Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson's...: Lunch in the Park

Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson's...: Lunch in the Park
ITV
21 October 1997
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B

This has a slow start but stay with it, as the two-person show gradually moves from small talk to shared confidences to confessions of love to...treason?  Paul and Josie again work very well together and it's a pity they didn't appear more regularly as a team on television.  (Even on Whose Line is It Anyway? it was never more than a couple times a year.)

Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson's...: Sealed with a Loving Kiss

Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson's...: Sealed with a Loving Kiss
ITV
16 February 1996
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B

The concept behind this programme was that Paul would act in updated G & S scripts that had been performed more than 30 years earlier.  As I haven't seen the earlier versions, I won't compare them.  On its own terms, this is solid, not only giving Paul/Josie shippers much fodder but being an interesting character study.  The humour is gentle and, yes, a bit old-fashioned.  Note that both characters lie and their lies are never revealed, but at some point she'll presumably see photos of his father and the truth will come out.  And, amusingly (in light of Caroline Quentin's Room 101 items), Paul's character refers to a Teasmade.

This is sort of the 200th British show I've reviewed, although I guess I should've counted the music videos of Paul McCartney, the Spice Girls, etc. as well, but not all of those were shot in Britain, despite the national origins of the performers.  It gets a bit murky sometimes with the tags.

The Unnaturals

Around that time

The Unnaturals
Ha!
1991
Sketch Comedy
VHS
C+

This Mike-centered show is more interesting than funny.  At least Jane Brucker is better than she was on Whose Line Is It Anyway?  There are moments that I like, such as Mike imitating a French ambulance, and there is a certain what-the-hell-why-not quality to the proceedings.  Still, I probably would've gone with a C if not for the Mark Mothersbaugh theme, which is used not only at opening and closing but between scenes.  And, yes, this was made for Ha! but taped two years later on Ha!'s merger with the Comedy Channel: Comedy Central.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.6

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.6
Channel Four
8 October 1993
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B-

The best thing here is the Christmas filled with holograms, which is absurd yet thought-provoking.  I wish they'd done more things like that.  Damian Hunt had also appeared on Josie, while John Barrard was Anatole on Jeeves and Wooster and is a Teacher here.  Thea Bennett, Amanda Dickinson, Peter Guinness, Robert Harley, David Jackson, and Ben Miller return.

Paul Merton in its second series averages out to a low B-, not a big drop from Series One.  It's not terribly different but just a shade less funny.  After awhile, it becomes easier to predict the jokes, like the lemon detergent for, yes, lemons.  Still, overall, it's a better packaging of Paul's talents than Josie was of Josie's.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.5

Merton and Quentin

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.5
Channel Four
1 October 1993
Sketch Comedy
DVD
C+

The best sequence here comes last, with Quentin as a chanteuse as Merton floats by using special effects.  John Woodnutt, who had played Sir Watkyn Bassett on Jeeves and Wooster, is Lord Coatbridge here.  Robert Harley, Ben Miller, Kathryn Pogson, and Bill Thomas return.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.4

At one point, Paul
claims to be Cilla Black

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.4
Channel Four
24 September 1993
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B-

This is a more absurd episode than lately, from a romance between lamps to a gang planning a bank robbery with elaborate props.  Amanda Dickinson, Robert Harley, Ben Miller, P.J. Nicholas, Kerry Shale, Jonathan Stratt, and Flip Webster all return.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.3

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.3
Channel Four
17 September 1993
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B-

The best thing here is definitely Paul as Frankenstein, but I'll always have a soft spot for his "Golden Years of Hollywood" segments.  Robert Harley, Ben Miller, and Kathryn Pogson are back.  Nigel Whitmey, who was on one episode of Josie and was terrible on Jeeves and Wooster, makes an appearance here.  Peter Benson, who was Mr. Rowbotham on Jeeves, is also in this episode.  This is the first of two episodes for Peter Guinness.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.2

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.2
Channel Four
10 September 1993
Sketch Comedy
DVD
C

Most of the humour in this episode didn't really work for me, although it was interesting to hear one of the jokes from Paul's stand-up, with a British figure (Lloyd something) rather than the more accessible Dan Quayle in the version from London Underground.  

Along with Daws and Mullarkey, Robert Harley, Ben Miller, P.J. Nicholas, and Flip Webster are back.  Amanda Dickinson appears for the first of three times, Thea Bennett and David Jackson for the first of two.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.1

The dolphin-head returns.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.1
Channel Four
3 September 1993
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B-

The highlight of this series-opener is Paul bending the laws, including of gravity, about a scene set on a submarine, with Robert Daws (Jeeves and Wooster's Tuppy) appearing as the Captain.  The "Abominator" ad is also quite good.

