Pompidou (TV series)

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Pompidou
GenreComedy
Created by Matt Lucas
Julian Dutton
Ashley Blaker
Written byMatt Lucas
Julian Dutton
Ashley Blaker
Jon Foster
James Lamont
Directed by Charlie Hanson
Matt Lucas
StarringMatt Lucas
Alex Macqueen
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes6 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producersLayla Smith
Matt Lucas
ProducersCharlie Hanson
Katie Mavroleon
Production locations Langleybury, Hertfordshire
EditorJon Blow
Running time25-30 minutes
Production companies Netflix
John Stanley Productions
Original release
Network BBC Two
Release1 March (2015-03-01) –
5 April 2015 (2015-04-05)
Related
Little Britain

Pompidou is a British television comedy series for BBC Two created and written by comedians Matt Lucas with Julian Dutton and Ashley Blaker & James Foster and Jon Lamont. [1] It began airing on 1 March 2015 on BBC Two.

Contents

Produced by Lucas' own company John Stanley Productions [2] for the BBC, Pompidou is the first all-visual, i.e. having no meaningful dialogue, half-hour mainstream TV sitcom since Bradley in the late 1980s. (Although there have been several visual comedies broadcast in the interim, none of these were half-hour sitcoms: Mr. Bean usually consisted of two or three sketches, Oddbods was a one-off, The Baldy Man consisted of two sketches per episode, and Uncle Max and Zzzap! were both 15-minute children's shows.) [3]

A pilot was written in 2012, and 6 episodes were commissioned by Controller of BBC One Danny Cohen and Controller of Comedy Commissioning Shane Allen in Spring 2013. The series was written and filmed across 2013 and 2014. The first episode aired on BBC Two on 1 March 2015. [3]

Inspired by Charlie Chaplin, Morph, Laurel and Hardy, Pingu, Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati, and Marty Feldman, Pompidou aimed to reinvent visual comedy for the twenty-first century, and create an international series for a global audience. [4]

Cast

Jane Asher starred in episode 3, Anita Dobson played the role of Sally in episode 4 and Beattie Edmondson appeared in episodes 1 and 6. Australian actress Rebel Wilson, Matt Lucas' roommate when they both lived in the U.S., makes an uncredited cameo as a Vicki Pollard lookalike from Little Britain in episode 5. Julian Dutton, one of the show's co-writers, appeared as a cameo in episode 2 as the cockney, tea drinking Delivery Man.

Episodes

EpisodeOriginal air dateTitleViewers and % share
11 March 2015"Hunger"0.84m (4.2%)
28 March 2015"Lottery"0.62m (3.2%)
315 March 2015"The Bowl"0.67m (3.5%)
422 March 2015"The Date"0.53m (2.7%)
529 March 2015"Hoarder"0.5m (2.7%)
65 April 2015"Cold"0.5m (2.7%)

Critical reception

The series was widely panned on release. Ben Dowell of the Radio Times labelled it "a strange beast", describing Lucas' character as "selfish, vain, venal and oddly childlike. I think he’d like me to add "appealing" but I can't." [5] (He did, however, point to a rare favourable review by one of his colleagues, Jack Seale.) [6] Echoing remarks made by many other reviewers, Sally Newall of The Independent compared Lucas' shtick unfavourably to Rowan Atkinson's in Mr. Bean, as well as Lucas' own as the faux-disabled character Andy Pipkin in Little Britain . [7]

Michael Hogan of The Telegraph called it "pretty painful: 25 minutes that felt like 75, with telegraphed jokes and interminable scenes. Justin “Mr Tumble” Fletcher does this sort of clowning better over on CBeebies." [8] The idea that the series would be better served on a children's network was echoed by commenters on the trailer on YouTube. [9] Negative audience reaction continued when the show came to Netflix as a "Netflix original", where it became the entertainment provider's lowest rated original series. [10]

A retrospective on the series and its reception, by The Guardian's Brian Logan, spoke more positively, if not unreservedly, about Pompidou. Describing a supposed strain of snobbery in British criticism of silent comedy, and comedy that children can enjoy, Logan goes on to say that "some set-pieces don’t work ... And yes, some of it’s hokey and old-fashioned", but also speculates that any silent comedy vehicle may well have received "the sniffiness that’s greeted Pompidou". [11]

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References

  1. ↑ "BBC One orders silent comedy series from Matt Lucas - News - British Comedy Guide". Comedy.co.uk. 25 March 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  2. ↑ "John Stanley Productions". John Stanley Productions. 5 March 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Media Centre - BBC One orders brand new Matt Lucas non-dialogue comedy, Pompidou". BBC. 25 March 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  4. ↑ Walker, Ellie (25 March 2013). "Matt Lucas creating dialogue free comedy series". Radio Times. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  5. ↑ "Pompidou review: Matt Lucas' new silent comedy baffles". Radiotimes.com. 1 March 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  6. ↑ Seale, Jack. "Pompidou - what time is it on TV? Episode 1 Series 1 cast list and preview". Radiotimes.com. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  7. ↑ Sally Newall (1 March 2015). "Pompidou, TV review: Silent comedy has a few surprises, but Matt Lucas is no Mr Bean". The Independent . Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  8. ↑ Hogan, Michael (March 2015). "Pompidou, episode 1, review: 'painful'". Telegraph. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  9. ↑ "Pompidou: Trailer - BBC Two". YouTube. 20 February 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  10. ↑ "Why Netflix's Lowest Rated Original Series Is Actually A Win for Viewers | Decider | Where To Stream Movies & Shows on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, HBO Go". Decider.com. 27 April 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  11. ↑ Logan, Brian (3 March 2015). "Matt Lucas's Pompidou: Why are we so snobbish about silent comedy?". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
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