Written and performed by Matt Lucas and David Walliams, creators of 'Little Britain', Come Fly with Me is a fly on the wall mockumentary set in an airport that spoofs the many British reality TV shows that have followed this format. It features a wide array of characters such as owner of low-cost airline FlyLo Omar Baba, work-shy coffee kiosk worker Precious Little, highly camp passenger liaison officer Moses Beacon, racist immigration officer Ian Foot, quirky ground crew worker Taaj Manzoor, catty air steward Fearghal O'Farrell, serial holiday-makers Peter and Judith and the extremely thick burger joint worker Tommy Reid who has ambitions of becoming a pilot.
Firstly, this is a well written and very well performed comedy. There have been criticisms of it but to be honest I thought it was very funny on the whole. Lucas and Walliams are very amusing and talented comic performers and they are on very good form here. I can't compare it too much with 'Little Britain' seeing as I have only seen bits and pieces from that on-going series. But suffice to say, I think the idea of setting the comedy around a specific place works very well and means that there has to be a bit more discipline in the writing in order for the characters to all fit within the specific confines of the airport setting. Sure, it could be accused of being repetitive to a certain extent with some characters being slightly more one note than others. But on the whole Lucas and Walliams extract a lot of varied comedy from their characters and I have to admit I laughed quite a bit at this one.
As far as the accusations of racism I have often seen, I simply can't agree with this. It's actually quite lazy to label the show racist on the basis of these white actors applying dark make-up to their skin in order to play ethnic characters. To say this is not acceptable is illogical and lazy thinking, seeing as Lucas and Walliams play an assortment of characters from various regions around the UK. To say that they can play characters with different accents and hair colours but not different skin pigmentation is simply absurd. The fact that they do play these characters is in fact the opposite of racist – it's inclusive and treats types of Britons in the same manner irrespective of skin colour. Aside from this, you need look no further that the character of the immigration officer Ian Foot to understand what the creators really think of such narrow-minded thinking.
This is for sure a funny show that is probably a little under-appreciated.
