VIP prioritised 'important' over 'mockable' people

Very Important People saw some uncanny impressions from Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott, but the duo often fell into the trap of trying to 'do' celebrities just because they were Very Important, even if they couldn't impersonate them very well.

Grace Dent on televsion: Very Important People, C4

I'm rather obsessed with Very Important People, the latest work from Morgana Robinson, Terry Mynott and Matt Morgan. I just love this show; the mimics are good and the material strong.

Very Important People review

What Very Important People lacks is a cutting edge and its attempts to truly parody celebrity culture unfortunately falls flat.

Review: Very Important People

For a first episode, I've seen far worse. The impressions were mostly very good, occasionally exceptional, with only a few outright duds.

More hits than misses at Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott's new C4 impressions show Very Important People.

Adele struggling to order a round of drinks and Danny Dyer's Britain's Hardest Commute were both brilliantly done. But the merciless dissection of Frankie Boyle's shock tactics was the highlight: 'Every night Frankie checks the news to see if a child has been murdered.'

Way to go, VIP. Keep it unfriendly.

The showpiece of Channel 4's new Friday night comedy line-up is a brand new impressions show.

Morgana Robinson appears with one of her co-stars from The Morgana Show, Terry Mynott - a comedy actor so unfamous he doesn't even have his own Wikipedia page yet.

But he absolutely steals this first episode with his spot-on take of the BBC's favourite groovy scientist Professor Brian Cox, posing in front of areas of natural beauty wearing high street brands.

It's the voice that makes it so funny - and it's a parody that's cutting but sweetly affectionate too.

I doubt though that Bear Grylls will be as pleased with the job they've done on him as he tries to survive in the suburbs.

Mynott's take on David Attenborough explaining the lifestyle of Frankie Boyle is another zinger.

Behind the rubber masks, it can be hard to tell who's doing who.

Morgana impersonates men too. Her Russell Brand isn't a patch on her Natalie Cassidy, though.

You can't help being trepidatious about this new impressions show. It's focused on the trashier end of celebrity, it stars Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott, who received mixed reviews for The Morgana Show, and the fact that it's a new impressions show is worrying in itself.

Much of Very Important People is indeed cheap and derivative, leaning heavily on gaps filled with swearing and, in the case of doing Brian Cox as a preening fop, jokes that were dead and gone 12 months ago. But I must admit that Robinson's takes on Frankie Boyle, Danny Dyer and Natalie Cassidy had me spluttering merrily.

As Mitchell & Webb once pointed out, it's in the nature of the sketch show to be patchy. And this new C4 offering combining sketches with impressions maintains that archetype. Starring Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott, Very Important People mostly trains its sights on the banalities of celebrity culture. It's a risky strategy; these are the softest of targets - is it necessary to take the piss out of Amy Childs and Joe Swash when they're already giving it away by the bucketload? Still, VIP does hit the mark often enough to suggest that these are talented performers, even if their material needs to challenge them more. Brian Cox is good-naturedly skewered for his vanity - gazing at stars, boasting about his jacket and bullying his hapless cameraman along the way. And the sketch in which Frankie Boyle is observed in his natural habitat (the book signing, searching for news of murdered children on the internet) by David Attenborough at least has the advantage of feeling like a hunt for some bigger game. Far from perfect, but worth keeping an eye on.

Very Important People review

The end product is still lumbered with the same weaknesses as The Morgana Show. While it's funny in places, at times it's also derivative and so hit and miss that my star-rating changed about a dozen times as I watched the episode.

C4 launches celebrity VIP linked Facebook morph app

Channel 4 has launched a Facebook app - VIP Me - to promote its new celebrity impression show Very Important People. The augmented reality app transforms users into a celebrity of their choice.