There’s classic farce/sitcom plotting, and yet – set in a London of pretentious fusion restaurants and housing anxiety – it feels effortlessly 2015. The cast is a hip comedy dream team: Nick Mohammed, Liam Williams, Katy Wix, Sarah (Toby) Daykin, and Key himself in the improbable role of a high-ranking copper. I watched episode two the other night, and was easily seduced. That of course ratchets up our eagerness for them to become an item, in a sitcom that channels the softheartedness of Gavin and Stacey, Tim and Dawn from The Office, Car Share’s John and Kayleigh and all those other couples who made you laugh and made you soppy at the same time. Which is that “when you start dating someone,” Sweet has explained, “a lot of the difficulties are when you’re not with them.” The title is ironic it’s a sitcom about two new sweethearts not when they’re together, but when they’re apart. It’s a classic romantic comedy distinguished – but only slightly – by its simple, shrewd concept. His new sitcom Together (he writes and stars) is adapted from his radio comedy Hard to Tell. But while I did so, it now transpires, Sweet was looking elsewhere: at sitcoms (he also co-wrote and starred in Sky 1’s Chickens) and romcoms, at warming cockles rather than weirding audiences out. I waited eagerly for this beguilingly odd act to reach its apotheosis. He stole the show in Tom Basden’s play Party, and produced two solo sets that were strong on character – Sweet’s personality was entirely and unmistakably his own – but less so on substance. He won the best newcomer award in 2009, the annus mirabilis for production house the Invisible Dot, for whom Tim Key bagged the top prize in the same year. When Sweet appeared on the live scene in the late noughties, his strange, fey persona – boyish excitability plus Enid Blyton diction, with minutely creepy undertones – made an instant impact. Two current examples – Jonny Sweet’s BBC3 sitcom Together and the Rubberbandits’ Almost Impossible Gameshow on ITV2 – are (to varying degrees) enjoyable, whether or not they’re what I’d expect from two intriguing, exciting live acts. When that happens, it’s a jolt, although not necessarily an unpleasant one. But there are other (perhaps more?) examples of successful flits to the broadcast media, when what made the act special in the live arena is abandoned, or changed almost beyond recognition. I wrote six months ago about those happy moments when an exciting live comic transfers to TV or radio with the idiosyncrasy of their stage act intact.
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