Yonderland - box set review

Debbie's wacky, wonderful adventures in Yonderland are created by the brilliant Horrible Histories team - and it shows.

Yonderland and Puppetry

Yes, Yonderland was hard, with only four puppeteers and generally a puppet in most scenes you were constantly busy, problem solving all the time. But that was true of everyone involved, striving to make each scene as good as it could be and the effort involved I think really comes over in the show.

In the year that Monty Python announced their reunion, we also discovered their true heirs. The team behind Horrible Histories made this supremely silly fantasy adventure in which "the chosen mum" Debbie must save the puppet-populated world of Yonderland.

Radio Times review

There's pure joy in a well-pitched family comedy, and Yonderland was a particularly good one. Set in a magic realm where puppets mix with eccentric humanoids, it was Labyrinth meets Life of Brian: the cast of Horrible Histories playing hundreds of fabulous, usually incompetent figures posing puzzles for Debbie (Martha Howe-Douglas), a housewife who's stepped through a portal in the pantry. Characters tended to appear once when they could each have had their own series; this gang have so many ideas and such skill in executing them that, in the long term, Python comparisons might not be out of place.

Radio Times review

You know how Yonderland keeps inventing great one-off characters you wish you could see again? In the series finale, you can!

When inadequate overlord Negatus kidnaps Elf, the elf, it's time for housewife and alternate-realm messiah Debbie to put together a raggle-taggle gang of chancers and get her friend back. The pathologically polite swordsmen, the monks who learnt to lie and became estate agents, and the magician with anger issues all join Debbie on another trek through the enchanted forest.

As always, it's knowing without being too spoofy, and laden with gags without sacrificing the story. This is one of the comedies of the year - bet all your doubloons on it returning in 2014.

The British Comedy Awards never cease to give with one hand and take away with the other. So while there was overdue recognition for forensically observed and darkly humorous hospital comedy Getting On, Count Arthur Strong left empty-handed on a night the distinctly mediocre took a gong home. You've got to laugh - or not.

Next year, though, please let's hope Yonderland (Sky1), which has been lighting up Sunday tea-times these past weeks, gets the recognition it deserves. Elegantly straddling surreal lunacy and family friendly fun, this charming mix of bizarre puppet characters and baffled humans taps into a parallel universe of comedy that makes you feel like a grown- up and a child at the same time.

This week, we had the Ninnies to tickle the funny bones of absurdity, a people whose evolution was somewhat hampered by the idea of square wheels. It was a simple idea but it was carried off like a dream.

Yonderland Episode 7: 'The Heart of the Sun' review

While the reasons for Yonderland's existence lie more in its CBBC roots, it's a welcome addition to Sky's expanding roster of quality shows; something different for this moment in time.

Radio Times review

This utterly superb family comedy reaches an episode that's a favourite of the Yonderland team. You can see why. Debbie happens upon the Ninnies, who are another example of how the show takes simple ideas and makes them fresh. The Ninnies are a spectacularly stupid people, whose wheels are square, whose front steps don't lead to the front door, and whose sackcloth outfits really should have pants underneath. Debbie has to gently talk them out of a really stupid custom that's arresting their evolution.

Meanwhile, the evil but inept Negatus has been buying cheap sapphire ore from the Ninnies, who don't know what they're selling. The man he foolishly hires to refine it, a Teutonic glam-rock pervert played with immense relish by Laurence Rickard, is the episode's hidden delight.

On paper, Yonderland shouldn't have worked. In an era dominated by knowing Disney-style tween shows and animated superhero spin-offs, a show deliberately harking back to 1980s films such as Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal - featuring a multi-tasking mum on a quest to save a fantasy world, aided by a puppet and a talking stick - should have seemed creaky and ludicrous.

And yet Sky1's Sunday-night comedy has been a success. Raved about by critics, it pulls in an average of 1.2 million viewers, a great ratings figure for a non-terrestrial channel.

That's partly down to the wit of its writing team, the comedians behind the similarly smart/silly Horrible Histories, and partly because Yonderland is at the forefront of a heartening new commissioning trend, away from kid-specific programming and towards all-inclusive family entertainment.

Yonderland Episode 6: 'The Idiot King' review

Overall another entertaining half-hour; not the best episode, but still one with enough laughs to keep the family entertained for the duration and still like nothing else on TV.