Murder in Successville

This week I’ve been watching Murder in Successville

In 2013 Tony Hall, the Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, was appointed Director-General of the BBC. With the Newsnight scandal and Conservative state squeeze, it was perhaps the worst time to take the biggest job in TV. Under orders to cut costs, Hall announced he would be evicting BBC Three and moving it to a smaller home online. Russell Kane and Matt Lucas, beneficiaries of the channel’s patronage, worried this cultural bedroom tax would prove detrimental to creatives, making it even more difficult to get commissioned. This reaction was wholly justified. Over the years the channel has been a funny farm to success stories Little Britain, Mighty Boosh and Gavin and Stacey, and yielded prize-winning produce in the form of Him and Her and Nighty Night.

So with the ‘Closing Down’ sign on the BBC Three shop door, is the channel running down its stock or is it putting new items in the shop to encourage customers to visit its new store?

Russell Kane, the face of BBC Three. The arse of it as well.

If Murder in Successville is anything to go by, then BBC Three intends to go out on a bang. It is without a doubt one of the most bonkers, most inspired bits of comedy I’ve ever seen. The show is billed as an immersive murder mystery that an unwitting celebrity guest has to help solve. It is performed and co-written by Tom Davis, a journeyman comic who has finally arrived. He plays DI Sleet, a hard-boiled detective tasked with the unenviable job of cleaning up the streets of Successville. Successville is a dead-beat town, a cesspool of vice, a breeding ground of corruption inhabited by broads and mobsters – broads and mobsters that are caricatures of famous faces. To name but a few, there are the Carr twins, Alan and Jimmy; The One Direction Gang; bar owner Reese Witherspoon and ‘Soggy Bottom’ strip joint owner Mary Berry.

Tom Davis' DI Sleet.

What makes the programme truly unique though is not the warped re-imagining of celebrities, but what they do with the celebrity guest. In the first episode, Jamie Laing from Made In Chelsea is enlisted to accompany DI Sleet with the investigation into the murder of Italian restauranteur Bruno Tonioli. He is walked into the office by Chief Superintendent Gordon Ramsay, hilariously portrayed by Liam Hourican as a jittering ball of bile, and is then introduced to Sleet. Over the course of the episode, Laing is the naïve stooge to the deadpan playfulness of Davis. Surprisingly, Laing is terrifically game in throwing himself in to this comic maelstrom. In one scene, he is asked to question Carr (played by the brilliant Colin Hoult) in connection with Tonioli’s murder, and seeing his befuddlement as Hoult rebuts every question with Carr’s maniacal laugh is a thing of joy. Later, Laing is sent undercover to infiltrate the One Direction gang with Sleet in his earpiece directing the operation. The set-up is redolent of Ant and Dec’s segment where they instruct a celebrity to say stupid things; only it is funnier here because the celeb has to play within the confines of character and narrative. Witnessing Laing take some of Davis’ direction whilst adding his own ad-libs is wonderful and means you get an insight into his humour too. Ironically then there are times when the celebrity gets the best lines with Davis the comedian feeding the set-ups. Controlling this anarchy isn't easy and Davis' stage management deserves acclaim; frankly he puppeteers the shit out of things, holding the strings firmly, though never tautly, giving the celeb a false feeling of freedom.

Laing goes undercover.

Another lovely part of the programme is how the far-fetched events collapse into corpsing. Laing in episode 1 and DJ Greg James in episode 2 are so thrown by their situation that they’re often rendered hysterical. What makes it funnier is seeing how the hired actors respond to the opposing wet cheeks. It’s worth stating that it’s not just the improvisation that had me: the scripted lines are brilliant too. Davis’ Sleet plays his character in the genre of film noir but undercuts it with anachronistic profanity: (“I eat crime. I drink justice and I shit myself.”) Fans of Matt Berry’s Toast and Will Ferrell’s Anchorman will find much to enjoy in this bathetic creation.

I guess you can tell I’m smitten by the show. I loved the whole giddy mess of it. At a time when a lot of comedy is anodyne, commissioners who take risks on shows such as this deserve credit. Let’s hope the BBC continues to take creative risks like this for years to come, whatever form the corporation takes under a new government.