Five questions for... Jo Enright

A short interview with the Lab Rats star

Written by David Baldwin. From Metro, 2nd September 2008

For all the abuse Ricky Gervais receives, his astute awareness of the inner workings of the BBC was always fascinating to watch in Extras, especially when he launched his fake BBC sitcom When The Whistle Blows with its cheesy lines, studio laughter, simplistic acting and staged sets.

Surely the BBC doesn't make dated shows like that any more? Sadly, it does, as anyone who has been following Lab Rats will be aware. Last night marked the final episode of the Chris Addison comedy about university professors at work in the laboratory. The quality of actors involved - such as Addison, who dazzled in The Thick Of It - isn't in dispute but the BBC's desire to stick a laughter track over the weak jokes only highlighted the unfunny incidents.

Elsewhere, Helen Moon, a Patricia Routledge lookalike, spent the episode opening doors to pour scorn on the others before disappearing. Then there was the experienced Selina Cadell, who hammed it up as the Dutch dean of the university, who, it transpired this week, happened to own a slutty pigeon. Actually, that was amusing. But that was it. A shame - especially when it's obvious Addison's capable of so much more.

Noam Friedlander, Metro, 14th August 2008

I was really looking forward to this series because I think we need more family-friendly laugh-tracked silly comedy on our screens. Sadly it's not quite there yet, with some inspired gags and genuinely funny jokes mixed with some rather iffy character development and scenes which cross the line from 'silly' to 'stupid'. If it reminds me of anything it's Hippies - another much-hyped series from some big names which was enjoyable and amusing, but also chaotic and sometimes self-indulgent.

Sadly too it looks like Lab Rats is following in the footsteps of Hippies by performing quite poorly in the ratings and enduring some stinking reviews. It's perhaps to be expected - watching Robin Ince in a silly wig running around shouting for an entire episode is something that's always going to be an acquired taste. But I'm sticking with it, and it'd be a shame if it didn't get a second series after this week's episode, if not the funniest half hour of television this year, was almost certainly the cleverest.

Steve Williams, Off The Telly, 10th August 2008

Veering between sitcom clichés (comedy accents, corny gags) and something more surreal, this series still feels like it's searching for an identity. It's a pity because Chris Addison and Carl Cooper's scripts show potential.

The Metro, 7th August 2008

A Lab Manager on Lab Rats

The Guardian asks a real lab manager what she thinks about Lab Rats. She seems to somewhat miss the point that the show is supposed to be a comedy, not an accurate depiction of lab life.

Written by Benita Middleton. From The Guardian, 28th July 2008

Dispensing with character and plot must be tempting for writers trying to create a zany sitcom. Anything can happen when you're not tied to a story, and if your protagonists aren't believable people, you can make them say anything that comes to mind.

Lab Rats hops gaily from one idea to the next and a lot of the broad visual jokes are funny. Co-writer Chris Addison does well in the Father Ted role of the only person who isn't eccentric to the point of mental illness ("It's like being in a room full of my Gran!")

But the free-form silliness stops comic momentum building. If a gag fails, the audience have nothing else to hang onto - the loosely defined supporting characters can't even be relied on to do their funny thing, because you're not sure what that thing is.

Comedy like this is almost impossible to get right. Lab Rats valiantly fails.

Jack Seale, Radio Times, 24th July 2008

There are nicely worked scenes in Chris Addison's sciencey sitcom this week as an officious inspector comes to visit the lab - another great turn by Kim Wall (last seen in Five's sitcom Angelo's). As luck would have it, he calls on the day Cara has accidentally defrosted the wealthy benefactor who was being kept cryogenically frozen in the lab, despite not being dead. It's more complicated than that but the details hardly matter; it's all about well-observed comedy moments, for instance when Alex (Addison) distracts the inspector by nudging the pictures on the wall crooked, knowing his adversary will feel compelled to put them right. I'm not convinced the characters or tone have quite gelled yet, but there are sparkles of something good.

David Butcher, Radio Times, 17th July 2008

What a brilliant sitcom to get young children interested in the wacky world of science.

Sadly, the show - starring Selina Cadell - ended up being scheduled at 9.30pm, way past the bedtime of anyone who'd find anything to laugh about.

I didn't want to write this off after its debut last week. I hoped the stupid jokes, stupid science and even stupider scientists might have been a one-off, but this week it turns out it was just getting into its stride and was preparing to get even stupider.

Tonight we're subjected to a stream of verbal diarrhoea from guest star Robin Ince, who's been defrosted out of his cryogenic freezing unit. The joke is he's not even dead! But this show is. Time to pull the plug and walk away. Or else shunt it over to CBeebies.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 17th July 2008

Even with the best will in the world, this is still a painfully unfunny episode. There is nothing wrong with the characters or with the acting - the weak link is the script, which starts off by relying (deliberately) on daft jokes and farcical plots. And although there is no reason why daft jokes shouldn't be funny, they cannot be clumsy and laboured as well as daft. One of the central jokes of tonight's episode is a former professor - taken out of a deep freeze and brought back to life - who proceeds to drive everyone round the bend. Alas, he is so tiresome that he will drive viewers round the bend as well.

