'W1A' episode 1 review

Never mind Downton, Ian Fletcher is Hugh Bonneville's finest hour, a sweet Everyman, full of aspiration about getting to the end of the day in one piece, but tragically confounded by such things as lack of desk, a corporation too big and a bike too small.

W1A is an almost too-sharp satire of 'brand BBC'

The BBC's new comedy W1A is for anyone who has ever spent a morning wondering how long people can get away with saying the same thing over and over again while drinking Hildon mineral water.

BBC spoofs itself: brave satire or self-indulgence?

W1A doesn't yet have the perfect pitch and pace of its predecessor, but the momentum is gathering.

W1A review

Senior managers at the BBC gave John Morton carte blanche to mock the organisation. Perhaps they believed this would be a parody of management culture in general. But from the first seconds, W1A signalled its merciless intentions.

W1A review

Like its predecessor, W1A provides a steady source of chuckles without prompting belly laughs.

Beset as ever by crises, the BBC needs some kind of standards tsar. Luckily, London 2012 hitch-resolver Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) has been appointed as head of values, at least within this mockumented universe terraformed by the Twenty Twelve team. There's also time to dip into the tribulations elsewhere within New Broadcasting House, in a manner familiar to those who enjoyed the misadventures of the Olympic Deliverance Commission.

He delivered the Olympics. Now, Ian Fletcher, the go-to man for looking mildly baffled by the madness of bureaucracy, has another big job on his hands: defending the BBC. Or, more accurately, he's the Beeb's new Head of Values, whatever that means. Who cares, when it entails the reunion of Twenty Twelve's Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes? The latter is back as deliciously vacant PR Siobhan Sharpe, now posting selfies from around the meeting-room table. As Fletcher tries to find a desk to put his feet under, he's whisked off on a round of meetings about meetings. The tone is spot-on from the start and David Tennant's narration is the cherry on the cake.

Radio Times review

This new sitcom was born out of the success - but necessarily short shelf life - of the delicious Twenty Twelve. The idea of the BBC making a satire on the workings of the BBC is painfully circular but also, as it turns out, painfully funny.

Even so, the show walks a tightrope. In one scene here, Ian "So that's all good" Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville), now the BBC's newly appointed Head of Values, is hunting for a meeting room at Broadcasting House. He opens a door to find Alan Yentob and Salman Rushdie arm-wrestling while listening to opera. It's both a hilariously daring in-joke and the kind of thing you hope they keep in small doses. Too many knowing winks at the audience could get precious.

There are other celebrity cameos, but the joy of the show, as with Twenty Twelve, is the bland corporate-speak, the ability of conversations to progress with nothing being said in a flurry of Yes-no-absolutelys and Right-goods. This is writer John Morton's special gift (he's been doing it since People like Us on Radio 4) and he does it better than anyone.

The makers of Twenty Twelve were lauded for their Olympics satire, but no one was likely to mistake it for a factual programme. The same can't be said for sure about their latest venture, W1A, which pokes fun at the BBC. The Sun reports that Sarah Parish, who plays an inept head of output at the Beeb, reckons the spoof drama may be so realistic viewers won't know that the whole thing is meant to be a joke. The series also features Hugh Bonneville, who will again play Ian Fletcher, with the character moving from the Olympic Legacy project to the BBC to help it deal with "recent findings". All sounds a bit familiar. Parish said: "I did think people might watch and, for 10 minutes, think it's a documentary." Fingers crossed for a cameo from John Humphrys.

The modern BBC according to W1A

W1A, the highly anticipated follow up to Olympics comedy Twenty Twelve, spoofs the BBC. How right did they get it, wonders BBC insider David Quantick.