Robert Harley and Flip Webster return from the first series, while Gabrielle Blunt again plays an Elderly Lady, this time the one in the deck chair.  P.J. Nicholas and Kathryn Pogson make their first of three appearances each on the show, while Ben Miller does his first of six.  Ian Collier had recently played Seppings on Jeeves.  Liddy Oldroyd takes over as director.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.6

Victor Spinetti from the Beatles movies

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.6
Channel Four
30 October 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
C+

The weakest sketch is the one about a murder in an ambulance, the strongest the one about an incompetent spy.  Another Comedy Store Player, Mullarkey, plays Mr. Bassett.  Felicity Montagu, who was on Josie twice, plays Various Characters here, while Neil McArthur makes his third and last appearance on this programme.

Paul Merton's first series is uneven, sometimes even within one episode.  It earns 2 C+s, 2 B-s, and 2 Bs, so it's easy to average.  I'm curious to see what if any changes were made when the programme came back in '93.  (It's been a long time since I've watched, and just once through.)

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.5

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.5
Channel Four
23 October 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B-

The newstand stuff is definitely the best part of this episode, from the "There are two tattoos that I do do" routine to Paul just telling a series of implausible stories.  It's sort of a shame to cut away to the sketches, although they're not bad.  This is the second episode for William Todd Jones and Neil McArthur.  Elderly Lady Gabrielle Blunt would be Lady in Deckchair the next series.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.4

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.4
Channel Four
16 October 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B-

This episode gets a little too Monty-Pythonic for my tastes (more surreal than funny), especially the first half, with its layers of dreams, ultimately dreamed by a cat.  Still, the newstand stuff, especially Paul's video game and the bit about the first Tube station, is solid.  The best sketch is last, where Paul is a bishop admonishing a dead-raising priest.  (He's played by Lee Simpson, who you may recognize from his Whose Line Is It Anyway? appearance.  He didn't work with Paul there, but they've been Comedy Store Players onstage for years.)

Geoff McGivern makes his second appearance on the show, as the Elephant Man, while this is also the second for Judy Elrington and Tim de Jongh.  William Todd Jones is on for the first of two times.  Note that this time Caroline plays the wife of one of Paul's characters.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.3

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.3
Channel Four
9 October 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B

Among the stronger sketches are Paul giving a newbie the lowdown on Heaven (not exactly Paradise), mistaking a man for Ringo Starr and hassling him about it, giving a school award and reminiscing about how he was punished for being working class, and using a videocamera to pirate what's supposed to be a new release but looks suspiciously like something from circa 1972, yellow credits and all.

Judy Elrington and Neil McArthur would appear respectively once more and twice more this series, while Kerry Shale, Jonathan Stratt, Bill Thomas, and Flip Webster would all return for the '93 series.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.2

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.2
Channel Four
2 October 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
C+

This just isn't as funny as the initial episode, with the best line, about Paul "disturbing" a burglar by saying there's no God, early on.  Paul's then wife, Caroline Quentin, plays Dr. Gillespie.  Tim de Jongh would return for the fourth episode.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.1

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.1
Channel Four
September 25, 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B

Not long after his frequent costar Josie Lawrence got her eponymous series, Merton got his, on the same channel and with the same director (and such familiar to WLIIA-viewers names as Mykola Pawluk and Denise O'Donoghue behind the scenes).  It's a definite improvement, and in fact did well enough with viewers and critics to return in '93.  Short absurd comedy sketches are loosely tied together with scenes of Paul running a newstand.  Sometimes he's interacting with customers and sometimes he's doing routines from his stand-up.  (In fact, three routines would pop up, more or less intact, on London Underground, more on that in its place.)  I laughed out loud several times and the pace, unlike on Josie, kept my mind from wandering.

Of Paul's supporting cast, Geoffrey McGivern was Ivor Biggun on the "Dish and Dishonesty" episode of Blackadder the Third and would return for the fourth episode of this series, while Roger Walker was Robert Leaven in the 1983 Timothy Dalton adaptation of Jane Eyre, and Colin Higgins (no, not the director of Foul Play) and Lou Hirsch would respectively be Comrade Butt and Jimmy Mundy on Jeeves and Wooster the following year.  I'm tagging Paul's cowriter John Irwin, who appears in this and most of the other episodes as "various characters."  Robert Harley also plays "various characters," although mostly in the second series.