David Chater, The Times, 17th July 2008

This bonkers and self-proclaimedly stupid comedy, co-written by and starring Chris Addison, is odd: not very funny yet vaguely appealing none the less.

Patricia Wynn Davies, The Telegraph, 17th July 2008

Unfunny but imaginative, derivative but comfortably familiar - perhaps this is the way that sitcoms will now seek to seep into the consciousness so that distinctive series become a single amorphous blur of quaint humour. And that sums Lab Rats up; the first episode was enjoyable but only because we felt we'd seen it somewhere before, and were sporadically gripped by its quirky imagination - it could be the next Father Ted or it could be the latest corpse dropped into the mass grave dug for Only Fools And Horses spin offs.

The Custard, 14th July 2008

BBC2's new series, Lab Rats seems to be further evidence that the sitcom tide is turning from the dark comedy of embarrassment to something lighter, dafter and more traditional.

As it turned out, yesterday's plot was no more sternly realistic than the characterisation - what with the team having 24 hours to perfect human cloning, but only succeeding in creating a six-foot snail.

Given that Lab Rats scrupulously observes that other traditional sitcom convention whereby a bad joke is preferable to none at all, it's not surprising that the show is distinctly patchy. Still, there were some pretty good running gags last night (many of them starring an amusing Russian) - and the whole thing also manages the useful trick of being extremely likeable. As a result, even when it's at its lamest, you somehow can't help wishing it well.

James Walton, The Telegraph, 11th July 2008

It was clever stuff. But not very funny, all the same

Matt Baylis, Daily Express, 11th July 2008

Lab Rats is a truly appalling new sitcom. The characters - geeks who work in a lab - are not even colourful enough to be stereotypes. Chris Addison, star and co-writer, is a man transformed (all for the bad) from his winning performance in The Thick of It as the wry chief geek.

Bad puns, redundant characters, lame jokes (about twenty involving 'gay hair') - and yes it really did end with a huge, rampaging snail. Not even the best surgeon in the land could save this.

Tim Teeman, The Times, 11th July 2008

If you've seen any of the preview clips of this show, then you'd know that you were heading for a traditional set-up: studio, fixed cameras, and a live audience. There is nothing wrong with that, plenty of our greatest sitcoms have been made that way. You'd also know that it stars Chris Addison, known as one of the most cerebral comedians on the circuit.

The traditional set-up was matched by traditional humour, but does traditional humour really have to be this... well, bad? We had people with funny names, people with funny accents, a slow Brummie girl and 'hilarious' misunderstandings. Now, I love an obvious, dumb joke that you can see coming a mile off as much as the next dude - Spaced was full of them - but you have to intersperse that with other types of humour. Otherwise it is just obvious and dumb.

And to be fair, Addison and his co-writer Carl Cooper did try. In fact, despite what I've written so far, I'm finding it hard to hate this programme because I know exactly what they were going for. They were trying to say you don't have to be edgy and sweary to be funny, that sitcoms in this style can have a warmth and quirkiness that something like Peep Show may lack. And I agree! And there were glimpses of invention, and I think Addison has charisma, and I like his pink coat. But let's face it, that's not enough. Not by a long way.

annawaits, TV Scoop, 11th July 2008

Buried amid the kind of stuff that would barely have passed muster in the 70s (does Dr Beenyman's pink coat make him look gay? No - his hair does! How has daft Cara managed to get through life without a piano falling on her head? "I haven't!") are signs of both comedy and intelligence, but when all the jokes are spatchcocked into a wafer-thin plot that veers uncertainly between reality and surreality, this particular experiment can only be deemed a failure.

Lucy Mangan, The Guardian, 11th July 2008

The plot of last night's episode was pleasantly absurdist, the jokes were commendably odd and wide-ranging. Somehow, though, it didn't quite gel, largely because of the studio audience, whose laughter, as so often, slowed things down and underlined jokes that needed to be thrown away.

It may be, too, that the cast is a little too large, so that the stories lack a focus (compare the similar but funnier The IT Crowd, with only three regulars and a couple of frequent walk-ons). Worth giving it a week or two, though.

Robert Hanks, The Independent, 10th July 2008

Graham Linehan on the Lab Rats critics

Father Ted writer Graham Linehan hits out at the critics who have slated Lab Rats so quickly

Written by Graham Linehan. From , 10th July 2008

Chris Addison Interview

The Independent interviews Addison on swapping satire for sitcom and why he is leaving The Thick Of It behind.

Written by Julian Hall. From The Indpendent, 10th July 2008

What better place to try to reinvent the studio-based sitcom than in a science laboratory? If you're stuck for the next surreal joke or lethal punchline you can always just set about whipping one up in a Petri dish.

