Bunk Bed Boys: you get the feeling the BBC don’t care for it too much. For the winner of their BBC talent sitcom writing contest you would think they would be trumping their new discovery. Instead they punt it out at 11:30pm on a Monday night, rescheduling with two days notice from 11pm. This tactic may well be to justify a low audience figure, since it was equally poorly trailed. Why (a question I asked the man at BBC complaints). It is not quite clear why from the finished show.
In many ways it is quite obvious what Daniel Peak (Danny to Do You See readers) was thinking when he came up with the situation for BBB. Cheap, small number of actors and sets. Youthful cast, perfect for that BBC3 demographic. It is a classic sitcom set-up, akin to Black Books or Steptoe and Son. The lead characters are trapped together with an unhealthy sense of loathing towards the other. Witht he addition of an overbearing mother the scene is set nicely, as long as you get the characters to do interesting things. The pilot, with its masturbating tiger sequence, certainly had that. Perhaps it was the very strength of the animal subplot that suggested the pilot would not go anywhere. It is a great pity, as the cast and script have a restless energy which suggested that it could actually go anywhere it wanted to.
There were problems, mainly caused by its position as a stand alone pilot. Gaps were left for studio laughter which seems to have been edited out. The one location set could have been spruced up a touch (though the bunk beds themselves were great). And like any pilot, too much information had to be crammed into the establishing shots. But the BBC have a nice youthful sitcom here, and would be mad to let it drift away. For one, it has to be cheap, and considering some of BBC3’s other flops (Sort-it-out Man) worth at least a six part tryout.