The first time I saw this programme, I watched for about ten minutes then switched over. The music video inside a comedy show didn’t seem to be as funny as the trailers seemed to allude to.
However, a couple of weeks later and a few more episodes caught, I now think Flight of The Conchords has to be one of the best sit-coms (although it doesn’t follow the traditional format) in recent months and years.
The current show is appearing on BBC 4 (Tuesday, 9.30pm), converting to screen after a successful run as an Edinburgh Festival show in 2003 and also as a radio series on BBC Radio 2.
If you’ve not seen it, the premise is two Kiwis living in New York (Brett and Jermaine) trying to make a living as a band (formerly New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo). They are guided by their keen but slightly misguided band manager, Murray, and pursued relentlessly by their number one fan/stalker and all round scary girl, Mel.
The dialogue is genius and the jokes are subtle, but the characters are really well formed and my advice is that if you haven’t seen it you should really have a look.
For a few clips, YouTube is a good start…