Wednesday, February 22, 2006

The Armstrongs

An extra post tonight, because I've just watched the first episode of "The Armstrongs", the BBC2 fly-on-the-wall documentary about a double-glazing company in Coventry. I wouldn't normally have watched it, but one of the stars is othello player Michael Handel, and I'm glad I heard about his appearance in advance, because the whole show was very funny. It's played for laughs, hyped as a real-life version of The Office, and actually comes very close to living up to the hype. It's well worth checking out next week - Michael is particularly good (getting plenty of plugs in for othello tournaments), and the Armstrongs themselves are the kind of people you really have to admire.

3 comments:

Sam said...

I thought they were shocking - did wonder if you'd be watching, though.

Is it supposed to be real then?

Anonymous said...

It's very real. I'm not sure if some of the 'ad-lib's are scripted, but apparently this is how UFit is really run. . .

Anonymous said...

The episode where they go to France armed only with a translation from Babelfish and end up talking a bout music academies (conservatoirs) and sausages instead of Conservatories and frame measurements. "It's seven sausages" OMG OMG Is this the funniest thing on TV? I don't think Ricky Gervais would dare have come up with that French bit - nobody would believe it.