The sketch show format has been dead for a while. Basically, The Fast Show kinda spoiled it for everyone by reducing sketches to not much more than a punchline and slaying all the useless fluff that usually surrounds these shows. Bo Selecta and Little Britain reprised the role… and now… Bellamy’s People (BBC Two, Thursday, 21 January, 10pm)

Now, in 2010, we’ve got a weird thing on our hands… we’ve got something indebted to The Fast Show made by the people who brought us The Fast Show. Almost like a band who broke up in the late ’60s and got back together for a reunion tour with a member or two missing, Bellamy’s People feels like it’s lacking something, despite the fact that all the notes are being played in the right order.

Of course, anything that Charlie Higson puts his name to is worth watching. I mean, there’s a bleakness in his comedy that sits just under the radar and festers away which not many other comedy writers have successfully aped (no matter how they try).

However, this is not the work of sharp minds. Bellamy’s People is a show that leans on its own legacy whilst aping the People Of Britain schtick of Little Britain. It’s a spoof of those ‘Let’s Go And Meet The Proles’ shows that you have on BBC Two around 7pm (aka, before the good telly starts at 8pm and onward)… yet made by people who aren’t in the real world anymore.

In the mix you’ve got Ali G But Actually Black, aka the “Lion of Harlesden”, Early D… you’ve got Whitehouse displaying his fondness for a catchphrase with “I done you good and proper… I done you like a kipper!” Where the catchphrase hit you once, in 2010, it’s repeated over and over and over and over… Of course, you could argue that this is Whitehouse poking fun at his previous roles, but sadly, it just got annoying. And besides, I don’t believe it to be the case.

Rhys Thomas stars as Bellamy and does a decent enough job of playing the straight-man in amongst the idiots created for the show. However, the whole thing hangs together in such a beige manner that it’s hard to buy into it all. I never heard the radio show from which this was spawned… and maybe that was really good fun… but that’s no use when making the jump to television. You can’t judge a programme on previous attempts.

You can however, hope that it picks up and regains the glories of projects from the past. Bellamy’s People isn’t a bad show… we’ve just seen it all before… and done better… by the people who made it.