that makes me want to watch it to see how bad it is. Not even car crash TV then?

I thought Big Top was the absolute nadir of BBC sit com being, as it was, an almost Beckettian mirthless farrago of stilted jokes, strange silences, a doomed sense of ennui and the inclusion of her off Hi-De-Hi.

And Amanda Holden's forehead.

I was wrong.

I can barely believe this program was created by sentient beings. Its like a member of a hitherto undiscovered tribe had been asked to write a sitcom having been exposed only to Mind Your Language, Jim Davidson's Elephant and Castle and, weirdly, The IT Crowd.

And the previously blameless Adam Buxton is possibly the worst thing in it. How did this happen?

It's truly gruesome. When Ian Lee is the best thing in a sitcom, you know things have gone very wrong.

So this gets a series, straight onto BBC2, not even skulking around BBC3 to begin with, whilst Buxton's MeeBox, rough around the edges as it was, didn't even get beyond the pilot stage. Wrong wrong wrongity wrong.

and my love for the Adam and Joe show really made me want to like it. I think it has to be one of the worst things the BBC has ever broadcast.

and I can honestly say that it is the worst comedy programme I have ever seen. It is utterly pathetic. How it ever got made is beyond me.

Watch the other half

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pzlz6/The_Persuasionists_Cockney...

Canned laughter in place of the laughter they failed to get from a live audience? I should think so (Ha ha ha ha ha clunk)

remember The Creatives? It was a mid 90s Edinburgh based sitcom written and starring Jack Doherty (of the Channel Five five times a week chat show). Every episode was about creating and filming a TV advert. It only lasted one series and has never been released on VHS or DVD as far as I'm aware. It was probably roasted by the critics but I quite liked it. Well this is basically the London media tosser version of The Creatives.

Yes, it's bad. It's obviously, stunningly bad. I can't imagine anyone not recognising its terribleness, and I'm sure it will be buried in obscurity the minute the last episode has been screened. Having said that, I sort of enjoyed it to some extent. I will be watching it to the end. Maybe sometimes I'm just too perverse.

It is unbelievably bad, I recorded it to watch next day and couldn't get past the first 10 minutes. Puerile was the word that came to mind, how does anyone in BBC responsible for programme making or control allow such unwatchable rubbish to be broadcast? Not a single redeeming feature, laugh, or modicum of interest. Are the word massive not the target audience for this type of comedy? I'd have thought so. In which case, they missed by a mile.......

... in a kind of 'not as bad as I thought it was going to be' way. It's not very good, but it made me chuckle once or twice, which is more than can be said for some, highly acclaimed, comedies...

Can't help but feel I need to give it a go to experience the sheer 'my eyes! my eyes!'-iness of it.

I just had to go check this out on iPlayer to see if it's as bad as you all say.

And you're all correct. It stinks.

I used to work in advertising, for what it's worth... and I didn't even get a vicarious "oooh it's my industry, I'm in on the joke", thrill of watching it. It's just dreadful.

How is it possible that the fabulous Adam Buxton could be so horrendously unfunny?

Just look at the evidence:

Horne and Corden (pole vaulting the shark indeed)

The Persuasionists (Buxton's 'drunk' act was excruciating)

Big Top. Jesus H Christ. Decent cast but who the hell 'wrote' it?

Two Pints... sometimes fnny when Ralf Little was around, but just getting embarrassing now. What a waste of Sheldon Smith.

Coming of Age (roundly panned as abysmal, though I'm strange and actually quite like it - but only because of the guy who plays DK, the girl who plays Chloe and the fact this probably closer to what most 18 year olds are like than some would like to admit. I was probably about as priapic.)

On the other hand, Not Going Out, while not being earth shattering, only got a temporary reprive due to public grumblings. Other than that, I'm trying to think of a single decent sitcom the beeb do now.

Even worse, ITV managed Benidorm, which was actually pretty funny at times.

What's going on?

I was looking forward to this too. I'll probably still watch the first one just to confirm, but I imagine I too will groan from this write-up.

Speaking of awful BBC Sitcoms, did anyone see Off The Hook last year? University-based sitcom with Jay from The Inbetweeners in a small role. Dreadful.

is in effect, I gotta see this

I watched ten minutes before switching off. I wanted to like it because of Buxton, Daisy Haggard and the highly underrated Simon Farnaby. But, Lordy, it so wanted to be the advertising IT Crowd it hurt.

I may be some time

I also had to take a gander and have to agree it is rankness of the highest order. I can't decide if it's the acting or the jokes which are worse.

Re the quality of recent BBC comedy, am I alone in thinking that We Need Answers is the worst pile of garbage ever shown on (the usually wonderful) BBC4.
It's apparently adapted from an 'award winning Edinburgh show' - I can only think that it worked in a theatre, and should of stayed there.

lossfawurds...

this is when smilies are required

"I Have A Dream" - Martin Luther King Jr.

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes" - Oscar Wilde

"Golf is a good walk spoiled" - Mark Twain

"We Need Answers is a really good show" - goosefat101

Spot the deliberate mistake :)

At least they won't be watching the box.

