Come Fly With Me Series One Review (4/5)

Years on from Little Britain, we finally have received another sensational comedy helping from Matt Lucas and David Walliams in Come Fly With Me. Starting on Christmas Day, the six-episode run was set as a spoof airport documentary featuring hilariously exaggerated characters who came closer to meeting as the series went on, and a major highpoint of the season was undoubtedly in the final two half-hour episodes where many almost iconic sketches came together to form a great tale of comedy unlike anything done in Lucas and Walliams' past efforts. No one is denying that on occasion Come Fly With Me was sexist and worse still racist (the main reason the show got bad press), however look back to Little Britain or any other comedy show of the last decade and it's hard to name a programme that didn't dabble in the negative traits of humanity's past (though never presenting the topic in such detail that it became truly offensive). While the final shot of Viatnamese children running the check-in tills after the strikers were fired was probably too much, most of the time any animosity towards certain groups was light-hearted and added to the fun- if anything, the negativity aimed at Come Fly With Me for its ridicule of groups is strange given that that same mickey-taking forms the core of the show. Despite all my praises of the show, the first series of Come Fly With Me did lose wind towards its finale and compared to Episodes 1-3 the series climax was more than a damp squib, and some sketches (Precious and First Class attendant Penny Carter) didn't get as much screen-time as they deserved. Provided much of the originality remains, though, another series of Come Fly With Me would be more than welcome in my books!