Nathan Barley - a disappointment?

The first episode of Brass Eye, The Day Today and Jam creator Chris Morris' new show, Nathan Barley aired on Channel 4 on Friday, to a decidedly mixed response and, as always seems to be the case whenever a new Morris show appears (an all too rare occurence), many are already pondering whether he has "lost it".

Nathan Barley, for those who are not aware, is one of many characters feature on Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker's extremely witty television schedule parody TV Go Home (which recently was inexplicably replaced by advertisements for anti-spam technology): a "fuck-haired swaggering cock-about-town" who appears in a weekly fly-on-the-wall documentary series called "Cunt". I was, of course, elated to hear that Morris and Brooker, who previously worked together on the riotously funny and hard-hitting Brass Eye paedophilia special, were teaming up once again to bring this character to the screen, but I can't help thinking, having seen the first episode, that the end result is a bit of a let-down. Of course, it would be unfair to condemn the show on the basis of a single episode, but if the format of the rest of the series is the same as this then it seems like a serious step down for Morris. Although a very well-observed parody of London media types, it seems mildly chuckle-worthy rather laugh-out-loud hilarious. In fact, much of the time I got the impression that I was chuckling because I felt I was expected to rather than because I was actually amused.

Perhaps the main problem is that the subject matter is too narrow to appeal to a wide audience, or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that targets are too obvious. Or maybe it's due to the fact that Chris Morris is consigned to be forever known as the man behind The Day Today and Brass Eye, and as a result any future projects in which he is involved will be compared to them and judged on the merits of how like or unlike they are.