Your man in the white coat here is Chris Addison (who played the hapless special adviser Olly Reeder in The Thick Of It) and co-wrote this with Carl Cooper.

His co-workers - including Selina Caddell, Jo Enright and Dan Tetsell - all come from the school of You Don't Have To Be Mad To Work Here, But It Helps.

And perhaps science-fiction lab would be a better description of the setting because this is a place where pretty much anything is possible - cloning, giant molluscs - anything really, except hiding your chocolate from your workmates.

Childishly inventive and frequently just silly, it's not a bad first impression.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 10th July 2008

If the feedback I get is anything to go by, there are two things viewers dislike above all else. One is orchestral Muzak in wildlife programmes. The other is canned laughter in sitcoms. The latter is particularly bad because it sets up an old-fashioned style of comedy with one character dollying up a feed-line and someone else hitting it for six. Unfortunately this new sitcom, set in the laboratory of an English university, uses a laughter track. It is a pity, because the characters are an entertaining lot who would benefit from the chance to escape from this straitjacket of comic conformity, while Chris Addison - last seen on our screens in The Thick of It - has a wonderful line in engaging, deadpan delivery.

David Chater, The Times, 10th July 2008

Having starred as government advisor Ollie Reader in the brilliant political satire The Thick of It, Chris Addison now gets a leg-up on the comedy ladder with his own prime-time sitcom.

Addison helms this likeable, madcap comedy as Dr Alex Beenyman, head of the Arnolfini Research Laboratory at St Dunstan's University. Naturally, not a single member of the lab has the first clue how to do their job. Professor John Mycroft (Hyperdrive's Geoff McGivern) has just spent the laboratory's budget on a huge statue of himself on horseback, slaying dragons.

Dr Beenyman's principal concern is that his white lab coat has just been dyed pink. He worries this makes him look 'gay', though his nitwitted colleague Brian Lalumaca (Dan Tetsell) and his hapless Brummie lab assistant Cara McIlvenny (Jo Enright) insist it's actually his hair that looks gay. Pandemonium is triggered by the visit of a Russian geneticist, Dr Kyrtistyges (pronounced 'Curtis Stigers', and played by Sevan Stephan), who's having trouble cloning his grandmother. The lab promises to fix the problem, but instead creates a gigantic snail.

The result is a catalytic reaction of Red Dwarf
and The IT Crowd, in a solution of Are You Being Served? And it's not a bad formula.

Robert Collins, The Telegraph, 10th July 2008

You're going to need a lot of patience with this new sitcom, starring Chris Addison. Either that or copious supplies of the laughing gas that the hysterical studio audience seem to be on as the first episode unfolds.

That's a shame because potentially it's good, with shades of The IT Crowd, Father Ted and The Mighty Boosh. This is skewed comedy, where nothing is quite as it seems, the main protagonists are all well the other side of barking and the plot has plenty of unexpected twists and turns.

Paul Strange, DigiGuide, 10th July 2008

Television comedies are so difficult to get right, it's little wonder hardly anyone bothers any more. We're given occasional gifts such as Peep Show and The Thick of It, but they are niche - mainstream, studio-based comedies are almost nonexistent. So it's good to see the genial Lab Rats tiptoeing into the comedy wilderness with a funny blend of the surreal and the silly.

Co-written (with Carl Cooper) by its star, Chris Addison (a gifted comic with The Thick of It and a handful of Radio 4 series to his credit), Lab Rats is a playful comedy set in the science labs of St Dunstan's University. The staff are well-meaning idiots who put up Christmas decorations in August just to brighten the place up a bit, with a boss whose entire purpose in life appears to be the pursuit of chocolate. It's cheerfully daft, in an old-fashioned kind of way (ie it isn't politically incisive or satirical) and it prompts a lot of uncomplicated laughs.

Alison Graham, The Radio Times, 10th July 2008

Eureka!: Lab Rats

Broadcast magazine asks Chris Addison how Lab Rats was created. Note: registration to Broadcast may be required to see the article.

Written by Robin Parker. From Broadcast, 9th July 2008

Lab Rats is a big, daft, cartoony sitcom, filmed before a studio audience. Although set in a laboratory, it is less about science and more an excuse for stupid jokes, endearingly chaotic characters and fast-paced, farcical plots.

The Meath Chronicle, John Daly, 9th July 2008

Can Addison's Lab Rats revive the ailing sitcom?

Written by David Baldwin. From Lab Rats, 7th July 2008

The results of all this effort, are often, as Chris Addison describes - 'stupid' - but not often funny. Chris co-wrote the show with fellow radio scriptwriter Carl Cooper, so at least we know it wasn't all his fault.

Daily Record, 5th July 2008

Where science and silliness collide

A preview of Lab Rats, including a short interview with Carl Cooper and Chris Addison.

From The Telegraph, 28th June 2008