The Comedy Café - 14/01/2011

Fawlty Towers, Men Behaving Badly, The Thick of It. Television history is littered with successful Britcoms which have failed when remade for American audiences. But while we readily put it down to the enduring national myth that "American's don't get irony" along comes a new comedy to shatter those preconceptions. "Episodes" is the story of a British couple whose UK comedy hit is picked up by American TV with disastrous results. Starring Matt LeBlanc in a risky parody of himself it poses the question why do American's so often ruin British comedy? We put it to Edinburgh-based American writer director Annie Griffin. Ever found yourself watching an ad for the joke but can't remember what the product is? Now the sales are on we're inundated with adverts, some making us laugh intentionally, others by accident. We ask Momentum's planning director of marketing, Ben Leonard, and comedian Raymond Mearns - who's no stranger to comedy advertising - how successful humour is in selling products. Since the coalition government came into power you might have expected a boom in political comedy. But it seems our new ministers are an uninspiring lot so we ask satirist of Radio 4's Now Show, Jon Holmes, if the government really is too bland too mock.