"The Catherine Tate Show" (2004) TV series 2004-????

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Gordon Anderson

Writers:

Derren Litten (writer) and
Mathew Horne (writer)

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | unknown

Release Date:

16 February 2004 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot Keywords:

Sketch Comedy

Awards:

6 wins & 11 nominations

Cast

Catherine Tate	...	Various Characters (22 episodes, 2004-2007)
Niky Wardley	...	Various Characters (18 episodes, 2004-2007)
Mathew Horne	...	Various Characters / ... (18 episodes, 2004-2007)
Andy Dennehy	...	Vern (14 episodes, 2005-2006)
Angela McHale	...	Various (12 episodes, 2004-2006)
Bruce Mackinnon	...	Various (10 episodes, 2004-2006)

Runtime:

30 min (12 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Ireland:15 (DVD rating) (season 1) | UK:15 (Season 1 & 2) | Australia:MA (some episodes) | Australia:M (some episodes)

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

It took three and a half hours each day for Catherine Tate to be made up as "Gran".

Quotes:

Various Characters: Who dear? Me dear? Gay dear? No, dear!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross: (#11.7)" (2006)

I'm definitely not bothered

It is mind-boggling to believe that people find this sketch show funny and even hilarious.Contemporary British comic performers seem to constantly rely on the comedy of embarrassment(Ricky Gervais,Sacha Baron Cohen,David Walliams,Matt Lucas,etc.) which has admittedly provided some amusement but is now starting to become more obvious and hackneyed the longer this particular device is being applied.THE CATHERINE TATE SHOW succeeds in merely just being embarrassing.As well as being crude,repetitive and long drawn out.To be fair,Ms Tate shows some ability as a character actress,but she doesn't seem to have any prowess as a writer.Her 'chavette' character of Lauren for example has some comic potential,but is constantly let down by constant and irritating repetition of the same catchphrase(I won't bore anyone by mentioning this yet again)and other lines of dialogue until they grind one's teeth to the point of no enamel.These sketches would be much funnier if they weren't so pointlessly overstretched and reduced by more than half.I don't necessarily object to bad language being used in comedy as long as the material surrounding it is funny and in a decent context(Billy Connolly is a master of such a technique),but her foul-mouthed OAP character is ruined by weak scripting,and the profanities uttered merely come across as a shock tactic.In these and other sketches,Tate often falls into the familiar trap of overplaying and mugging to try and disguise the thinness of the situations;the irony is some of the supporting performances sometimes come off rather better as they are less strident and usually provide the only funny moments in the entire show.

Ms Tate's aforementioned contemporaries are somewhat funnier,but this does not particularly make them anymore outstanding.Modern British comedy seems stuck in a rut at the moment,with most of the above having a degree of appreciation,but never being especially regarded by the British public with great love or affection.In recent years,the deaths of comic legends such as Spike Milligan and Ronnie Barker made front page headlines in national newspapers,and were the lead stories in virtually all the networked news bulletins.Do you think that when old father time calls on our present comic favourites in perhaps 30 or 40 years time such as Gervais,Baron Cohen,Tate,etc. that this would seemingly unite the country in collective mourning like the passing of Barker,for example?