Ramos And Kinnear Are The Funniest Double Act Since The Two Ronnies

The BBC haven’t produced a decent sitcom in years. Generally speaking, if it’s on the Beeb and it’s got a laughter track, it’s shash. But over the weekend, they ran an experiment to show a late-night, edgy comedy show sans canned chortles and the results were deemed a fantastic success. People are still talking about it today.

It was entitled Magpies and Cockerels and its combination of hilarious slapstick, misadventure, misunderstanding and ridiculous errors were worthy of a review on late night Radio 4. The cast, numbering around forty, mainly focused on two blokes called Juande and Joe, a mismatched pair of unlikely heroes trying to keep their football clubs going through difficult times. For some, the comedy was painful.

The first episode focused on the introduction of Joe. A true Irishman, he’s lost his gift of the gab, and when faced with a barrage of questions he has the unfortunate habit of lapsing into a broad London accent. This led to high comedy since his employers had warned him about the effect his brogue might have on those around him. So despite turning up for his first day at work wearing a pair of green pixie boots and one of those hats with the buckle around it, his disguise didn’t pass muster.

Then we witnessed Joe’s toe-curling attempts to gain respect off his new charges. Unfortunately, Joe had been under the impression he’d be taking charge of a bunch of professional footballers. Imagine the hilarity when he was put in charge of the kid’s team, who kept giggling amongst themselves and playing Animal Crossing on the DS while he was trying to convince them he used to be a Premier League manager.

‘Who did you last manage?’ said a cheeky chappie called Michael.

‘Nottingham Forest, so I did,’ came Joe’s reply.

‘What, that team that haven’t played in the top division for over five years?’

‘Yeah, to be sure.’

‘Were you successful?’ said another.

‘Mildly,’ replied Joe. ‘The club are still going, begorrah, begorrah.’

‘When did you leave?’

‘2004, so it was.’

‘I wouldn’t have seen it,’ claimed Stevie Taylor. ‘My mum wouldn’t let me stay up after ten on a school night to watch the Nationwide highlights.’

In the final part of ‘Joe’s story,’ Joe had finally picked his side for the big match against, erm, Blackburn, and everything was set. And then the twist to the whole tale – he had to watch it all from the tunnel because he still had a ban from his last job! Hahahaha!!! Poor Joe, you think his agent might have checked up on that.

Things ended badly for Joe, who saw his side put in a performance of circus-style ineptitude. It was one of those programmes you might term ‘bittersweet,’ in that the little guy lost and some small part of you was rooting for him. In fact, a lot of the plot was cribbed from Mike Bassett: England Manager. Next week, we have to see how Joe fares when his club is bought by some foreigners – will he have to wrap his silver tongue around yet another dialect (for an Irishman, his cockney is pretty good), or will he be back to the employment exchange before you can say ‘Wogan’? Stick around.

The second half of the comedy experiment was more edgy, focusing documentary style on a Spaniard called Juande and his sidekick Gustavo. The amusing thing about Juande was his determination to run a team entirely through an interpreter, although there was a twinkle in his eye that suggested he knew something we didn’t. If that was the case, he was keeping it close to his chest.

It was a rather highbrow attempt to make us laugh, truth be told, because it was all so confusing that half the time, none of the people involved knew what was going on. Juande’s players ran around in straight lines lumping the ball forward in the hope Juande might be persuaded to shout out some instructions, but none were forthcoming. It was as if Juande had always dreamed of being involved in It’s a Knockout.

Junade’s straight man, a Russian called Roman, looked like a man who didn’t find it easy to accept this brand of pseudo-comedy, and despite his better efforts at slapstick, the results were mystifying. It’s my fond hope this show will grow into a cult where people stroke their beards and nod knowingly.

Juande was to only one nodding when, late in the game and chasing a two-goal deficit, he took off one attacking option and replaced it with another. That produced the biggest belly laugh of the day. You see, Juande always had a plan. It was to approach top-level management as a combination of Rigsby from Rising Damp and Frank Spencer. In the right light, he even looks like Leonard Rossiter.

Unfortunately, nobody at the BBC could tell me if Magpies and Cockerels would be commissioned again in time for next Saturday, and definitely weren’t sure if we’d be seeing Joe and Juande back on the box in five days time. What they could tell me was that Joe and Juande had received a record number of requests for a repeat, mostly from fans who wear red and white.

You might think I’m trying to be clever here, but I want the Joe and Juande roadshow to reach its apex before it’s cancelled for good. Because while schadenfreude is never a good thing, I’m told that brevity is the soul of wit, and with comedians like these two masquerading as Premier League managers, their short stays will keep me laughing until Christmas.

Chris Stanley