Jonathan Deamer

Imagine a nightmarish, sinister Blue Peter. But for grownups. And based on the sort of nocturnal terrors that occur after eating a plate of stilton and falling asleep listening to Hawkwind.

If that sounds like your cup of tea (or fondue), you need no longer imagine. Former main man of Teletext’s Digitiser magazine and blogger extraordinaire Paul Rose (aka Mr Biffo), along with travel journalist and fellow Digi-writer Tim Moore, has re-imagined low budget retro kids’ shows in a way that’ll please the pants off wackos like you.

Monday night saw the second showing of the pilot episode of Biffovision on BBC 3. To be honest, it’s not actually that sinister, just darkly bizarre, and on first viewing the show’s Tiswas-style barrage of diverse segments is bewilderingly surreal. A zombie Stephen Hawking? A creepy bald puppet? A toilet-humourified Grange Hill? Second time around though, you begin to get it. Despite being billed as a comedy, there are no jokes as such – Newsnight has more punchlines- but that’s the point; sustained weirdness is where the funny’s at. The presenter character Mr Hugo (James Lance of Teachers/Smack the Pony fame) takes the piss out of the (acting) kids in the studio audience in the way Richard Bacon probably wanted to in-between doobies, but never dared. The lav-gags aren’t done in a lowest-common-denominator kind of way (bitty, anyone?), but instead with a knowing “it’s funny ‘cos it’s juvenile” nudge and a wink. And really, what’s more funny that pickling a tortoise after cutting it in half with a rotary saw?

If I were a pretentious twat (and I am), I might even call it post-modern. One of the show’s standout moments is the reading of a Daily Mail-esque complaint letter about an off-colour joke regarding a dead tramp – itself a nod to a running gag from Rose and Moore’s Teletext days. And the show is full of this sort of sly self-reference and allusions to cartoons, music, and even Rose’s own book.

After the complaint letter sketch, it’s obvious that the writers of Biffovision recognise it’s a niche market they’re aiming at. While you’d have to be quite a joyless fuddy-duddy to actually pen a note to Ofcom about the program, it’s not the sort of show that’s likely to receive a prime-time audience anyway. Those behind it probably wouldn’t want it to either. So full credit to the BBC then for backing such an enterprise; I’ve mentioned before how the licence fee enables slightly edgy broadcasting, and this is a prime example. There’s no word yet as to whether the pilot will lead to a full season of Biffotasticness, but here’s hoping the BBC will do the right thing.

Having said that, there are a few changes that will need to be made before it does become a bona fide series. That’s the purpose of a pilot though, isn’t it? While the rapid-fire nature of the show means that if you don’t like one sketch another will be along before you can say “ask-me-do” (you’ll get it when you watch the program), sometimes it’s too quick for its own good, only scratching the surface of the laughs. But give it a few more episodes, time for some chracter development (well, as much development as one can have when the characters include a naked man on all fours with a boot for a head), and maybe even a very vague story arc over multiple instalments and it’ll be the perfect thing to bring out your inner child. Albeit your inner mentally deranged child. But y’know, mustn’t grumble and that…

Catch some clips of the show on YouTube.