User reviews

If The Wright Way returns for another series I shall write a letter to The Pope to have it certified as an official miracle.

Gerald Wright is an overzealous, hyper irritated Council Officer dealing with Heath and Safety and forever coming out with acronyms that are rude but he is unaware of this.

He is newly singled but still carries a torch for his ex wife and he has to deal with a lesbian daughter and her dippy girlfriend.

Ben Elton once and for all proves that he has lost his comedy instincts. In the late 80s he was a comedy colossus both as writer and performer. This series is just one note with little creativity, few laughs and badly produced.

It is very hard to sympathize with Wright who is irritating. David Haig has little to go on with making his character likeable, despite accepting her daughter's same sex relationship.

I think the writer wanted to have elements of Victor Meldrew here but it does not work.

At the work office we have more two dimensional characters. Mina Anwar who was so good in 'The Thin Blue Line' ends up repeating the same plot points each week suggesting she might had murdered her late husband. She has a side plot about entering a dance competition with the Mayor, a man who dislikes Wright.

Haig is manic, loud and unfunny. The sitcom is a throw back to the 1970s and early 1980s.

This is not a Mrs Brown Boys rude and crude, knowing throwback. It is badly made and the acting is too broad.

In the years gone by a series would get to the end of its run of 6 or 8 episodes, its ratings would be assessed and if it was liked it would be brought back. Now however about 5 minutes into its first episode a show can be dead in the water thanks to Twitter and other such social networking sites. The Wright Way is a prime example of this and after a critical mauling on the internet and from critics it has been axed.

You can understand why the BBC felt confident about this show. It was after all written by Ben Elton a man who can claim credit for bringing us Blackadder and Mr Bean, it was about so called 'lovable losers'(isn't every sitcom these days?) and it was by and large family friendly despite being dumped in a late slot (another bad omen).

However when people started taking glee in the fact that Elton had seemingly lost his touch and listing the weak jokes the axe looked set to loom. The Wright Way isn't actually a bad show, it just was never given a proper go.

I actually watched up until episode 4, just to give it a proper chance. Every time I watch it I hate myself a little more.

The writing is terrible, the 'jokes' are flat, the characters aren't likable and the acting sucks.

Why this is on the BBC I don't know. I'd have a hard time giving it a slot on channel 5 at the midnight slot on a Wednesday.

If you're a lover of health and safety, you'll hate this show. If you're a hater of health and safety, you'll hate this show.

I'm having a hard time filling up the required amount of lines to say just how bad this show is. If this last paragraph looks like filler text then it is. I will say that this is the first review I've ever given on IMDb, even though I've been a member for years. That's how bad this show is. I had to tell you.

In these enlightened days of clear and prominently displayed health and safety signs, I think I should warn you about this programme right from the start: Danger! Comedy Free Zone!

Ben Elton used to be a bold,funny, intelligent, era-defining stand-up. He co-wrote Blackadder, one of the most finely crafted and hilarious sitcoms of his generation. He wrote books that became instant best-sellers.

So, who is the man behind "The Wright Way", and what the hell has he done with Ben Elton?

I didn't really like Gordon Brittas the first time around, and I like him even less in his apparent reincarnation as Gerald Wright, a stressed-out health and safety executive working at Baselricky Town Hall. But, like Shakespeare's comedies, every episode of The Brittas Empire had at least one laugh in it. The Wright Way has no laughs in it at all.

There's no room for subtlety in David Haig's performance at Gerald Wright. He shouts, he pulls funny faces, he puts on a silly voice. But whatever he does, Haig cannot alter the fact that the script is not even mildly amusing, and the underlying structure of the show is fatally flawed.

The setting feels hackneyed, the characters are badly thought out, thinly drawn, and utterly two dimensional.

There's a mayor who speaks only using backwards sentences. There's a man-eating, middle-aged Asian woman. There's a vaguely camp guy who looks a bit like Alan Carr, and another bloke who doesn't appear to possess any character traits at all, other than the handy ability to pick up any line of dialogue that Elton hasn't allocated to one of the others.

At home, there's Wright's daughter and her lesbian partner. Another box ticked for the right-on commissioning editors at the BBC, who probably spent more time deciding how many gay and ethnic characters there should be in the series than they did actually reading the script.

It all feels very lazy indeed – even the title of the show is indistinct and will be easily confused in the TV listings with The Wright Stuff on Channel 5.

Perhaps Mr. Elton should spend less time listening to pimply comedy executives and focus groups, and more time following his instincts and listening to the little voice in his head that used to tell him the right way to make people laugh. I'm reminded of the old adage that the camel was designed by committee.

Unfunny is too small a word for it. If anyone happens to find Ben Elton's Mojo, please be kind enough to put it in a jiffy bag and post it back to him immediately.

Read more reviews at Mouthbox.co.uk

If anyone thought Ben Elton had still got it 5 minutes of this show will change your mind. For his latest outing Elton decided it was time for some cutting edge comedy about something everyone hates, Heath and Safety, right kids!?

Unfortunately what we get are endless cheap knob gags, achingly slow predictable punchlines, patronising ethnic caricatures presented with a Brent-esque misguided attempt to be politically correct and finally a Mayor who repeats every line backwards. There are some fine actors in this show and it's painful to see the likes of Robert Daws and David Haig slogging through such garbage in a vain effort to bring Elton's script to comic life. 'Health and Safety is not a subject for levity' remarks Haig's character, this show certainly seems to prove the point

This show was appalling. That's the quick review, but if you want a bit more meat on the review bone then I'll try and convey how bad it truly was.

Where to start? A sitcom based in Essex (where I live) revolving about the working life of one Gerald Wright of Baselricky (yes yes I know) Council's safety department.

No...I can't do it...I'm just going to have to cut to the chase to say that yes I watched every episode in a 'can it get much worse than last week?' vein, and yes it really was so bad that I couldn't stop watching the proverbial car crash.

Imagine the cult-like film 'The Room' but in sitcom form...then add more annoying scenes. Yes folks, that's where we are with 'The Wright Way'