Since becoming a well known comedian, Jack Dee has had to put up with the label of being Britain’s most miserable man. And whilst his stand-up routine is a never ending barrage of complaints and hearty British moaning, he is still a very funny guy.
Rick Spleen and the People who make his Life a Misery
In Lead Balloon he plays middle of the road comedian Rick Spleen, a man whose so-so career has left him hosting corporate events and appearing on lame TV shows to make a living.
Rick’s life is forever being made a misery by his American gag writer Marty (Sean Power), who takes great pleasure in making Rick’s life that extra bit complicated, scrounging lay-about daughter Sam (Antonia Campbell Hughes) and ever cheery but persistant cafe owner Michael (Tony Gardner), who is a mental breakdown waiting to happen.
This series has already added a new element by having Rick’s gloomy housekeeper Magda (Anna Crilly) moving in with the family after her boiler started leaking carbon monoxide; a story she wasted no time in repeating every five minutes, much to Rick’s annoyance.
Jack Dee is...Rick Shaw?
The second episode centres around Rick's hopes of appearing on a family tree series called ‘Where Do You Come From?’ and the revelation that he has an even more comedy real name of Rick Shaw. This leads to a lot of hilarious teasing from Marty and confusion from Magda who thinks Rick is part Chinese, hence the episode being called Panda.
But as ever things don’t go to plan and Rick discovers that his family’s history, jokingly referred to by Marty as “Roots for the 21st century”, is actually very dull and he’s refused entry onto the show.
There’s also a great but slightly black continuation of Michael’s despair after discovering the week before that his father is gay, after the news was drunkenly blurted out by Rick’s long suffering wife Mel (Raquel Cassidy).
Lead Balloon – not just a Curb Your Enthusiasm Knock-off
One of the main criticisms drawn at this show is that it is just a cheap British knock-off of Curb Your Enthusiasm. But although Lead Balloon follows a similar formula to Larry David's Curb, with the misunderstandings and unreasonable protagonist, much of it is based on a lot of Jack’s stand-up and being compared to one of the best comedy shows of the last 10 years can't be considered too much of an insult anyway.
However, the show does suffer from the predictable nature of its set-up, the fact that you know there’s some awkward situation waiting around the corner and Rick will end the episode with egg on his face (it wouldn’t be a surprise it that became literal one week). You know that once Rick enters a series of circumstances he’s going to come out worse of it, making the series a little repetitive. But it’s still a hell of a lot better then most comedy shows out there.
Lead Balloon is shown every Thursday on BBC Two at 10pm. Or if watching TV on your computer is your thing and you want to stick two fingers up to “The Man” by defying the schedules you can watch the episodes on, you guessed it, BBC iPlayer.
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