On Thursday, anyone liking British comedy should sport a black armband. Why, because A special one-off episode of The Green Wing is airing, and it will inevitably be the last.
One of the highlights of 2006, Green Wing managed to be both inventive and surreal… and most importantly, it was so funny that it made you laugh snot bubbles. So it’s with a heavy heart that we’ll be bidding a farewell to one of the finest shows in comedy.
I understand that people can feel irked at the stop/start music and swanky slo-mo edits that cut up each sequence, but to deny yourself vast amounts of hilarity over something as trivial as that is plain dim. Once you buy into the show, you might need a trip to a real hospital to get your sides sewn up from side splitting laughter.
The cast is a dazzling array of comedic actors and the characters are all essential to the plot (and laughs). Mac’, handsome and suave owns a wit dryer than a desert; Guy, is sarcastic and selfish oaf is the most odious bloke on TV… with hidden sweetness’; Dr Caroline is a blundering woman with an incredible capacity for cocking things up… and the rest are all equally hopeless and foolish. However, the real star of the show is the incredible Mark Heap who plays the wonderfully wrong Alan Statham who kicks off the programme with Joanna who find themselves on the run
in a motor caravan after the killing of a dwarf in the close of last series. Heap is all nervous ticks and micro movements which are in themselves, as hilarious as any of the more obvious slapstick moments carried off with aplomb by Britain’s greatest (and criminally underrated) comedy actor.
Of course, there are loose ends that need sorting out, such as Mac’s terminal illness and Caroline betrothal to the hilariously oafish Guy. The whole cast are on exquisite form which sees them taking in a funeral (is it Mac’s?) and a gut busting scene which I’ll refer to as the
‘handbag-shooting incident’. This will be jaw-droppingly great, full of real belly laughs and characters that you can really invest in… it’s a great same that it will be entering retirement. [Mof Gimmers]
