Famalam – The DVDfever Review – BBC2 Comedy pilot

Famalam

Famalam is a new one-off pilot sketch show which – with a cast made up solely from black comedians – instantly picks on a lame trope of ‘reverse racism’, where a black cast of space marines moan about they’re about to enter a spaceship only to all be eaten because they’re black, as if they’re on the set of Alien… whose first casualty was white.

Cue a stack of terrible and unfunny sketches involving spoofs on pop videos, a Hawaii Five-O-type drama and a cop drama, all of which failed to raise any smiles.

However, there was half an idea with a Nigerian prince actually wanting to give away millions of pounds in gold – turning that concept on its head, and later, an office scene where regular office-type gripes reared their ugly heads in an intense situation, but they were the only sketches that actually gave me a chuckle in all of the 30 minutes through which I sat.

Out of all the BBC’s latest one-off comedies, this one clearly ticked the diversity box, but it didn’t tickle many funny bones.

Famalam isn’t available to pre-order on DVD and is unlikely to be at this point, given that it’s a one-off. If you missed it, you can watch it on BBC iPlayer for 30 days after transmission.


New comedy on BBC Two – trailer


Score: 1/10

Director: Tom Marshall
Producer: Akemnji Ndifornyen

Cast:
Vivienne Acheampong
Gbemisola Ikumelo
Roxanne Sternberg
Samson Kayo
John Macmillan
Tom Moutchi


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