busker

The Office

Infallible sign of the utter failure of this unfunny rip-off of the Brit series is the way we've been punished with back-to-back repeats for not tuning in to this disaster the first time round.

I re-watched a few minutes here and there - the Hot Handbag seller; the Health Plan - in case I could come up with more barbs and con an editor of a few more £s, but it was all too dire to deserve further ink.

Basically, it's Steve Carell making silly faces and gurgly noises to gloss over the moments where the American has no equivalent to what was funny in the Gervais version. In other words, most of each show.

Worse, the poor chap was lumbered with spending commercial breaks talking up some new movie starring him as a 40ish virgin.

(And what *of* the 40-yr-old male 'n' laidless of this world? Thoroughly pleasant coves, if you ask me - and a petty time this movie has set some of them up for from giggling office Lotharios ... ).

Back to plugging the new flick, I can't think of a more effective way of repelling viewers than to promote a new vehicle in the middle of re-runs of an agonizing turkey.

Carell seems nice enough, and I'm sure his virginity has amusing moments - but I wish they'd apostrophize the title right.

This being Bainbridge, the literate Pavilion crowd refuses to even enter the fray and simply omits the hyphen. Wise decision.