Ballot Monkeys

At first I had to check whether I was watching BBC2 because the cast of Episodes kept turning up!

However this series is from Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin the team behind Drop The Dead Donkey. This is a satire on the 2015 election campaign starring comedy stalwarts Hugh Dennis and Ben Miller written and filmed hours before transmission.

We see the various campaign teams on their battle buses talking about or crying over or just taking the Mick about real life events that have happened in the real political world. So we have comments on Ed's gravestone of pledges for example.

In that sense I felt it was a bit and hit and miss. The satire was not as sharp, Miller in the Liberal Democrat campaign bus coming over a little pathetic. Sarah Hadland stood out more with her little prejudices in the UKIP battle bus.

The Labour battle bus just made me look forward to the new series of Episodes which hopefully will contain more laughs.

This satirical comedy series is an enjoyable take on the crazy and backstabbing world of politics. I love the fact that it aired during the lead up and right up until the night before the election. It attracted a fantastic cast of established comedy and straight actors, which says a lot for its appeal. The ludicrous UKIP jokes were a wonderful knock at a world gone mad and the PC- positive-thinking-ness of the American adviser to the Labour party may not have been exaggerated all that much at all. Ben Miller's character's meltdown was beautifully played. The whole cast did a sterling job. It was a strong ensemble piece. Overall, it had the adult members of this household happily entertained by the non- stop mayhem. And our laughter might have woken up the child contingent of this home.

I cannot believe the above review. I think I might have woken the neighbours with the racket I made (I watched on 4od just now). There were so many good lines - & visual jokes - I couldn't keep up. It was absolutely priceless. Andy Hamilton is a bit of a genius. Admittedly the guffaw quotient dropped off, but that was probably a good thing (for my neighbours). It got slightly subtler but still with a lot of belly laughs. The cast were uniformly superb. They were caricatures, but no more than in the Thick Of It. There were desperate men (& women), people resigned to their fate, stupid people, devious people, nice people, weird people, all horribly trapped in a confined space. The writing was witty & the timing excellent. It was delicious.

A political comedy set on the coaches of the four main parties during their 2015 Election Campaign.

I hoped for a little more but it was horribly bad, a complete lack of nuance and just weak caricature led comedy with jokes sign-posted from 2 constituencies away. Labour find Ed embarrassing, the Lib Dems are humiliated, UKIP are bigots, you get the idea.

It lacks the Machiavellian brilliance of House of Cards, the perceptiveness of the Thick of It or the wit of Yes Minister.

As awkward as watching Ed eat a bacon sandwich and as cringe-worthy as Nick apologising (again).

What a shame...