THE FOSSE FOREST BALLET: PILOT***

 By Dave

Link: https://thefosseforestballet.com

Available until: Pay what you can and you get 24 hours access. They’re halfway to their initial goal so it’ll probably be available for a little while longer.

The bad news is I wasn’t totally convinced by this but I have good news too. I hated Fleabag, didn’t get The Office, in fact I haven’t seen any sitcoms I’ve enjoyed that have been made this millennium (unless Staged counts). Yet these shows are really popular. So the fact I’m not totally convinced is quite likely to mean the Fosse Forest Ballet team has a hit on their hands.

The concept is simple. A group of people (nearly all of whom are played by Philip Joel) are putting together a performance called The Fosse Forest Ballet. The people involved in the show introduce themselves and the auditionees begin the long process from first audition to… well, who knows how far they’ll get? This is only the pilot.

It’s written by David Muscat, who also plays my favourite character, Bob. It’s directed by Racky Plews, who also appears as an Audition Hopeful, along with a couple of other people who share his surname.

The idea is great but for me, it’s missing a few things which I look for in a sitcom. It was a bit cruel. It’s true there is usually some element in any good sitcom of people not being very nice to each other. There are plenty of examples of that in the sitcoms I have enjoyed, which include Dad’s Army (the original series), Red Dwarf (the early series), The Thin Blue Line and Men Behaving Badly. But they also include characters who you really like and root for and even the bad guys aren’t completely awful and you do feel some vestige of affection for them. That’s really important for me, not just in terms of enjoying the story but also for the humour. Comedies are supposed to make you laugh, but I like to laugh with affection. I don’t find it especially funny to watch people suffering soul-shattering disappointments or bullying each other.

The Fosse Forest Ballet did have a lot of people not being very nice to each other and I didn’t really feel affection for many of the characters. Philip Joel’s characters are all great and very funny but they are ultimately caricatures and it’s hard to care about a caricature. There’s a lot to enjoy in his performances but it’s not enough to get me fully invested. I don’t feel at this point that we’re going to get to know any of these characters well or that they’re going to grow and change throughout the course of the sitcom.

There were only two characters (apart from the special guests, who we might never see again) who I really liked. The first is Bob, played by writer David Muscat. He’s the guy who’s never quite good enough. The guy who gets laughed at and excluded by others. He’s awkward and quite an unusual person, but he seems like a good guy.

Then there’s Nuwan Hugh-Perera, who plays Viraj. He seems lovely – not entirely impressed with the Philip Joel he happens to be working for but he gets on with his job. The problem for me is that Viraj is a BAME character who seems to be overworked and disrespected by his boss, who is white and either middle or upper class. Viraj has been an intern for two years, which implies he could be underpaid. I’m not sure it’s the right time to be making a joke of something like this. Viraj is likeable, but the way he’s treated does make me uncomfortable.

Some of the other characters have potential. Steph (Zoe Birkett) does at least make the effort to be nice to Bob and that’s kind of her, but it’s sad it’s no more than kindness. Tom (Tosh Wanogho-Maud) isn’t actively horrible. But it’s already looking slightly cliquey with the one who struggles socially being pushed out. It’s true to life but it’s not funny. It’s very sad.

I’m willing to give this another chance and I’ll watch the next episode if there is one. It is difficult to judge a show on the pilot episode because the plot and the situation have to be set up and the characters have to be introduced.

I’m sure I read somewhere that when an idea is being pitched and they want to get an idea of how it works onscreen, they don’t film a version of the pilot because they really want to show the relationships between the characters once they all know all each other and once they’re fully in the ‘situation’ of the comedy. The pilot is more of an introduction and you don’t always get to see the character relationships and the situation because it hasn’t been fully set-up yet. I love the first episode of Red Dwarf, but it’s not until Episode 2 that you really start to get a feel for what the programme is going to be like. It’s true there are some pilots that get right into the action, but some, especially if it involves a situation which most people won’t have experienced, needs to be set up first.

I think that is what is happening in the pilot episode of The Fosse Forest Ballet and for that reason, I don’t want to give up on it yet. It’s possible that if I watch the full series (they need more donations for it to go ahead), I’ll get much more of a feel for the characters and situation and then I’ll go back to the pilot and find it hilarious. It’s too early to tell. There’s definitely promise here. And there are plenty of sitcoms where I haven’t even finished watching the pilot.