The Bubble

The right vehicle for the talented Mr Mitchell?

The BBC has David Mitchell’s contract and they know that he is happy to do ‘quizcoms’. They just seem to have trouble finding the right vehicle for him to helm. He has achieved critical success and recognition with Robert Webb in Channel 4′s Peep Show and a quieter kind of success with the various iterations of the sketch-shows that the pair have created for BBC TV and radio. Of the duo David Mitchell has always been more eager to appear on panel shows. So far he was appeared as either host or guest on Would I Lie To You, Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive, QI, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, Have I Got News For You, Just A Minute, Armando Iannucci’s Charm Offensive, Mock The Week and 8 Out of 10 Cats, to say nothing of ads for Bonjela or Apple.

The Bubble is his latest project. The formula: three celebrities spend a week (four days actually) in remote seclusion isolated from all types of media and outside contact.  They are then presented with a mixture of real and made-up news stories and have to guess their veracity in an amusing way.

Presumably the required seclusion instantly limits the type of people that are willing to appear on the show. So far four episodes have aired and the guests have been fairly predictable for this type of BBC current affairs comedy show and have included the likes of Clive Anderson, Andy Hamilton, Germaine Greer, Frank Skinner, Ed Byrne and Reginald D. Hunter.

The makers haven’t had an easy time. Rather humourlessly, the BBC has refused to allow them to use any official branding or staff for the falsified news segments so they have been forced to improvise and make friends with other news broadcasters. It seems a little harsh that the BBC is happy enough to allow its newsreaders to do stuff for Doctor Who and Spooks but draw the arbitrary line at this.

So far I’d say that this is a nice enough idea for a novel comedy show that makes pleasant enough viewing. Even for anyone that has actually followed the news, the vast majority of the stories that are featured are obscure enough to have escaped attention so I’ve found myself obliged to play along with the guests, equally in the dark about what is real and what is fake. Though enjoyable, the show doesn’t seem likely to be around for long. It’s difficult to imagine the format aging well so to get the most out of it I’d recommend catching it this time around. Two episodes are currently available on the BBC iPlayer. The Bubble Episode 4