The Site

The second of the BBC’s comedy pilots makes a much stronger case for getting a series than last week’s fairly weak opener.

The Site is about a young man who left his family’s pig farm, coming back for his father’s funeral. While this might not sound like the greatest set-up for a comedy, it delivers plenty of laughs.
Much of the humour comes from the use of flashbacks to demonstrate the point a character makes. The first one is of a scarecrow having the day off, and we cut to him on a rollercoaster.

It’s been compared to the League of Gentlemen in the papers, and I can see why. Although it’s not quite as dark as the Gentlemen, it does mine a rich vein of quite twisted humour. Gypsy terrorists blowing up cows, demon possessed pigs, not to mention Denzil from Only Fools and Horses pretending to be Tom Cruise and violently opposing any attempts to blow his cover.

A wide variety of nicely drawn characters populate this pilot – from the son desperate to get back away, the somewhat dim mother, the pig-loving Yorkshire Mafia boss and a stupid work placement kid who can only tell if he’s met someone before by checking his notebook where he has sketched their faces, very badly.

There are lots of familiar faces in this show and they bring a high quality to the material, which had me laughing out loud often.
I hope this gets picked up for a series, I would certainly watch more of this show.

It’s still available on iPlayer until the 5th or 6th of February