The World Against Me

The second series of Jack Dee’s BBC2 comedy, Lead Balloon, is now well underway and thankfully, after a pretty shaky start, it’s right back on track. There’s something refreshing about portraying what is essentially Jack Dee’s on-stage persona in a domestic situation where he can be even more grumpy and put-upon than usual and, most effectively of all, play off the people around him. In the latest installment, “Points”, anti-hero Rick has been penalised with points on his

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Tags: bbc2, Jack-Dee, Lead-Balloon, Points, Rick-Spleen, Tony Hancock

The Importance of Missing Football

One of the less satisfying aspects of this blog in its previous incarnation was my attempt to record a diary of every programme I was watching on the telly.  Not every flick of the thumb during regular channel hopping sessions as I would work my way through the multitudinous offering of the Sky World package, of course.  Instead, the main programmes that I had tuned into were devotedly recorded (well, I wasn’t even that devoted to be honest) and early diarising even

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Tags: Dallas Cowboys, Doctor Who, Euro-2008, Heroes, Importance of Being Earnest, Jack-Dee, Journeyman, Lead-Balloon, NFL, Penelope Keith, Studio-60

Another Tate Incarnation
The third season of The Catherine Tate Show is being shown as one of three show’s that form BBC2’s Thursday night of comedy and is carrying on is exactly the same format and style as we’ve seen before. There are moments of genius in there… and while it’s a bit of a one trick pony, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of Lauren’s “Does my face look bovvered?” or the nan character who swears like a trooper. The newer character’s are a little hit and miss though: the office worker who

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Tags: bbc2, Catherine-Tate, Comedy, Jack-Dee, Lead-Balloon, Never-Mind-The-Buzzcocks, Quiz Show, Simon-Amstell

You Don’t Know Jack

I don’t think I can remember seeing Jack Dee in an acting role before, although I seem to recall he has actually played a few roles in various productions over the last few years (Edit: a quick search on IMDB shows he has indeed done plenty of acting previously but I definately didn’t catch any of it). His deadpan delivery in his stand-up routines always entertain though and so, I tuned into Lead Balloon on BBC4 the other night after being quite intrigued by the trailers, and what

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Tags: BBC4, Comedy, Curb-Your-Enthusiasm, Jack-Dee, Lead-Balloon, Raquel-Cassidy, Rick-Spleen, Sitcom