What we all REALLY want is for Armando and Steve to send Graham Linehan an invite, book a 5 star hotel in the Highlands for a month and emerge with another Partridge. What I'd give!

Did anyone else make it to the credits and notice that one Andrew Collins is the show's script editor?

that this is some sort of "guerilla programming" - the producers had a bet to see if anyone would actually commission and broadcast this series, knowing full well that it was in reality a parody of the worst sitcom ever written. Surely that's the case isn't it...?!

I have just watched it via the iplayer and I have to say, if it isn't a wind-up, then it has to go down as a complete disaster - I was going to say a complete joke or farce but it should be so lucky!

Is it me, am I missing something...?

Here are the opening lines.

Girl walks into office: "Hey Billy written any good slogans?

Billy: "Hey Emma you filthy slag"

canned laughter

believe me that is the high point!

I was just showing the programme to my significant other and she reckons that the biggest problem is the canned laughed. Not only is some of it placed in baffling places where no one would laugh, but also that it is so over the top that every statement is supposed to have been hilarious, rather than letting you find smiles and laughs where they would really come.

She reckons the characters would look more pathetic and thus be funnier if there comments fell into silence.

She also said it seemed really really dated like something from the early 90's.

It's got Iain Lee in it for God's sake - once brilliantly described by Word magazine in their list of Worst TV Presenters as being "scientifically unfunny" .

I tried again tonight, just in case last week was a bad dream.

I lasted a total of eight minutes before I lost the will to live.

Never, ever again.

Can this really be true?!

Is it on iPlayer? In fact, whens it out on DVD?

I caught this the other night - it makes the Persuasionists look subtle, sophisticated and intricately plotted. I'm clearly not the target audience, but this was seriously poor.

At one point one of the characters promises to 'rim' another character if she gets the part she wants in the play; a minute later he takes down his trousers and spreads his legs. That's not humour - it's an attempt to be rude for the sake of it. Not even a cheap laugh, just cheap.

Does anyone know who they are aiming this pile of crap at? Some humour I can see is aimed at the kids - like Mighty Boosh, I can see the attraction and the inventiveness of that - but it just goes over my head probably because I am an old duffer. But I can't even see that The Persuasionists is necessarily aimed at the youth market - who would find it funny?

This programme is just so poor that I am really starting to question my own sanity and my humour here, it's touched a nerve!

I am also surprised that Adam Buxton is involved as I really love the Adam & Joe show - I subscribe to their Podcasts and think they are excellent.

Please could someone interview the creators and actors in this and just ask them "WHY...!?"

Its got the touch of Andrew Collins hasn't it? - need i say more on how 'scientifically unfunny' his writing has actually got in the past few years - sorry fella, I do love and subscribe to the Collins and Herring podcast, and I understand having to make a living and all that - but please stay away from TV sit-com scenarios - leave it to people who know and understand what it is to write lame-assed jokes and lame-assed characters (see 'Big Top' etc etc) ad-nauseum for the BBC until the canned laughter cows come home.

By the way, hwre is the new series of Alan Partidge, and where the hell is Chris Morris to save our TV asses?

when you have been involved in something as tragically bad as The Persuasionists?

Do you pretend it never happened, wipe it off your cv and write a kind and pleading email to imdb asking them to remove any trace of your involvement?

Or do you talk about it and try and put on a brave face? What's the best option?

and found myself just starting to think it was just about OK. On this trajectory I reckon that the 28th series will be a blinder.

but can't get the phrase 'Cockney cheese' out my head... I've dropped it into conversations with my wife at least twice now.

after my d/l of the first episode, it felt like a script an Australian 'creative' gallah had written c.1980 that was unearthed in the move to Manc.
Crass, stupid, pointless and not funny.

the most amusing about it is that the writer doesn't merely have a Written by credit. Instead he has a pompous Written and Created by credit. Unless someone else writes some episodes later on, then that is a really self-aggrandising title.

I quite like the programme. It's terrible but enjoyably naff. I laughed a few times, and not necessarily at it but with it. The thing probably wouldn't be half as dated looking if it didn't have the strangely coloured inter-scene shots. They just scream out Britpop era.

Thought not. Me neither (I deleted it off Sky+ after Episode 2). The weird thing is, some of the lines aren't that bad - it's the over-acting of everyone involved that sends it into the unforgiveably awful (with a special prize to whoever plays the Dutch character.)
If it was directed totally differently in a more naturalistic style and ditched the canned laughter it'd be... well, not great, but probably average.

Episode four wasn't shown last night at 10 on BBC2. It must be too embarrassing to screen it on primetime so it's been moved to 12.20 today (or technically tomorrow). In its place they screened Grumpy Old Women.

on holiday? I'm still waiting for an explanation ha ha...I don't think I have ever been so deeply wounded to see someone who's work I admire have their name connected with such a crock of shite since Johnny Rotten started selling us butter!

If you do only one thing today, click this link and watch the clip of 'Curry & Chips' - Your chin will hit the floor.
http://thequietus.com/articles/03687-box-fresh-emma-johnston-on-the-worl...