Joe Lycett's Got Your Back
Rating: 
Nick Knowles's Big House Clearout
Rating:
To be fair, doing nothing is harder than it looks. 'Ah-ha,' says the Mail reader, 'finally Stevens knows whereof he speaks' — a barbed comment that I choose to ignore.
But, nonetheless, doing nothing is the role of sidekick Dr Mark Silcox, on Joe Lycett's Got Your Back (C4).
Dr Mark is a stand-up comedian, though he has a PhD in chemistry from Imperial College London, and his job is to sit stony-faced at his laptop, on the Dayglo set, under a barrage of Joe's quips and sneers.
As soon as he cracks a smile, the gag stops working. He usually only lasts about 15 seconds, and after that the premise of the show doesn't survive much longer . . .
Joe encouraged his Sewing Bee chum Patrick Grant to model a pullover with the slogan 'I just knit myself', which is a fair indication of the standard of wit throughout
It's meant to be a knockabout version of Watchdog, an hour-long sally into consumer affairs with plenty of comedy.
If either part of the format was strong, Joe might have a hit. But the endless toilet jokes aren't funny and the crusades are pathetic.
The 'taste test' comparison between Big Macs and Whopper burgers was embarrassing, a bit of juvenile filler that would be patronising on a children's channel.
And there seemed no point at all to a feature on the decline in the market for British woollens. Joe encouraged his Sewing Bee chum Patrick Grant to model a pullover with the slogan 'I just knit myself', which is a fair indication of the standard of wit throughout.
Lorraine Kelly was the guest presenter, reading out obscene text messages and forcing a smile at the jibes about daytime TV.
Why she stoops to bother with dross like this, it's hard to
