David Mitchell and Robert Webb reassemble for their first joint television project since 2010, fronting a six-part Channel 4 sketch series that premiered on 5 September 2025. Each 22-minute episode is built around a core writing team that includes the duo alongside Krystal Evans, Stevie Martin, Lara Ricote and Kiell Smith-Bynoe, with David Sant directing the entire run. The collaboration yields a deliberate clash of generations: the older pair mine etiquette and historical absurdity while the younger contingent push sweary pop-culture riffs and metatextual gags about their own commissioning.
Running sketches stitch the series together. A recurring “Sweary Aussie Drama” parody punctuates every episode, escalating its profanity quota, while the writers’ room itself becomes a location, reappearing to dissect whatever sketch has just collapsed on-screen. Other repeat segments include “Middle-Aged Man Island”, a reality dump for 50-something males who refuse to adapt, and “The Weeping Shed”, a surreal children’s programme that ends in existential dread. Guest cameos from Olivia Colman, Rory Bremner and Harry Enfield drift in and out without disrupting the house style.
The title’s promise of unhelpfulness is treated as a contractual obligation: public information films sabotage their own message, therapists undermine their clients, and a Prince Andrew docudrama keeps being pulled for legal reasons we never quite learn. The result is the most efficiently mean British sketch show since “Bruiser”, delivered with the same tight running time and low regard for redemption arcs.
Production Details
Channel 4 / 1 Season / 6 Episodes / 2025 - Present
Created by: David Mitchell, Robert Webb
Showrunner(s): David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Kenton Allen
Writer(s): Krystal Evans, Natasha Hodgson, Abigail Burdess
Producer(s): Gareth Edwards
Main Cast
Robert Webb as
Lara Ricote as
Ed Jones as
Charly Clive as
Jin Hao Li as
Kath Hughes as
Anna Morris as
