Flight of the bumbling Beeb; square eyes

Eddie Gibb Our television critic's weekly squint at what's best on the box Chambers Thursday, 10pm, BBC1 You will have heard the term "wise-cracking". It is invariably applied to a style of American comedy where the characters deliver the kind of razor-sharp repartee that in the real world only occurs to the rest of us half an hour later. The best wisecracks are the lines anybody would have said if only they had thought of them in that split-second. Comedy, as we all know, is about, er, um, thingie ... timing.

Unless, of course, you happen to be in an English sitcom, which is all about bumbling, the very opposite of wise-cracking. A new BBC comedy called Chambers features that top comedic bumbler, James Fleet, who has previously bumbled in Four Weddings and a Funeral as the hapless toff, and The Vicar of Dibley, as the hapless village idiot. Fleet speaks fluent bumblese, if that isn't a contradiction in terms.

Here he plays a hapless barrister, which neatly illustrates the pervasive attitude among English sitcom writers; given the choice between a wisecracker and a buffoon, the buffoon gets the gig every time. Mainly it's laziness. Wisecracks have to be carefully tailored to the situation, while bumbling is available off-the-peg. Hire Fleet and presumably the writer can just append a note to the script which reads: "James bumbles here."

The idea of a bumbling barrister is mildly diverting, but it is fundamentally dishonest. Barristers don't, as a rule, bumble. They may well be venal, amoral egomaniacs, but the one thing you can pretty much guarantee is that they will be sharp-tongued.

Barristers earn their exorbitant fees by being gifted gabbers with the ability to deliver a killer rhetorical punch. They must demolish an argument in court, and demonstrate to the audience - sorry, that should read "jury" - that they have done so.

So a bumbling barrister is only funny once, if that, whereas a sharp-tongued one would have created endless opportunities for clever lines. But that would require clever writing, and judging from the opening episodes of Chambers, there was never any danger of that.

This sitcom leaked from the pen of Clive Coleman, who inevitably was a barrister himself until he got a hankering for a career in showbusiness. It worked for his namesake, Clive Anderson, who applied his cross-examining skills to the tired chat show format. The result was refreshingly funny, which makes it all the more surprising that the Beeb has canned Anderson to make way for this new Clive.

Coleman cut his teeth as an after-dinner speaker, before going on to win a Frank Muir award for comedy writing. That should have been enough to ensure he never got his own show. But we are talking about the parallel universe of BBC light entertainment, where there is an insatiable appetite for writers who can turn their hand to a bit of bumbling. Why be clever, when you can be stupid?

Chambers is essentially The Britas Empire in wigs. The only non- wig-wearer is Vince, the clerk of chambers, an Essex boy with a shaved head. Vince is the only character who resembles a real person, and who gets to crack anything like wise.

The other barristers in Chambers are played by Sarah Lancashire, formerly of Coronation Street, and John Bird. Lancashire plays a power-suited blonde who can't get a man, while Bird is the pompous head of chambers who can't win a case. That's it, as far as characterisation goes. Oh, and Bird's character has a comedy name: Fuller-Carp. Clever, huh?

With so little to go on, it's not surprising that they look faintly queasy as they deliver their desperately unfunny lines. Fleet, meanwhile, has the resigned and mournful air of a dog who knows the precise trick his master requires him to perform in return for dinner. Chambers should be found guilty of crimes against comedy, with no leave for appeal. The prosecution rests, m'lud.

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