Blink and you may have missed it – I almost did. But thanks to my friend Sky+ (Cheers, Dad!) I was able to recently watch the pilot for Adam Buxton’s new show, MeeBox. Videos and summary after the break.
As you may have guessed, the show’s main premise is a take on the website YouTube. “But surely that’s a bit old hat by now?” I hear you grumble. Well yes, it is. But Buxton’s well-known style of lampoon pop-culture has been sorely missed – his comedy exists somewhere between Ianucci and Harry Hill – combing a true observational whit with a playful but purposeful facade.
Whilst on the whole, the pilot is hit-and-miss, there is a genuine reason to be excited by this project. Some of the sketches remind you of his earlier works, alongside long-term collaborater Joe Cornish – indeed some snippets would not look out of place in the A&J show itself. Take for example his voice over of a daytime nature show, complete with late-night sign language; silly, but sharp and very fast paced. And what better to link you with at this point? Well it’s no other than Bad Dad himself, this time he’s talking Punk:
Alongside new characters and situations, long-time fans will be happy to see the return of perhaps Buxton’s most famous character – Ken Korda, with his ‘new vodcast’ Talking Independant Film. During this episode, Ken interviews an actress from a gritty urban drama called Shooter Close:
Another entertaining part of the show lampoons the video software guide, which many reading this may have had to experience on more than one occasion. Not only does Buxton spot the attitude of the instructor, but the software itslelf (a movie-making program) is blown ridiculously out of proportion and contains many snippets of pure gold on-screen that the casual observer may miss.
I will not spoil many of the jokes as I do recommend you watch this yourself. Needless to say, BBC would be very silly to pass this show up and I fulyl expect it to goto a full series very soon, especially considering the dearth of quality comedy on BBC3.
You can see quite a bit of the pilot, as well as more Buxton videos over at his YouTube.
http://uk.youtube.com/profile?user=AdamBuxton
http://adam-buxton.co.uk/ad/
