TV Review – We Are Klang on BBC Three

Comedy Trio Greg Davies, Steve Hall and Marek Larwood

Aug 13, 2009

BBC Three's latest sitcom We Are Klang is a genuinely funny TV comedy from a likeable and talented trio.

BBC Three hasn’t had a particularly good history when it comes to comedy including such disastrous attempts as Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Coming of Age, Horne and Corden, Tittybangbang and, here comes controversy, Little Britain. Yes the latter got boring very quickly. Granted there are a few irregularities, Monkey Dust and The Mighty Boosh aren’t too bad, but on the whole it's bloody dire.

Thank goodness then for We Are Klang, the three-piece stand-up troupe made up of Greg Davies, Steve Hall and Marek Larwood who after several years of building up a reputation from their stage show made the leap to television this year.

Sitcom about Council Officers in Klangbury

We Are Klang is a weird sitcom/sketch show about a group of councilmen in the fictional and absurdly named borough of Klangbury and the bizarre antics they get up to on a day-to-day basis. Of course each episode does have a loose story linking together the jokes, usually the team are threatened into solving a problem set by the mayor (Debbie Chazen) yet, as typically happens in these cases, all goes wrong and hilarity ensues. And it really does.

Most of the gags – spoken, visual or otherwise – are brilliantly over-the-top and the guys aren’t afraid to venture into the realms of gross-out humour (the series opener featured a scene where Merek had to put out a factory fire with his own urine). In a way with its anything goes nature and exaggerated situations that border on childish it could be considered a modern version of The Young Ones, which is fitting given that Greg Davies looks like a giant Rik Mayall.

Many comedy shows have the pretence of being in front of an audience. We Are Klang not only have studio viewers but also acknowledge them and in some instances encourage them to join in. As the team throw in the odd ab-lib there is occasional corpsing, usually on the part of Davies, which is left into the recording and actually quite refreshing amongst the refinely edited and tightly scripted comedy that’s regular on the box.

Okay, so it does conform to lazy comedy stereotypes with a narcissistic leader (Greg), a smart Alec (Steve) and an idiot (Merek) and yes it's formulaic but three episodes in however and this is proving already to be one of the funniest, most laugh-out-loud sitcoms that’s been on TV in recent years. The gags come think and fast meaning that it’s okay if some don’t hit the mark and the trio don’t have to beg for a reaction.

We Are Klang are bound to have a good future in front of them. Sure they probably won’t be bothering the mainstream anytime soon or reach the lofty heights of Walliams and Lucas but this is exactly the sort of thing that gathers a loyal cult following. This is definately worth a punt at the very least.

On a related BBC Thursday night comedy note The Funny Side of...Politics was exactly what the TV Talent outing the week previously should have been; funny, insightful and full of embarrassing clips of the subjects rather than a luvvie fest. Hopefully the remainder of the series will continue in this template.

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