Vicious: the least funny new comedy in recent memory

Benjamin Secher reviews Vicious, ITV's new sitcom about an ageing gay couple, starring Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi.

Vicious was nostalgic fun

Shallow and catty, vain and insecure, Freddie and Stuart really are a rather frightful pair. Which is what makes Vicious (ITV), a comedy that consists almost entirely of two old queens rubbing each other up the wrong way, such nostalgic fun.

What a line-up for a sitcom; three of our most accomplished actors - Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi and Frances de la Tour - star, and the writers are the super-talented playwright Mark Ravenhill and Gary Janetti, who used to work on Will & Grace, one of the classiest comedies on American television in decades. And what do you get? Well, not quite the laugh fest that it might have been (or may yet become), but an opener that had a reasonable hit rate.

Vicious is another back-to-the-future comedy, a one-room sitcom with two of the queeniest gay men to grace our screens since the dear departed Larry Grayson and John Inman. If Dick Emery's Clarence had made an appearance he wouldn't have looked out of place and, with De la Tour's presence, it could be called Rising Camp (sadly not my line - I nicked it).

Freddie (McKellen) and Stuart (Jacobi) are a bickering, gossipy gay couple who live in crepuscular gloom in their Covent Garden flat. Freddie is a never-has-been actor ("You may have seen me in a scene in Doctor Who") who has long since lost his Wigan accent; Stuart is a one-time barman who is still not out to his mother. He's waiting for the right time - "It's been 48 years!" cries Freddie.

Into the flat upstairs moves the attractive youngster Ash (Iwan Rheon), who attracts appreciative looks both from the men and their faghag friend Violet (De la Tour); most of last night's episode concerned their convoluted attempts to find out if he was gay or straight. Don't people just ask if they're interested to know?

The cast are clearly having fun with the bitchy lines, but Jacobi is overdoing the flounce and Ash is as yet underwritten. Too much of Vicious relies on tired comedy tropes; older people are gagging to have sex with people young enough to be their grandchildren, they don't know anything about youth culture ("Is Zac Efron a person or a place?" Violet asks); or they're deaf, dotty and fall asleep easily. Oh please. As for the double rape "joke" everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves, including director Ed Bye.

On the evidence of last night's first episode Ravenhill and Janetti can't decide if Vicious is lazy retro fun for all the family, or an edgy post-watershed show that's taking us to places never previously negotiated on British TV. Let's hope it's the latter over its seven-week run.

TV review: Vicious

For all that is wrong here, McKellen and Jacobi come with a certain camp chemistry, that's fun and forgiving. It's a thin basis for a comedy classic, admittedly, but can just about sustain half an hour of no-brain frippery.

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There are perfectionists at work on this show. At the last minute, the title was cut back to one simple word: Vicious. It's more direct, and more truthful - because of the two old queens on this show, one of them is a bit of a sweetheart.

Vicious review

Vicious is old-fashioned and often creaky in terms of material, but it's also enlivened by McKellen and Jacobi's thoroughly committed performances.

ITV appear to have so much faith in Vicious that they commissioned a Christmas Special before this first episode had aired. I despised Vicious from the opening sequence. It isn't the studio audience that makes this feel incredibly dated. It's the gags and the characters.

Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen are without question two of the countries best actors but in Vicious the pair are reduced to cartoonish characatures of a gay couple.

In the case of Vicious the studio audience setting wasn't what made it feel it dated, it was the over the top performances and the sheer predictability of the jokes. The characters played by our leads were so stereotypical it was as if they were plucked from some sub standard and instantly forgettable 80's sitcom.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't expect either of these sitcoms to be groundbreaking but Vicious felt like a step backwards. The high ratings can be attributed to the curiosity surrounding the series and the amount of trailers ITV have been playing for this. I've seen the opening episode of Vicious and that's enough for me.

Vicious review

It wasn't just the poor 'jokes' and overbearing laughter which made Vicious such a slog: its uber camp central characters were as much to blame.

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