Ruddy Hell! Its Harry and Paul

Didn't really appeal to me this time - towards the end of Harry Enfield and Chums and The Fast Show they both appeared to be two old men trying to recreate their peak - and now it's even more the case.


They'd have been better off going for the Sketchbook route.

I thought it was excellent - tons better than anything the BBC has done for years.

Surprised by all the negative reaction on here as I thought on the whole it was rather good.

Of course comedy has moved on, but for those who grew up with Enfield and Whitehouse's catchphrase-based characters it was a great reminder of how talented these guys are. Infact their comedy acting skills seem to have improved with age! Paul Whitehouse's Jose Mourinho impression was amazing.

I also thought the makeup / facial prosthetics was brilliant and added a lot to the characters. It's a far cry from 15 years ago when all they basically did was stick on a different wig and clothes for each character.

All in all, far more worthy of being on BBC1 than most of the so-called comedy they show.

Even the name sounds old fashioned, who says 'ruddy hell' anymore ?

Or is that some kind of irony ?

I didn't see it but I had a funny feeling that it would get a negative reaction. From seeing the trailer on BBC 1 it did remind me of their 1990's show.

Something like NTNOCN, A Bit Of Fry & Laurie or Smith & Jones is needed. Less catchphrases, more proper sketches please

or even Naked video

I liked it, it was certainly better than Little Britain and all that rubbish (while some modern comedy sketch shows are good, LB is apalling). It is indeed very reminiscent of Not the Nine O'Clock News , Flying Circus and Smith and Jones . I hope it gets a better reaction next week.

But if the same characters appear again next week, it won't be reminiscent of them at all. It'll just be resorting to repetitive characters again.

You what? Harry Enfield the first time around was the king of repeating characters - Stavros, Kevin the teenager, The Slobs ...

Correct, add Tim, Nice-But-Dim, Loadsamoney & The Old Gits to that list as well

Yes, he was the king of catchphrases and recurring characters, a trend seen in The Fast Show, Goodness Gracious Me and Little Britain, and this was his attempt to be more like NTNOCN, ABOFAL et al. And for me, it didn't work. What I'm saying is if the characters we saw yesterday appear again in the next 5 weeks, then it will simply be yet another recurring character/catchphrase-driven sketch show. Mitchell and Webb are the closest to having all one-off sketches, except even they have Numberwang, Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar etc. There are no good sketch shows today with relatively few recurring sketches. My favourite one of recent years was The Sketch Show, which, though at times corny, was fast-paced and funny.

It's not the same. Bring back Kevin, Smashie and Nicey, Tim Nice-But-Dim and The Slobs!