gaston-60699 Found this show by accident while searching for something else. Glad I found it. Keep it coming!

oopz-05116 I really like David Mitchell so I gave this far more of a chance than I otherwise would have... but nope, its just not good.Basically what we're dealing with here is a 1980s Ben Elton sitcom 30+ years late to the table. Sure, 30+ years ago 'this' sort of thing was good... but entertainment has moved on a long way since Blackadder.... seems Ben Elton has not.Tired, predictable and tedious, even David Mitchell cant save this reheated historic relic.

the_reminder This is a very smart, funny and sweet comedy about Will Shakespeare as a struggling writer, actor, business- and family man. It has clearly been written and created by people who know and love Shakespeare's work. It is certainly more enjoyable the more you know about the man and his work, but I think it can be funny regardless. Those who aren't hardcore fans of the bard may particularly appreciate the other characters' complaints about how Shakespeare expresses things in an unnecessarily complicated way ("But it's what I do!") and about how the jokes in his plays require extensive footnotes for anyone to be able to enjoy. I must also mention that I love the fact that this Will regularly goes home to Stratford to spend time with his family - and perform the tasks on his wife's list of "dad jobs". Anne Shakespeare here is hardly Will's intellectual equal but she is kind and caring and thankfully not the shrew that misogynist academics have been trying to make her out as for the past few centuries. Feminist Germaine Greer believes Anne was the rock on which Shakespeare relied throughout his life, and I think this is how "Upstart crow" portrays her. As a non-British Shakespeare buff, I sense that there are some jokes about contemporary life in Britain that go over my head, though I still enjoy things like the jokes about the British rail and the annoyingly small number of lavatories for women in theatres. The actor who plays Will Kempe seemed oddly familiar but thanks to the late IMDb boards I was able to find out that this is because he is doing an impression of Ricky Gervais, whose career, one could argue, has some similarities to Kempe's.The first couple of episodes are in my opinion the weakest of the first season, so please stick with it! Can't wait for season 2.

tlloydesq Upstart Crow marks a bit of a revival for Ben Elton. Without actually restoring him to the top of the comic writers league it has to be said. If you can see Ben's career faltering after Blackadder, next was "The Thin Blue Line" where the standard dropped quite a bit. After that things became unwatchable. Let's say "Upstart Crow" gets Ben back up to "The Thin Blue Line".To achieve this Ben has pretty much returned to Blackadder territory, this time he is investigating Shakespeare with a few nods to the modern age. Each show is split into 3 parts – the real story is book ended by scenes set in Will's home and are pretty bland. A few star names (Harry Enfield, Liza Tarbuck and Paula Wilcox) to stick on the advertising hoardings but precious little to amuse. The major activity is either in Will's London residence or the pub down the road.You just can't escape the Balckadder comparisons though and. let's be fair though, we are comparing this programme with one of the classic comedies of the 1980s. Not many since have equalled that show. Ben Elton writes his parts in particular styles and the Shakespeare role is Rowan Atkinson. David Mitchell may be a fine actor but he cannot channel Atkinson. I can see Atkinson extracting every ounce of humour out of some of the diatribes which sounds ordinary from a mere mortal. Other characters evoke those from Blackadder 2 and are quite pedestrian but develop over the course of the series. I do though like the Ricky Gervais mimic. A bit of vitriol from Ben? If so...more please!These are the obvious observations but how is the show as a whole? A knowledge of Shakespeare would help but I don't know much about the bard and I found the show pretty good. In spite of the criticisms the cast carry off decent, but not great, roles. Each show contains a gentle dig at luvvie actors and there is a lot of genuine humour on board. The stories are simply mechanisms to wrap around a number of sketches. A mechanism which works.Very few comedies hit the bullseye in the first series and I think there is plenty to work with here. I hope that there is a second series and Ben can gear the dialogue to the actors at his disposal. Let's remember "The Blackadder" didn't exactly predict the glories to come. That was before they took on board an upcoming new writer...oh yeah. Ben Elton.