "Where did it all go wrong? I'm sure you've heard a lot of people say it was when the Japanese became involved..."

If there was a funnier labour of love on TV this year, we missed it. Kevin Eldon and chums reconstructed the Pistols' infamous appearance opposite 'fucking rotter' Bill Grundy in uncanny detail, but replaced Rotten et al with people in beards, bonnets and straw hats.

Like very many sketch shows, It's Kevin has been patchy. Like very few, it's been admirably reluctant to recycle material or characters, displayed an impressive breadth of reference (tonight, from the relaxing properties of dubstep to Picasso's early years via Carry On films and Dr Seuss) and boasted a few skits destined to go down as classics.

Nestling alongside the Amish Sex Pistols in the hall of fame tonight is Classic Threats magazine, 'about things that don't seem quite so scary any more'. You know, like the Millennium Bug or homosexuals. The self-referential links haven't always worked in spite of a parade of guest stars - Johnny Vegas chips in tonight as a close-up magician - but such a steady stream of invention and readiness to toy with format should surely be rewarded with a second series. If only to find out whether Kevin resolves his crush on the lovely Wendy Wilson...

In truth there's a fair bit of filler in this week's episode. This isn't uncommon in sketch shows nearing the end of their run, and Kevin Eldon's filler has ten times more care and imagination funnelled into it than anyone else's. If you're still on board, you won't mind a bit as Eldon sings a song all about how the scraping part of "bowing and scraping" must annoy kings, or fast-forwards through his own show to preview bits that will not in fact appear.

This could be a first for sketch shows: episode four is the strongest yet. Kevin Eldon's ideas would make no sense anywhere else, but accumulated here they are overwhelmingly funny. Tonight, George Martin/Adolf Hitler recalls the band's late period ("Where did it all go wrong? I'm sure you've heard a lot of people say it was when the Japanese became involved"), Christopher Ryan is an Italian arguing with a tank of bolognese and, in a 1980s BBC drama, the unnecessarily good performance of the week is Julia Davis's drained Scouser.

I have now watched three episodes of It's Kevin and I'm still not sure if it's funny. Kevin Eldon's sketch show is certainly odd, with moments of brilliance, but the set-ups are invariably more inspired than the pay-offs, and Eldon's studied air of deadpan detachment walks a fine line between quirky and irritating.

But half an hour in the company of Eldon's imagination is never wasted, plus he's been shrewd enough to surround himself with an impressive array of comic performers, including Julia Davis, Liza Tarbuck and Adam Buxton.