According to the BBC Comedy Blog:
BBC Three has commissioned The Inn Mates, the first pilot to be developed through the [BBC College of Comedy] scheme. Written by Manchester-based writer and comedian John Warburton, the script focuses on a group of people, some friends and some strangers, who eat Sunday lunch at The King's Ransom.
With the pub as a central location, the show also goes out and about to follow the lives of the regulars, who include a happily married couple; an unhappily married couple; a son trying to forge a relationship with his sperm donor dad; a 'free and easy' young woman in search of true love; two old women who haunt the smoking shelter; and a pair of community support officers whose dramatic fantasies will never be matched by reality.
John said, "I am incredibly chuffed the BBC have decided to pilot this. Over the last 20 years I have spent a great deal of time drinking in pubs in the name of research and this means I can now claim the whole lot back against tax. The College of Comedy is a superlative scheme, it has been invaluable to me as a writer in terms of learning and support".
Congratulations John!
So this is what is wrong with it:
First up: The title is a pun. Inn Mates / Inmates - see what John did there? See, he took the idea of a group of friends [and strangers], right, whose lives we see from the locus of a pub or - ha, ha - "inn" and calls it Inn Mates but it is a comedy featuring larger than life characters who do funny, idiotic things in the pub so it can also be misconstrued as the word "inmates". Like what they call those with mental health issues who are in hospital. You see... it's really very clever. Do I need to explain it again? It is very cerebral.
The only place for puns are in Christmas crackers (are all cracker jokes based on simple word play?) and at a dinner party to inflect to other guests the end of a particularly witty story. And in newspapers found on the dashboards of transit vans. That's it. Never as a title of a digital channel comedy programme.
So, already, at 2:50 am, I am thinking this show has ground to make up.
Second is the filming values and acting - BBC3 have decided, clearly, on a house style: a mix of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (itself outstaying it's welcome after 2 series) and Coming of Age [which I watched 45 seconds of once and am sure as a consequence cost me 2 years off my lifespan]. And the acting and comedy timing is... oh lord... indescribarably poor. That is to say - so poor I have had to make up a new word just to continue with my own existence. Now that is poor.
Third is the focus on young people. This implies that it is targeting the 15-22 year old demographic. This is wrong because inherently this demographic does not like situation comedies per se enough to watch them on their own or with friends and because, at 2:45 in the morning, they are not watching TV but either in bed or out at raves.
Fourth is the writing.
It seems that John started writing this script at least 4 years before he was born. As this has been clearly written by a 16 year old. The jokes are neon signposted in the worst way. Not in the "Oh! He's not going to... he HAS!" good way but in the "I am sure this was done better in..." way. Here is a synopsis (with where the jokes may have come from in bold) so warning: here be spoilers!
There is the young couple who are content with staying in together with a mug of hot chocolate each, but have friends who say they are boring. Their friends consist of the other couple made from a boy who has had an indecent dream about another girl (who is a lesbian) and a girl who enjoys clothes and another girl who is zany (note blue streak dyed in hair and nose stud). There is the young boy who has tracked down his donor and homosexual father (Neil Morrissy, as depressed as I have ever seen him... how did it come to this? You were once in Boon man!)[My Two Dads] and is trying to convince him to take on the fatherly role. There are the two community officers both portrayed as overweight simpletons. Then there is the Inn Keeper who is in a wheelchair [Phoenix Nights] and his younger, buxom wife.
For no discernable reason the Inn decides to host a Macguffin disco and the main characters all agree to go.
The young couple to show they are not dull. The other young couple for him to take her out to make up for the dream he had. The zany girl because she is zany (she says she is not going because she is off the drink - whilst drinking a pint - that's misdirection - that's what makes that joke funny and also a little like magic [Derren Brown]). The young boy because the Inn Keepers wife showed him some cleavage to get him there. The Inn Keeper because he is the DJ (hilariously he says things like "Selecta" to show he down with the kids [any one of 50 other situation comedy's]). The community officers because they secretly like one another, romantically, but wont admit it to one another.
Right so that's the context. This is how they all end up in the final 10 minutes:
The bored couple decide that their boring life is what they like and go home to watch Midsommer Murders. With possibly hilarious consequences [John Nettles might get a joke in his script].
The other couple fall out (with the girl discovering how hot the lesbian is) and make up (with the help of the lesbian humilating the boy by getting him in a compromised position [American Pie 2]).
The Zany Girl snorts a shot of whisky and tries to seduce the Inn Keeper because she has a thing for DJ's regardless of their age, paralysis and catheter requirements (which, as another joke, the Inn Keeper reveals he doesn't need but is just obscenely lazy - which brings up, for me, the question, can he walk too?).
The Inn Keeper's wife, for no sensible reason promises the young boy a feel of her body if he agrees to wear a man-kini from the film Borat [Borat] in an oversized bird cage and dance. He agrees to the outfit and the cage but not, strangely, having gone that far down the path of humiliation, to dance. The Inn Keeper's wife encourages him by electrocuting the bars of the cage causing him to spasm and the crowd in the disco to copy his moves [that Budwiser advert about the man being the designated driver]. He is then rescued by a sleep walking Neil Morrisey dresed as Richard Gere from An Officer and a Gentleman [Officer and a Gentleman].
Finally the two community officers have not made it to the disco. On picking up the male officer at his flat, the female officer produces a freezer bag of tablets, "My sister says they are disco cookies". Deciding that they must be small so they don't fill you up before going dancing the two eat a few ('cos their fat). And side-splitting montage of them jumping about on pogo-sticks and skipping with hula-hoops ensues. You see, the tiny cookies, were actually illegal hallucinogens that they are having the time of their lives on.
But the final scene is what put me over the edge, at 3:15, this morning.
The episode ends in the morning after the disco, with a hooded youth trying to break into a car down a street. Now, the street is full of parked cars - a red Peugeot 106, a couple of older Fords - but what does the would be thief try to break into with a butter knife? A new Mercedes. Utter nonsense. He wouldn't try to jimmy open the door of that. Anyway, he notices the officers and runs away, unsuccessful, with the car alarm going off. The officers give chase, but because they are unfit, only manage to get to the car. And because they are still under the influence of their disco cookies begin to dance to the alarm's hardcore rhythm.
To cut and paste a joke from the peerless SPACED into this shambles is too much. This is sacrilege. This is horrific. This is what will be shown in the communal TV room of Hell.
And as I sat with the sunlight beginning to stream through the thin curtains and watching something which had been done 11 years ago and done better [episode HELP, Series 2], I thought, is this it? Is this as good as it got - 11 years ago? Is this what we are left with? Then I knew how Neil Morrissy felt. Heaven help us all.
