The Wrong Mans (2013–2014)
7/10
British and American comedy fused?
8 December 2013
There are so many comedy dramas out there today, with the USA taking up most of the market which is not necessarily a bad thing as there are some pretty funny shows with high production values featuring (at it's best) some silly slapstick moments combined with laugh-out-loud one liners. Contrast this with British comedy, a more subdued experience with cheaper sets and intelligent witty humour which plays on your mind despite not necessarily giving you the most laughs. That's how I would compare to two.

What we have here is a show written by and starring James Corden and Matthew Baynton (I hope that's right) as two 'everymans' who, through coincidence, get caught up in a huge conspiracy involving murders, secret agents and gangsters. The basic plot has been seen before but this show does not attempt to reinvent any genres, instead it gives us a tightly written comedy full of self-awareness and hilarious situations. This, I believe, is what we get when we combine British and American comedy. There are so many escalating situations that these two find themselves in that never cease to surprise and I often found myself laughing out loud at specific moments (such as the briefcase in episode 2). Despite this, the show has some more subdued moments more akin to a British comedy drama and here the writing is sharp and the delivery spot on. These moments didn't make me laugh out loud but I enjoyed them and they made the moments of hilarity stand out even more and continuously surprise me.

I usually find it difficult to review a comedy as one can only gauge how good it is by how funny they found it. But this show is so easy to get into I'll just say give it a go, if you enjoy witty well-written comedy dramas with moments of side-splitting hilarity then you can't go too far wrong with The Wrong Mans
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