That Mitchell and Webb Format

Any amateur historian with a bit of initiative and a metal detector will have discovered that That Mitchell and Webb Look is a spin off of David and Robert's radio show That Mitchell and Webb Sound.

Mitchell & Webb Special Effects

As the producer of That Mitchell and Webb Look I've had a lot of make-believe questions about the special effects we use. Here are the ones I've decided I hear most often.

Some answers about Dog Poker

That Mitchell and Webb Look Episode Two features some dogs playing late night poker, and as I'm the producer, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by the huge number of imaginary emails I've had about this part of the show, so I thought I'd use this blog to respond.

That Mitchell and Webb Look review

David Mitchell and Robert Webb return with the latest series of their BBC comedy. Clever writing, but the first show is a bit hit and miss.

Absurdity continues to reign unfettered in this fourth run of David Mitchell and Robert Webb's Bafta-winning sketch show, as characters new and old romp on to the screen to ever greater comic effect. The duo have the happy knack of finding hidden laughs in unlikely places and then working them up into infectious flights of fancy. Tonight's highlights include the conspiracy behind the conspiracy behind the fake fake Moon landings; how to get cash for any unused plutonium you may have around the house; plus "Late Night Dog Poker".

David Mitchell and Robert Webb, or their team of writers, have a knack for spotting everyday irritations and turning them into the stuff of cathartic comedy. Last week it was rogue pronunciations. This week, there's a sketch for anyone who has ever groaned at the endless trails and recaps in factual programmes ("Coming up..." "Earlier on we saw how..." etc). We watch as banal events in a gift shop ("I'm looking for a gift for my aunt") are edited to death in order to create a spurious sense of tension. Sound familiar? That's one of the better sketches, as is this week's edition of macabre, post-apocalyptic TV show The Quiz Broadcast, which moves into Deal or No Deal territory. And the snooker commentators have a new gig: Late-Night Dog Poker.

There are always moments of brilliance in the Mitchell And Webb weekly pot-shot at cultural mores. Last week it was David Mitchell shooting people who mispronounced basic words (hurrah!); this week it comes in The Gift Shop Sketch, which is a splendid parody of the constant trails and recaps you get in those threadbare US factual shows. And look out for Sketches We Couldn't Be Bothered To Write - a rather ingenious method of letting viewers' imaginations run riot.

Glorious: and a tragedy that the Mitchell chap in the last sketch, about pedantry - he took it upon himself to shoot employees who said "haitch" and "expresso", quite right - shot himself over an infelicitation, because I love pedantry and wanted this sketch to go on for the run, for the rest of my life actually.

David Mitchell really suits a flat cap and just-so tweeds, by the way, as do we all surely. In this garb, even when playing the grotesque Monsieur Garnier, greedy boss of a brilliant lab team which wants to do good rather than invent new twitches on the names for hair colouration, he looks even better than the dreamboat-imaginings of every 30something woman I know who wants him, which is all of them. But I won't go on about this because I once had the misfortune of being ordered by a friend to set them up on a date, and the setting-up supper ended with such exaggerated politesse on both his and my parts - grammar man, shoot me - that my buttocks haven't quite unclenched. Sorry again David.

That Mitchell and Webb Look, BBC Two, review

Michael Deacon reviews the first episode in the fourth series of David Mitchell and Robert Webb's sketch show.

That Mitchell and Webb Look is still a sporadically amusing sketch show. It's refreshing in that it lacks the lazy cynicism which pervades a lot of modern comedy. The strength of Mitchell and - particularly - Webb's performances usually carries them through the weaker material, and its spirit of acute silliness generally makes up for the bits which don't quite come off.